Even if it were insured, somebody still looses money.
Ah, but you pay to be insured - insurance companies don't lose money when they pay out on a claim, hey just don't make as much as they could've done:o)
An AC has already poined this out, but as it got an automatic socre of 0, you may miss it, and I think you need the reality check, so I'll repeat it (and take it further, lest I be moderated down:o) ):
It was only a bank robbery
That was all - no-one got hurt, and no-one really lost any money (banks are insured, or certainly should be).
Regardless of the amount that was stolen, I can't believe that you really, truly agree with executing someone just for stealing money. Sure, if you walk into a high street bank with an automatic rifle and gun everyone down first, then maybe there's a case for capital punishment (although I personally don't enirely agree with it, but that's another matter).
This isn't justice, it's revenge, and a warning to anyone else who was thinking of doing the same. It also sets a dangerous precedent - if you can be executed just for theft, what other crimes will start carrying a death sentence? Fraud? Software piracy? Parking violations?
I agrree that people (not just Americans) should think a little harder about their own countries and values before criticising others, but this time, I really do think that the criticisms are more than justified.
Tim
Re:Vincent didn't murder the superior
on
Planet Gattaca
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· Score: 1
Not only an "imperfect", but a non-employee who had no business being there. Also, someone that the company would have had no record of being present - therefore, they must have slipped in past security somehow; obviously only someone up to no good would do that...
That'll be researchers working for companies, rather for the sake of doing the research, yes?
Researchers eat because they get paid; at universties/colleges, they get paid because they get a research grant. They get a research grant because a research council has said "yes, this is worthwhile doing". At least, that's the way it happens here in the UK.
Researchers working for companies/doing industry sponsored researched are not working in academia, for the good of science; they are working for the good of the company that is paying them.
I used to be studying for a Phd, until I decided that life as a Physicist wasn't for me after all, and even in the field of nuclear fusion, we didn't have any kind of NDAs or publishing restrictions.
Oh, and I have one question for you - how do you publish research that's behind an NDA?
Intellectual property protection exists to reward those who can use their environment to create a new idea, and who are willing to use their talents and education to further it, hopefully for the common good.
I have a hard time seeing how something that is closed off from the world, protected by IPR, can be "for the common good". Sure, you can use it, and maybe it'll spark off a few ideas of your own, but can you really learn from it?
Consider the world of academia - how much scientific progress do you think we'd make if every little idea and discovery was walled off behind patents and IPR, instead of being shared with the rest of the world, free of any restriction beyond giving credit where it's due?
The scientific world is based on the free exchange of ideas, with people building on the work and knowledge of others, all working to the furtherment of their subject, towards a common goal of knowing more, of understanding more. Wouldn't it be nice if the software world could be based on the same principals?
As to legality... I love people who think the law is The Law. simple solution here - base it outside the US, and have participants sign an NDA ala the RBL.
That'll work at first, but eventually the bigger, more powerful corps that you're p-ing off with this would manage to force through some sort of deal whereby it efectively became illegal in your host country. Sure, you could move, if you were fast enough, but they'd just pull the same trick with your next host.
Eventually, they'd either
a) manage to nail you (unlikely, I guess) b) chase you around so much it drained your bank account c) chase you somewhere that refused to play ball (again unlikely, if they were willing to put up enough money)
Could be fun, though - particularly if you set up a few data havens as well; that could more than fund the whole thing...
As I am the one that posted the article, I feel best qualified to reply to this.
Perhaps the article does not mention the scientists seeking the advice to religious leaders, but the original TV news report certainly did.
I did not mean to say "thankfully they're seeking religious advice" as much as "thankfully they're seeking (religious) advice". In other words, they have realised the incredible implications of their work, and are not just blindly following it through to its logical conclusion without seeking the advice of anyone else.
Who they ask is almost besides the point, as they are doing it publicly. This is something that can potentially affect the future of the entire race, and as such it is reassuring to see that they are seeking the advice of others.
Contrast this with the current situation here in the UK, in which there is a great deal of public unease (and downright hostility) regarding trials of genetically modified crops, and yet still the research goes ahead. No one invloved sought the public's opinion, and now that they have it, they obviously don't care anyway.
I know this is a somewhat dated thread now, but here goes anyway:
This morning, as I arrived at Embankment Tube Station (London, UK), I decided to look out for CCTV cameras as I walked to work, just to see how many I could spot.
It's only a 5 minue walk, if that, and I take some of the less well-travelled roads (ie not main roads, but not exactly back streets and alleyways, either). I was expecting to see may be 4 or 5.
I saw 16.
Of these, only one was pointing directly at the door it was meant to cover, away from the street. All the rest took in a fair amount of the pavement (sidewalk) too.
As I said, this is a pretty short walk - it wouldn't have take too many more cameras for me to have been potentially on film the whole time.
If God doesn't want us creating life, he'll find a good way to stop us, now won't he?
No.
Ever heard of the concept of free will? I would recommend reading Milton's "Paradise Lost", the question is dicussed at some length IIRC. Basically, the whole reason that Eve was allowed to eat the apple from the Tree of Knowledge (which, obviously, God could've prevented, not least by not putting the tree there...) was because of God's desire for us to have free will. Because, and I forget the exact quote, "What is worship without free will but blind obedience?"
Or something along those lines - the point was that we could not effectively demonstrate our love and thanks if we were forced to because we had no free will.
As to your original question, I suspect that they care for a few reasons, in adition to those alread pointed out by others:
1) Religious leaders are generally seen as being wise, and it never hurts to seek the counsel of the wise
2) By asking now, they avoid possible ecclesiastical outrage and condemnation later
3) Maybe they're Christians, and are seeking guidance from their spiritual leaders - the two are not mutually exclusive. One of the most devout Christians I know is soon to enter his third year of a Phd in Theoretical Physics...
What you can hope to do is prevent someone from being murdered or raped.
That is not what I meant. I meant that, try as you might, you cannot prevent all crime before it happens. For example, the only sure ways to prevent a man from, say, commiting rape, as far as I can see, are:
a) Castrate him, whether surgically or chemically b) Prevent him from ever coming into contact with females c) Watch his every move, and pounce the moment it looks like he might try something
I think you'd have to agree that the first two are gross infringements of his human rights. The third, 24/7 monitoring, is less clear cut, but I believe that this, too, is an unacceptable infringement. A balance must be struck, and I believe that this scheme is dangerously close to going too far.
Of course I agree that rape and murder are horrific crimes, and all reasonable steps should be taken to prevent their ocurrence. I do not agree that the routine monitoring of every single person in sight is a "reasonable step".
At the end of the day, if someone wants to commit a crime, they will, and all the cameras and computerised behavioural recognition systems in the world won't prevent it. People will always be found that are willing to commit a crime for the right price/cause, no matter how slim the chances of getting away with it.
Given, then, that the potential benefits are questionable, are the potential abuses worth it?
Even supposing that the people in charge of this network of cameras are 100% trustworthy, can the network be made secure enough? And what happens if we become reliant on it, and people find ways to circumvent the security? Crimes will go unseen ("Can't have happened, it'd be on the cameras") or, perhaps worse, innocent people could be framed ("Didn't do it? Then what's this video?") by gangs they've somehow annoyed.
On reflecion, I should have used a better example and/or chosen my words more carefully. The point I was trying to make was this:
You cannot hope to eradicate crime. No amount of cameras will do that. A far better approach would be to educate people, tackle the problem at its source. Raise your children to abide by the law not because they fear punishment, or the police, or the ever watchful camera, but because that is the right thing to do, and they are responsible people. Yes, there will always be those who commit crimes, but that is why we have the police.
To illustrate what I mean about the need for education, consider this. There was a piece on a current affairs show recently (I forget which), in which two young men, dressed in typical "street gear" (jeans, jackets, trainers, etc) broke into a car parked on a busy street in broad daylight.
The vast majority of passersby ignored them.
The ones that did ask them what they were doing were easily fobbed off - "It's okay, it's our car, we've locked the keys inside." Even when they removed the radio and ran off, no-one tried to stop them.
No-one cared enough to try to prevent an obvious crime from ocurring. With attitudes like that the norm in society, how can you hope to prevent crime, cameras or not?
You forgot a few groups: people working to overthrow an unjust/oppresive government, consumer rights organistations wanting to help whistle blowers do so without fear of recrimination, charities wanting to set up anonymous help-lines on the net for battered women/run away children, etc.
It's a difficult problem; I guarantee that for every example of a way that such a system could be misused that you could come up with, someone could come up with another, perfectly justifiable or desirable use.
It's just a matter of weighing up the potential for good against the potential for evil, and deciding which outweighs the other.
As far as anonymity on the net in general goes, however, I'd hate to have to reveal my identity to every website that I passed through, or requested data/text/images from. You think spam is bad now, wait until every banner ad provider gets to know who you are because you requested their image. And, of course, there's all the false positive search engine matches, that turn out to lead to porn sites:o)
I think the people who have said "But those numbers aren't true reflections of the number of people using the service" have missed the point, as has the original poster.
Yes, that's an awful lot of people - around 130,000,000.
There are something like 6,000,000,000 people in the world. If just 1% of them want to use an IM service, that's still 600,000,000.
Okay, I know that that assumes 100% connectivity, which isn't going to happen anytime soon (if ever), but the point remains valid - 130,000,000 people is actually not all that many in the grand scale of things.
You only need be worried about them if you've broken the law. (Wrongful arrest is an unusal thing in the UK because the police do their job and are accountable for their decisions).
That's true, now - but what of the future?
Do not assume that just because you are in the law abiding majority now, that there will never be a law passed that outlaws some activity that you take for granted, such as your religion, or philosophical beliefs.
American freedom seems to be the freedom to do what YOU want, no matter what detrimental effect it has on society as a whole.
Freedom, true freedom, means being able to do absolutely anything you want - and choosing not to do those things that harm others.
As soon as you try to prevent people from acting in certain ways, you run the risk of taking things too far and restricting too much. Sure, of course pass laws, making it illegal to murder or rape people, and educate people so that they realise that such behaviour is unacceptable and why. Just don't try to prevent people from commiting murder or rape, because in the end, it is an impossible task, and all you can hope to do is infringe people's human rights.
I have the right to live free from the fear of being oppressed. I do not believe that I can do this in a society where my every move is monitored by CCTV cameras. I may not be oppressed now, but what about in 10 years time, or 20?
We must guard against anything being implemented now that could be used against the very people it is designed to protect in the future. The immediate benefits do not outweigh the longterm risks.
I live and work in London (well, I live on the outskirts, but work right in the heart).
I do notice the cameras from time to time, but almost certainly miss most of them.
I am not at all happy about them being there.
Regardless of the merits of this research, if it is "successfully" implemented, we will see an absolute explosion in the number of cameras on our streets. This is the real worry. Not what the cameras are being used for, but what they could be used for, if they ever came under the control of the wrong people.
If we are not careful there will come a time, here in the UK, where your every step, from the front door of your house to the front door of your workplace, is caught on a camera. If it is only a person/number of persons sat in front of monitors, not paying much attention, then there's not such a big problem with this (although I'd still feel very unhappy about it).
If, however, the technology exists for a computer system to track your movements reliably throughout your journey, then there exists a huge potential for misuse. Imagine if everywhere you went and everyone you spoke to was noted down. Should any of those people or places become the subject of an investigation (criminal or otherwise), you are bound to become involved, whether you have anything to do with it or not.
As I have said in replies to other threads, what if the UK does become a totalitarian state? It's certainly moving in that direction - harsh penalities proposed for non-surrender of crypto keys (E-Commerce Bill), more and more cameras on streets, public transport, etc, active research into systems such as this...
We would be in a situation where your every move can be watched, your every communication monitored.
This is not a future I particularly want to see, and I'm damned if it's the future I want my baby daughter to grow up into.
Something I haven't seen anyone else mention (but then I browse at Score 2:o) ), is that this does more than allows spammers to build up a profile of you and tie it to your email address. It also proves that the address is valid.
No longer will they have to rely on people following their "unsubscribe" instructions; merely reading the email will be enough to confirm that there is someone/something on the other end of the address they bought/harvested. They can then add the address to their list of confirmed active accounts - a pretty valuable thing to have, especially if you're in the business of selling addresses...
I strongly believe that no one and nothing should be above the law. At the end of the day, it is our last line of defence against powerful corporations, individuals and government agencies, etc, who otherwise could pretty much do whatever they wanted without fear of being stopped or punished.
Here in England, we used to have a group of people who were absolutely above the law - the monarchy. Eventually, (some of) the people rose up against them and stripped them of most of their power, replacing them with a Parliament of elected representatives. (This obviously did not occur without a considerable amount of bloodshed)
Why? Because no matter how corrupt, how self-serving they may become, they do not have the God-given right to be in their position of power. As long as the people are watchful, and do not hand them too much power, what they have can be taken from them if it becomes necessary.
Once an organisation of any kind gains the power to ignore the due process of the law, it would be very hard indeed to take action against them should it become necessary. After all, if you can't even gain access to their files, how can you hope to prove anything?
The problem then, of course, becomes one of striking the right balance between laws that give the courts and police enough power to do their jobs effectively, without taking away any fundamental rights from the private citizen. But that's a matter for a different debate:o)
Anyways B&N should call as witness the team at microsoft who developed the technology, since that would end it real quick. I hate to say it but this time Microsoft may be a hero for free flow of commerce and information.
Except, of course, that Microsoft would then have grounds for suing/charging anyone else using their patented cookie technology for e-commerce...
Much better, surely, to win the case on the fact that the "technology" should never have been patentable in the first place.
I'm not sure about that, though. How would they prevent you from saying things?
Being able to speak publicly, yet anonymously, may prompt people to say things that they felt must be said (highlight injustices or wrongdoings, or just point out that Product X sucks), but were afraid to put their name to. A uniquely identifying licence would jeopardise that.
Just a thought.
Tim
Re:Drivers Licenses are GROSSLY Immoral
on
License to Surf
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· Score: 1
If you get in the way of my car and you get hurt or killed, you deserve it. Don't get in the way of cars.
So, let me get this straight - if you lose control of your car (you have a blow-out, serve to avoid someone (doesn't sound too likely...), or you're stoned out of your brain) and plough into another car/a group of pedesrians/whatever, it's their fault because they should've got out of the way?
Driving is a privilege that is earnt by demonstrating that you have the ability and temperment required for being allowed to be in charge of such a potentially deadly piece of machinary. Trying to call driving a right just belittles those things that really are rights.
With enough inventiveness, a person can put just about anything to use in illegal or immoral ways. Crude explosive devices can be made with common household objects and common chemicals. In the film Casino, a guy is stabbed to death with a fountain pen. Photocopiers or PCs with scanners and printers can be used to forge documents.
You cannot start trying to make the person who produced the item in question, whether it be a piece of software or an object of some kind, responsible for the use to which people put it.
As many people have already pointed out, you can't sue a gunsmith if someone uses one of their guns to commit murder (unless, of course, the intended use of the weapon was made explicitly clear at the time of purchase, but even this is somewhat dodgy ground). In the same way, you can't sue Microsoft because there exists in their software the capacity for people to write Word macro virii.
Ultimate responsibilty must rest with the user; to try to make it any other way would be to start down a very dangerous road indeed. Imagine a world in which you, as the author of a piece of software, is responsible for any use that anyone makes of it, now or at any point in the future. Any piece of software more complex than "Hello World" has the potential for misuse - email clients can be used to send harrassing/defamatory emails (and don't forget the servers that relayed those messages, or the network cabling, routers, etc, etc...).
I would also argue that just because you write a piece of software, the sole purpose of which is, for example, to attempt to expose security holes in a system, does not mean that you are liable for any illegal use to which it is put.
I do not believe that people can be held responsible for the actions of others, particularly when they have never had any contact with them.
Some kind of plutonium oxide, I imagine (sorry, my A-Level Chemistry days are fast receding into the past:o) )
That's always assuming, of course, that it got hot enough during re-entry to actually burn - it might just all melt together and fuse into one big, solid lump....
But "enough already", it didn't happen, and trust me (a Physics graduate) when I say that orbital mechanics is a well-enough understood branch of Physics that we can pretty much be completely sure of what we're doing. (It's even simple enough to double-check the equations by hand on paper, if you mistrust computers that much)
Slashdot Mirror
Even if it were insured, somebody still looses money.
:o)
Ah, but you pay to be insured - insurance companies don't lose money when they pay out on a claim, hey just don't make as much as they could've done
Tim
An AC has already poined this out, but as it got an automatic socre of 0, you may miss it, and I think you need the reality check, so I'll repeat it (and take it further, lest I be moderated down :o) ):
It was only a bank robbery
That was all - no-one got hurt, and no-one really lost any money (banks are insured, or certainly should be).
Regardless of the amount that was stolen, I can't believe that you really, truly agree with executing someone just for stealing money. Sure, if you walk into a high street bank with an automatic rifle and gun everyone down first, then maybe there's a case for capital punishment (although I personally don't enirely agree with it, but that's another matter).
This isn't justice, it's revenge, and a warning to anyone else who was thinking of doing the same. It also sets a dangerous precedent - if you can be executed just for theft, what other crimes will start carrying a death sentence? Fraud? Software piracy? Parking violations?
I agrree that people (not just Americans) should think a little harder about their own countries and values before criticising others, but this time, I really do think that the criticisms are more than justified.
Tim
Not only an "imperfect", but a non-employee who had no business being there. Also, someone that the company would have had no record of being present - therefore, they must have slipped in past security somehow; obviously only someone up to no good would do that...
:o)
But no, he didn't do it
Tim
That'll be researchers working for companies, rather for the sake of doing the research, yes?
Researchers eat because they get paid; at universties/colleges, they get paid because they get a research grant. They get a research grant because a research council has said "yes, this is worthwhile doing". At least, that's the way it happens here in the UK.
Researchers working for companies/doing industry sponsored researched are not working in academia, for the good of science; they are working for the good of the company that is paying them.
I used to be studying for a Phd, until I decided that life as a Physicist wasn't for me after all, and even in the field of nuclear fusion, we didn't have any kind of NDAs or publishing restrictions.
Oh, and I have one question for you - how do you publish research that's behind an NDA?
Tim
Intellectual property protection exists to reward those who can use their environment to create a new idea, and who are willing to use their talents and education to further it, hopefully for the common good.
I have a hard time seeing how something that is closed off from the world, protected by IPR, can be "for the common good". Sure, you can use it, and maybe it'll spark off a few ideas of your own, but can you really learn from it?
Consider the world of academia - how much scientific progress do you think we'd make if every little idea and discovery was walled off behind patents and IPR, instead of being shared with the rest of the world, free of any restriction beyond giving credit where it's due?
The scientific world is based on the free exchange of ideas, with people building on the work and knowledge of others, all working to the furtherment of their subject, towards a common goal of knowing more, of understanding more. Wouldn't it be nice if the software world could be based on the same principals?
Just a thought.
Tim
As to legality... I love people who think the law is The Law. simple solution here - base it outside the US, and have participants sign an NDA ala the RBL.
That'll work at first, but eventually the bigger, more powerful corps that you're p-ing off with this would manage to force through some sort of deal whereby it efectively became illegal in your host country. Sure, you could move, if you were fast enough, but they'd just pull the same trick with your next host.
Eventually, they'd either
a) manage to nail you (unlikely, I guess)
b) chase you around so much it drained your bank account
c) chase you somewhere that refused to play ball (again unlikely, if they were willing to put up enough money)
Could be fun, though - particularly if you set up a few data havens as well; that could more than fund the whole thing...
Tim
You seem to have forgotten that he paid "several thousand dollars" for the domain, which NSI lost in a pretty monumental screw-up.
He's paid a lot of money for something he now can't have, and the people responsible are basically saying "that's life".
I don't think the problem is that it's killed his business plan, as much as he's effectively been ripped off and there's nothing he can do about it.
Tim
As I am the one that posted the article, I feel best qualified to reply to this.
Perhaps the article does not mention the scientists seeking the advice to religious leaders, but the original TV news report certainly did.
I did not mean to say "thankfully they're seeking religious advice" as much as "thankfully they're seeking (religious) advice". In other words, they have realised the incredible implications of their work, and are not just blindly following it through to its logical conclusion without seeking the advice of anyone else.
Who they ask is almost besides the point, as they are doing it publicly. This is something that can potentially affect the future of the entire race, and as such it is reassuring to see that they are seeking the advice of others.
Contrast this with the current situation here in the UK, in which there is a great deal of public unease (and downright hostility) regarding trials of genetically modified crops, and yet still the research goes ahead. No one invloved sought the public's opinion, and now that they have it, they obviously don't care anyway.
Tim
I know this is a somewhat dated thread now, but here goes anyway:
This morning, as I arrived at Embankment Tube Station (London, UK), I decided to look out for CCTV cameras as I walked to work, just to see how many I could spot.
It's only a 5 minue walk, if that, and I take some of the less well-travelled roads (ie not main roads, but not exactly back streets and alleyways, either). I was expecting to see may be 4 or 5.
I saw 16.
Of these, only one was pointing directly at the door it was meant to cover, away from the street. All the rest took in a fair amount of the pavement (sidewalk) too.
As I said, this is a pretty short walk - it wouldn't have take too many more cameras for me to have been potentially on film the whole time.
Tim
If God doesn't want us creating life, he'll find a good way to stop us, now won't he?
No.
Ever heard of the concept of free will? I would recommend reading Milton's "Paradise Lost", the question is dicussed at some length IIRC. Basically, the whole reason that Eve was allowed to eat the apple from the Tree of Knowledge (which, obviously, God could've prevented, not least by not putting the tree there...) was because of God's desire for us to have free will. Because, and I forget the exact quote, "What is worship without free will but blind obedience?"
Or something along those lines - the point was that we could not effectively demonstrate our love and thanks if we were forced to because we had no free will.
As to your original question, I suspect that they care for a few reasons, in adition to those alread pointed out by others:
1) Religious leaders are generally seen as being wise, and it never hurts to seek the counsel of the wise
2) By asking now, they avoid possible ecclesiastical outrage and condemnation later
3) Maybe they're Christians, and are seeking guidance from their spiritual leaders - the two are not mutually exclusive. One of the most devout Christians I know is soon to enter his third year of a Phd in Theoretical Physics...
Tim
What you can hope to do is prevent someone from being murdered or raped.
That is not what I meant. I meant that, try as you might, you cannot prevent all crime before it happens. For example, the only sure ways to prevent a man from, say, commiting rape, as far as I can see, are:
a) Castrate him, whether surgically or chemically
b) Prevent him from ever coming into contact with females
c) Watch his every move, and pounce the moment it looks like he might try something
I think you'd have to agree that the first two are gross infringements of his human rights. The third, 24/7 monitoring, is less clear cut, but I believe that this, too, is an unacceptable infringement. A balance must be struck, and I believe that this scheme is dangerously close to going too far.
Of course I agree that rape and murder are horrific crimes, and all reasonable steps should be taken to prevent their ocurrence. I do not agree that the routine monitoring of every single person in sight is a "reasonable step".
At the end of the day, if someone wants to commit a crime, they will, and all the cameras and computerised behavioural recognition systems in the world won't prevent it. People will always be found that are willing to commit a crime for the right price/cause, no matter how slim the chances of getting away with it.
Given, then, that the potential benefits are questionable, are the potential abuses worth it?
Even supposing that the people in charge of this network of cameras are 100% trustworthy, can the network be made secure enough? And what happens if we become reliant on it, and people find ways to circumvent the security? Crimes will go unseen ("Can't have happened, it'd be on the cameras") or, perhaps worse, innocent people could be framed ("Didn't do it? Then what's this video?") by gangs they've somehow annoyed.
On reflecion, I should have used a better example and/or chosen my words more carefully. The point I was trying to make was this:
You cannot hope to eradicate crime. No amount of cameras will do that. A far better approach would be to educate people, tackle the problem at its source. Raise your children to abide by the law not because they fear punishment, or the police, or the ever watchful camera, but because that is the right thing to do, and they are responsible people. Yes, there will always be those who commit crimes, but that is why we have the police.
To illustrate what I mean about the need for education, consider this. There was a piece on a current affairs show recently (I forget which), in which two young men, dressed in typical "street gear" (jeans, jackets, trainers, etc) broke into a car parked on a busy street in broad daylight.
The vast majority of passersby ignored them.
The ones that did ask them what they were doing were easily fobbed off - "It's okay, it's our car, we've locked the keys inside." Even when they removed the radio and ran off, no-one tried to stop them.
No-one cared enough to try to prevent an obvious crime from ocurring. With attitudes like that the norm in society, how can you hope to prevent crime, cameras or not?
Tim
You forgot a few groups: people working to overthrow an unjust/oppresive government, consumer rights organistations wanting to help whistle blowers do so without fear of recrimination, charities wanting to set up anonymous help-lines on the net for battered women/run away children, etc.
:o)
It's a difficult problem; I guarantee that for every example of a way that such a system could be misused that you could come up with, someone could come up with another, perfectly justifiable or desirable use.
It's just a matter of weighing up the potential for good against the potential for evil, and deciding which outweighs the other.
As far as anonymity on the net in general goes, however, I'd hate to have to reveal my identity to every website that I passed through, or requested data/text/images from. You think spam is bad now, wait until every banner ad provider gets to know who you are because you requested their image. And, of course, there's all the false positive search engine matches, that turn out to lead to porn sites
Tim
I think the people who have said "But those numbers aren't true reflections of the number of people using the service" have missed the point, as has the original poster.
Yes, that's an awful lot of people - around 130,000,000.
There are something like 6,000,000,000 people in the world. If just 1% of them want to use an IM service, that's still 600,000,000.
Okay, I know that that assumes 100% connectivity, which isn't going to happen anytime soon (if ever), but the point remains valid - 130,000,000 people is actually not all that many in the grand scale of things.
Tim
You only need be worried about them if you've broken the law. (Wrongful arrest is an unusal thing in the UK because the police do their job and are accountable for their decisions).
That's true, now - but what of the future?
Do not assume that just because you are in the law abiding majority now, that there will never be a law passed that outlaws some activity that you take for granted, such as your religion, or philosophical beliefs.
American freedom seems to be the freedom to do what YOU want, no matter what detrimental effect it has on society as a whole.
Freedom, true freedom, means being able to do absolutely anything you want - and choosing not to do those things that harm others.
As soon as you try to prevent people from acting in certain ways, you run the risk of taking things too far and restricting too much. Sure, of course pass laws, making it illegal to murder or rape people, and educate people so that they realise that such behaviour is unacceptable and why. Just don't try to prevent people from commiting murder or rape, because in the end, it is an impossible task, and all you can hope to do is infringe people's human rights.
I have the right to live free from the fear of being oppressed. I do not believe that I can do this in a society where my every move is monitored by CCTV cameras. I may not be oppressed now, but what about in 10 years time, or 20?
We must guard against anything being implemented now that could be used against the very people it is designed to protect in the future. The immediate benefits do not outweigh the longterm risks.
Just my two penn'orth
Tim
I live and work in London (well, I live on the outskirts, but work right in the heart).
I do notice the cameras from time to time, but almost certainly miss most of them.
I am not at all happy about them being there.
Regardless of the merits of this research, if it is "successfully" implemented, we will see an absolute explosion in the number of cameras on our streets. This is the real worry. Not what the cameras are being used for, but what they could be used for, if they ever came under the control of the wrong people.
If we are not careful there will come a time, here in the UK, where your every step, from the front door of your house to the front door of your workplace, is caught on a camera. If it is only a person/number of persons sat in front of monitors, not paying much attention, then there's not such a big problem with this (although I'd still feel very unhappy about it).
If, however, the technology exists for a computer system to track your movements reliably throughout your journey, then there exists a huge potential for misuse. Imagine if everywhere you went and everyone you spoke to was noted down. Should any of those people or places become the subject of an investigation (criminal or otherwise), you are bound to become involved, whether you have anything to do with it or not.
As I have said in replies to other threads, what if the UK does become a totalitarian state? It's certainly moving in that direction - harsh penalities proposed for non-surrender of crypto keys (E-Commerce Bill), more and more cameras on streets, public transport, etc, active research into systems such as this...
We would be in a situation where your every move can be watched, your every communication monitored.
This is not a future I particularly want to see, and I'm damned if it's the future I want my baby daughter to grow up into.
Tim
Something I haven't seen anyone else mention (but then I browse at Score 2 :o) ), is that this does more than allows spammers to build up a profile of you and tie it to your email address. It also proves that the address is valid.
No longer will they have to rely on people following their "unsubscribe" instructions; merely reading the email will be enough to confirm that there is someone/something on the other end of the address they bought/harvested. They can then add the address to their list of confirmed active accounts - a pretty valuable thing to have, especially if you're in the business of selling addresses...
Tim
I strongly believe that no one and nothing should be above the law. At the end of the day, it is our last line of defence against powerful corporations, individuals and government agencies, etc, who otherwise could pretty much do whatever they wanted without fear of being stopped or punished.
:o)
Here in England, we used to have a group of people who were absolutely above the law - the monarchy. Eventually, (some of) the people rose up against them and stripped them of most of their power, replacing them with a Parliament of elected representatives. (This obviously did not occur without a considerable amount of bloodshed)
Why? Because no matter how corrupt, how self-serving they may become, they do not have the God-given right to be in their position of power. As long as the people are watchful, and do not hand them too much power, what they have can be taken from them if it becomes necessary.
Once an organisation of any kind gains the power to ignore the due process of the law, it would be very hard indeed to take action against them should it become necessary. After all, if you can't even gain access to their files, how can you hope to prove anything?
The problem then, of course, becomes one of striking the right balance between laws that give the courts and police enough power to do their jobs effectively, without taking away any fundamental rights from the private citizen. But that's a matter for a different debate
Tim
Anyways B&N should call as witness the team at microsoft who developed the technology, since that would end it real quick. I hate to say it but this time Microsoft may be a hero for free flow of commerce and information.
:o)
Except, of course, that Microsoft would then have grounds for suing/charging anyone else using their patented cookie technology for e-commerce...
Much better, surely, to win the case on the fact that the "technology" should never have been patentable in the first place.
Just my two penn'orth
Tim
I'm not sure about that, though. How would they prevent you from saying things?
Being able to speak publicly, yet anonymously, may prompt people to say things that they felt must be said (highlight injustices or wrongdoings, or just point out that Product X sucks), but were afraid to put their name to. A uniquely identifying licence would jeopardise that.
Just a thought.
Tim
If you get in the way of my car and you get hurt or killed, you deserve it. Don't get in the way of cars.
So, let me get this straight - if you lose control of your car (you have a blow-out, serve to avoid someone (doesn't sound too likely...), or you're stoned out of your brain) and plough into another car/a group of pedesrians/whatever, it's their fault because they should've got out of the way?
Driving is a privilege that is earnt by demonstrating that you have the ability and temperment required for being allowed to be in charge of such a potentially deadly piece of machinary. Trying to call driving a right just belittles those things that really are rights.
Tim
But why use BabelFish for something about England? No primary source?
Europe != England
Europe == Britain, France, Germany, Italy,...
Cheers,
Tim
With enough inventiveness, a person can put just about anything to use in illegal or immoral ways. Crude explosive devices can be made with common household objects and common chemicals. In the film Casino, a guy is stabbed to death with a fountain pen. Photocopiers or PCs with scanners and printers can be used to forge documents.
You cannot start trying to make the person who produced the item in question, whether it be a piece of software or an object of some kind, responsible for the use to which people put it.
As many people have already pointed out, you can't sue a gunsmith if someone uses one of their guns to commit murder (unless, of course, the intended use of the weapon was made explicitly clear at the time of purchase, but even this is somewhat dodgy ground). In the same way, you can't sue Microsoft because there exists in their software the capacity for people to write Word macro virii.
Ultimate responsibilty must rest with the user; to try to make it any other way would be to start down a very dangerous road indeed. Imagine a world in which you, as the author of a piece of software, is responsible for any use that anyone makes of it, now or at any point in the future. Any piece of software more complex than "Hello World" has the potential for misuse - email clients can be used to send harrassing/defamatory emails (and don't forget the servers that relayed those messages, or the network cabling, routers, etc, etc...).
I would also argue that just because you write a piece of software, the sole purpose of which is, for example, to attempt to expose security holes in a system, does not mean that you are liable for any illegal use to which it is put.
I do not believe that people can be held responsible for the actions of others, particularly when they have never had any contact with them.
Just my two penn'orth.
Tim
Some kind of plutonium oxide, I imagine (sorry, my A-Level Chemistry days are fast receding into the past :o) )
That's always assuming, of course, that it got hot enough during re-entry to actually burn - it might just all melt together and fuse into one big, solid lump....
But "enough already", it didn't happen, and trust me (a Physics graduate) when I say that orbital mechanics is a well-enough understood branch of Physics that we can pretty much be completely sure of what we're doing.
(It's even simple enough to double-check the equations by hand on paper, if you mistrust computers that much)
Tim
I wouldn't say it can be eaten safely, but at least if you did eat it, you should pass it in about 24 hours.
:o)
Whether or not you consider having an active alpha source sitting inside you for 24 hours or so safe is another matter....
Tim
I heard nothing about a planned blockade, and my parents live down there.
It'd be a pretty stupid thing to do - Cornwall desperately needs all the money it can get...
Tim