I would submit that the people in THIS forum should RIGHT NOW begin to discuss the ways that this legislation should be formed and implemented, and then we should GET INVOLVED NOW by communicating with our respective elected officials. Predicting that this legislation will wind up as an unworkable mishmash is truly a self-fulfilling prophecy if WE just sit around and bitch about the glacial pace of legal change and the overall stupidity of our lawmakers. One of the reasons that it takes a while to create these regs involves the legislators desire to produce good laws, and the lengths they go to inform themselves on the issues (they really do desire that, for the most part...but, as with any organization there are some members that just don't give a damn or, worse, are actively evil, and that is the reputation that is remembered quickest). Unless your reps are among the bad ones, they really will listen to what YOU have to say, especially if lots of US are saying the same thing.
It occurs to me that the reaction of the 'authorities' in Utah was based on fear and misunderstanding, and was encouraged by the local media machine (which, as with most small towns, is centered over many dinner tables and in one or two coffee shops). Isn't it odd that fear and misunderstanding seem to drive the comments of many posters here, and more odd still that Katz & Co seem to be encouraging just such a response (which will no doubt reverberate thru many more coffee shops, libraries, and bars). Perhaps what we are revealing here is that the terms "Utah" and "the rest of the USA"; "small town" and "big city"; and "Utah school officials" and "slashdotters" are all, in this context, distinctions without differences.
Think about this..This is all correct. But is it really easy for most people?
No, it is not....at least not now. But, thanks to the 'dead hands' tapping away at 'puters both within and outside the/. community, it will be easy, and sooner, rather than later.
Think about this: before browsers, was there a usable internet? Of course. Was it 'really easy for most people'? Nope. But it is now, and that particular genie is now busting ass to keep itself out of the bottle.
Because the stakes are so high, the privacy 'arms race' will inevitably escalate, with each new 'mouse trap' forcing the creation of new and better 'mouse trap avoidance' software; sort of a DeCSS in reverse...and because the market demands it, it will be easy, safe and (relatively) cheap.
Most incompetent people do not know that they are incompetent, a Cornell psychology professor has discovered.
On the contrary, people who do things badly are usually supremely confident of their abilities -- more confident, in fact, than people who do things well, according to David Dunning.
One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured, the researchers believe, is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence.
The incompetent, therefore, suffer doubly, they suggested in a paper appearing in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Dunning conducted his studies with a graduate student, Justin Kruger.
"Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it," wrote Kruger, now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, and Dunning.
This deficiency in "self-monitoring skills," the researchers said, helps explain the tendency of the humor-impaired to persist in telling jokes that are not funny and of day traders to repeatedly jump into the market -- and repeatedly lose out. In a series of studies, Kruger and Dunning found that subjects who scored in the lowest quartile on tests of logic, English grammar and humor were also the most likely to "grossly overestimate" how well they had performed.
In all three tests, subjects' ratings of their ability were positively linked to their actual scores. But the lowest-ranked participants showed much greater distortions in their self-estimates.
perhaps the upgrade of this particular issue to 'important/relevant' status is premature. As others have said above, this is after all a local issue (in every jurisdiction in which it is discussed) and, in the final analysis, the only internet access restriction that is truly effective is disconnection; anything else is just too annoying to last very long at all. The moment that a high school student is denied access to legitimate research material because the censorware could not validate the site will be the moment that the censorware will go the way of all flesh, at the hands of even more enraged taxpayers. Also, the truest statement I have ever read on the subject was apparently repeated at the informational meeting: the other people in the library are the 'porn-check' mechanism...put up a sign that says 'if you are lookin' at butt, you will be out on yours' and wait for the tattle-tales to line up; no software required.
It hasn't killed off Castro in Cuba, or Kim Il-Sung in North Korea. The Internet hasn't gotten Saddam Hussein out of Iraq, or Milosevic out of Bosnia either.
One of the possible settlement arrangements that could be made between US and MS would include the release of the Windows/Office source code under a modified license. In that event, would porting the Office applications to Linux be a net positive or a net negative for the future of Linux as an independent OS?
hmmmmm.....when I read the article I expected to see dozens of 'let's back this guy ourselves!' posts...but there does not appear to be much of a ground swell. To make this happen he would have to have lots of open source/low cost stuff, so perhaps all of those who made money on, or were denied access to, the red hat or va linux IPOs could use their investable funds to buy into this guy.
Does anyone else find it kinda odd that the walkman is what the NYT thinks we should remember him for? Here is a little tidbit that might win you a beer sometime: compact discs are the size that they are because Mr Morita wanted the format to be large enough to hold Beetoven's Fifth Symphony in its entirety.
yours is the sort of point I was wondering about as I read the threads from this article. As we have recently seen, the American law enforcement community, particularly at the federal level, seems woefully behind the curve where internet/information control is concerned. Part of the problem is public perception, since all will agree that the relevant technology is evolving faster than the lawmaking process allows for, so that the law enforcement community ends up looking silly when they have standards in place that are outdated when the are adopted. But a greater part of the problem really is a stupidity problem, but not stupidity at the technical level (as posters noted here recently, everyone believes that certain branches of the govt are waaaaay out front on REAL strong encryption) but on a political level, cause the right hand not only does not know what the left hand is doing, it is patently uninterested until it becomes politically profitable to become interested....and by then it is, by default, too late. I would suggest that the specter of required 'breakability' in encryption/privacy technology has roughly the same chance of actually affecting society as the current 'anti-evolution' movement....the respective genies having long ago left the bottle.
If there were a 'what he said' click thru available for/. comments I would have used it for this one. Speaking of which, that is one aspect of the moderation scheme that I would hope someone considers: the inability of the non-moderators to increase the point value of a particular comment independantly, like the poll...just a thought
this brings up, to me, an interesting point...not that it would have affected me in any way, but I am curious about the procedure Red Hat used to compile the 'affinity list'...does anyone know? (or care?)... from the comment above, one would presume that they were using a 'current' list of some sort (maybe)
this needs to be moderated waaaaaay up......that poll would be very intersting:
I got the letter and the shares I got the shares but no letter I got the letter but no shares (tried) I got the letter but no shares (didn't try) I went blind reading 'letter' postings
as someone once said, you should never watch the production of law, or sausage, too closely. IMHO, this 'working group' is in fact a good thing, given the context that it is presented in. On the very day that the last charges against Mitnick are dropped, you should consider just exactly what actions under-educated officials are willing to take when charged (by a terrified populace) with the regulation of a technology that they do not understand, and therefore fear. The report created by this group will be used by the current, and possibly future, administrations and congressional committees as a basis upon which to respond to some of the more crackpot regulatory and legislative proposals emanating from congress and the named federal departments. As has been discussed at length elsewhere on/., as recently as today, there really is no such thing as too much education, and the fundamental charge contained in the executive order is educational in nature and scope.
Slashdot Mirror
I would submit that the people in THIS forum should RIGHT NOW begin to discuss the ways that this legislation should be formed and implemented, and then we should GET INVOLVED NOW by communicating with our respective elected officials. Predicting that this legislation will wind up as an unworkable mishmash is truly a self-fulfilling prophecy if WE just sit around and bitch about the glacial pace of legal change and the overall stupidity of our lawmakers. One of the reasons that it takes a while to create these regs involves the legislators desire to produce good laws, and the lengths they go to inform themselves on the issues (they really do desire that, for the most part...but, as with any organization there are some members that just don't give a damn or, worse, are actively evil, and that is the reputation that is remembered quickest). Unless your reps are among the bad ones, they really will listen to what YOU have to say, especially if lots of US are saying the same thing.
It occurs to me that the reaction of the 'authorities' in Utah was based on fear and misunderstanding, and was encouraged by the local media machine (which, as with most small towns, is centered over many dinner tables and in one or two coffee shops). Isn't it odd that fear and misunderstanding seem to drive the comments of many posters here, and more odd still that Katz & Co seem to be encouraging just such a response (which will no doubt reverberate thru many more coffee shops, libraries, and bars). Perhaps what we are revealing here is that the terms "Utah" and "the rest of the USA"; "small town" and "big city"; and "Utah school officials" and "slashdotters" are all, in this context, distinctions without differences.
You can purchase a Book PC for $225.00 from National Computer, ph 316-682-9400
exactly
Think about this..This is all correct. But is it really easy for most people?
/. community, it will be easy, and sooner, rather than later.
No, it is not....at least not now. But, thanks to the 'dead hands' tapping away at 'puters both within and outside the
Think about this: before browsers, was there a usable internet? Of course. Was it 'really easy for most people'? Nope. But it is now, and that particular genie is now busting ass to keep itself out of the bottle.
Because the stakes are so high, the privacy 'arms race' will inevitably escalate, with each new 'mouse trap' forcing the creation of new and better 'mouse trap avoidance' software; sort of a DeCSS in reverse...and because the market demands it, it will be easy, safe and (relatively) cheap.
this is from my local paper, earlier this week:
- --------------------------------
Incompetence may be in the eye of beholder
New York Times News Service
Most incompetent people do not know that they are incompetent, a Cornell psychology professor has discovered.
On the contrary, people who do things badly are usually supremely confident of their abilities -- more confident, in fact, than people who do things well, according to David Dunning.
One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured, the researchers believe, is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence.
The incompetent, therefore, suffer doubly, they suggested in a paper appearing in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Dunning conducted his studies with a graduate student, Justin Kruger.
"Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it," wrote Kruger, now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, and Dunning.
This deficiency in "self-monitoring skills," the researchers said, helps explain the tendency of the humor-impaired to persist in telling jokes that are not funny and of day traders to repeatedly jump into the market -- and repeatedly lose out. In a series of studies, Kruger and Dunning found that subjects who scored in the lowest quartile on tests of logic, English grammar and humor were also the most likely to "grossly overestimate" how well they had performed.
In all three tests, subjects' ratings of their ability were positively linked to their actual scores. But the lowest-ranked participants showed much greater distortions in their self-estimates.
-----------------------------------------------
perhaps the upgrade of this particular issue to 'important/relevant' status is premature. As others have said above, this is after all a local issue (in every jurisdiction in which it is discussed) and, in the final analysis, the only internet access restriction that is truly effective is disconnection; anything else is just too annoying to last very long at all. The moment that a high school student is denied access to legitimate research material because the censorware could not validate the site will be the moment that the censorware will go the way of all flesh, at the hands of even more enraged taxpayers. Also, the truest statement I have ever read on the subject was apparently repeated at the informational meeting: the other people in the library are the 'porn-check' mechanism...put up a sign that says 'if you are lookin' at butt, you will be out on yours' and wait for the tattle-tales to line up; no software required.
and if you don't like the way people drive.....private roads?
lol @ JHC on bath towel
It hasn't killed off Castro in Cuba, or Kim Il-Sung in North Korea. The Internet hasn't gotten Saddam Hussein out of Iraq, or Milosevic out of Bosnia either.
not to mention those pesky Chinese...
One of the possible settlement arrangements that could be made between US and MS would include the release of the Windows/Office source code under a modified license. In that event, would porting the Office applications to Linux be a net positive or a net negative for the future of Linux as an independent OS?
hmmmmm.....when I read the article I expected to see dozens of 'let's back this guy ourselves!' posts...but there does not appear to be much of a ground swell. To make this happen he would have to have lots of open source/low cost stuff, so perhaps all of those who made money on, or were denied access to, the red hat or va linux IPOs could use their investable funds to buy into this guy.
admitting you have a problem is always the first step
now THIS is a funny post!
Does anyone else find it kinda odd that the walkman is what the NYT thinks we should remember him for? Here is a little tidbit that might win you a beer sometime: compact discs are the size that they are because Mr Morita wanted the format to be large enough to hold Beetoven's Fifth Symphony in its entirety.
yours is the sort of point I was wondering about as I read the threads from this article. As we have recently seen, the American law enforcement community, particularly at the federal level, seems woefully behind the curve where internet/information control is concerned. Part of the problem is public perception, since all will agree that the relevant technology is evolving faster than the lawmaking process allows for, so that the law enforcement community ends up looking silly when they have standards in place that are outdated when the are adopted. But a greater part of the problem really is a stupidity problem, but not stupidity at the technical level (as posters noted here recently, everyone believes that certain branches of the govt are waaaaay out front on REAL strong encryption) but on a political level, cause the right hand not only does not know what the left hand is doing, it is patently uninterested until it becomes politically profitable to become interested....and by then it is, by default, too late. I would suggest that the specter of required 'breakability' in encryption/privacy technology has roughly the same chance of actually affecting society as the current 'anti-evolution' movement....the respective genies having long ago left the bottle.
and show your work
not Gap commercials....it is Nike that caused the downturn
If there were a 'what he said' click thru available for /. comments I would have used it for this one. Speaking of which, that is one aspect of the moderation scheme that I would hope someone considers: the inability of the non-moderators to increase the point value of a particular comment independantly, like the poll...just a thought
this brings up, to me, an interesting point...not that it would have affected me in any way, but I am curious about the procedure Red Hat used to compile the 'affinity list'...does anyone know? (or care?)... from the comment above, one would presume that they were using a 'current' list of some sort (maybe)
this is, by far, my fave /. comment to date...
a better question might be: will we all (registered /.ers, I mean) get the 'letter' before the andover ipo
this needs to be moderated waaaaaay up......that poll would be very intersting:
I got the letter and the shares
I got the shares but no letter
I got the letter but no shares (tried)
I got the letter but no shares (didn't try)
I went blind reading 'letter' postings
looks like the choices boil down to age and experience -v- youth and vigor.......shall we send the student?
as someone once said, you should never watch the production of law, or sausage, too closely. IMHO, this 'working group' is in fact a good thing, given the context that it is presented in. On the very day that the last charges against Mitnick are dropped, you should consider just exactly what actions under-educated officials are willing to take when charged (by a terrified populace) with the regulation of a technology that they do not understand, and therefore fear. The report created by this group will be used by the current, and possibly future, administrations and congressional committees as a basis upon which to respond to some of the more crackpot regulatory and legislative proposals emanating from congress and the named federal departments. As has been discussed at length elsewhere on /., as recently as today, there really is no such thing as too much education, and the fundamental charge contained in the executive order is educational in nature and scope.