Many people in the UK get their impression of the "real" USA from Jerry Springer, COPS, and similar trash. Can't blame them, really, that's the image we export.
And the only reason you don't want the police to electronically tag you and make a record of every place you go (and who you are with, since everyone else should be tagged also) is that you are a low life mugging piece of shit?
No, of course all people with access to the video
tapes will never do anything unethical
with them. Just like people who work in film labs
never make copies of the most interesting photos
to show at parties.
for instance.
Great philosophy: so let's have all law abiding citizens report to their local police station to be
fingerprinted, DNA sampled, drug tested, and to
have an electronic tracking device implanted.
Anybody found without tracking devices will be
imprisoned or executed. This will greatly improve
public safety for law abiding citizens. You really don't see the problem with this mentality?
From another angle: do you really trust politicians never to pass a law which you disagree with? If so, you might try reading a little history, preferably something published by people other than those who make the laws....
The nuclear implications of the launch are the
same they were for the US and USSR in the early
days of the space race: it demonstrates to the
world that you have the capability to place a
nuclear bomb anywhere on the planet you like.
That was why everyone got scared of Sputnik,
and why the space programs were so big for a
while.
As for it being a nuclear targeting satellites, it seems unlikely: hitting a city is much too easy to require a satellite, since cities don't move very quickly.
Nothing stops them from doing it, they've
been there and done that. I read about a
case (India maybe?) where a company studied
herbs used by indiginous peoples, patented what they found, then sued the people they got it
from for growing and selling the herbs. There
are probably some inaccuracies in my recollection,
but this is not at all a far out concept.
Of course, researchers probably won't have a lot of legal room to manoeuver in (in all likelihood, they just have standard consent forms), in which case, it's up to us to lobby your representative/congresscritter/duly elected scumbag to give them that room, or make copyleft standard conditions of consent.
What is the government going to do? It's the
medical/insurance/biochem companies which decide
what forms we have to sign. You'll have to lobby
them to change their forms to give up the IP they
might get from studying your medical samples.
Good luck.
When will the U.K. be free for people to make their own decisions? Not depend on the government for everything?
The Brits have screwed up privatization of
the trains, just like California has done with
power. Now they're planning to bollix the tube
with the exact same scheme they used on the national railways. Pretty messed up.
On the other hand, Europeans are a hell
of a lot better about protecting individual
rights against big companies, especially privacy.
It's just too bad they don't feel people need the
same level of protection against government itself.
The food here is now pretty good, all those jokes about english food are pretty out of date
It's true, it's very easy to get a good curry,
Italian restaraunts are everywhere (real Italian restaraunts, not like Olive Garden and such in the US), Greek, French, Chinese etc. England has
plenty of great food! Not much Mexican, though.
Seriously, though, the idea is to prevent criminals from committing crimes. It seems strange to then say that, wait, there will be bad consequences if these criminals aren't allowed to commit their crimes.
If that seems messed up, check out where the
US Constitution actually says people are
innocent until proven guilty. That means
the Constitution itself says the cops ought to
wait until *after* someone commits a crime
before treating them like a criminal.
Fortunately the police are well aware that
paying too much attention to the Constitution
makes their job inconvenient, so they don't.
So maybe Napster ought to pay or charge us based on the forumla [uploads - downloads = what you pay or get]. If they do it right they can make a profit on the spread, the same way casinos and currency exchange folks do, and pay off the evil
corporations out of that.
AOL is having to cut the Bertelsmann partnership
in Europe to make various regulatory agencies
happy about the AOL/Times Warner merger. Not that
it matters, they're still so huge that their corporate gravity field will suck the life forces out of the human race.
If you're 27 or under, you can work here (Australia) or the UK for up to a year, on a working holiday visa
You can do this if you have a passport from the UK or a
commonwealth country. It doesn't apply to
US citizens, we have to get a work permit
for a specific job at a specific company,
which takes about 5 months to get after the
company applies for it. I know this for a fact, having worked in London for 3 years and dealt
with the OLS (Overseas Labour Services) to get
my work permit.
If you have a parent (not a grandparent) who is
a UK citizen, you can get working papers that way.
The smoking gun that caught Microsoft was the e-mails that they sent.
I fear that corporatism will continue to grow more and more powerful if they are able hide their stealing with encryption that the government can't crack. It will make it even more possible to take advantage of the people.
I worry about corporatism also, but the current
system would have been more than adequate for
your Microsoft/DOJ example.
The DOJ used open legal proceedings to obtain
access to Microsoft's email. They didn't snoop
through their mail before deciding to bring
charges against them - they didn't need to.
If the email had been encrypted, the court
could have required them to provide the key
then, with legal penalties for refusing
to comply.
I have no problem with the authorities demanding
access to encrypted materials if they do it in
a legal, open, above-board manner. I have a major
problem when they want to be able to read anything
at a whim, just in case they find something they
might want to prosecute for.
Innocent until proven guilty, due process, etc.
etc.
Besides, do you think the government will use
any law enforcement tool to attack corporatism,
given how much corporations pay to put their
people in charge of the government? You're dreaming if you think the government works
for us against big biz.
Let the "commoners" think that they're getting security. But for now, they're providing background cover to help hide the mail that truly needs encryption.
So you're assuming that the need for encryption
is directly related to technical competence?
My guess is there are plenty of people living
in places with truly oppressive governments
who would be fooled into thinking "secure"
Yahoo email really is secure.
Web-based email is very popular in less developed
countries, especially for less technically
sophisticated people.
And there are countries
where saying the wrong thing in an email message
can get you imprisoned or killed without a trial.
But I do agree with your basic argument that
the more encrypted traffic there is, the better.
It would be really nice if encrypting your email
had the same lack of stigma as putting a letter
in an envelope instead writing a postcard.
Re:Of course they should vote...
on
Should You Vote?
·
· Score: 1
What if I believe in George Bush's philosphy of small government and local control?
Then you're naive. Do you really think he'll
shrink the military and allow local governments
to decide not to install smut filters
on school and library PC's?
Republicans use of the phrases "small government" and "local control" only applies to giving more
freedom to the wealthy and to large corporations.
Stop restricting the right of corporations to
pollute, stop taking money from the wealthy to
educate the poor, etc.
But small government and local control is forgotten
when discussion shifts to "family values" and
such. Prayer in schools, illegal abortions,
trillion dollar defense programs, "card carrying
member of the ACLU" considered bad -- these are
not consistent with small government or local
control.
Unfortunately the Democrats have been increasingly
embracing social conservatism, which doesn't
really leave any option for people who really
like the idea of a free country.
Hawking is mad! The next thing you know he'll
be building a rocket to put his son, Kal-el, into
just before Kryp^H^H^H^HEarth is destroyed!
Let's all just ignore him!
I'm planning to use that approach for a system
I'm working on, but to prevent assholes from
changing other peoples' passwords, I
won't actually change the password until the user returns to the
site with the new password and confirms they want
to change it.
Because the military is primarily a corporate
welfare/jobs creation program. Witness the
recent proposal to spend *billions* on a missile
defense program *just in case* somebody actually
builds missiles which could hit the US. If they
really must spend that kind of cash, why not spend
it on something that might actually produce
something useful? Many of the same companies and
workers could benefit.
Military spending is just only getting back to 1992 dollar amounts - for it's size and structure the US Military is underfunded.
How exactly is this bad? The military budget pre-1992 was focused on the cold war, it's main
achievement was to force the USSR into bankruptcy.
It's over. We won. "Rogue nations" just aren't worth the same level of effort - so what if Qaddaffi and Castro and others still refuse to bend over? Do we really need to have every nation
on the planet completely under our thumb to sleep
at night?
Can it not still be a "free sample", even if you do ask for it?
Not according to the code he quotes on his page:
(d) For the purposes of this section, ''unordered merchandise'' means merchandise mailed without the prior expressed request or consent of the recipient
The rest of the world considers the 50 united states of america to be "america".. then there is south america and canada.. you rarely even hear the term north america..
Uhh, yeah I read that too, but I still haven't
parsed any meaning from it. What difference did
releasing it a few days early make? "Symbolic
step" sounds to me like it was for the PR.
Slashdot Mirror
Many people in the UK get their impression of the "real" USA from Jerry Springer, COPS, and similar trash. Can't blame them, really, that's the image we export.
And the only reason you don't want the police to electronically tag you and make a record of every place you go (and who you are with, since everyone else should be tagged also) is that you are a low life mugging piece of shit?
No, of course all people with access to the video tapes will never do anything unethical with them. Just like people who work in film labs never make copies of the most interesting photos to show at parties. for instance.
Great philosophy: so let's have all law abiding citizens report to their local police station to be fingerprinted, DNA sampled, drug tested, and to have an electronic tracking device implanted. Anybody found without tracking devices will be imprisoned or executed. This will greatly improve public safety for law abiding citizens. You really don't see the problem with this mentality?
....
From another angle: do you really trust politicians never to pass a law which you disagree with? If so, you might try reading a little history, preferably something published by people other than those who make the laws
The nuclear implications of the launch are the same they were for the US and USSR in the early days of the space race: it demonstrates to the world that you have the capability to place a nuclear bomb anywhere on the planet you like. That was why everyone got scared of Sputnik, and why the space programs were so big for a while.
As for it being a nuclear targeting satellites, it seems unlikely: hitting a city is much too easy to require a satellite, since cities don't move very quickly.
Nothing stops them from doing it, they've been there and done that. I read about a case (India maybe?) where a company studied herbs used by indiginous peoples, patented what they found, then sued the people they got it from for growing and selling the herbs. There are probably some inaccuracies in my recollection, but this is not at all a far out concept.
Of course, researchers probably won't have a lot of legal room to manoeuver in (in all likelihood, they just have standard consent forms), in which case, it's up to us to lobby your representative/congresscritter/duly elected scumbag to give them that room, or make copyleft standard conditions of consent.
What is the government going to do? It's the medical/insurance/biochem companies which decide what forms we have to sign. You'll have to lobby them to change their forms to give up the IP they might get from studying your medical samples. Good luck.
When will the U.K. be free for people to make their own decisions? Not depend on the government for everything?
The Brits have screwed up privatization of the trains, just like California has done with power. Now they're planning to bollix the tube with the exact same scheme they used on the national railways. Pretty messed up.
On the other hand, Europeans are a hell of a lot better about protecting individual rights against big companies, especially privacy. It's just too bad they don't feel people need the same level of protection against government itself.
The food here is now pretty good, all those jokes about english food are pretty out of date
It's true, it's very easy to get a good curry, Italian restaraunts are everywhere (real Italian restaraunts, not like Olive Garden and such in the US), Greek, French, Chinese etc. England has plenty of great food! Not much Mexican, though.
Seriously, though, the idea is to prevent criminals from committing crimes. It seems strange to then say that, wait, there will be bad consequences if these criminals aren't allowed to commit their crimes.
If that seems messed up, check out where the US Constitution actually says people are innocent until proven guilty. That means the Constitution itself says the cops ought to wait until *after* someone commits a crime before treating them like a criminal. Fortunately the police are well aware that paying too much attention to the Constitution makes their job inconvenient, so they don't.
ACLU
So maybe Napster ought to pay or charge us based on the forumla [uploads - downloads = what you pay or get]. If they do it right they can make a profit on the spread, the same way casinos and currency exchange folks do, and pay off the evil corporations out of that.
AOL is having to cut the Bertelsmann partnership in Europe to make various regulatory agencies happy about the AOL/Times Warner merger. Not that it matters, they're still so huge that their corporate gravity field will suck the life forces out of the human race.
If you're 27 or under, you can work here (Australia) or the UK for up to a year, on a working holiday visa
You can do this if you have a passport from the UK or a commonwealth country. It doesn't apply to US citizens, we have to get a work permit for a specific job at a specific company, which takes about 5 months to get after the company applies for it. I know this for a fact, having worked in London for 3 years and dealt with the OLS (Overseas Labour Services) to get my work permit.
If you have a parent (not a grandparent) who is a UK citizen, you can get working papers that way.
It means both "world" and "peace", thus the saying "miru mir", "Peace to the world".
The smoking gun that caught Microsoft was the e-mails that they sent.
I fear that corporatism will continue to grow more and more powerful if they are able hide their stealing with encryption that the government can't crack. It will make it even more possible to take advantage of the people.
I worry about corporatism also, but the current system would have been more than adequate for your Microsoft/DOJ example. The DOJ used open legal proceedings to obtain access to Microsoft's email. They didn't snoop through their mail before deciding to bring charges against them - they didn't need to.
If the email had been encrypted, the court could have required them to provide the key then, with legal penalties for refusing to comply.
I have no problem with the authorities demanding access to encrypted materials if they do it in a legal, open, above-board manner. I have a major problem when they want to be able to read anything at a whim, just in case they find something they might want to prosecute for.
Innocent until proven guilty, due process, etc. etc.
Besides, do you think the government will use any law enforcement tool to attack corporatism, given how much corporations pay to put their people in charge of the government? You're dreaming if you think the government works for us against big biz.
Let the "commoners" think that they're getting security. But for now, they're providing background cover to help hide the mail that truly needs encryption.
So you're assuming that the need for encryption is directly related to technical competence? My guess is there are plenty of people living in places with truly oppressive governments who would be fooled into thinking "secure" Yahoo email really is secure. Web-based email is very popular in less developed countries, especially for less technically sophisticated people.
And there are countries where saying the wrong thing in an email message can get you imprisoned or killed without a trial.
But I do agree with your basic argument that the more encrypted traffic there is, the better. It would be really nice if encrypting your email had the same lack of stigma as putting a letter in an envelope instead writing a postcard.
Vote Gore! Slightly less evil than Bush!
What if I believe in George Bush's philosphy of small government and local control?
Then you're naive. Do you really think he'll shrink the military and allow local governments to decide not to install smut filters on school and library PC's?
Republicans use of the phrases "small government" and "local control" only applies to giving more freedom to the wealthy and to large corporations. Stop restricting the right of corporations to pollute, stop taking money from the wealthy to educate the poor, etc.
But small government and local control is forgotten when discussion shifts to "family values" and such. Prayer in schools, illegal abortions, trillion dollar defense programs, "card carrying member of the ACLU" considered bad -- these are not consistent with small government or local control.
Unfortunately the Democrats have been increasingly embracing social conservatism, which doesn't really leave any option for people who really like the idea of a free country.
Hawking is mad! The next thing you know he'll be building a rocket to put his son, Kal-el, into just before Kryp^H^H^H^HEarth is destroyed! Let's all just ignore him!
I'm planning to use that approach for a system I'm working on, but to prevent assholes from changing other peoples' passwords, I won't actually change the password until the user returns to the site with the new password and confirms they want to change it.
Why the military?
Because the military is primarily a corporate welfare/jobs creation program. Witness the recent proposal to spend *billions* on a missile defense program *just in case* somebody actually builds missiles which could hit the US. If they really must spend that kind of cash, why not spend it on something that might actually produce something useful? Many of the same companies and workers could benefit.
Military spending is just only getting back to 1992 dollar amounts - for it's size and structure the US Military is underfunded.
How exactly is this bad? The military budget pre-1992 was focused on the cold war, it's main achievement was to force the USSR into bankruptcy. It's over. We won. "Rogue nations" just aren't worth the same level of effort - so what if Qaddaffi and Castro and others still refuse to bend over? Do we really need to have every nation on the planet completely under our thumb to sleep at night?
Can it not still be a "free sample", even if you do ask for it?
Not according to the code he quotes on his page:
(d) For the purposes of this section, ''unordered merchandise'' means merchandise mailed without the prior expressed request or consent of the recipient
This guy is an idiot.
The rest of the world considers the 50 united states of america to be "america" .. then there is south america and canada.. you rarely even hear the term north america..
You don't travel abroad much, do you?
Great, yet another worthless feature which will make Eudora take even longer to load. *spit*
Uhh, yeah I read that too, but I still haven't parsed any meaning from it. What difference did releasing it a few days early make? "Symbolic step" sounds to me like it was for the PR.