If you are allowed to recognize people on a photo someone shows you — without the pictured people's permission — how can it possibly be illegal for Facebook or anyone else to do that?
That said, a class-action lawsuit may, indeed, be the best way to solve this question...
they will not help any government -- including that of the United States -- mount cyberattacks against "innocent civilians and enterprises from anywhere."
The "innocent civilians and enterprises" is the giant caveat-emptor. Whatever the pledge, if the target is deemed guilty of something — and for the likes of Facebook, it can be mere misogyny — the bets are off and the company may participate with enthusiasm.
In 5-10 years California will observe, that other places have higher availability of Internet service and wonder why.
Customarily, instead of suspecting their own regulatory burden, they'll accuse the evil KKKorporation$ of seeking "too much" make profit, and start seeking ways to compel them into less profitable things. In exchange for tax-payer subsidy...
If he isn't haranguing you to accept his faith, he's going on ad nauseum about his good deeds and the details of his religion.
You don't have to talk to these people, if you don't like the "haranguing". You don't even have to say "Hello" in the morning (though you should).
But the bicycle you leave on your porch is less likely to be stolen, and you don't have to worry as much about your daughter walking home after dark... That's the sort of benefits I was talking about.
I said nothing about throwing things away. What you bought in the morning is still just as usable as it was, when you bought it. My main desktop computer is 18 years old — 4096 times less powerful than the latest systems, according to Moore's law. I still use it, though am looking for replacement, because the power supply is increasingly flaky.
The same improvements and the sheer speed of innovation TFA talks about are likely to do something about landfill as well. Also, some other things may become single-use recyclables — you may treat your tablet the way you currently treat plastic forks and paper plates in a cafeteria.
And let's not forget about our bodies. Whoever lives to see that level of innovation, will have a chance to see the end of the Sun (from a safe distance) as well. It will be very interesting. Especially, if the dimwits objecting to the new technology on account of imaginary pollution die out first...
As to the "true value," yes, that depends on what people are willing to pay for it, but Friends would have been making products that people can use.
Sorry, but I do not see, how this knowledge changes anything. Suppose, for a second, a genius Quaker invents some new way of making the same chairs faster (or with less wastage of materials). He offers to share the invention, but, as so often happens, other craftsmen are set in their ways... Or, maybe, he can just work much faster — the way Michael Phelps can swim faster — and there is nothing for him to share?
Will it be wrong of him to charge customers the same price that other, less efficient shops have to charge to survive — earning a higher profit? Or will it be wrong of him to undercut those other shops, because of his ingenuity and/or skill? I think, this dilemma alone shows the inherent flaw in the nice-on-the-surface approach... Indeed, because many a man would choose to stick to the old (less efficient) ways of doing things just to avoid this nasty choice, the approach is, in fact, a bad one.
That said, I'm delighted to see the high moderations both of your Christian-themed posts have attained, while the two of mine, which question it, have been penalized:-)
many Friends did well in commerce because they had a reputation for fairness, quality, and integrity
Yes, yes. People of (almost any) Faith are, generally, more pleasant to deal with and have around — as long as they aren't in a position to compel you to follow their rules. The role of America's First Amendment in this regard is often underappreciated...
But it may have an even larger impact by serving as a new general-purpose "method of invention" that can reshape the nature of the innovation process and the organization of R&D.
The latest and greatest gizmo you bought in the morning will be obsolete by evening.
I'd like to live to see that era, it seems like it will be very interesting — in a good way.
if you've worked diligently on a chair and one person comes into your shop and offers you $10 for that chair, but the fair value (considering labor and materials) is $5, then it's being dishonest and acting without integrity to take the additional $5 because that person was not a good negotiator
Ok, so this is the step, that leads to the conclusion quoted... Thank you for the explanation.
And yet, even an arm-chair economist can see the hole in this argument... What if the person offering $10 is doing that for reasons other than being a bad negotiator? Such as, he really needs the chair now and is willing to pay premium for that? The other obvious reason, is skill — two people working as hard as they can on the best materials available may still produce product (or service) of different quality. This may not apply so much in the era of mass production, but back when the discussed principle was born this must have been common place...
If your focus is on the accumulation of wealth and possessions
Leaving the morality of greed question aside, the role of money and prices is to determine the value of everything, so as to give guidance, what to train for and work on — the most valuable things.
With the true value of anything being the amount, people are willing to pay for it, if you apply the Quakers' approach to pricing, you would not know (or not as well), if the customers want this kind of chair or that, or none at all.
In the era of mass production price-stickers make a lot more sense, because products in a store are, actually, identical. That's just lowly practical sense, but I suspect, it is this uniformity (though not stability), rather than some Friendship Ideal, that's responsible for the wide spread of the practice today.
(Yes, I know, this case was in London, where there is no Constitution, much less the Bill of Rights. That's irrelevant to my point.)
If, as we've held for decades, the First Amendment protects the right to publish even state secrets — however illegal their divulging by the original sources may have been — it certainly covers the right to publish everything and anything else one knows and has not promised not to divulge.
How else could the cops demonstrate that the device doesn't also plant evidence
The same way they currently demonstrate, they don't plant it through traditional means, such as during traditional court-sanctioned searches... I don't know, how — or if — they do that, but the problem you allude to is hardly new.
More importantly, prosecution does not even need to present the evidence found in the phone — indeed, I suspect, such evidence rarely plays part in an actual trial.
The information gleamed from a suspect's device can still be immensely useful to investigators — such as to find new leads, to drop suspects (including the device's owner) cleared by it, and to use in interrogations.
To make a point, you have to cite actual figures — comparing the numbers of dead, wounded, and mentally-damaged since WWII (or even WWI). I predict, you'll find both the absolute and the relative numbers significantly lower today. Except, maybe, the mental cases — but that's because such were simply not diagnosed 100 years ago.
Please, stop changing the subject to half of your first sentence, as you did twice already. If you do this again, I will not respond.
If they force their way in you charge them with trespassing on a military base.
No one is buried on a military base. If homo-bashers can disrupt military funerals, a respectful photographer can show up and take a few solemn pictures too.
my Point was that America is using mercenaries to do an end run around those sensitivities.
Citations necessary. But even stipulating your statement is true, my point remains — Americans are more sensitive about warfare losses. This sensitivity can be "worked-around" by using contractors, but only to a point. A point, beyond which other measures — such as using robots — is very useful.
We got our cake and ate it too.
Stipulating, this is true, you seem to be rather dissatisfied by it. I wonder, which side you are on...
Most of the people who provided the data to Facebook had no idea that it could be used in the way it is
These people's ignorance is not a reason to blame Facebook for anything.
To say that these people willingly handed it over is like saying people scammed during the savings and loan scandals should have known better
Except, no one has been scammed by Facebook. "Information can not be stolen" — remember?
And when they scrape copies of every text message you sent with your cell phone...
They could only do that, because you let them.
AI can process huge volumes of data that humans could never hope to handle
It can, and yet it remains remarkably dumb — still failing the Turing test. But that's off-topic — point was, and remains, Facebook has done nothing wrong.
You may want to stop using it — I, for one, never signed up — but we can't prosecute it for anything.
The distinction you are trying to make is without difference. Russians did seem to use mercenaries in Syria's most recent engagement, but they used regular troops in the past few years too — with major losses. Also, in Syria they've lost several aircraft (with pilots) to merely a whimper back home. It is also a common practice for Russian military to produce backdated discharge documents, whenever a service member is killed or captured — to present him as a "contractor" or "volunteer", who quit regular military a few days before the event. They've done this so much, nobody cares for it any more.
Moreover, the very profession of "military contractor" is highly illegal by Russian criminal code — and no one cares for that either. These people are described as "contractors" to the West, where such thing is legal, but back home the heavy losses are simply officially denied. Most citizens know the truth, but don't care.
We have a mercenary army too now.
Whether we do or not, TFA is about American military — and their desire to use machines.
And neither of us know how many have been killed off the books.
Whatever it is we know about ours, Russians certainly know too about theirs. They just don't care — not as much. The level of disapproval hundreds of dead Americans would cause here, requires thousands deaths in Russia.
How much coverage of dead Americans overseas have you seen? A: Almost none. They used to take pictures and run video whenever their coffin's came off the plane. That's not allowed anymore.
I am not aware of any law banning it. Are you?
Anyway, the point was, Americans are a lot more sensitive to losing people, than Russians are — and this sensitivity causes American generals to reject weapons, tactics, and strategies Russia would find perfectly acceptable.
If you disagree, please, state your disagreement and substantiate any facts. If you don't disagree — then stop ranting.
Russia can lose 300+ people and go on like nothing happened. America would pull out after losing fewer than that... To prevent the mission from failing due to public opinion turning American generals want to keep losses to absolute minimums — and that's why they want machines to do the fighting.
With all the hate suddenly piled up on the company, someone has to point out, that they've done nothing illegal. Not even unethical — certainly, not grossly so.
The information they keep about people was given to them voluntarily — either by users themselves, or by their friends and acquaintances. And what they now know, they are free to share — sell, give away, publicize, it is up to them.
Contrary to frequent assertions by the weaker-minded, there is no "right to be forgotten".
This whole "grilling" and questioning is quite extraordinary and barely constitutional, for it has most of the markings of a criminal prosecution without any crime.
That said, Zuckerberg does seem like a dork and an "accidental" billionaire, without the faculties, abilities, and guts normally necessary to achieve the power he wields.
Selling that content, or even just publishing it, depending on the case, is a different matter.
It is a different matter, and it is protected by the First Amendment. As long as news media can publish anything they choose to, including people's tax-returns and unproven crime-allegations, so can anyone else, "social media" (however defined) included.
Subjects to HIPAA promise people to never reveal their secrets to anyone not allowed by the law. It is this promise, that then bars them from disclosing your information... It does impose quite a limitation on this companies — and the cost of proving compliance is non-negligible — but, at least, it is justified by people being compelled to reveal their secrets in order to get medical care.
There is no such pressure to use "social media". People do that voluntarily.
Of course, maybe, the Supreme Court's earlier decision regarding newspapers and state secrets was wrong — and it should be possible for Congress to ban distribution of some secrets. But, as long as newspapers can do as they please — including publishing your health history, HIPAA be damned — everyone else ought to have the same right too.
what IS being suggested is that maybe he shouldn't be looking in your window in the first place without your explicit consent.
First of all, so long as the stalker does not trespass on my property, he is entitled to watch — and record — anything he can see, hear, or otherwise perceive.
Second, unfortunately, you are 100% wrong. The proposed law, according to both TFA and the write-up, would ban just that — sharing, not collecting:
Two Democratic US senators today proposed a "privacy bill of rights" that would prevent Facebook and other websites from sharing or selling sensitive information without a customer's opt-in consent.
There is nothing about collecting data in the proposal, other than informing the customer about the fact of collection.
There are still such things as trade secret laws, NDAs, libel laws, copyright and public safety laws
Trade secrets only lower in importance than state secrets — and newspapers are allowed to publish those. NDAs are entered into voluntary — and that's why they have an effect. "Public safety" is bullshit in this context — your very example about "shouting fire" comes from the 100 year old case of a man convicted of arguing against US participation in the WWI! Obviously, if we allow the government to ban speech based on "public safety", we may as well abolish the Amendment entirely.
So, no, for better or worse, the Amendment does cover "sharing" any and all information a company has with whoever it pleases... Unless, maybe, we are willing to revise that earlier decision...
Slashdot Mirror
If you are allowed to recognize people on a photo someone shows you — without the pictured people's permission — how can it possibly be illegal for Facebook or anyone else to do that?
That said, a class-action lawsuit may, indeed, be the best way to solve this question...
The "innocent civilians and enterprises" is the giant caveat-emptor. Whatever the pledge, if the target is deemed guilty of something — and for the likes of Facebook, it can be mere misogyny — the bets are off and the company may participate with enthusiasm.
In 5-10 years California will observe, that other places have higher availability of Internet service and wonder why.
Customarily, instead of suspecting their own regulatory burden, they'll accuse the evil KKKorporation$ of seeking "too much" make profit, and start seeking ways to compel them into less profitable things. In exchange for tax-payer subsidy...
The well known cycle of:
will be complete...
I'm confused... Shouldn't the freedom-of-information releases themselves be freely available to the general public?
You don't have to talk to these people, if you don't like the "haranguing". You don't even have to say "Hello" in the morning (though you should).
But the bicycle you leave on your porch is less likely to be stolen, and you don't have to worry as much about your daughter walking home after dark... That's the sort of benefits I was talking about.
I said nothing about throwing things away. What you bought in the morning is still just as usable as it was, when you bought it. My main desktop computer is 18 years old — 4096 times less powerful than the latest systems, according to Moore's law. I still use it, though am looking for replacement, because the power supply is increasingly flaky.
The same improvements and the sheer speed of innovation TFA talks about are likely to do something about landfill as well. Also, some other things may become single-use recyclables — you may treat your tablet the way you currently treat plastic forks and paper plates in a cafeteria.
And let's not forget about our bodies. Whoever lives to see that level of innovation, will have a chance to see the end of the Sun (from a safe distance) as well. It will be very interesting. Especially, if the dimwits objecting to the new technology on account of imaginary pollution die out first...
Sorry, but I do not see, how this knowledge changes anything. Suppose, for a second, a genius Quaker invents some new way of making the same chairs faster (or with less wastage of materials). He offers to share the invention, but, as so often happens, other craftsmen are set in their ways... Or, maybe, he can just work much faster — the way Michael Phelps can swim faster — and there is nothing for him to share?
Will it be wrong of him to charge customers the same price that other, less efficient shops have to charge to survive — earning a higher profit? Or will it be wrong of him to undercut those other shops, because of his ingenuity and/or skill? I think, this dilemma alone shows the inherent flaw in the nice-on-the-surface approach... Indeed, because many a man would choose to stick to the old (less efficient) ways of doing things just to avoid this nasty choice, the approach is, in fact, a bad one.
That said, I'm delighted to see the high moderations both of your Christian-themed posts have attained, while the two of mine, which question it, have been penalized :-)
Yes, yes. People of (almost any) Faith are, generally, more pleasant to deal with and have around — as long as they aren't in a position to compel you to follow their rules. The role of America's First Amendment in this regard is often underappreciated...
The latest and greatest gizmo you bought in the morning will be obsolete by evening.
I'd like to live to see that era, it seems like it will be very interesting — in a good way.
Ok, so this is the step, that leads to the conclusion quoted... Thank you for the explanation.
And yet, even an arm-chair economist can see the hole in this argument... What if the person offering $10 is doing that for reasons other than being a bad negotiator? Such as, he really needs the chair now and is willing to pay premium for that? The other obvious reason, is skill — two people working as hard as they can on the best materials available may still produce product (or service) of different quality. This may not apply so much in the era of mass production, but back when the discussed principle was born this must have been common place...
Leaving the morality of greed question aside, the role of money and prices is to determine the value of everything, so as to give guidance, what to train for and work on — the most valuable things.
With the true value of anything being the amount, people are willing to pay for it, if you apply the Quakers' approach to pricing, you would not know (or not as well), if the customers want this kind of chair or that, or none at all.
In the era of mass production price-stickers make a lot more sense, because products in a store are, actually, identical. That's just lowly practical sense, but I suspect, it is this uniformity (though not stability), rather than some Friendship Ideal, that's responsible for the wide spread of the practice today.
I'd like to see some logical proof for this... Starting from some ethical axiom and logically arriving to this conclusion.
Because I completely do not understand, what is immoral about this...
In their quest to vindicate the Global Warming "theory", adherents are adopting ideas of Intelligent Design... Now that is as scientific as it gets...
I find this rather worrying for the future of e-mail...
(Yes, I know, this case was in London, where there is no Constitution, much less the Bill of Rights. That's irrelevant to my point.)
If, as we've held for decades, the First Amendment protects the right to publish even state secrets — however illegal their divulging by the original sources may have been — it certainly covers the right to publish everything and anything else one knows and has not promised not to divulge.
The same way they currently demonstrate, they don't plant it through traditional means, such as during traditional court-sanctioned searches... I don't know, how — or if — they do that, but the problem you allude to is hardly new.
More importantly, prosecution does not even need to present the evidence found in the phone — indeed, I suspect, such evidence rarely plays part in an actual trial.
The information gleamed from a suspect's device can still be immensely useful to investigators — such as to find new leads, to drop suspects (including the device's owner) cleared by it, and to use in interrogations.
To make a point, you have to cite actual figures — comparing the numbers of dead, wounded, and mentally-damaged since WWII (or even WWI). I predict, you'll find both the absolute and the relative numbers significantly lower today. Except, maybe, the mental cases — but that's because such were simply not diagnosed 100 years ago.
Our military is so superior, American soldiers are more likely to kill themselves, than be killed by an enemy. FTFY.
Please, stop changing the subject to half of your first sentence, as you did twice already. If you do this again, I will not respond.
No one is buried on a military base. If homo-bashers can disrupt military funerals, a respectful photographer can show up and take a few solemn pictures too.
Citations necessary. But even stipulating your statement is true, my point remains — Americans are more sensitive about warfare losses. This sensitivity can be "worked-around" by using contractors, but only to a point. A point, beyond which other measures — such as using robots — is very useful.
Stipulating, this is true, you seem to be rather dissatisfied by it. I wonder, which side you are on...
These people's ignorance is not a reason to blame Facebook for anything.
Except, no one has been scammed by Facebook. "Information can not be stolen" — remember?
They could only do that, because you let them.
It can, and yet it remains remarkably dumb — still failing the Turing test. But that's off-topic — point was, and remains, Facebook has done nothing wrong.
You may want to stop using it — I, for one, never signed up — but we can't prosecute it for anything.
The distinction you are trying to make is without difference. Russians did seem to use mercenaries in Syria's most recent engagement, but they used regular troops in the past few years too — with major losses. Also, in Syria they've lost several aircraft (with pilots) to merely a whimper back home. It is also a common practice for Russian military to produce backdated discharge documents, whenever a service member is killed or captured — to present him as a "contractor" or "volunteer", who quit regular military a few days before the event. They've done this so much, nobody cares for it any more.
Moreover, the very profession of "military contractor" is highly illegal by Russian criminal code — and no one cares for that either. These people are described as "contractors" to the West, where such thing is legal, but back home the heavy losses are simply officially denied. Most citizens know the truth, but don't care.
Whether we do or not, TFA is about American military — and their desire to use machines.
Whatever it is we know about ours, Russians certainly know too about theirs. They just don't care — not as much. The level of disapproval hundreds of dead Americans would cause here, requires thousands deaths in Russia.
I am not aware of any law banning it. Are you?
Anyway, the point was, Americans are a lot more sensitive to losing people, than Russians are — and this sensitivity causes American generals to reject weapons, tactics, and strategies Russia would find perfectly acceptable.
If you disagree, please, state your disagreement and substantiate any facts. If you don't disagree — then stop ranting.
Russia can lose 300+ people and go on like nothing happened. America would pull out after losing fewer than that... To prevent the mission from failing due to public opinion turning American generals want to keep losses to absolute minimums — and that's why they want machines to do the fighting.
With all the hate suddenly piled up on the company, someone has to point out, that they've done nothing illegal. Not even unethical — certainly, not grossly so.
The information they keep about people was given to them voluntarily — either by users themselves, or by their friends and acquaintances. And what they now know, they are free to share — sell, give away, publicize, it is up to them.
Contrary to frequent assertions by the weaker-minded, there is no "right to be forgotten".
This whole "grilling" and questioning is quite extraordinary and barely constitutional, for it has most of the markings of a criminal prosecution without any crime.
That said, Zuckerberg does seem like a dork and an "accidental" billionaire, without the faculties, abilities, and guts normally necessary to achieve the power he wields.
It is a different matter, and it is protected by the First Amendment. As long as news media can publish anything they choose to, including people's tax-returns and unproven crime-allegations, so can anyone else, "social media" (however defined) included.
Subjects to HIPAA promise people to never reveal their secrets to anyone not allowed by the law. It is this promise, that then bars them from disclosing your information... It does impose quite a limitation on this companies — and the cost of proving compliance is non-negligible — but, at least, it is justified by people being compelled to reveal their secrets in order to get medical care.
There is no such pressure to use "social media". People do that voluntarily.
Of course, maybe, the Supreme Court's earlier decision regarding newspapers and state secrets was wrong — and it should be possible for Congress to ban distribution of some secrets. But, as long as newspapers can do as they please — including publishing your health history, HIPAA be damned — everyone else ought to have the same right too.
No, it is not.
First of all, so long as the stalker does not trespass on my property, he is entitled to watch — and record — anything he can see, hear, or otherwise perceive.
Second, unfortunately, you are 100% wrong. The proposed law, according to both TFA and the write-up, would ban just that — sharing, not collecting:
There is nothing about collecting data in the proposal, other than informing the customer about the fact of collection.
Trade secrets only lower in importance than state secrets — and newspapers are allowed to publish those. NDAs are entered into voluntary — and that's why they have an effect. "Public safety" is bullshit in this context — your very example about "shouting fire" comes from the 100 year old case of a man convicted of arguing against US participation in the WWI! Obviously, if we allow the government to ban speech based on "public safety", we may as well abolish the Amendment entirely.
So, no, for better or worse, the Amendment does cover "sharing" any and all information a company has with whoever it pleases... Unless, maybe, we are willing to revise that earlier decision...
Why, thank you kindly for the encouragement...
What does "this" refer to in the quoted sentence? The proposed law? The bill is informing users — and requiring them to do something?
The "surreptitious rape" metaphor does not add any clarity to the already convoluted text. Try again, perhaps...