Merchandise in Australia is significantly more expensive than it is in many other countries, namely the US and Canada. Part of this is because of the low unemployment, better median salary
Consumer Prices in United States are 33.76% lower than in Australia
Consumer Prices Including Rent in United States are 36.51% lower than in Australia
Rent Prices in United States are 42.13% lower than in Australia
Restaurant Prices in United States are 34.18% lower than in Australia
Groceries Prices in United States are 28.26% lower than in Australia
Many companies have Australian branches, so importing isn't really the issue. It's simply the price the market is willing to pay. There is an IBM office in downtown Brisbane, one of the larger buildings. Are you really saying IBM software is more expensive in Aus because it has to be imported? When I could buy a copy online and have it shipped for cheaper?
A company can sell products at whatever price they want. At the end of the day, stuff costs more in Australia because people were willing to pay more. The companies are not doing anything illegal, they are selling software at the price the market is willing to pay.
Australia is a pretty darn expensive country, so it isn't surprising things started out that way. Are costs ridiculous? Yes. But again, nothing illegal is going on here, so what does the government think it can do, or why do they think they have the right to interfere after investigating and finding nothing illegal going on?
Oh, please. I work as a security research for a rather large company in that space. As I said, I am well aware of the risks.
As I said in my original post, javascript is heavily sandboxed. Aside from the fact that the Pentagon and FBI will not care about a portscan, not in the least, Javascript prots canning has not worked for some time as the xmlhttpobject has been modified.
All the claim you make against javascript are only possible if the sandbox is broken or your browser is being exploited. Javascript as designed, running sandboxed and restricted to a very finite space of mostly DOM modification, is not anywhere near the risk you make it out to be.
The executive summary is that disabling JavaScript entirely means having an essentially unusable internet, for no good reason. Keep your browser updated, use adblock and privacy addons if you must, but disabling javascript entirely or not refusing to read a website that didn't downgrade gracefully is foolish.
Except it isn't arbitrary code. There is a very well defined finite list of exactly what JavaScript in a browser can do.
So no, I no, I have no objection to you running arbitrary javascript code in the context of a webpage in a browser on my computer, because I know and understand enough not to have baseless fears.
You seem to of the opinion that the ends justifies the means, at least concerning the actions of the NSA.
I don't often say this, but your opinion is flat out wrong. We have no evidence that the NSA was not abusing the information they collected without congressional oversight. We have no evidence that their intruding into the lives of citizens from the US and other countries helped stop anything.
All we have evidence of is that the NSA lied to congress and was illegally surveying a large percentage of the world, without authorization.
Snowden did everyone a favor, and while he should perhaps be punished, it should be with time served for having to be on the run. He did the people of the US a favor, and that is not treason or espionage.
I recall a story about Facebook having to comply with Germany's privacy laws, and only really being forced to do so because they had an office in Hamburg. If they had not had a presence in Germany, they could not have been forced to comply, so yes, a physical presence does seem to matter for legal question.
I disagree that technical details do not play a part in whether a company has a physical presence in a country or continent. Do you really expect companies like Google or Facebook to have all their servers in the US? Of course they have a physical presence in Europe -- because technology isn't advanced to the point where they can keep everything in the US.
As far as needing offices and subsidiaries for marketing purposes? As internet speed improves, and currencies like bitcoin mature (if they mature) and become more accepted, why exactly would they need a physical presence to make a marketing deal? Why couldn't it be done via video conference?
Keep in mind, I'm not talking about present day, but maybe 20 years from now.
How do you figure that? If paypal forwards money between people in the world, and Google happens to get some money from a paypal account that happens to be based in Germany, why would Google have to comply with German laws?
I'm not saying that big US based multinationals don't have to bow down to Europe, they do. They have to abide by the laws of any country they are in.
I'm saying eventually internet speed will be so fast and the internet economy will change to a point where they won't need to have a physical presence in every country. They can limit their physical presence to where the laws suit them best.
I mean really, the majority of Google's offerings are delivered through a browser. If you look at the reasons they need a physical presence, there are alternative solutions that don't require a physical presence.
I specifically said minor software updates, not just minor updates. There have been advances in battery design that allow a same size battery with a much increased capacity, adopting something like that in turn with the flexible screens would be a big improvement.
Yes, increasing internal storage is minor, but it is a change people would appreciate more, especially since you can't use sd cards.
JMS addressed this in Babylon 5, after consulting experts he wanted to have some sounds in space, because the atmosphere of the ships was sufficient to carry the sound. Apparently.
I don't know how plausible that is, but I thought it was interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, that would be funny to see that implemented. It would go to court, and such legislation would probably be dismissed.
For what it's worth, I am Australian.
Merchandise in Australia is significantly more expensive than it is in many other countries, namely the US and Canada. Part of this is because of the low unemployment, better median salary
Many companies have Australian branches, so importing isn't really the issue. It's simply the price the market is willing to pay. There is an IBM office in downtown Brisbane, one of the larger buildings. Are you really saying IBM software is more expensive in Aus because it has to be imported? When I could buy a copy online and have it shipped for cheaper?
A company can sell products at whatever price they want. At the end of the day, stuff costs more in Australia because people were willing to pay more. The companies are not doing anything illegal, they are selling software at the price the market is willing to pay.
Australia is a pretty darn expensive country, so it isn't surprising things started out that way. Are costs ridiculous? Yes. But again, nothing illegal is going on here, so what does the government think it can do, or why do they think they have the right to interfere after investigating and finding nothing illegal going on?
Oh, please. I work as a security research for a rather large company in that space. As I said, I am well aware of the risks.
As I said in my original post, javascript is heavily sandboxed. Aside from the fact that the Pentagon and FBI will not care about a portscan, not in the least, Javascript prots canning has not worked for some time as the xmlhttpobject has been modified.
All the claim you make against javascript are only possible if the sandbox is broken or your browser is being exploited. Javascript as designed, running sandboxed and restricted to a very finite space of mostly DOM modification, is not anywhere near the risk you make it out to be.
The executive summary is that disabling JavaScript entirely means having an essentially unusable internet, for no good reason. Keep your browser updated, use adblock and privacy addons if you must, but disabling javascript entirely or not refusing to read a website that didn't downgrade gracefully is foolish.
As with all things Apple, It Just Works.
Nope, not a fanboy at all.
Except it isn't arbitrary code. There is a very well defined finite list of exactly what JavaScript in a browser can do.
So no, I no, I have no objection to you running arbitrary javascript code in the context of a webpage in a browser on my computer, because I know and understand enough not to have baseless fears.
Why exactly do you consider javascript such a threat? It's an annoyance, not deserving of your paranoia.
Of course it is. "Hackers" and copyright infringes often get more than murders and rapists while posing far less threat to society.
Something is seriously wrong.
You seem to of the opinion that the ends justifies the means, at least concerning the actions of the NSA.
I don't often say this, but your opinion is flat out wrong. We have no evidence that the NSA was not abusing the information they collected without congressional oversight. We have no evidence that their intruding into the lives of citizens from the US and other countries helped stop anything.
All we have evidence of is that the NSA lied to congress and was illegally surveying a large percentage of the world, without authorization.
Snowden did everyone a favor, and while he should perhaps be punished, it should be with time served for having to be on the run. He did the people of the US a favor, and that is not treason or espionage.
You are incorrect.
Piracy has been used to refer to acts of copyright infringement since the mid 1700's.
It isn't incorrect to use it in this way, and vastly predates the **AA's propaganda.
I'm very pro piracy by the way. There are other problems to focus on, this isn't one of them.
You're an American. USA-ian is a made up term.
I recall a story about Facebook having to comply with Germany's privacy laws, and only really being forced to do so because they had an office in Hamburg. If they had not had a presence in Germany, they could not have been forced to comply, so yes, a physical presence does seem to matter for legal question.
I disagree that technical details do not play a part in whether a company has a physical presence in a country or continent. Do you really expect companies like Google or Facebook to have all their servers in the US? Of course they have a physical presence in Europe -- because technology isn't advanced to the point where they can keep everything in the US.
As far as needing offices and subsidiaries for marketing purposes? As internet speed improves, and currencies like bitcoin mature (if they mature) and become more accepted, why exactly would they need a physical presence to make a marketing deal? Why couldn't it be done via video conference?
Keep in mind, I'm not talking about present day, but maybe 20 years from now.
How do you figure that? If paypal forwards money between people in the world, and Google happens to get some money from a paypal account that happens to be based in Germany, why would Google have to comply with German laws?
I'm not saying that big US based multinationals don't have to bow down to Europe, they do. They have to abide by the laws of any country they are in.
I'm saying eventually internet speed will be so fast and the internet economy will change to a point where they won't need to have a physical presence in every country. They can limit their physical presence to where the laws suit them best.
I mean really, the majority of Google's offerings are delivered through a browser. If you look at the reasons they need a physical presence, there are alternative solutions that don't require a physical presence.
No, not necessarily. They could do payments through something like bitcoin or paypal. Then paypal has to comply, but not google or facebook.
I never said that. Idiot.
Yeah, that's pretty much nonsense. It sure sounds slick to say, but it's still nonsense.
Any individual is not a product, they are the customer, because advertising is sold to them.
A large collection of users as a whole may be a product for advertisers. That is not the same as each user being a product.
They can only do this while the US company has some sort of presence in Europe.
As internet speeds increase, the need for a physical presence will disappear.
Good luck getting Google or Facebook to comply if all their datacenters and business locations are only in the US.
Europeans will still want to use the services, so that will be interesting.
I specifically said minor software updates, not just minor updates. There have been advances in battery design that allow a same size battery with a much increased capacity, adopting something like that in turn with the flexible screens would be a big improvement.
Yes, increasing internal storage is minor, but it is a change people would appreciate more, especially since you can't use sd cards.
These all seem like minor software updates for the next version of android.
Where are the flexible screens, extended battery life and more internal storage?
Marriage can't predate recorded history. Or at least, you can't prove it does, which makes such an assertion meaningless.
It doesn't run at lower rights than the user, it runs at the same rights as the user. When it needs more rights, that's why you see the UAC prompt.
Maybe it doesn't work with DEP or ALSR, did you disable them?
JMS addressed this in Babylon 5, after consulting experts he wanted to have some sounds in space, because the atmosphere of the ships was sufficient to carry the sound. Apparently.
I don't know how plausible that is, but I thought it was interesting.
What question am I dodging? The post I replied to contained only statements.