Not sure I'm psyched about this one. While I agree that companies should make it clear what they plan to do with your data, before they do it, making a blanket prohibition doesn't make a lot of sense to me. By reselling marketing data, service providers generate additional revenue - if they can't sell that data, then prices will go up. Given the choice, I'd rather get ads targeted to my browsing, and save some money on my cable modem bill, then get random ads, and pay extra. Still, users should really have that choice. If you choose to opt-out, though, you should also be willing to pay more. HBO has no commercials, but users pay a monthly fee, after all.
But that's not really what happened. The police were trying to confirm that the defendant had ordered the books in question (two tomes on how to run a drug lab), which would give credence to the charge that s/he was actually running the drug lab they discovered. The cops wanted the records to discover whether the defendant had actually ordered the books.
Actually, I think that PVRs are less of a threat to purchase of TV shows than VHS would be. It's a lot easier (and cheaper) to archive programs long-term on VHS tapes than to store them on a hard drive. Most PVRs are used for time-shifting and viewing once or twice, not long-term storage. I suppose folks could start burning CDs or DVDs with content from their PVRs, but that's likely to be a pretty small minority. I think the bigger concern here is the commercial skipping aspect. Notice that the Tivo boxes that get sold through AT&T Broadband don't have the "commercial skip" button on the remote? If I were a network, I'd be worried too. If there are fewer eyeballs watching the ads, then eventually revenue's going to drop, but the costs of production stay the same or increase. Not an easy problem to solve. As clumsy as the broadcasting industry can be, in fairness, they have a real problem on their hands. The business model that's worked for 50 years (programming's free, you just have to sit through the ads) is starting to break down, and it's unclear what will replace it. Remember, there's no divine right that obliges the networks to create and broadcast The West Wing, or whatever - if we can't find a way to ensure that doing so is profitable, then it ain't gonna happen.
Broadband just isn't particularly profitable
on
Broadband Obstacles
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Broadband is, at best, a breakeven service, even at current higher prices. The cost of building out the network just doesn't make sense, given the cost of providing the service, and the revenue it can generate. The only reason that the cable TV operators offer cable modem service is that, by having it, they can offer a package that keeps people from cancelling cable TV and getting satellite service. Folks, if we want cheap, universal broadband, we're going to have to suck it up and pay more in taxes to subsidize the deployment. That doesn't really seem fair, though, since there's no particular reason that a bunch of folks without PCs should have to pay more in taxes so that technophiles like us can have high speed net access. We've got to remember that the vast majority of America (or anywhere else, for that matter) is NOT like Slashdot - we're a small minority, with very specific needs, and just because we want something, and think it would be worthwhile, doesn't mean the rest of the world should either agree with us or subsidize us.
Actually, MSFT had _already_ invested $5BN in AT&T - as part of the deal, they're exchanging their convertible preferred stock for common, essentially giving up their preferential position.
Actually, I think that copied games are a 2nd tier concern of Sony's - what really worries them about Messiah, etc., is the ability to watch out of region DVDs. This is something of a holy cow for the studios. Movies are usually released first in the US, then months later in Europe, and even later in Asia. By the time the Asian/European release hits theaters, the US DVD is likely to be available. The studios clearly don't want those two competing for a customer's Euros, Yen, Baht, etc. It's not an issue of differential _pricing_, but differential _timing_ - the studios are trying to protect their overseas box office take. Not saying I necessarily agree with it, but I do understand the rationale.
You are missing the point of being the loser in the game. If I, the 3rd world country was isolated from outside economies, I would grow at a rate FAR slower than any countrys that could amply produce goods for one another. Being able to grow faster means that they will always have a leg up on the other countries. Fastforward 200 years, and 3rd world country A has been working very hard to build up their industry.
First of all, the poor countries over the last half century have grown notably faster than the rich ones (see China, where 7% GDP growth is considered weak, while for the US and Europe, 3% is great).
Some places have clearly been left behind (Africa, in particular), largely due to corrupt/inept governments, most of which had anti-trade policies, but look at the gap between the average South Korean and American today, vs 50 years ago. The American has gotten somewhat better off since the 1950s, but the average Korean's income has increased 10-fold.
Depends on the area. Places with a lot of area codes, a lot of cell junkies, and a lot of people coming into or moving out of the area (I'm thinking particularly NYC and SF here) haven't given me static about this. Places without such characteristics may be more of an issue. BTW, very few area codes are mobile only (917 used to be the NYC mobile code, but is no longer), but you can usually tell by the exchange (i.e. 617-290-xxxx is all Sprint PCS).
"Even then we were warned by ibn Laden of the consequences of our actions. Even now he is saying that America will not be safe until we leave their holy lands. He has factually and impassionately stated both the problem and the only acceptable solution."
Say I walk up to you on the street and say "Give me your money or I'll shoot you." I have factually and impassionately stated both the problem and the solution. Does that make it OK for me to make the threat? Come on now. Bin Laden doesn't get to decide who has a presence in Saudi Arabia - the Saudi government does. After all, US troops are only there because Kuwait was invaded, and Saudi Arabia threatened.
As to using diplomacy, the Taliban are the same group who knew where bin Laden was, then didn't know, then knew, then had him under house arrest, then didn't, etc. One can only negotiate with another group when they are also committed to a reasonable outcome. If one side's needs (i.e. turning over bin Laden and his accomplices and supporters) and the other's (i.e. protecting bin Laden and his accomplices and supporters) are totally incompatible, then there is no effective way to negotiate. I'm sure that, if the Taliban had been willing to extradite bin Ladin and his associates to a world court (something along the lines of Lockerbie), then we would have taken them up on it. In this case, though, their offer to "negotiate" was simply a ploy to buy time.
Dunno, that would be pushing girdle technology where no man has gone (or ever should go) before.
Re:iris scanning to be introduced at Amsterdam Air
on
Biometrics in Airports
·
· Score: 1
They have a system like this at several US airports (JFK, O'Hare, and I think Newark, maybe others), called INSPass. It's designed for US citizens who are frequent int'l travelers. You fill out a form, they check your passport, take a biometric palm scan, and issue you a plastic card. When you enter immigration, you go into the INSPass line, put your card into the machine, and put your hand on the scanner. Light turns green, turnstile unlocks, welcome home. Voluntary signup, quite cool.
Well, yes, IRS taxes are voluntary, but not in the sense you seem to think. Voluntary in this case contrasts with many European systems, where your taxes are taken out of your check, and no return is required - the gov't calculates how much you owe. In the US, everyone has to calculate their tax burden every April, and determine if they've over- or underpaid. Admittedly, since the introduction of paycheck withholding during WWII, it's become a lot less "voluntary," but that never meant "optional." On the other hand, the gov't can't really force you to pay taxes - they can, on the other hand, make you wish you had.
On the issue of the gold standard, while it does have some ancient appeal to some, it's been a dead issue for a long time in the real world. There may be some appeal to tying currency values to something of intrinsic value, but what true intrinsic value does gold have, after all? In terms of its actualy usefulness, a small portion of the value is justified by electronic circuits, etc., but most of the "value" of an ounce of gold is based on the fact that we _believe_ it's valuable.
Correct, mostly. Actually, if I recall my MBA finance class session on this, you _could_ trade on that information. Although it is inside information, you are not an insider. By the same token, if you are sitting in a restaurant, and you hear someone at the next table, who you recognize to be a company's CEO (not a company for which you work), say "Gee, once those earnings come out tomorrow, our stock is going to soar," you can trade on that info.
Why not make that distinction? If some have been genetically engineered to have, for example, better reflexes than others, then why not prefer them for jobs as airline pilots? It's one thing to prohibit illegitimate discrimination on genetic grounds (i.e. in cases where there is no genetically-linked performance difference), quite another to say that real, genetically-linked performance differences shouldn't be able to count. At this point in technology, the latter type don't exist (ignoring, as we should, the Bell Curve rants), but at some point they will.
@Home, etc. certainly have a problem with encrypted tunnels, but it likely has nothing to do with wiretaps, echelon, or little green men. Money is the likely driver:
1. If a customer uses encrypted tunnels, there's no way to read the packets, so there's no way to route requests to network-edge cacheing (i.e. Akamai). All the bband-to-the-home providers are working hard to keep as much traffic local, so they don't have to constantly expand their backbone bandwidth. VPN makes this impossible.
2. As others have said, there's a desire to have customers who are using the network for business purposes pay business-esque rates, rather than residential rates. If this seems strange to folks, remember that business customers for standard phone lines, who get _exactly_ the same thing as residential customers, pay 30-50% more per month b/c they are businesses. Explicit cross-subsidy there, in the cable case it's more implicit.
No, but I saw Gattaca. Didn't scare me much, though. What's wrong with making decisions based on all available information? A business wouldn't partner with another company without doing its due diligence - why should an insurance company be any different? Airlines, in a legitimate attempt to protect their brand names and multi-million dollar aircraft, want to make sure people don't blow them up, so they search those who enter. Doesn't bother me. If you don't like it, take the bus, a ship, or don't go.
Look, I'm sorry that you got cracked, but if you (or your sister) spent five hours securing, maybe you wouldn't have had to spend twenty cleaning up. If you don't know how, then what business do you have putting systems on the Internet anyway? The world is a dangerous place. Better to recognize that fact in advance than to act like a naive mooncalf and then get mad at other people because reality got shoved in your face.
Whoa! By this logic, if you go out in public without a bulletproof vest, and I shoot you, you're to blame. After all, the "world is a dangerous place." Why does this seem like such an issue to people? Systems are nothing more than virtual extensions of private property - if I catch you skulking around my house in the middle of the night, you're going to jail; not for as long as if you were smashing things with a baseball bat, but you're still committing a crime. Now if you really believe that you're performing a service by finding and encouraging me to fix security holes, the analogy remains simple. If you see someone leaving their keys in the car, and the doors unlocked, you remind them not to, you don't take the car for a spin to teach them a lesson.
What's surreal is that the EU has been fighting vigorously to prevent "grey market" sales of products (i.e. Chanel sells a case of #5 to Saks, Saks discovers they have too much, unload 1/2 of the case on a distributor, and the distributor sells it to Wal-Mart), by prohibiting non-authorized distributors from selling the products, thus keeping prices high. Seems that some contracts are more equal than others.
Slashdot Mirror
Not sure I'm psyched about this one. While I agree that companies should make it clear what they plan to do with your data, before they do it, making a blanket prohibition doesn't make a lot of sense to me. By reselling marketing data, service providers generate additional revenue - if they can't sell that data, then prices will go up. Given the choice, I'd rather get ads targeted to my browsing, and save some money on my cable modem bill, then get random ads, and pay extra. Still, users should really have that choice. If you choose to opt-out, though, you should also be willing to pay more. HBO has no commercials, but users pay a monthly fee, after all.
But that's not really what happened. The police were trying to confirm that the defendant had ordered the books in question (two tomes on how to run a drug lab), which would give credence to the charge that s/he was actually running the drug lab they discovered. The cops wanted the records to discover whether the defendant had actually ordered the books.
Actually, I think that PVRs are less of a threat to purchase of TV shows than VHS would be. It's a lot easier (and cheaper) to archive programs long-term on VHS tapes than to store them on a hard drive. Most PVRs are used for time-shifting and viewing once or twice, not long-term storage. I suppose folks could start burning CDs or DVDs with content from their PVRs, but that's likely to be a pretty small minority. I think the bigger concern here is the commercial skipping aspect. Notice that the Tivo boxes that get sold through AT&T Broadband don't have the "commercial skip" button on the remote? If I were a network, I'd be worried too. If there are fewer eyeballs watching the ads, then eventually revenue's going to drop, but the costs of production stay the same or increase. Not an easy problem to solve. As clumsy as the broadcasting industry can be, in fairness, they have a real problem on their hands. The business model that's worked for 50 years (programming's free, you just have to sit through the ads) is starting to break down, and it's unclear what will replace it. Remember, there's no divine right that obliges the networks to create and broadcast The West Wing, or whatever - if we can't find a way to ensure that doing so is profitable, then it ain't gonna happen.
Broadband is, at best, a breakeven service, even at current higher prices. The cost of building out the network just doesn't make sense, given the cost of providing the service, and the revenue it can generate. The only reason that the cable TV operators offer cable modem service is that, by having it, they can offer a package that keeps people from cancelling cable TV and getting satellite service. Folks, if we want cheap, universal broadband, we're going to have to suck it up and pay more in taxes to subsidize the deployment. That doesn't really seem fair, though, since there's no particular reason that a bunch of folks without PCs should have to pay more in taxes so that technophiles like us can have high speed net access. We've got to remember that the vast majority of America (or anywhere else, for that matter) is NOT like Slashdot - we're a small minority, with very specific needs, and just because we want something, and think it would be worthwhile, doesn't mean the rest of the world should either agree with us or subsidize us.
Actually, MSFT had _already_ invested $5BN in AT&T - as part of the deal, they're exchanging their convertible preferred stock for common, essentially giving up their preferential position.
Actually, I think that copied games are a 2nd tier concern of Sony's - what really worries them about Messiah, etc., is the ability to watch out of region DVDs. This is something of a holy cow for the studios. Movies are usually released first in the US, then months later in Europe, and even later in Asia. By the time the Asian/European release hits theaters, the US DVD is likely to be available. The studios clearly don't want those two competing for a customer's Euros, Yen, Baht, etc. It's not an issue of differential _pricing_, but differential _timing_ - the studios are trying to protect their overseas box office take. Not saying I necessarily agree with it, but I do understand the rationale.
You are missing the point of being the loser in the game. If I, the 3rd world country was isolated from outside economies, I would grow at a rate FAR slower than any countrys that could amply produce goods for one another. Being able to grow faster means that they will always have a leg up on the other countries. Fastforward 200 years, and 3rd world country A has been working very hard to build up their industry.
First of all, the poor countries over the last half century have grown notably faster than the rich ones (see China, where 7% GDP growth is considered weak, while for the US and Europe, 3% is great).
Some places have clearly been left behind (Africa, in particular), largely due to corrupt/inept governments, most of which had anti-trade policies, but look at the gap between the average South Korean and American today, vs 50 years ago. The American has gotten somewhat better off since the 1950s, but the average Korean's income has increased 10-fold.
Depends on the area. Places with a lot of area codes, a lot of cell junkies, and a lot of people coming into or moving out of the area (I'm thinking particularly NYC and SF here) haven't given me static about this. Places without such characteristics may be more of an issue. BTW, very few area codes are mobile only (917 used to be the NYC mobile code, but is no longer), but you can usually tell by the exchange (i.e. 617-290-xxxx is all Sprint PCS).
"Even then we were warned by ibn Laden of the consequences of our actions. Even now he is saying that America will not be safe until we leave their holy lands. He has factually and impassionately stated both the problem and the only acceptable solution."
Say I walk up to you on the street and say "Give me your money or I'll shoot you." I have factually and impassionately stated both the problem and the solution. Does that make it OK for me to make the threat? Come on now. Bin Laden doesn't get to decide who has a presence in Saudi Arabia - the Saudi government does. After all, US troops are only there because Kuwait was invaded, and Saudi Arabia threatened.
As to using diplomacy, the Taliban are the same group who knew where bin Laden was, then didn't know, then knew, then had him under house arrest, then didn't, etc. One can only negotiate with another group when they are also committed to a reasonable outcome. If one side's needs (i.e. turning over bin Laden and his accomplices and supporters) and the other's (i.e. protecting bin Laden and his accomplices and supporters) are totally incompatible, then there is no effective way to negotiate. I'm sure that, if the Taliban had been willing to extradite bin Ladin and his associates to a world court (something along the lines of Lockerbie), then we would have taken them up on it. In this case, though, their offer to "negotiate" was simply a ploy to buy time.
Dunno, that would be pushing girdle technology where no man has gone (or ever should go) before.
They have a system like this at several US airports (JFK, O'Hare, and I think Newark, maybe others), called INSPass. It's designed for US citizens who are frequent int'l travelers. You fill out a form, they check your passport, take a biometric palm scan, and issue you a plastic card. When you enter immigration, you go into the INSPass line, put your card into the machine, and put your hand on the scanner. Light turns green, turnstile unlocks, welcome home. Voluntary signup, quite cool.
Well, yes, IRS taxes are voluntary, but not in the sense you seem to think. Voluntary in this case contrasts with many European systems, where your taxes are taken out of your check, and no return is required - the gov't calculates how much you owe. In the US, everyone has to calculate their tax burden every April, and determine if they've over- or underpaid. Admittedly, since the introduction of paycheck withholding during WWII, it's become a lot less "voluntary," but that never meant "optional." On the other hand, the gov't can't really force you to pay taxes - they can, on the other hand, make you wish you had.
On the issue of the gold standard, while it does have some ancient appeal to some, it's been a dead issue for a long time in the real world. There may be some appeal to tying currency values to something of intrinsic value, but what true intrinsic value does gold have, after all? In terms of its actualy usefulness, a small portion of the value is justified by electronic circuits, etc., but most of the "value" of an ounce of gold is based on the fact that we _believe_ it's valuable.
Both of these posts would be vastly more credible if somebody would spell AfgHanistan correctly.
Correct, mostly. Actually, if I recall my MBA finance class session on this, you _could_ trade on that information. Although it is inside information, you are not an insider. By the same token, if you are sitting in a restaurant, and you hear someone at the next table, who you recognize to be a company's CEO (not a company for which you work), say "Gee, once those earnings come out tomorrow, our stock is going to soar," you can trade on that info.
Why not make that distinction? If some have been genetically engineered to have, for example, better reflexes than others, then why not prefer them for jobs as airline pilots? It's one thing to prohibit illegitimate discrimination on genetic grounds (i.e. in cases where there is no genetically-linked performance difference), quite another to say that real, genetically-linked performance differences shouldn't be able to count. At this point in technology, the latter type don't exist (ignoring, as we should, the Bell Curve rants), but at some point they will.
@Home, etc. certainly have a problem with encrypted tunnels, but it likely has nothing to do with wiretaps, echelon, or little green men. Money is the likely driver:
1. If a customer uses encrypted tunnels, there's no way to read the packets, so there's no way to route requests to network-edge cacheing (i.e. Akamai). All the bband-to-the-home providers are working hard to keep as much traffic local, so they don't have to constantly expand their backbone bandwidth. VPN makes this impossible.
2. As others have said, there's a desire to have customers who are using the network for business purposes pay business-esque rates, rather than residential rates. If this seems strange to folks, remember that business customers for standard phone lines, who get _exactly_ the same thing as residential customers, pay 30-50% more per month b/c they are businesses. Explicit cross-subsidy there, in the cable case it's more implicit.
No, but I saw Gattaca. Didn't scare me much, though. What's wrong with making decisions based on all available information? A business wouldn't partner with another company without doing its due diligence - why should an insurance company be any different? Airlines, in a legitimate attempt to protect their brand names and multi-million dollar aircraft, want to make sure people don't blow them up, so they search those who enter. Doesn't bother me. If you don't like it, take the bus, a ship, or don't go.
Look, I'm sorry that you got cracked, but if you (or your sister) spent five hours securing, maybe you wouldn't have had to spend twenty cleaning up. If you don't know how, then what business do you have putting systems on the Internet anyway? The world is a dangerous place. Better to recognize that fact in advance than to act like a naive mooncalf and then get mad at other people because reality got shoved in your face.
Whoa! By this logic, if you go out in public without a bulletproof vest, and I shoot you, you're to blame. After all, the "world is a dangerous place." Why does this seem like such an issue to people? Systems are nothing more than virtual extensions of private property - if I catch you skulking around my house in the middle of the night, you're going to jail; not for as long as if you were smashing things with a baseball bat, but you're still committing a crime. Now if you really believe that you're performing a service by finding and encouraging me to fix security holes, the analogy remains simple. If you see someone leaving their keys in the car, and the doors unlocked, you remind them not to, you don't take the car for a spin to teach them a lesson.
What's surreal is that the EU has been fighting vigorously to prevent "grey market" sales of products (i.e. Chanel sells a case of #5 to Saks, Saks discovers they have too much, unload 1/2 of the case on a distributor, and the distributor sells it to Wal-Mart), by prohibiting non-authorized distributors from selling the products, thus keeping prices high. Seems that some contracts are more equal than others.