"If everything could ultimately be tracked back to you eventually, things like spamming, virus distribution, defamation, on-line fraud, and numerous other harmful behaviours would be dramatically reduced. You could improve a lot of people's lives here."
You seem to think that this would be a foolproof identity system. In reality it would not apply to any of the above mentioned people as they also have the know-how to get around it.
So granny and the kids might be tracked everywhere they go, but most/.'ers wouldn't if they didn't want to be. Just another useless hassle.
And this is the reason that someone should only be able to sue for actual damages and not punitive damages. All punitive damages should go into a big pool and handed out like tax rebates once a year:p
As it is you have a much better chance of winning a huge punitive damages suit than you do of winning the lottery.
I've found that I spend the same amount of money on games regardless of wether I'm currently pirating any or not. If I'm without broadband for a while I still only pay $x amount on games. I have shelf after shelf of recent games I've bought, and I've also pirated tons of games as well.
I have no guilt what-so-ever about pirating games. I spend the maximum amount of money on games that my current wages will allow. There are more games that I want to play than I could ever afford. Even if I had a very high paying job there is no way I could afford to buy them all. So I spend as much as I can and download the rest.
How is this hurting the Game companies? They would not get one dollar more from me regardless of wether I'm pirating games or not.
Bears do not growl and roar, they may growl a little, but NOTHING like what you see on TV. Every time you see a bear roar on TV it is FAKE, it's just to make them look scarier.
I would have no problem with using one of these as long as the company I work for put in writing that:
1) The biometric data (hand/fingerprints) will NEVER be shared with ANYONE for ANY reason.
2) All biometric data will be erased when my employment is terminated.
If they can agree to, and put in writing, those two things then I would be happy. I can understand the reasons to use such a system. Paper cards cost money, co-workers punching in for other people, speed up the punch-in/out process, etc. but it's a two way street. They would have to agree to the above before I would ever use it.
Moon not got stuff. Moon icky. Mars got stuff. We like stuff.
In other words: Mars is a full fledged planet with resources that we can use. The moon is a worthless ball of dust. A Martian colony can gather a great deal of the resources needed by the colony from the local environment, while a moon base would need to have everything shipped up from Earth at a huge cost. You think that the moon would be easier because it is closer, but when it takes 3 days to get anything there it might as well take 3 months.
My cable company advertises a 1.5 Megabit per second internet connection for $40 per month.
This means that in exchange for $40 per month, I am ENTITLED to transfer 1.5 million bits per second.
Note that they are not advertising a 10GB per month connection, nor are they advertising a $1 per GB connection.
Re:Better examples of heresy I can think of
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What You Can't Say
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Sorry GypC, but it wasn't aimed at you in particular. Just ranting:p
I think it has more to do with the fact that Indians make the Gov't nervious. They are the one group that can make legal claims to things (land, etc) that the Gov't likes to think of as it's own.
Just look at how much grief the Indians recieve when they become successful, such as the tribes that own casinos.
Re:Better examples of heresy I can think of
on
What You Can't Say
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· Score: 1
"American Indian or Alaska Native. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North America, and who maintains cultural identification through tribal affiliation or community recognition."
Ah, the only one on this list that actually has to meet some trumped up condition in order to be considered a member of their race.
U.S. Gov't: "You have not payed your dues this year Mr. Slashdotter. I'm sorry, but you are no longer 'white'".
There is no way in hell that any of the worlds governments of today would let a citizen have access to advanced assemblers capable of producing a ferrari.
If it can produce a ferrari, it can produce a 20 kiloton Nuke, or other dangerous items. Just have the 'bots scrounge the right atoms from the dirt under your property.
And if you can assemble then you can probably disassemble as well. Neighbor piss you off? No problem just send a cloud of 'bots to go disassemble him. They'll never find a body.
Want to rob a bank and get away with it? Just change your appearance to match someone else, make sure the cameras get a good look at you.
I'm sure you can think of a million other abuses of such technology. It's too bad too because it would have awesome potential.
I wasn't the AC, but if you want proof of this just do a search for agricultural subsidies in industrialized nations. The US and the EU preach free trade and dropping barriers to trade, but they are just as guiltly of not doing this as are the less developed nations. They put up numerous obstacles so that developing nations cannot sell their agricultural products in the industrialized world. Yet this is the one product that those poorer nations are actually capable of competing with the richer nations on.
Which is EXACTLY the reason they should not be allowed to do it. Your nation's food supply is a very strategic resource. If there were a major disruption in the US food supply the store shelves would empty within days. Any nation that outsources it's food production deserves what they get. If you thought the OPEC embargo was bad, just imagine if that happened with food.
However there is evidence from the sedimentary record of the last interglacial that the gulf stream in the North East Antlantic, at least, switched on and off a number of times, and that the switch from 'on' to 'off' was very rapid.
There is thus the possibility that current climate trends will result in a situation in which the flow of warm water to the N.E.Atlantic may cease (or dramatically reduce) over a timespan of years or decades, producing dramatic climate changes in north Western Europe (especially Iceland and North Norway, but Britain, Ireland and France are also major beneficaries of the Gulf Stream).
So you're saying that the current is produced by the melting ice bringing warm water into the area, and that the current will shut off due to warming. Of course, the Ocean in that area will then become very cold with no new influx of warm water.... causing ice to form and making a current... yes?
They had cameras in ever corner of the room. Then again the helpdesk I worked on was a showcase for clients. They would show the clients the helpdesk from remote locations through the cameras. The problem with this was that we were not allowed to have ANYTHING but the computer, phone, and a notebook on the desk. It sucked, but at least you could tell when the camera was on (it wasn't pointed at the wall behind it).
They won't let me plug my laptop in to the company network, but they're going to let me attach this to my PC wirelessly? Yeah, right.
Exactly. I can see this dying a horrible death the moment your company wants the ability to audit your Personal Server. They will be afraid that you are using their Fat Pipe(tm) to download stuff from the internet and taking it home.
Not to mention the security concerns this will raise. The docking station will be useless if it is not connected to the company's network.
Oh damn... We're getting suied because Bob was sharing 3000 mp3's on Kazaa on his Personal Server that was connected to the company's T3 line?!?
That analogy doesn't have a lot of merit. You're a private person, he didn't break into private computers. If a bank has a door to their vault which they don't know of and which is never locked, then yeah, they should be grateful for being told about it.
Who cares what the corporation that owns the unsecure servers feels? He is not doing this for the benefit of the corporation, he is doing it for the benefit of the people that have information contained on those servers.
Your bank, wal-mart, radio shack, and damn near every other company in the world collects information about you wether you like it or not. The least they can do is secure that information. Not leave it on a public network with the door wide open.
The unemployment rate in the U.S. between 1950 and 2003 has fluctuated between 2.9% and 9.7% but seems to be an average of about 4%.
1) The population of the U.S. has almost doubled since 1950. 2) There has been a great amount of scientific and technological progress between 1950 and 2003. 3) The average unemployment rate has remained much the same since 1950.
It's amazing what you can figure out using google and a couple of government web sites.
For all practical purposes, they don't. Calculate what percentage of his salary Bill Gates spends on food and clothing, and then calculate what percentage the average Joe does.
Ahh, but Bill Gates would not be able to spend his money without paying a sales tax under this system. So it would not matter how much money he has, he still needs to spend it for it to do him any good.
When I say sales tax I mean a sales tax on EVERY purchase. If you exchange money for something, then you pay a tax.
Slashdot Mirror
God damnit! Just when we finally build the better mouse trap.. they built a better mouse!!
"If everything could ultimately be tracked back to you eventually, things like spamming, virus distribution, defamation, on-line fraud, and numerous other harmful behaviours would be dramatically reduced. You could improve a lot of people's lives here."
/.'ers wouldn't if they didn't want to be. Just another useless hassle.
You seem to think that this would be a foolproof identity system. In reality it would not apply to any of the above mentioned people as they also have the know-how to get around it.
So granny and the kids might be tracked everywhere they go, but most
Innovation has been patented.
And this is the reason that someone should only be able to sue for actual damages and not punitive damages. All punitive damages should go into a big pool and handed out like tax rebates once a year :p
As it is you have a much better chance of winning a huge punitive damages suit than you do of winning the lottery.
I've found that I spend the same amount of money on games regardless of wether I'm currently pirating any or not. If I'm without broadband for a while I still only pay $x amount on games. I have shelf after shelf of recent games I've bought, and I've also pirated tons of games as well.
I have no guilt what-so-ever about pirating games. I spend the maximum amount of money on games that my current wages will allow. There are more games that I want to play than I could ever afford. Even if I had a very high paying job there is no way I could afford to buy them all. So I spend as much as I can and download the rest.
How is this hurting the Game companies? They would not get one dollar more from me regardless of wether I'm pirating games or not.
"We won't need better immunitary systems, we'll have mechanical one!"
Why stop there? Convert your whole body to nanotech. You'll be a walking factory as well =)
I use Shareaza, it's like the Trillian of the P2P world.
Bears do not growl and roar, they may growl a little, but NOTHING like what you see on TV. Every time you see a bear roar on TV it is FAKE, it's just to make them look scarier.
I would have no problem with using one of these as long as the company I work for put in writing that:
1) The biometric data (hand/fingerprints) will NEVER be shared with ANYONE for ANY reason.
2) All biometric data will be erased when my employment is terminated.
If they can agree to, and put in writing, those two things then I would be happy. I can understand the reasons to use such a system. Paper cards cost money, co-workers punching in for other people, speed up the punch-in/out process, etc. but it's a two way street. They would have to agree to the above before I would ever use it.
Moon not got stuff. Moon icky. Mars got stuff. We like stuff.
In other words: Mars is a full fledged planet with resources that we can use. The moon is a worthless ball of dust. A Martian colony can gather a great deal of the resources needed by the colony from the local environment, while a moon base would need to have everything shipped up from Earth at a huge cost. You think that the moon would be easier because it is closer, but when it takes 3 days to get anything there it might as well take 3 months.
My cable company advertises a 1.5 Megabit per second internet connection for $40 per month.
This means that in exchange for $40 per month, I am ENTITLED to transfer 1.5 million bits per second.
Note that they are not advertising a 10GB per month connection, nor are they advertising a $1 per GB connection.
Sorry GypC, but it wasn't aimed at you in particular. Just ranting :p
I think it has more to do with the fact that Indians make the Gov't nervious. They are the one group that can make legal claims to things (land, etc) that the Gov't likes to think of as it's own.
Just look at how much grief the Indians recieve when they become successful, such as the tribes that own casinos.
"American Indian or Alaska Native. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North America, and who maintains cultural identification through tribal affiliation or community recognition."
Ah, the only one on this list that actually has to meet some trumped up condition in order to be considered a member of their race.
U.S. Gov't: "You have not payed your dues this year Mr. Slashdotter. I'm sorry, but you are no longer 'white'".
And you say the governement is not racist?
There is no way in hell that any of the worlds governments of today would let a citizen have access to advanced assemblers capable of producing a ferrari.
If it can produce a ferrari, it can produce a 20 kiloton Nuke, or other dangerous items. Just have the 'bots scrounge the right atoms from the dirt under your property.
And if you can assemble then you can probably disassemble as well. Neighbor piss you off? No problem just send a cloud of 'bots to go disassemble him. They'll never find a body.
Want to rob a bank and get away with it? Just change your appearance to match someone else, make sure the cameras get a good look at you.
I'm sure you can think of a million other abuses of such technology. It's too bad too because it would have awesome potential.
I wasn't the AC, but if you want proof of this just do a search for agricultural subsidies in industrialized nations. The US and the EU preach free trade and dropping barriers to trade, but they are just as guiltly of not doing this as are the less developed nations. They put up numerous obstacles so that developing nations cannot sell their agricultural products in the industrialized world. Yet this is the one product that those poorer nations are actually capable of competing with the richer nations on.
Which is EXACTLY the reason they should not be allowed to do it. Your nation's food supply is a very strategic resource. If there were a major disruption in the US food supply the store shelves would empty within days. Any nation that outsources it's food production deserves what they get. If you thought the OPEC embargo was bad, just imagine if that happened with food.
However there is evidence from the sedimentary record of the last interglacial that the gulf stream in the North East Antlantic, at least, switched on and off a number of times, and that the switch from 'on' to 'off' was very rapid.
There is thus the possibility that current climate trends will result in a situation in which the flow of warm water to the N.E.Atlantic may cease (or dramatically reduce) over a timespan of years or decades, producing dramatic climate changes in north Western Europe (especially Iceland and North Norway, but Britain, Ireland and France are also major beneficaries of the Gulf Stream).
So you're saying that the current is produced by the melting ice bringing warm water into the area, and that the current will shut off due to warming. Of course, the Ocean in that area will then become very cold with no new influx of warm water.... causing ice to form and making a current... yes?
So what's the problem?
Great, now instead of outsourcing all of our call centers overseas they will outsource them in-the-seas!
Don't laugh, I once sent a 3k Mechwarrior save game file to someone by reading it to him in hex.
And of course the RIAA would *never* share this info with the MPAA to go after movie sharing... nope, not gonna happen.
err... hang on there's a knock at my door...
@$#^% [NO CARRIER]
They had cameras in ever corner of the room. Then again the helpdesk I worked on was a showcase for clients. They would show the clients the helpdesk from remote locations through the cameras. The problem with this was that we were not allowed to have ANYTHING but the computer, phone, and a notebook on the desk. It sucked, but at least you could tell when the camera was on (it wasn't pointed at the wall behind it).
They won't let me plug my laptop in to the company network, but they're going to let me attach this to my PC wirelessly? Yeah, right.
Exactly. I can see this dying a horrible death the moment your company wants the ability to audit your Personal Server. They will be afraid that you are using their Fat Pipe(tm) to download stuff from the internet and taking it home.
Not to mention the security concerns this will raise. The docking station will be useless if it is not connected to the company's network.
Oh damn... We're getting suied because Bob was sharing 3000 mp3's on Kazaa on his Personal Server that was connected to the company's T3 line?!?
That analogy doesn't have a lot of merit. You're a private person, he didn't break into private computers. If a bank has a door to their vault which they don't know of and which is never locked, then yeah, they should be grateful for being told about it.
Who cares what the corporation that owns the unsecure servers feels? He is not doing this for the benefit of the corporation, he is doing it for the benefit of the people that have information contained on those servers.
Your bank, wal-mart, radio shack, and damn near every other company in the world collects information about you wether you like it or not. The least they can do is secure that information. Not leave it on a public network with the door wide open.
Science and technology reducing the number of jobs is a myth. Consider the following U.S. statistics:
1950 - Population: 151,330,000 / Unemployment Rate: 5.3%
2003 - Population: 288,369,000 / Unemployment Rate: 6.2%
The unemployment rate in the U.S. between 1950 and 2003 has fluctuated between 2.9% and 9.7% but seems to be an average of about 4%.
1) The population of the U.S. has almost doubled since 1950.
2) There has been a great amount of scientific and technological progress between 1950 and 2003.
3) The average unemployment rate has remained much the same since 1950.
It's amazing what you can figure out using google and a couple of government web sites.
For all practical purposes, they don't. Calculate what percentage of his salary Bill Gates spends on food and clothing, and then calculate what percentage the average Joe does.
Ahh, but Bill Gates would not be able to spend his money without paying a sales tax under this system. So it would not matter how much money he has, he still needs to spend it for it to do him any good.
When I say sales tax I mean a sales tax on EVERY purchase. If you exchange money for something, then you pay a tax.
Whereas Arnold probably has an agent and doesn't even need to find movies to star in. They just land in his lap.
You do realise that Arnold is not just a movie star, but a very successful businessman a well, yes?