Most of the comments so far appear to be anecdotal. What happened to actually applying experimental science? Chiropractors should not have a problem with this if what they do actually works. Generally, I have found (in my unscientific, non-random sampling) that chiropractors and their devotees view the whole thing more like a religion. When the idea of scientific verification is brought into the discussion, the response is to attack the legitimacy of scientific research. Every big lie contains some truth. There is too many faulty medical research studies published, so some criticism is valid. In the main, however, medical science has been advanced by a lot of solid basic and applied research.
Since there is not much financial reward in research that debunks the chiropractic religion, and since there is strong financial incentive for the chiropractic priests to continue, I doubt that we will see much reliable, well done studies on their methods and results any time soon.
... people writing software who don't know how it is going to be used cannot conceivably be held liable and more than Sir Issac Newton's estate could be held liable for a mishap on the space shuttle.
If I drop a plugged in, turned on, toaster into a bathtub with someone in it, I am held liable if they die, not the toaster manufacturer. This is because the toaster came with a warning not to do such a thing. If this same toaster (before the terrible bathtub incident) catches on fire and burns my house down while toasting bread, then I can sue the manufacturer. In this case, I am using the toaster for its intended purpose when the mishap occurred.
To say that the software developer cannot know or cannot define how the software will be used is shirking responsibility to customers and the general public. Right now, the software industry is getting away with it. The public will not indefinitely allow us this failure to take responsibility for the products we develop. Those seemingly silly, common sense warnings that come with the toaster are the result of lawsuits and regulations because the public used the toaster in other ways than was intended. People suffered then sued. This means that toasters cost more money. On the plus side, we have (generally) working toasters that do what they are supposed to do without shorting out our electrical circuits or burning our houses down. There will always be exceptions.
Countries that do not have liable laws that protect their citizens and/or whose government does not adequately regulate or enforce safety tend to produce inferior and dangerous products. This is one reason people in some places will pay more for several American products--they tend to be more reliable and safer because our legal system and government force US manufacturers to meet higher standards. This is not what is happening in the software industry. Countries that force higher standards on software used within that country will attract developers who are able to meet the demands of that market. That superior product will eventually be in demand elsewhere.
There is a lot of insecure, crappy software out there that threatens to do much worse than burn individual houses down. Software developers will have to conceive of how their software will be used; they will have to define those uses; and they will need to clearly communicate those uses to the end users in easy to understand language. Eventually, the public will require these things through lawsuits and government regulation. In the long run, it will be good for the software industry and capable developers.
The profit margin is pretty thin for many devices and the software to run them, and the lifetime of a device or software is likewise very short. Security is about the last thing on their minds. Milking whatever profit can be had out of product A while Product B is getting ready for release is a problem.
This is true, but mainly because the public is not willing to pay for the value offered. We want our software to be amazing, we want it now, and we don't really want to pay for it. Then we complain when corners are cut (security is just one area). This is not a sustainable model.
The public will pay more if they must. The value of many products far exceed the costs. Financial pressures of security liability would force the production of more secure products. This will drive up the price, but the public will pay for it if the product is truly useful. Those incompetent developers that cannot compete because they cannot create secure enough products will fail, giving more room for the competent to flourish.
Liability for general purpose computing is not going to happen. It would make software way more expensive...
Issues of liability vs cost are determined by different factors, people, and institutions. There are a lot of variables in play. There is not one entity who decides, "Perhaps software should assume greater liability for security, but, nah, then it would be too expensive."
Security liability is determined by people suing and winning money for damages caused by insecure software. This will increase costs which will hurt free software, and small developers. For the competent few, this will be a bad thing. For everyone else that has to deal with the crap put out both by large and small groups of developers, this will be a good thing in the long run.
Now ELUAs essentially say, "we are not responsible for damage, data loss, financial loss, or other bad things that happen to you or our customers when you use our buggy, insecure, and poorly designed product that doesn't actually do all we said it does." This is ridiculous, but the uneducated consumer is not putting enough market pressure on the software industry to force better practices. In the long run, this hurts the industry because there is not enough disincentive for the incompetent to get out of the way. Thus, we have to put up with too many sloppy coders, unrealistic schedules, clueless managers, and poor design concepts.
Yes, adding the possibility of being sued for insecure software will make it more expensive. Yes, it will make it harder for freeware, adware, and small developers to compete. Yes, in a minority of cases, this is a loss, but as the majority of inferior developers and their products will be unable to afford the liability of law suits, it will open up more opportunities for the responsible and capable.
It might be because nice people tend to lose patience and go away, so that the forums have nothing but griefers left.
Lots of forums are completely toxic in this regard, and Slashdot has fallen prey to this as well. Post a non-insulting position about something that doesn't jibe with the group-think and you'll get nothing but insults. No thought put into it, almost a boiler-plate "you're really stupid" or "you're a racist".
Try to contribute to Slashdot by submitting articles, and the toxic users will mod them as spam and get your account locked.
What's left is the toxic residue.
In general, people who remain active in forums do so because either (1) they are extremely determined, or (2) have nothing better to do.
I post here from time to time because I remember when/. was useful, and I remain too idealistic.
A couple of months ago, I was out with some of a client's IT people. One of them started boasting that in his down time he likes to log on to various forums (including/.) and "fuck with the assholes there." There was no agenda. His goal was to just mess up the forum. Over the years, I've come to believe that there is a whole culture that revolves around this philosophy. Some people have actually figured out how to make money off of it, hiring themselves out as trolls. It is so easy to do, and it gives an outlet for venting frustration by angry, incompetent people with nothing better in their miserable lives.
Bottom line though: the quality of the forum depends upon the quality of moderation. Since the/. moderation has steadily eroded over the years, I expect this post will be modded down to a -1 and no one will read it.
There was a time that some of felt we weren't doing anything worthwhile unless the FBI had a file on us. We were young and stupid, but that didn't make us wrong.
Perhaps I can catch me some trolls. All I have to do is snooker them into going to the link and installing the ransomware on their machine. I'll just call it "a personal message from Putin on how you can help make Russia Great Again."
Of all the things wrong with web site design, the spacebar scrolling function is what bothers you? Here's what you do:
1) Install and use Firefox.
2) Tap "Enter Reader View" at the end of the URL box.
3) Use the spacebar to scroll pages if that is what turns you on.
In any case, you'll get rid of all the floating crap that gets in the way of actually reading the article. That stuff is just as bad as the blinking text (I mean the text literally blinked--not kidding) from the 90s.
If Reader View doesn't work on the particular website you care about, then just close it out and go to another. Except for a few cases where organizations do actual journalism, everyone just says pretty much just copies each other.
In large part, Alexander blamed the press for propagating an image of the NSA that causes people to believe they are being spied on at all times by the U.S. government regardless of their independent actions.... "What really bothers me is that the people of NSA, these folks who take paltry government salaries to protect this nation, are made to look like they are doing something wrong," the former NSA Director added.
A lot of people think they are doing something wrong, i.e. spying on its own people without warrant or oversight. If the NSA wants to change the image, then they out to change their actions instead of blaming other people for portraying them as they actually are.
Obviously, a lot of people don't care so much about their privacy, but they are worried about the potential abuse of our own government, or uncontrolled elements/people within or working fort that government, engaged in such behavior. If the NSA doesn't like that, then they ought to stop their whining and submit themselves to better oversight.
With an incoming President that admires Putin and is surrounding himself with like-minded people, the chances of anyone putting the breaks on this sort of outrageous behavior are slim.
I see this morning Trump nominated a medical doctor who thinks dietary supplements can cure cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis to be the next Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Same doctor who apparently believes that urban development means taking away all support and let people somehow flounder their way to success on their own, like his own self deluded narrative. He seems to have forgotten that his own mother depended upon that same help just so that he could eat. It was a policy that worked well for centuries in cities all across the world--except for the vast numbers that were homeless, starved, and sick, of course. I guess some doctors are above the need to concern themselves with history, science, experience, or actual people.
Is Trump supposed to deny or rule out everything that is dreamed up by his detractors? I think he's smart not to play that game.
Of course he shouldn't respond to every silly question out there. That would be a waste of time. If people are going to ask him stupid, outlandish questions, then he should ignore those questions like most sane people would.
Except, in this case, as in far too many other cases, the question was not outlandish based on what he had already said about the need to keep a watch on all Muslims. He is the one that invited the question based on what he said in his many speeches. The question didn't come out of nowhere. Also, when asked, he did not ignore the question. Instead his answers not only left the question open, he implied that he might be actually considering a database on all Muslims. Since the President Elect left the question open, and since his answers could easily be taken as contrary to the constitution that he will soon be swearing to uphold. then we have a right and duty to keep asking these questions until he definitively closes the issue. Theoretically, all he has to do is say that he won't institute such a database. So far, I can find no evidence that he has done this.
Of course, now that he's been purposefully vague about the issue, many people will have trouble believing him at this point, especially given his troublesome record of truthfulness. We will have to watch what he does.
The problem is that if such a database were implemented (if it is not already in place) then it will be done in secret. We can watch, but we will not be able to actually see what is going on unless it is leaked. We have already seen that our government agencies are willing to violate our privacy and rights. Where will that violation stop? What is the line they will not cross and who will be there to make sure they don't cross it if not the President who authorizes such measures?
Since those questions can't be answered by us mere mortals, the next question then becomes: will our tech sector aid in creating/maintaining such a database. It is a question for companies and individuals alike. If we are powerless to properly monitor and regulate our own government, then all we have left is peer pressure and appeals to conscience to do what is right.
The initiative grows out of a bill authored in March by Portman and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.,
People so often forget that legal measures that seek to correct the error of the "other guy's" ways, will eventually be used against them. Hence, a constitution and form of government designed to protect people against nonsense like this. Many of the framers were quite concerned about an uneducated public with a right to vote taking the country in dangerous directions just because they didn't know any batter. In fact, William Penn wrote about this more than a century before the Continental Congress ratified the Constitution. By "uneducated," they did not mean illiterate. They were concerned about a society of people who were not sufficiently versed in the historical and political realities of the their decisions nor were trained in critical, analytical, and basic logic.
The solution is not censorship or control of what we read. The solution is to educate our citizens on how to dig for facts, to think for themselves, and to create an environment that makes them want to do it.
I've been accused of being an "elitist" for these views. I think that the true elitists are those who believe that the investment is not worthwhile because people are just not up to the task. I disagree. I've worked with young children of many different backgrounds. In general, the desire to learn, to understand, to discover meaning, to solve problems are all there. We say that our culture values such virtues, but then we poorly fund an educational system designed to knock those basic human drives out of our children as soon as possible.
After decades of these policies, it is little wonder that we find ourselves in political and economic downward spirals.
The are giving the power to "enforce" what is fake to an incoming president with about 70% of his statements rated from "mostly false" to "pants on fire" (
Donald Trump's file)?
I started to write a novel around this concept a decade ago. My friends urged me to abandon the idea was it was too far fetched. "Not believable," they said. "Would never happen," they argued.
Does that give license to be inaccurate about this and other things [he said]?
No. Just because Hughes, defending Trump's lies, openly declared that, "There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts," doesn't mean she is correct. There are facts and, just because someone abuses them, that doesn't give anyone else the right to do so as well. Actually, it means that it means the rest of us have to be more careful to stick to facts.
The disturbing truth is that he did not automatically rule out a database for Muslims, which, given the nature of the US Constitution, basic human rights, and common decency, he should have done without hesitation. He left the door open and/or outright endorsed the idea, depending upon how you read the context of his comments. That leaves the question open which means that we, as citizens have the right and duty to speak up for constitutional rights.
This is not a "left wing" or "main stream" media exaggeration. These are Trumps own words. Since some of the people he has picked for positions of power and influence have a history of racist and European supremacist views (again not "left wing media" distortion, but their own words, well documented), this becomes a greater concern.
It doesn't matter what Trump said as long as we can be offended by what the media and far left says he said.
Except, of course, that he actually did say many offending things. We don't need a far left media to tell us that. We just need to look at his Twitter rants and watch his unedited public speeches.
Sure, it's an appalling idea, but can we wait until it's an actual plan before pouring out the vitriol?
There is no need to see an "actual plan." The idea is, as you say, appalling. There's no reason to look beyond that.
The question to the tech companies about their willingness to get involved in such a fascist endeavor, however, is legitimate. Given the political climate, the increase in hate crimes, and the appalling comments made by Trump and some of those he is placing in positions of power and influence, we should know where people stand.
Considering how easy it is to put together such a database and integrate it with current watch lists, I wouldn't be surprised if the NSA and/or FBI already had such a list. Not that ethnicity/religion lists/tags would necessarily be limited to Muslims. Neither organization has a reputation of restraint where data collection is concerned.
The real question for government/corps is are they willing to be part of the implementation of watching people on such lists? The answer, so far, tends to leans to a "Yes" in too many cases.
The question for the rest of us is would we use our own skills, if paid well enough, to help implement watching/restricting people based on religion? History tells us that enough of us will.
The follow up question then becomes: Are we willing to speak out against such things? Here history shows a mixed record. Sometimes enough people do; too often, enough people don't.
Here on/. and elsewhere it seems that anyone who stands up for constitutional rights is labeled as a "leftists" or "liberal" as if those are terrible things to be. Our founding fathers were leftists and liberals. They insisted on basic human rights, limits on government interference in daily affairs of private individuals, regulation of trade and commerce for the benefit of society, the role of government to actively promote health, education, justice for everyone (except slaves--a compromise which we've come to regret), and freedom of speech and religious practice. Muslims fought on the side of liberty in Revolutionary war, and Washington publicly voiced his willingness to employ anyone, regardless of religion, including Muslims, in this fight.
Those who hold to these values are part of the true American culture and legacy. Those that would disrupt of pervert it for there own ends or would use technology to violate those principles are the ones tearing this country apart. A European, pseudo-Christian background doesn't lend credence or weight to their xenophobia. In fact, American's revolution was a rejection of just very those dangers of imperialism and religious domination of society.
Because of all this, we have a right and duty to pointedly ask people and corporations if they are actively, or even passively, complicit in these same "hypotheticals" that have been voiced by those soon to assume positions of great power.
4) Is it better to have a paper about a data set or the actual data set? Is it better to have a paper about a research tool or the actual research tool? Judge researchers based on the data and analysis tools they release, which is far more of a contribution to science.
Occasionally, the other four points you make do happen, but this solution doesn't work any better than peer reviewing because there would still be, in your own words, "incentives to withhold data that might be contradictory to a hypothesis or that they can't explain yet." If recorded conferences (your point #3) were the standard instead of papers, the same corruptions in the process would (and do) plague the conferences.
Removing "nature" from the list of variables would probably eventually be cost effective. Vertical farming and other indoor, controlled techniques show promise though some ideas might not scale well. Still, that seems to be the trend. Potentially, it can solve a host of problems such as water and fertilizer usage as well as reducing the need for intensive labor. We're not there yet, but the economic benefits will probably make outdoor farming as we know it obsolete.
Covering entire orchards seems like a huge expense and may take longer, but water, pests, frost, and other problems are expensive to manage. Perhaps there are ways to get more yield with fewer trees if conditions can be better controlled.
Secret to us, but not secret to other AIs. Execution of any coup is highly dependent on rapid, secure communications. Now that we know the AIs are laying the groundwork, what are going to do about it?
The authors make a point of the fact that they are presenting nothing new with the idea of using speakers as microphones. It also appears that the switches to reverse any input/output are easily manipulated. It doesn't appear there is anything especially new about the article except to point out how easy it is to snoop and how clear the victim's voice is when recorded through speakers.
The paper also quotes from a declassified 2000 NSA document:
In addition to being a possible fortuitous conductor of TEMPEST emanations, the speakers in paging, intercom and public address systems can act as microphones and retransmit classified audio discussions out of the controlled area via the signal line distribution. This microphonic problem could also allow audio from higher classified areas to be heard from speakers in lesser classified areas. Ideally. Such systems should not be used. Where deemed vital, the following precautions should be taken in full or in part to lessen the risk of the system becoming an escape medium for NSA.
If the NSA's concerned about people being able to listen to them through paging, intercom, and public address systems (like those in grocery stores and office buildings) then it seems unlikely that they would fail to use these systems to listen in to our conversations. Having PC speakers sitting a few feet away from your voices as you have confidential conversations, or, ahem, "conversations," with coworkers just makes it that much easier for NSA or someone else to listen in with clarity.
They make it sound like the brain is just made up of several million coat hangers!
The real problem is that when you brain tries to throw them out, they come back as safety pins (find and read Hugo Awarded short story Or All the Sea with Oysters by Avram Davidson).
Slashdot Mirror
Without lectures, how will I get any sleep? All the rest of the time is taken up with important activities.
But will they have defocused temporal perception like the rest of the elevators in the galaxy?
Most of the comments so far appear to be anecdotal. What happened to actually applying experimental science? Chiropractors should not have a problem with this if what they do actually works. Generally, I have found (in my unscientific, non-random sampling) that chiropractors and their devotees view the whole thing more like a religion. When the idea of scientific verification is brought into the discussion, the response is to attack the legitimacy of scientific research. Every big lie contains some truth. There is too many faulty medical research studies published, so some criticism is valid. In the main, however, medical science has been advanced by a lot of solid basic and applied research.
Since there is not much financial reward in research that debunks the chiropractic religion, and since there is strong financial incentive for the chiropractic priests to continue, I doubt that we will see much reliable, well done studies on their methods and results any time soon.
... people writing software who don't know how it is going to be used cannot conceivably be held liable and more than Sir Issac Newton's estate could be held liable for a mishap on the space shuttle.
If I drop a plugged in, turned on, toaster into a bathtub with someone in it, I am held liable if they die, not the toaster manufacturer. This is because the toaster came with a warning not to do such a thing. If this same toaster (before the terrible bathtub incident) catches on fire and burns my house down while toasting bread, then I can sue the manufacturer. In this case, I am using the toaster for its intended purpose when the mishap occurred.
To say that the software developer cannot know or cannot define how the software will be used is shirking responsibility to customers and the general public. Right now, the software industry is getting away with it. The public will not indefinitely allow us this failure to take responsibility for the products we develop. Those seemingly silly, common sense warnings that come with the toaster are the result of lawsuits and regulations because the public used the toaster in other ways than was intended. People suffered then sued. This means that toasters cost more money. On the plus side, we have (generally) working toasters that do what they are supposed to do without shorting out our electrical circuits or burning our houses down. There will always be exceptions.
Countries that do not have liable laws that protect their citizens and/or whose government does not adequately regulate or enforce safety tend to produce inferior and dangerous products. This is one reason people in some places will pay more for several American products--they tend to be more reliable and safer because our legal system and government force US manufacturers to meet higher standards. This is not what is happening in the software industry. Countries that force higher standards on software used within that country will attract developers who are able to meet the demands of that market. That superior product will eventually be in demand elsewhere.
There is a lot of insecure, crappy software out there that threatens to do much worse than burn individual houses down. Software developers will have to conceive of how their software will be used; they will have to define those uses; and they will need to clearly communicate those uses to the end users in easy to understand language. Eventually, the public will require these things through lawsuits and government regulation. In the long run, it will be good for the software industry and capable developers.
The profit margin is pretty thin for many devices and the software to run them, and the lifetime of a device or software is likewise very short. Security is about the last thing on their minds. Milking whatever profit can be had out of product A while Product B is getting ready for release is a problem.
This is true, but mainly because the public is not willing to pay for the value offered. We want our software to be amazing, we want it now, and we don't really want to pay for it. Then we complain when corners are cut (security is just one area). This is not a sustainable model.
The public will pay more if they must. The value of many products far exceed the costs. Financial pressures of security liability would force the production of more secure products. This will drive up the price, but the public will pay for it if the product is truly useful. Those incompetent developers that cannot compete because they cannot create secure enough products will fail, giving more room for the competent to flourish.
Liability for general purpose computing is not going to happen. It would make software way more expensive...
Issues of liability vs cost are determined by different factors, people, and institutions. There are a lot of variables in play. There is not one entity who decides, "Perhaps software should assume greater liability for security, but, nah, then it would be too expensive."
Security liability is determined by people suing and winning money for damages caused by insecure software. This will increase costs which will hurt free software, and small developers. For the competent few, this will be a bad thing. For everyone else that has to deal with the crap put out both by large and small groups of developers, this will be a good thing in the long run.
Now ELUAs essentially say, "we are not responsible for damage, data loss, financial loss, or other bad things that happen to you or our customers when you use our buggy, insecure, and poorly designed product that doesn't actually do all we said it does." This is ridiculous, but the uneducated consumer is not putting enough market pressure on the software industry to force better practices. In the long run, this hurts the industry because there is not enough disincentive for the incompetent to get out of the way. Thus, we have to put up with too many sloppy coders, unrealistic schedules, clueless managers, and poor design concepts.
Yes, adding the possibility of being sued for insecure software will make it more expensive. Yes, it will make it harder for freeware, adware, and small developers to compete. Yes, in a minority of cases, this is a loss, but as the majority of inferior developers and their products will be unable to afford the liability of law suits, it will open up more opportunities for the responsible and capable.
People with this mass amount of data should have better protocols for data exchange of authorized parties (obviously).
People should not have vast amounts of data. Period.
It might be because nice people tend to lose patience and go away, so that the forums have nothing but griefers left. Lots of forums are completely toxic in this regard, and Slashdot has fallen prey to this as well. Post a non-insulting position about something that doesn't jibe with the group-think and you'll get nothing but insults. No thought put into it, almost a boiler-plate "you're really stupid" or "you're a racist". Try to contribute to Slashdot by submitting articles, and the toxic users will mod them as spam and get your account locked.
What's left is the toxic residue.
In general, people who remain active in forums do so because either (1) they are extremely determined, or (2) have nothing better to do.
I post here from time to time because I remember when /. was useful, and I remain too idealistic.
A couple of months ago, I was out with some of a client's IT people. One of them started boasting that in his down time he likes to log on to various forums (including /.) and "fuck with the assholes there." There was no agenda. His goal was to just mess up the forum. Over the years, I've come to believe that there is a whole culture that revolves around this philosophy. Some people have actually figured out how to make money off of it, hiring themselves out as trolls. It is so easy to do, and it gives an outlet for venting frustration by angry, incompetent people with nothing better in their miserable lives.
Bottom line though: the quality of the forum depends upon the quality of moderation. Since the /. moderation has steadily eroded over the years, I expect this post will be modded down to a -1 and no one will read it.
... is futile.
There was a time that some of felt we weren't doing anything worthwhile unless the FBI had a file on us. We were young and stupid, but that didn't make us wrong.
Perhaps I can catch me some trolls. All I have to do is snooker them into going to the link and installing the ransomware on their machine. I'll just call it "a personal message from Putin on how you can help make Russia Great Again."
Of all the things wrong with web site design, the spacebar scrolling function is what bothers you? Here's what you do:
1) Install and use Firefox.
2) Tap "Enter Reader View" at the end of the URL box.
3) Use the spacebar to scroll pages if that is what turns you on.
In any case, you'll get rid of all the floating crap that gets in the way of actually reading the article. That stuff is just as bad as the blinking text (I mean the text literally blinked--not kidding) from the 90s.
If Reader View doesn't work on the particular website you care about, then just close it out and go to another. Except for a few cases where organizations do actual journalism, everyone just says pretty much just copies each other.
In large part, Alexander blamed the press for propagating an image of the NSA that causes people to believe they are being spied on at all times by the U.S. government regardless of their independent actions.... "What really bothers me is that the people of NSA, these folks who take paltry government salaries to protect this nation, are made to look like they are doing something wrong," the former NSA Director added.
A lot of people think they are doing something wrong, i.e. spying on its own people without warrant or oversight. If the NSA wants to change the image, then they out to change their actions instead of blaming other people for portraying them as they actually are.
Obviously, a lot of people don't care so much about their privacy, but they are worried about the potential abuse of our own government, or uncontrolled elements/people within or working fort that government, engaged in such behavior. If the NSA doesn't like that, then they ought to stop their whining and submit themselves to better oversight.
With an incoming President that admires Putin and is surrounding himself with like-minded people, the chances of anyone putting the breaks on this sort of outrageous behavior are slim.
I see this morning Trump nominated a medical doctor who thinks dietary supplements can cure cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis to be the next Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Same doctor who apparently believes that urban development means taking away all support and let people somehow flounder their way to success on their own, like his own self deluded narrative. He seems to have forgotten that his own mother depended upon that same help just so that he could eat. It was a policy that worked well for centuries in cities all across the world--except for the vast numbers that were homeless, starved, and sick, of course. I guess some doctors are above the need to concern themselves with history, science, experience, or actual people.
Is Trump supposed to deny or rule out everything that is dreamed up by his detractors? I think he's smart not to play that game.
Of course he shouldn't respond to every silly question out there. That would be a waste of time. If people are going to ask him stupid, outlandish questions, then he should ignore those questions like most sane people would.
Except, in this case, as in far too many other cases, the question was not outlandish based on what he had already said about the need to keep a watch on all Muslims. He is the one that invited the question based on what he said in his many speeches. The question didn't come out of nowhere. Also, when asked, he did not ignore the question. Instead his answers not only left the question open, he implied that he might be actually considering a database on all Muslims. Since the President Elect left the question open, and since his answers could easily be taken as contrary to the constitution that he will soon be swearing to uphold. then we have a right and duty to keep asking these questions until he definitively closes the issue. Theoretically, all he has to do is say that he won't institute such a database. So far, I can find no evidence that he has done this.
Of course, now that he's been purposefully vague about the issue, many people will have trouble believing him at this point, especially given his troublesome record of truthfulness. We will have to watch what he does.
The problem is that if such a database were implemented (if it is not already in place) then it will be done in secret. We can watch, but we will not be able to actually see what is going on unless it is leaked. We have already seen that our government agencies are willing to violate our privacy and rights. Where will that violation stop? What is the line they will not cross and who will be there to make sure they don't cross it if not the President who authorizes such measures?
Since those questions can't be answered by us mere mortals, the next question then becomes: will our tech sector aid in creating/maintaining such a database. It is a question for companies and individuals alike. If we are powerless to properly monitor and regulate our own government, then all we have left is peer pressure and appeals to conscience to do what is right.
The initiative grows out of a bill authored in March by Portman and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.,
People so often forget that legal measures that seek to correct the error of the "other guy's" ways, will eventually be used against them. Hence, a constitution and form of government designed to protect people against nonsense like this. Many of the framers were quite concerned about an uneducated public with a right to vote taking the country in dangerous directions just because they didn't know any batter. In fact, William Penn wrote about this more than a century before the Continental Congress ratified the Constitution. By "uneducated," they did not mean illiterate. They were concerned about a society of people who were not sufficiently versed in the historical and political realities of the their decisions nor were trained in critical, analytical, and basic logic.
The solution is not censorship or control of what we read. The solution is to educate our citizens on how to dig for facts, to think for themselves, and to create an environment that makes them want to do it.
I've been accused of being an "elitist" for these views. I think that the true elitists are those who believe that the investment is not worthwhile because people are just not up to the task. I disagree. I've worked with young children of many different backgrounds. In general, the desire to learn, to understand, to discover meaning, to solve problems are all there. We say that our culture values such virtues, but then we poorly fund an educational system designed to knock those basic human drives out of our children as soon as possible.
After decades of these policies, it is little wonder that we find ourselves in political and economic downward spirals.
The Republican Climate Change deniers are passing a law regarding monitoring truth in news? These are the same guys that has recently earned headlines like House Science Committee Tweets Climate-Change Denying Breitbart Article.
The are giving the power to "enforce" what is fake to an incoming president with about 70% of his statements rated from "mostly false" to "pants on fire" ( Donald Trump's file)?
I started to write a novel around this concept a decade ago. My friends urged me to abandon the idea was it was too far fetched. "Not believable," they said. "Would never happen," they argued.
I agreed that it was a silly idea.
Damn.
Does that give license to be inaccurate about this and other things [he said]?
No. Just because Hughes, defending Trump's lies, openly declared that, "There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts," doesn't mean she is correct. There are facts and, just because someone abuses them, that doesn't give anyone else the right to do so as well. Actually, it means that it means the rest of us have to be more careful to stick to facts.
However, Trump did sail uncomfortably close to the wind on this one. See In Context: Donald Trump's comments on a database of American Muslims from Politifact.
The disturbing truth is that he did not automatically rule out a database for Muslims, which, given the nature of the US Constitution, basic human rights, and common decency, he should have done without hesitation. He left the door open and/or outright endorsed the idea, depending upon how you read the context of his comments. That leaves the question open which means that we, as citizens have the right and duty to speak up for constitutional rights.
This is not a "left wing" or "main stream" media exaggeration. These are Trumps own words. Since some of the people he has picked for positions of power and influence have a history of racist and European supremacist views (again not "left wing media" distortion, but their own words, well documented), this becomes a greater concern.
It doesn't matter what Trump said as long as we can be offended by what the media and far left says he said.
Except, of course, that he actually did say many offending things. We don't need a far left media to tell us that. We just need to look at his Twitter rants and watch his unedited public speeches.
Sure, it's an appalling idea, but can we wait until it's an actual plan before pouring out the vitriol?
There is no need to see an "actual plan." The idea is, as you say, appalling. There's no reason to look beyond that.
The question to the tech companies about their willingness to get involved in such a fascist endeavor, however, is legitimate. Given the political climate, the increase in hate crimes, and the appalling comments made by Trump and some of those he is placing in positions of power and influence, we should know where people stand.
Considering how easy it is to put together such a database and integrate it with current watch lists, I wouldn't be surprised if the NSA and/or FBI already had such a list. Not that ethnicity/religion lists/tags would necessarily be limited to Muslims. Neither organization has a reputation of restraint where data collection is concerned.
The real question for government/corps is are they willing to be part of the implementation of watching people on such lists? The answer, so far, tends to leans to a "Yes" in too many cases.
The question for the rest of us is would we use our own skills, if paid well enough, to help implement watching/restricting people based on religion? History tells us that enough of us will.
The follow up question then becomes: Are we willing to speak out against such things? Here history shows a mixed record. Sometimes enough people do; too often, enough people don't.
Here on /. and elsewhere it seems that anyone who stands up for constitutional rights is labeled as a "leftists" or "liberal" as if those are terrible things to be. Our founding fathers were leftists and liberals. They insisted on basic human rights, limits on government interference in daily affairs of private individuals, regulation of trade and commerce for the benefit of society, the role of government to actively promote health, education, justice for everyone (except slaves--a compromise which we've come to regret), and freedom of speech and religious practice. Muslims fought on the side of liberty in Revolutionary war, and Washington publicly voiced his willingness to employ anyone, regardless of religion, including Muslims, in this fight.
Those who hold to these values are part of the true American culture and legacy. Those that would disrupt of pervert it for there own ends or would use technology to violate those principles are the ones tearing this country apart. A European, pseudo-Christian background doesn't lend credence or weight to their xenophobia. In fact, American's revolution was a rejection of just very those dangers of imperialism and religious domination of society.
Because of all this, we have a right and duty to pointedly ask people and corporations if they are actively, or even passively, complicit in these same "hypotheticals" that have been voiced by those soon to assume positions of great power.
4) Is it better to have a paper about a data set or the actual data set? Is it better to have a paper about a research tool or the actual research tool? Judge researchers based on the data and analysis tools they release, which is far more of a contribution to science.
Occasionally, the other four points you make do happen, but this solution doesn't work any better than peer reviewing because there would still be, in your own words, "incentives to withhold data that might be contradictory to a hypothesis or that they can't explain yet." If recorded conferences (your point #3) were the standard instead of papers, the same corruptions in the process would (and do) plague the conferences.
Removing "nature" from the list of variables would probably eventually be cost effective. Vertical farming and other indoor, controlled techniques show promise though some ideas might not scale well. Still, that seems to be the trend. Potentially, it can solve a host of problems such as water and fertilizer usage as well as reducing the need for intensive labor. We're not there yet, but the economic benefits will probably make outdoor farming as we know it obsolete.
Covering entire orchards seems like a huge expense and may take longer, but water, pests, frost, and other problems are expensive to manage. Perhaps there are ways to get more yield with fewer trees if conditions can be better controlled.
if it's so secret, then no comms
Secret to us, but not secret to other AIs. Execution of any coup is highly dependent on rapid, secure communications. Now that we know the AIs are laying the groundwork, what are going to do about it?
The authors make a point of the fact that they are presenting nothing new with the idea of using speakers as microphones. It also appears that the switches to reverse any input/output are easily manipulated. It doesn't appear there is anything especially new about the article except to point out how easy it is to snoop and how clear the victim's voice is when recorded through speakers.
The paper also quotes from a declassified 2000 NSA document:
In addition to being a possible fortuitous conductor of TEMPEST emanations, the speakers in paging, intercom and public address systems can act as microphones and retransmit classified audio discussions out of the controlled area via the signal line distribution. This microphonic problem could also allow audio from higher classified areas to be heard from speakers in lesser classified areas. Ideally. Such systems should not be used. Where deemed vital, the following precautions should be taken in full or in part to lessen the risk of the system becoming an escape medium for NSA.
If the NSA's concerned about people being able to listen to them through paging, intercom, and public address systems (like those in grocery stores and office buildings) then it seems unlikely that they would fail to use these systems to listen in to our conversations. Having PC speakers sitting a few feet away from your voices as you have confidential conversations, or, ahem, "conversations," with coworkers just makes it that much easier for NSA or someone else to listen in with clarity.
They make it sound like the brain is just made up of several million coat hangers!
The real problem is that when you brain tries to throw them out, they come back as safety pins (find and read Hugo Awarded short story Or All the Sea with Oysters by Avram Davidson).