"One solution to the sex offender registry is MORE information"
Look, if we don't want these people to be able to live then we should change the punishment to be one that that handles them permanently in some way. But what we should not do is set a lighter punishment because we don't want the hassle and expense and then create lists and witch hunts to haunt people who have already taken their punishment and are trying to move on with their lives.
"Perhaps we should distinguish between these."
Or we could go back to the original logic of having been punished erasing the crime and people having a second chance. Our parental instincts make us want to protect children more strongly than everyone else but that is a purely emotional reaction and if we don't stop building policy around it people will just continue to manipulate us with it again and again. Some of things we okay because we can't bear the idea of the possibility of a child being harmed actually allow for a lot of systemic small evils that may add up to dramatically more harm overall than a handful of incidents no matter how tragic. Sometimes we lose sight of that.
"One guy may be on the list for raping a four year old. Another guy may be on it for urinating in a public park."
And even that is pretending being found guilty means actually being guilty. As an adult I don't really run into police very often, at least not in that kind of encounter but as a young punk teenager my experience was that being arrested and punished, especially as part of a plea bargain, is a thing which happens with great frequency to innocent people or people who were present but not the real perpetrator. Police only tend to look beyond the obvious if they think someone is pulling something, they rarely look beyond the obvious on behalf of the innocent.
But more information won't help, people who read the why are rare and many places will simply have policies against being on the list without making special exceptions to consider the rationale.
I am a parent and when an alert popped up just two days ago I couldn't help but look at it despite having always disagreed with the entire concept of making publicly available those who have already served sentences. I checked out the address and it turned out to be a hotel... I then checked other listed offenders and found clusters around hotels. I'd already lifted by phone to push out to next door (where I know a few public officials are active) the idea of banning sex offenders from registering addresses at hotels which is a local ordinance in some places before I caught myself. It is an easy trap to fall into.
Your comment would have actually served a useful function if you'd stated the mix-up "Etherium Classic" vs "Etherium" instead of implying it was a lie.
"If the government doesn't own half the servers, they don't control the blockchain."
Which is of great comfort to those who don't trust your government, such as other governments. Why would they need to control the blockchain? They don't need to control the block chain, they only need to ensure nobody else controls the block chain. It is less about having control of the library of congress, who can view it, and who can shelve books there and more about making sure nobody can ever control it or burn it down. You can still pick the books and authors you trust. The bitcoin assembly, including the blockchain, combines to prevent counterfeiting so effectively it can replace money and aside from the 51% issue (which is a function of the design and not so much a bug) the framework has stood up to all attempts to compromise it to date even with institutional level money flying around. it can certainly be adapted to be public records, books, or documents rather than purely numeric transactions.
Indeed, the government can't burn the books or the records, they can issue a new document to revoke a previous entry or put some expiration tag on it but the record remains where it can be scrutinized later. You can also detect if someone else is at risk of gaining 51%, allowing you to add more power to block their effort.
"Your solution opens up the ability to own more servers than the government and tell the government what is real or not."
No it doesn't, nothing prevents the government from publishing a public key and signing documents with it to be verified. They can distribute that public key through other methods and it can be verified by other parties who can in turn confirm it on said blockchain with their own signed messages. The government verifying the documents isn't an issue, they can digitally watermark as they choose. It is third parties who need to be able to verify the documents and decide if they trust them.
Look at this another way, if there were degrees your international corporation no longer needs an apostle on international degrees or even to ask you for one to verify. This not only speeds things up and eliminates the cost to do it, it also eliminates the overhead of doing it on the embassy and any resources required for verification from the university.
"I'm fascinated that someone thinks there is such a thing as "authorized spam", as opposed to "unauthorized spam"."
Oh, are you one of those who thinks the authorized sort isn't spam? If I'm a business who pays t-mobile to let me blast their customers is that not still spam to their users? If I've signed up for texts about the latest sales from company x would you still classify that as spam?
By my account both are spam and are authorized or unauthorized from the perspectives of either t-mobile or the user though one doesn't necessarily agree with the other. Some guy in china selling Viagra is likely viewed as unauthorized by both.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that carriers should transit everything, with payment only coming from users, by default while expending effort to empower users to effectively block things. If implemented well they can block the carrier transiting the spam (to them) and/or block at their device at the users discretion with the carrier level block carrying the added benefit of alleviating load on their infrastructure. With a good API the user could employee third party smart tools to help with this task.
The last party who should have any discretion about what is blocked is the carrier let alone open support to build revenue streams based on abusing that sort of discretion.
Thousands of them, globally distributed, across third parties in a way that isn't predictable or centrally vulnerable. Which isn't specific to "blockchain" no but is part of the bitcoin decentralized package.
Perhaps not as implemented here but ultimately the advantage is that other parties decide who they trust or not, not merely your own government. The records are highly resilient and publicly available without need to contact any government official or occupy their time making a request. The data is distributed, the processing is distributed. But if governments are going to use public blockchains they need to be mining on them to ensure nobody can reach 51% as a matter of national security.
"Titan Seal said the Washoe County digital marriage certificate program uses the Ethereum blockchain because it has computing power that makes it hard to hack"
Ethereum is the major blockchain just successfully hit by 51% attacks.
I'm not opposed to a public records blockchain, it has integrity, is publicly accessible and verifiable without needing staff to handle requests, and will theoretically be cheaply and easily replicated without spending tax dollars. That said, if there is going to be one it should be a significant endevour with government mining ensuring nobody can ever reach 51%.
"The init/upstart process was easy enough to understand but clinky and as full of problems as systemd really."
No, it really wasn't. You are confusing user error with the actual utilities which were rock solid. There was some functionality missing but alternatives existed, they largely weren't widely adopted because that functionality just didn't offer enough benefit to be worth it.
The problem with systemd is that it was a solution that was built and broke all *nix design philosophy. Every layer of complexity added to a framework adds an order of magnitude of probability for error and trades flexibility for tight integration. If a bug does come up it will be fixed almost immediately with small and efficient utilities because you aren't debugging a complex behemoth you are debugging a tiny and simple application.
I do not see any blanket rules of that sort on the page just some offenses. But as a father and protective parent, I still have to acknowledge giving up the sex offender registry to get rid of the massive recidivism caused by effectively making offenders unemployable in any sort of real job after they get out is probably a fair trade off. You do the time, you are no longer guilty of the crime.
Those things are matters of criminal record and have nothing to do with tech companies stealing data that rightfully belongs to users and monetizing it.
Oh I support the idea we should take an honest look at ourselves and adjust our behavior but I don't agree that we should be looking at each others behavior. Society is also ruthless and unforgiving, it will always be true that many things are indefensible to those who weren't there. The only saving grace is that society has a short memory. Technology is transforming a thankfully short memory into an eternal one.
"I automate tasks, I've eliminated or changed a lot of tasks. Elimination of jobs is a management decision. Automating tasks is what I do. The vast majority of employees I've worked with appreciated me eliminating or reducing the burden of the tasks in question."
Yes that is my experience as well both the workers reaction and the management decision. In my experience you usually automate a piece at a time here and there and it ultimately culminates and people get happier as their jobs get easier, clients get happier as response times get faster and easier. However you can't just pretend that needing less hands doesn't lead to the management decision and that the workers are thinking in terms of having an easier job not losing their job at some point.
But only from the deli. A lot of people don't even seem to know there is decent american cheese and think that kraft crap and clones are the only option.
These companies combine to form a virtual monopoly. A law that requires them to inform or any major industry to today to simply inform is just pissing in the wind. The practice needs outlawed and users data needs to be ruled their own property.
Slashdot Mirror
"One solution to the sex offender registry is MORE information"
Look, if we don't want these people to be able to live then we should change the punishment to be one that that handles them permanently in some way. But what we should not do is set a lighter punishment because we don't want the hassle and expense and then create lists and witch hunts to haunt people who have already taken their punishment and are trying to move on with their lives.
"Perhaps we should distinguish between these."
Or we could go back to the original logic of having been punished erasing the crime and people having a second chance. Our parental instincts make us want to protect children more strongly than everyone else but that is a purely emotional reaction and if we don't stop building policy around it people will just continue to manipulate us with it again and again. Some of things we okay because we can't bear the idea of the possibility of a child being harmed actually allow for a lot of systemic small evils that may add up to dramatically more harm overall than a handful of incidents no matter how tragic. Sometimes we lose sight of that.
"One guy may be on the list for raping a four year old. Another guy may be on it for urinating in a public park."
And even that is pretending being found guilty means actually being guilty. As an adult I don't really run into police very often, at least not in that kind of encounter but as a young punk teenager my experience was that being arrested and punished, especially as part of a plea bargain, is a thing which happens with great frequency to innocent people or people who were present but not the real perpetrator. Police only tend to look beyond the obvious if they think someone is pulling something, they rarely look beyond the obvious on behalf of the innocent.
But more information won't help, people who read the why are rare and many places will simply have policies against being on the list without making special exceptions to consider the rationale.
I am a parent and when an alert popped up just two days ago I couldn't help but look at it despite having always disagreed with the entire concept of making publicly available those who have already served sentences. I checked out the address and it turned out to be a hotel... I then checked other listed offenders and found clusters around hotels. I'd already lifted by phone to push out to next door (where I know a few public officials are active) the idea of banning sex offenders from registering addresses at hotels which is a local ordinance in some places before I caught myself. It is an easy trap to fall into.
Your comment would have actually served a useful function if you'd stated the mix-up "Etherium Classic" vs "Etherium" instead of implying it was a lie.
No he is right and I was incorrect. "Etherium Classic" was hit and not "Etherium", what makes no sense is that coinbase carried it.
"If the government doesn't own half the servers, they don't control the blockchain."
Which is of great comfort to those who don't trust your government, such as other governments. Why would they need to control the blockchain? They don't need to control the block chain, they only need to ensure nobody else controls the block chain. It is less about having control of the library of congress, who can view it, and who can shelve books there and more about making sure nobody can ever control it or burn it down. You can still pick the books and authors you trust. The bitcoin assembly, including the blockchain, combines to prevent counterfeiting so effectively it can replace money and aside from the 51% issue (which is a function of the design and not so much a bug) the framework has stood up to all attempts to compromise it to date even with institutional level money flying around. it can certainly be adapted to be public records, books, or documents rather than purely numeric transactions.
Indeed, the government can't burn the books or the records, they can issue a new document to revoke a previous entry or put some expiration tag on it but the record remains where it can be scrutinized later. You can also detect if someone else is at risk of gaining 51%, allowing you to add more power to block their effort.
"Your solution opens up the ability to own more servers than the government and tell the government what is real or not."
No it doesn't, nothing prevents the government from publishing a public key and signing documents with it to be verified. They can distribute that public key through other methods and it can be verified by other parties who can in turn confirm it on said blockchain with their own signed messages. The government verifying the documents isn't an issue, they can digitally watermark as they choose. It is third parties who need to be able to verify the documents and decide if they trust them.
Look at this another way, if there were degrees your international corporation no longer needs an apostle on international degrees or even to ask you for one to verify. This not only speeds things up and eliminates the cost to do it, it also eliminates the overhead of doing it on the embassy and any resources required for verification from the university.
"I'm fascinated that someone thinks there is such a thing as "authorized spam", as opposed to "unauthorized spam"."
Oh, are you one of those who thinks the authorized sort isn't spam? If I'm a business who pays t-mobile to let me blast their customers is that not still spam to their users? If I've signed up for texts about the latest sales from company x would you still classify that as spam?
By my account both are spam and are authorized or unauthorized from the perspectives of either t-mobile or the user though one doesn't necessarily agree with the other. Some guy in china selling Viagra is likely viewed as unauthorized by both.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that carriers should transit everything, with payment only coming from users, by default while expending effort to empower users to effectively block things. If implemented well they can block the carrier transiting the spam (to them) and/or block at their device at the users discretion with the carrier level block carrying the added benefit of alleviating load on their infrastructure. With a good API the user could employee third party smart tools to help with this task.
The last party who should have any discretion about what is blocked is the carrier let alone open support to build revenue streams based on abusing that sort of discretion.
Seems like a feature that is all about unauthorized spam and not spam in general.
Thousands of them, globally distributed, across third parties in a way that isn't predictable or centrally vulnerable. Which isn't specific to "blockchain" no but is part of the bitcoin decentralized package.
Perhaps not as implemented here but ultimately the advantage is that other parties decide who they trust or not, not merely your own government. The records are highly resilient and publicly available without need to contact any government official or occupy their time making a request. The data is distributed, the processing is distributed. But if governments are going to use public blockchains they need to be mining on them to ensure nobody can reach 51% as a matter of national security.
"Titan Seal said the Washoe County digital marriage certificate program uses the Ethereum blockchain because it has computing power that makes it hard to hack"
Ethereum is the major blockchain just successfully hit by 51% attacks.
I'm not opposed to a public records blockchain, it has integrity, is publicly accessible and verifiable without needing staff to handle requests, and will theoretically be cheaply and easily replicated without spending tax dollars. That said, if there is going to be one it should be a significant endevour with government mining ensuring nobody can ever reach 51%.
It is also highly resilient. City hall burns down or the russians invade and destroy all county offices, there will still be a record you were born.
^ this
"The init/upstart process was easy enough to understand but clinky and as full of problems as systemd really."
No, it really wasn't. You are confusing user error with the actual utilities which were rock solid. There was some functionality missing but alternatives existed, they largely weren't widely adopted because that functionality just didn't offer enough benefit to be worth it.
The problem with systemd is that it was a solution that was built and broke all *nix design philosophy. Every layer of complexity added to a framework adds an order of magnitude of probability for error and trades flexibility for tight integration. If a bug does come up it will be fixed almost immediately with small and efficient utilities because you aren't debugging a complex behemoth you are debugging a tiny and simple application.
It's been at least a couple decades. Today, Linux is more widely used than literally anything else.
"niche operating system"
The 90's called and want this argument back.
Of course many bugs have been found and fixed in them over the decades.
Giant bloated executable where trim purpose built utilities and text should be used.
You can always just root the phone and sideload applications but by open I'm referring to code.
I do not see any blanket rules of that sort on the page just some offenses. But as a father and protective parent, I still have to acknowledge giving up the sex offender registry to get rid of the massive recidivism caused by effectively making offenders unemployable in any sort of real job after they get out is probably a fair trade off. You do the time, you are no longer guilty of the crime.
Those things are matters of criminal record and have nothing to do with tech companies stealing data that rightfully belongs to users and monetizing it.
There really isn't an alternative open platform.
Oh I support the idea we should take an honest look at ourselves and adjust our behavior but I don't agree that we should be looking at each others behavior. Society is also ruthless and unforgiving, it will always be true that many things are indefensible to those who weren't there. The only saving grace is that society has a short memory. Technology is transforming a thankfully short memory into an eternal one.
"I automate tasks, I've eliminated or changed a lot of tasks. Elimination of jobs is a management decision. Automating tasks is what I do.
The vast majority of employees I've worked with appreciated me eliminating or reducing the burden of the tasks in question."
Yes that is my experience as well both the workers reaction and the management decision. In my experience you usually automate a piece at a time here and there and it ultimately culminates and people get happier as their jobs get easier, clients get happier as response times get faster and easier. However you can't just pretend that needing less hands doesn't lead to the management decision and that the workers are thinking in terms of having an easier job not losing their job at some point.
But only from the deli. A lot of people don't even seem to know there is decent american cheese and think that kraft crap and clones are the only option.
"The ones losing their job due to automation are dumb people, factory workers, people pushing shelves. They truly desrve it."
Big myth, the people losing their jobs are tech workers and most of them automate themselves and their co-workers out of the job.
These companies combine to form a virtual monopoly. A law that requires them to inform or any major industry to today to simply inform is just pissing in the wind. The practice needs outlawed and users data needs to be ruled their own property.
My wife has one. They are just laptops with a touch screen.