First of all, all those guys are unionized (firemen, police, etc.) or close to it (army), so they have standard rates of pay. Each of those guys knows what everyone else makes. IT, on the other hand, seems to be more individualistic and market oriented.
The other thing I notice is that all those jobs involve the possibility of danger. With my job, the closest I come to 'danger' is tripping over a power bar. You'd be surprised at how interested you are at getting to know your colleagues when you depend on them for your life.:)
It's not fair to say that Freenet "takes this concept to another level." They're two different concepts. Freenet allows people to publish and view information anonymously, and the information that is published through Freenet has a high level of resistance to censorship. Which is really, really cool. On the other hand, you can't send private email with Freenet, you can't telnet anonymously, and you can't post anonymously to newsgroups. These are things that Freedom can do, that Freenet can't.
Also, it's misleading to state that control of ZKS servers is centralised. The Freedom Network relies on the concept of distributed trust, meaning that no single Freedom server has the ability to compromise the identity of a pseudonym.
ZKS runs some of the servers on the network, but the majority are owned and operated by companies not affiliated with Zero-Knowledge. Since selection of the servers is placed in the hands of the end user, it becomes difficult for multiple servers to work together to compromise the identity of a user.
I see a lot of people are a little confused about the implications of this. First, realise that Zero-Knowledge is a *privacy* company. By implication, they do some security stuff as well, but mainly they do privacy. A lot of people make fun of the name, but it comes from the fact their privacy network is designed so that even they can't link the real identity of their users to the pseudonymous identities the software allows them to create. And that sort of explains why they released the linux source. They want to be able prove that there are no NSA backdoors, and that the product actually works the way they say it does.
Don't confuse Freedom with PGP. PGP will keep the contents of your messages a secret, but Freedom will also keep the origin of your communications a secret. In that respect, it's a little like a mixmaster remailer. Except it anonymises the http and telnet protocols as well. And it's much easier to use than the mixmaster remailer.:)
It's not a perfect system. One of the white papers on their site talks about the security vulnerabilities in the product. Another issue is performance. Performance is always traded for security, and that's the case here as well. I think that over time, things will get faster though.
Some people are complaining because it actually costs money to use. Well, the software itself is free. Anyone can download it. They are actually charging for people to access the network. Last time I checked, that's what every single service provider in the world does. (Except those free ISP companies, but they keep ending up in fuckedcompany.com.)
Make sure you're aware of any legal obligations you have under the DMCA. For example, what will you do if served with a take-down notice? This doesn't necessarily involve hiring expensive lawyers- much of the research can be done yourself, using the web.
One way to reduce the danger of a subpoena is to make sure you don't have the ability to compromise the identity of your users. Only keep log files that are required, don't require excessive user information during registration, and provide suggestions to your users about how to browse your site anonymously and pseudonymously.
A usage policy makes sense as well- it's only fair that users can understand the terms under which they participate in your site. I understand the need for an official "legal" policy, but personally I've always wanted to see more plain-english policies, where the rules are explained in easily understandable terms. Most of the time, reading an AUP is like trying to listen to Charlie Browns math teacher: WAH WAH WAH...
Ask yourself: what is JumpTV trying to do? Are they implementing a solution that will classify visitors according to political boundries with a 100% accuracy rate? Or, are they simply doing this to give the appearance of implementing such a solution, in order to avoid future liability?
Clearly in this situation, it's the latter. Tech companies often have to do lame things just to avoid liability, and this is one of those cases. The question is, will a court of law recognize the effort as sufficient? My guess is no, as the solution they offer can easily be circumvented (the animated flags on bordercontrol.com sure are pretty, though).
There is a private mail service in St.Petersburg you could try. The guy who runs it is an ex-pat from the States, and I was quite impressed with him when I was there several years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, all those guys are unionized (firemen, police, etc.) or close to it (army), so they have standard rates of pay. Each of those guys knows what everyone else makes. IT, on the other hand, seems to be more individualistic and market oriented.
:)
The other thing I notice is that all those jobs involve the possibility of danger. With my job, the closest I come to 'danger' is tripping over a power bar. You'd be surprised at how interested you are at getting to know your colleagues when you depend on them for your life.
Hi there,
It's not fair to say that Freenet "takes this concept to another level." They're two different concepts. Freenet allows people to publish and view information anonymously, and the information that is published through Freenet has a high level of resistance to censorship. Which is really, really cool. On the other hand, you can't send private email with Freenet, you can't telnet anonymously, and you can't post anonymously to newsgroups. These are things that Freedom can do, that Freenet can't.
Also, it's misleading to state that control of ZKS servers is centralised. The Freedom Network relies on the concept of distributed trust, meaning that no single Freedom server has the ability to compromise the identity of a pseudonym. ZKS runs some of the servers on the network, but the majority are owned and operated by companies not affiliated with Zero-Knowledge. Since selection of the servers is placed in the hands of the end user, it becomes difficult for multiple servers to work together to compromise the identity of a user.
I see a lot of people are a little confused about the implications of this. First, realise that Zero-Knowledge is a *privacy* company. By implication, they do some security stuff as well, but mainly they do privacy. A lot of people make fun of the name, but it comes from the fact their privacy network is designed so that even they can't link the real identity of their users to the pseudonymous identities the software allows them to create. And that sort of explains why they released the linux source. They want to be able prove that there are no NSA backdoors, and that the product actually works the way they say it does.
:)
Don't confuse Freedom with PGP. PGP will keep the contents of your messages a secret, but Freedom will also keep the origin of your communications a secret. In that respect, it's a little like a mixmaster remailer. Except it anonymises the http and telnet protocols as well. And it's much easier to use than the mixmaster remailer.
It's not a perfect system. One of the white papers on their site talks about the security vulnerabilities in the product. Another issue is performance. Performance is always traded for security, and that's the case here as well. I think that over time, things will get faster though.
Some people are complaining because it actually costs money to use. Well, the software itself is free. Anyone can download it. They are actually charging for people to access the network. Last time I checked, that's what every single service provider in the world does. (Except those free ISP companies, but they keep ending up in fuckedcompany.com.)
Make sure you're aware of any legal obligations you have under the DMCA. For example, what will you do if served with a take-down notice? This doesn't necessarily involve hiring expensive lawyers- much of the research can be done yourself, using the web.
One way to reduce the danger of a subpoena is to make sure you don't have the ability to compromise the identity of your users. Only keep log files that are required, don't require excessive user information during registration, and provide suggestions to your users about how to browse your site anonymously and pseudonymously.
A usage policy makes sense as well- it's only fair that users can understand the terms under which they participate in your site. I understand the need for an official "legal" policy, but personally I've always wanted to see more plain-english policies, where the rules are explained in easily understandable terms. Most of the time, reading an AUP is like trying to listen to Charlie Browns math teacher: WAH WAH WAH...
Ask yourself: what is JumpTV trying to do? Are they implementing a solution that will classify visitors according to political boundries with a 100% accuracy rate? Or, are they simply doing this to give the appearance of implementing such a solution, in order to avoid future liability?
Clearly in this situation, it's the latter. Tech companies often have to do lame things just to avoid liability, and this is one of those cases. The question is, will a court of law recognize the effort as sufficient? My guess is no, as the solution they offer can easily be circumvented (the animated flags on bordercontrol.com sure are pretty, though).
There is a private mail service in St.Petersburg you could try. The guy who runs it is an ex-pat from the States, and I was quite impressed with him when I was there several years ago.
http://www.westpost.ru
It will be expensive, but this is likely one of the only ways to get your package through.