"Law enforcement is in unanimous agreement that the widespread use of robust non-key recovery encryption ultimately will devastate our ability to fight crime and prevent terrorism. Uncrackable encryption will allow drug lords, spies, terrorists and even violent gangs to communicate about their crimes and their conspiracies with impunity. We will lose one of the few remaining vulnerabilities of the worst criminals and terrorists upon which law enforcement depends to successfully investigate and often prevent the worst crimes. For this reason, the law enforcement community is unanimous in calling for a balanced solution to this problem."
Getting at the philosophy of the time, they came from a society where a King declared that he was the true and proper ruler by divine providence and that his government was legitimate because he (as an agent of God) said so.
Divine right had been cast down centuries before by the Magna Carta, and George III was not a particularly powerful monarch. The many grievances expressed by the American colonies in the Declaration of Independence were in fact perpetrated by Parliament. Yes, an elective representative body was responsible for trampling the rights of the colonists. The members of the Continental Congresses knew this, and they also believed true power lay in the legislative branch. That's why the Bill of Rights says "Congress shall not..." rather than "government shall not..." Our courts and our society (so far) have decided that the Bill of Rights does indeed apply to all three branches of government and to the state governments.
So you are saying that whatever means that law enforcement uses is fine so long as the perpetrator is guilty?
Good thing you posted as an Anonymous Coward. Otherwise I might just be tempted to drive by your house, hop on to your open wireless node, and click on a few FBI-sponsored links.
Or maybe I should just backtrack your IP and hack in through your unpatched Windows box and start your machine trawling for more illegal images. And some movies and songs, too!
Email. Everyone uses it. Or some variation of it, such as SMS for the younger crowd.
Point out to your non-IT friends that sending an "email" is NOT like sending a "letter". It is like sending a "postcard". Any number of people you might not know can see the entire contents of your message along the way -- plus they can keep a copy of each and every one of those messages forever.
To take the analogy further, if they really want their "email" to be in an "envelope", use encryption!
Unless those crystals are going at light speed or they are made from antimatter, we should not be confusing the energy creation cost with the crystals' chemical absorption ability. (It doesn't cost much water to make my sponge, but it sure as heck absorbs a lot of H2O!)
Now if someone claims the full crystal could later be taken and converted into fuel that somehow released more energy than the cost of creating the crystal and the CO2 in the first place, then we would indeed be violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
To me, that sounds (1) selfish, and (2) like a "fuck off and die" argument.
People are selfish.
An alternate interpretation is "Live Free or Die"
. Think American Revolution.
Every dollar you earn is a dollar you are taking from everyone else (because you are depriving anyone else from earning that dollar).
What is a dollar? The U.S. government does not back the dollar up with gold or silver any longer. The government could simply print more dollars and then there would be enough for all. Of course, the cost of everything would then skyrocket. A car would still cost half my annual salary whether I made $30K or $300K. The true comparison comes back to individual time, earnings, wealth, wants, and needs. There is no such thing as depriving anyone of a dollar. All that person has to do is go work another 9 minutes at the current $7.15 minimum wage and voila they have another dollar! (12 minutes assuming 25% taxes.) With unemployment at a mere 5% in the U.S., there are jobs aplenty.
Robin Hood is an admirable figure for a reason: he is the part of each human that hasn't been corrupted by greed yet.
Robin Hood is a person who broke the law and used violence and force of arms to steal from law-abiding citizens. The romantic aspect of Robin Hood was that he was protecting the oppressed and attacking the oppressor, however this morphed over the centuries into "steal from the rich and give to the poor". Note that in every version of the story, the "rich" are lazy, arrogant people with an attitude of entitlement. They are never hard-working people that earned their good fortune through their own efforts. Meanwhile, the poor are uneducated laboring folk with the characteristics of honesty, integrity, and strong family relationships.
What would happen if Robin Hood really existed? Either Robin Hood's victims would lobby the government (if the government is strong) for increased law enforcement to capture the Merry Men and make roads and homes safer, or the victims themselves would hire their own armsmen (if the government is weak). In both cases, the poor wretches Robin Hood is protecting would become more oppressed due to the increased strength of arms employed by the upper class. Should the cycle continue, eventually the oppressed would have nothing left to lose so they would stop working and farming and take up arms instead. The result would be either the oppressors losing their wealth, status, and lives (a revolution and overthrow) or the capture and elimination of the Robin Hoods and Merry Men that formed the spine and brains (a crushed rebellion). There are MANY examples of both outcomes throughout history and still today.
Beware of Robin Hood. No matter his intentions, his actions destabilize society, and an unstable society will cause even more suffering.
Uh oh, the triplets turn 11 in a few months! Quick! How do I configure my firewall to prevent them from bringing doom upon us?? Or do I have to cut off my Internet connection altogether (thus bringing doom upon us)???
Fact is, freedom of speech allows me to complain here. It also allows me to say things that piss people off.
What you are describing is that law enforcement selectively exercises its authority in a biased fashion. Some of that bias has backing by law (dirty record), and some of it does not (dirty car). Those of us with clean records and dirty cars are therefore being denied "equal protection of the laws." (U.S. Constitution, Amendment XIV, Section 1)
So my dirty car gets me a ticket. Perhaps worse if I challenge authority, even if I am justified. Challenging authority always has consequences, all of them being the deprivation of life, liberty, or property -- whether justified or not.
Sure, being nice to people usually takes you a lot farther. Playing nice only gets you a small short-term gain at the cost of a huge long-term loss.
Why stop there? Extrapolating from those 10 lessons, we can make 15:
Lesson 11: Do not drive ANY vehicle (car, truck, plane, boat, bicycle, etc.)
Lesson 12: Do not stand out in a crowd.
Lesson 13: Do not challenge authority.
Lesson 14: Do not upset the established social order.
Lesson 15: Do not attempt to exercise your so-called "rights".
Methinks the drop in crime was due to lower unemployment and more jobs, and the increase in video game usage was a result of more disposable income being available to spend on computers, consoles, and games.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
If "hardcore" pornography is unavailable, then "softcore" pornography becomes the new acceptable taboo. It becomes more appealing, more erotic, and more likely to set off a violent episode. So now we'll have to ban that. Bye bye, Playboy; GQ will be the new boundary. Eventually this will reach all the way to Slashdot and posts like this one.
No matter where society sets the boundary, the socially unacceptable will become appealing. This is the nature of the human imagination. When burqas are the norm, any flash of skin is arousing.
If the goal is to prevent visual stimulation from causing a response, then the proper answer is to OVER-stimulate until the response no longer occurs. Make someone look at all sorts of hardcore pornography until they get bored -- or look at even more intense pornography so that "hardcore" becomes uninteresting. Desensitize!
But then, the goal never was preventing the response, was it?
Per the Constitution, each state legislature chooses how that state will decide that state's electors (representatives) for the Electoral College. 48 of the 50 states and the District of Colombia have a winner-take-all system. Nebraska and Maine do not. I recall Colorado had a ballot initiative a few years ago to change their elector selection, but I believe that failed.
Note that the winner-take-all system is the product of the two-party system in the U.S. It's one reason the two dominant political parties argue that you have to choose between the lesser of two evils. In truth, it is really the weak link. Even a marginally successful third party in a close Presidential race can tip the scales such as Nader did in 2000.
Change from within would be nice, but there is no way change can come from within unless there is pressure from without.
Nobody could challenge the Roman empire at its height, of course, but nobody from within could have challenged it even after the political system had started rotting. It took an outside force to economically and militarily bring down the government. Change occurred within, but it required forces from without.
The many revolutions against the European powers in the 18th-20th centuries did not occur just because the people revolted. They would never have been able to revolt if they had not developed a middle class due to trade with foreign powers and a belief that they could rule themselves which they learned from seeing other former colonies succeed. Without either of those, independence would never have occurred.
The Soviet Union did not break apart because the people suddenly rallied. The economy had taken a horrible toll during the Cold War and economic reforms led to political reforms. When the reactionaries tried to seize control in order to roll back those reforms, then the people did stand up. But none of it could have happened without the economic pressure from without.
These are simplified, of course, but fair assessments. My point is that "the people" will not spontaneously restructure society. Society will perpetuate itself despite the dissidents. Why? Because society prefers stability over instability. "The people" will never generate instability; only an external actor can do that.
Passports are not up to the states. States are not allowed to restrict travel.
License plates are up to the states, but the automotive industry makes the cars and they don't want to make 50 different types of license plates mounts.
Social security numbers are assigned by the federal government.
Immigrants are not the only ones who don't want to be followed by "the man". Any freedom-loving individual wants the same.
but either way a verdict comes from the highest court of the land which can only be overturned by itself, or a change in the Constitution by Congress or the States.
If the Court comes down with a decision that software patents are unconstitutional, then your statement would be correct.
However, if the court issues a decision that federal law does not allow software to be patented, then it is only an interpretation of the law, and Congress may change that law and make software patentable. So let the lobbying begin!
A plague that spread as easily as you describe would likely be a viral infection, not a bacterial infection. The antibiotics would help with secondary infections, but the viral infection would continue on. The contagious would still be contagious. They should be sent home and told to stay there until they recover (or get worse and go back for more care) so they wouldn't keep spreading the contagion.
Several times I have seen large Java projects initiated because administrative types had heard that Java was the wave of the future. Eager to jump on the wave, they hired, contracted, and tasked programmers with implementing their next first Great Java Application.
The problem was, the programmers they hired were not good designers or architects. I was forced to sit on the sidelines and watch as my predictions of poor requirements, poor design, and poor process turned into schedule nightmares, budget balloons, and gargantuan maintenance efforts proved to be true.
Afterwards, those administrators blamed the programmers, of course, but they also blamed Java itself. It was incorrect and unfair, but true nonetheless.
Looking back, the tech bubble attracted a lot of novice programmers who got hired at inordinate salaries to produce a level of quality they could not meet. As the bubble ended, many of these poor performers left but unfortunately some remain. My greatest fear is taking over for someone who "knows" Java because chances are they know how to write Java but they don't know how Java works.
I am doing my part. I am teaching Java at a local community college where I make a point of teaching my students how Java works. I also explain basic but good coding practices and design practices. I hope it makes a difference in the long run. Arguing with the administrators sure didn't.
Slashdot Mirror
-Louis Freeh, FBI Director, 1997
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_in_the_United_States
Divine right had been cast down centuries before by the Magna Carta, and George III was not a particularly powerful monarch. The many grievances expressed by the American colonies in the Declaration of Independence were in fact perpetrated by Parliament. Yes, an elective representative body was responsible for trampling the rights of the colonists. The members of the Continental Congresses knew this, and they also believed true power lay in the legislative branch. That's why the Bill of Rights says "Congress shall not..." rather than "government shall not..." Our courts and our society (so far) have decided that the Bill of Rights does indeed apply to all three branches of government and to the state governments.
So you are saying that whatever means that law enforcement uses is fine so long as the perpetrator is guilty?
Good thing you posted as an Anonymous Coward. Otherwise I might just be tempted to drive by your house, hop on to your open wireless node, and click on a few FBI-sponsored links.
Or maybe I should just backtrack your IP and hack in through your unpatched Windows box and start your machine trawling for more illegal images. And some movies and songs, too!
That would explain the guano.
Email. Everyone uses it. Or some variation of it, such as SMS for the younger crowd.
Point out to your non-IT friends that sending an "email" is NOT like sending a "letter". It is like sending a "postcard". Any number of people you might not know can see the entire contents of your message along the way -- plus they can keep a copy of each and every one of those messages forever.
To take the analogy further, if they really want their "email" to be in an "envelope", use encryption!
Unless those crystals are going at light speed or they are made from antimatter, we should not be confusing the energy creation cost with the crystals' chemical absorption ability. (It doesn't cost much water to make my sponge, but it sure as heck absorbs a lot of H2O!) Now if someone claims the full crystal could later be taken and converted into fuel that somehow released more energy than the cost of creating the crystal and the CO2 in the first place, then we would indeed be violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
- People are selfish.
- An alternate interpretation is "Live Free or Die"
- . Think American Revolution.
Every dollar you earn is a dollar you are taking from everyone else (because you are depriving anyone else from earning that dollar).What is a dollar? The U.S. government does not back the dollar up with gold or silver any longer. The government could simply print more dollars and then there would be enough for all. Of course, the cost of everything would then skyrocket. A car would still cost half my annual salary whether I made $30K or $300K. The true comparison comes back to individual time, earnings, wealth, wants, and needs. There is no such thing as depriving anyone of a dollar. All that person has to do is go work another 9 minutes at the current $7.15 minimum wage and voila they have another dollar! (12 minutes assuming 25% taxes.) With unemployment at a mere 5% in the U.S., there are jobs aplenty.
Robin Hood is an admirable figure for a reason: he is the part of each human that hasn't been corrupted by greed yet.
Robin Hood is a person who broke the law and used violence and force of arms to steal from law-abiding citizens. The romantic aspect of Robin Hood was that he was protecting the oppressed and attacking the oppressor, however this morphed over the centuries into "steal from the rich and give to the poor". Note that in every version of the story, the "rich" are lazy, arrogant people with an attitude of entitlement. They are never hard-working people that earned their good fortune through their own efforts. Meanwhile, the poor are uneducated laboring folk with the characteristics of honesty, integrity, and strong family relationships.
What would happen if Robin Hood really existed? Either Robin Hood's victims would lobby the government (if the government is strong) for increased law enforcement to capture the Merry Men and make roads and homes safer, or the victims themselves would hire their own armsmen (if the government is weak). In both cases, the poor wretches Robin Hood is protecting would become more oppressed due to the increased strength of arms employed by the upper class. Should the cycle continue, eventually the oppressed would have nothing left to lose so they would stop working and farming and take up arms instead. The result would be either the oppressors losing their wealth, status, and lives (a revolution and overthrow) or the capture and elimination of the Robin Hoods and Merry Men that formed the spine and brains (a crushed rebellion). There are MANY examples of both outcomes throughout history and still today.
Beware of Robin Hood. No matter his intentions, his actions destabilize society, and an unstable society will cause even more suffering.
"Mmm... yeah..."
Uh oh, the triplets turn 11 in a few months! Quick! How do I configure my firewall to prevent them from bringing doom upon us?? Or do I have to cut off my Internet connection altogether (thus bringing doom upon us)???
Fact is, freedom of speech allows me to complain here. It also allows me to say things that piss people off.
What you are describing is that law enforcement selectively exercises its authority in a biased fashion. Some of that bias has backing by law (dirty record), and some of it does not (dirty car). Those of us with clean records and dirty cars are therefore being denied "equal protection of the laws." (U.S. Constitution, Amendment XIV, Section 1)
So my dirty car gets me a ticket. Perhaps worse if I challenge authority, even if I am justified. Challenging authority always has consequences, all of them being the deprivation of life, liberty, or property -- whether justified or not.
Sure, being nice to people usually takes you a lot farther. Playing nice only gets you a small short-term gain at the cost of a huge long-term loss.
Why stop there? Extrapolating from those 10 lessons, we can make 15:
Lesson 11: Do not drive ANY vehicle (car, truck, plane, boat, bicycle, etc.)Lesson 12: Do not stand out in a crowd.
Lesson 13: Do not challenge authority.
Lesson 14: Do not upset the established social order.
Lesson 15: Do not attempt to exercise your so-called "rights".
Both trends coincide with the dot.com bubble. The economy has been known to have an effect on crime. ("Crime in the US is also concentrated to certain areas. It is quite common for crime in American cities to be highly concentrated in a few, often economically disadvantaged areas.") In fact, weather has been known to have an effect on crime. Tempers rise as temperatures do, and who wants to burglarize a house in the middle of a thunderstorm or blizzard?
Methinks the drop in crime was due to lower unemployment and more jobs, and the increase in video game usage was a result of more disposable income being available to spend on computers, consoles, and games.
In short, nothing to see here!
Still think so?
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Sound familiar?
Yes! Now take that to the next logical step.
If "hardcore" pornography is unavailable, then "softcore" pornography becomes the new acceptable taboo. It becomes more appealing, more erotic, and more likely to set off a violent episode. So now we'll have to ban that. Bye bye, Playboy; GQ will be the new boundary. Eventually this will reach all the way to Slashdot and posts like this one.
No matter where society sets the boundary, the socially unacceptable will become appealing. This is the nature of the human imagination. When burqas are the norm, any flash of skin is arousing.
If the goal is to prevent visual stimulation from causing a response, then the proper answer is to OVER-stimulate until the response no longer occurs. Make someone look at all sorts of hardcore pornography until they get bored -- or look at even more intense pornography so that "hardcore" becomes uninteresting. Desensitize!
But then, the goal never was preventing the response, was it?
Per the Constitution, each state legislature chooses how that state will decide that state's electors (representatives) for the Electoral College. 48 of the 50 states and the District of Colombia have a winner-take-all system. Nebraska and Maine do not. I recall Colorado had a ballot initiative a few years ago to change their elector selection, but I believe that failed.
Note that the winner-take-all system is the product of the two-party system in the U.S. It's one reason the two dominant political parties argue that you have to choose between the lesser of two evils. In truth, it is really the weak link. Even a marginally successful third party in a close Presidential race can tip the scales such as Nader did in 2000.
Change from within would be nice, but there is no way change can come from within unless there is pressure from without.
Nobody could challenge the Roman empire at its height, of course, but nobody from within could have challenged it even after the political system had started rotting. It took an outside force to economically and militarily bring down the government. Change occurred within, but it required forces from without.
The many revolutions against the European powers in the 18th-20th centuries did not occur just because the people revolted. They would never have been able to revolt if they had not developed a middle class due to trade with foreign powers and a belief that they could rule themselves which they learned from seeing other former colonies succeed. Without either of those, independence would never have occurred.
The Soviet Union did not break apart because the people suddenly rallied. The economy had taken a horrible toll during the Cold War and economic reforms led to political reforms. When the reactionaries tried to seize control in order to roll back those reforms, then the people did stand up. But none of it could have happened without the economic pressure from without.
These are simplified, of course, but fair assessments. My point is that "the people" will not spontaneously restructure society. Society will perpetuate itself despite the dissidents. Why? Because society prefers stability over instability. "The people" will never generate instability; only an external actor can do that.
Passports are not up to the states. States are not allowed to restrict travel.
License plates are up to the states, but the automotive industry makes the cars and they don't want to make 50 different types of license plates mounts.
Social security numbers are assigned by the federal government.
Immigrants are not the only ones who don't want to be followed by "the man". Any freedom-loving individual wants the same.
Well, I suppose they are anti-trusting their consumer base.
Are you hiring? ;)
but either way a verdict comes from the highest court of the land which can only be overturned by itself, or a change in the Constitution by Congress or the States.
If the Court comes down with a decision that software patents are unconstitutional , then your statement would be correct.
However, if the court issues a decision that federal law does not allow software to be patented, then it is only an interpretation of the law, and Congress may change that law and make software patentable. So let the lobbying begin!
Dilbert; October 29, 1997. The strip is still on my refrigerator. :)
A plague that spread as easily as you describe would likely be a viral infection, not a bacterial infection. The antibiotics would help with secondary infections, but the viral infection would continue on. The contagious would still be contagious. They should be sent home and told to stay there until they recover (or get worse and go back for more care) so they wouldn't keep spreading the contagion.
The problem was, the programmers they hired were not good designers or architects. I was forced to sit on the sidelines and watch as my predictions of poor requirements, poor design, and poor process turned into schedule nightmares, budget balloons, and gargantuan maintenance efforts proved to be true.
Afterwards, those administrators blamed the programmers, of course, but they also blamed Java itself. It was incorrect and unfair, but true nonetheless.
Looking back, the tech bubble attracted a lot of novice programmers who got hired at inordinate salaries to produce a level of quality they could not meet. As the bubble ended, many of these poor performers left but unfortunately some remain. My greatest fear is taking over for someone who "knows" Java because chances are they know how to write Java but they don't know how Java works.
I am doing my part. I am teaching Java at a local community college where I make a point of teaching my students how Java works. I also explain basic but good coding practices and design practices. I hope it makes a difference in the long run. Arguing with the administrators sure didn't.
If it weren't for poor English, rap wouldn't be possible!