Just because their government tried to mandate something doesn't mean "venezuela" decided. The people on the ground don't want the government cryptocurrency.
Look into lightning network, or other technologies like payment channels. That can reduce transaction fees from "only pennies" to "fractions of a penny"
What? That doesn't make any sense. The US Dollar is far better for crime and used a lot more than Bitcoin for crime. Bitcoin is trivially traceable and hard to spend unlike the dollar.
Bitcoin has a lot of valid legitimate uses, such as cheap cross border payments, a hedge against inflation for countries like Venezuela and Argentina, a means of people without established banking sectors to transact, etc. It's also very useful in cases where there is risk of counter-party payment reversals in traditional systems, which lowers fees for such use cases. Another great potential future use is very small micropayments, possible future implementation for API calls without having to setup complex infrastructure and again, cross-border in countries where traditional banking systems don't operate or use different currencies. One novel current use where traditional systems fail is in rapidly purchasing a LARGE amount of anti-DOS capability in a hurry without counterparty risk. There are many new and novel uses. Here's one other small example: https://cointelegraph.com/news...
They are only saying this as a pretextual excuse to try to convince lawmakers they need even more laws or statutory authority to punish "those evil hackers". Much like the ordeal with the FBI complaining about needing new laws to stop terrorists because Apple was protecting consumer privacy and not providing them backdoors to unlock phones or allowing them mass surveillance tools, when in reality they had all the tech they needed to unlock the phone.
A common exchange rate is somewhere between 0% to 0.25% depending on how the exchange is done (market maker vs taker), and volume. See for example: https://www.gdax.com/fees/BTC-...
With the rise of technologies like lightning network and decentralized exchanges, we might see even better exchange rates if you can swap across different currencies easily.
I think you're right, there's no question there's a level of speculative activity going on in this realm. However, the interesting thing is that with the concept of "programmable money", you can create any cryptocurrency with any economic or monetary model you want. If your goal is to create a "stable value" currency, you could do that. There are some, as a matter of fact, like Tether. Bitcoin is more like gold than a currency as was pointed out, so while traditional gold is less convenient in the modern era, Bitcoin as a digital gold is much more practical, so it sort of straddles a line between a traditional asset (like gold, having a fixed supply rather than a stable value), but also like a currency (ease of spending as a medium of transaction).
If this were to happen, there's always the option to change the proof of work algorithm which would completely nullify the hundreds of millions they'd probably have to spend to do this kind of attack in one instant.
> >The transaction costs are a tiny fraction of what a bank or credit card processor charges to send Monopoly bank money. > Sure, as long as you're buying a car. Of course, you also have to find someone selling a car for bitcoin... Now tell me what it costs to buy your groceries, go to the movies, or get a cup of coffee?
Bitcoin is still generally cheaper for purchases over $30 to pay in Bitcoin even with rising transaction costs. Transactions are getting more expensive for more limited purchases, that's true, due to the limits. But there is a lot of interesting engineering going on to fix this problem, such as the lightning network, which should be able to reduce the cost of transaction fees and allow micropayments for fractions of a cent of transaction fees. Other tech on the horizon includes sidechains, where you could use Bitcoins on a network with a different security model; the more expensive high security chain is not required for day-to-day small purchases, and could ultimately be rolled up into the main chain through a sidechain-to-main transaction, or even a lightning network bridge.
>And you keep your coins in cold storage. >> Uh-huh. And your average person keeps their keys where? On a computer, because nobody's going to write their access keys down on paper and lock them in a fire safe. In fact, they'll keep their keys in a wallet on their smartphone, where they'll be stolen by hackers. Or they'll use a web wallet, where - in the event they're not defrauded by the wallet provider - a keylogger steals their access codes. Hence the very popular Bitcoin phrase "Sorry for your loss".
There are dedicated hardware devices now that make cold storage very easy and highly protected such as the Ledger and the Trezor. If Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies get more popular, there's not reason why this type of technology couldn't be implemented safely directly into phones as an independent chip isolated from the rest of the operating system. That would give the benefits of very high security with simple user interfaces for users. There could even be schemes for recovery with multi-factor authentication, key sharding schemes, etc. These are still fairly technical, but it's easy to imagine a world where this is a lot simpler for end users. The current hardware wallets are already light years an improvement over your "write on paper" suggestion.
>>It's a technologically better form of money, far more efficient for moving large sums across borders. >If you find someone willing to accept it on the far side.
Adoption is continuing to increase. It's small now, but growing relatively quickly.
>>imagine what it will be like in a few years when millions more people grok the tech. >If millions more ADOPTED bitcoin, it'd crash instantly, since it's totally unscalable.
There are a ton of improvements that have been made and are continuing to be made to increase the scale as the demand is growing. For example, the latest release of Bitcoin Core that came out just yesterday includes a 40%-50% speed-up for sync, significantly reduces memory requirements, and disk space. Another recent improvement, Segwit, increased transaction capacity by at least double while also providing the ability for more future upgrades. Many improvements are on the way as already mentioned for the volume of transactions as well, such as the lightning network, sidechains, etc. There is also a lot of experimental engineering being done that could help scale such as proposals like Mimblewimble.
There are interesting things going on with using bloom filters, and the recently released FIBRE network that is some extremely cool computer science engineering to pass Bitcoin blocks at nearly the speed of light to reduce orphans. There is so much interesting computer science and cryptographic research going on that it's astounding. A lot of this revolves around improving scale. So on a tech site like Slashdot, you probably should keep an open mind about it, read about some of the really neat developments in the pipeline, and not just dismiss it.
Why would you pay 1.5% on each end? That's not part of Bitcoin. Are you talking about transaction fees? You could easily move any arbitrary amount of money for a dollar or less in transaction fees, that's a lot less than 1.5%.
The government has a lot of draconian rules when it comes to regulated financial companies like Coinbase. In order to stay in business, Coinbase has to stay away from anything even remotely connected to something that looks criminal.
The irony of this is that the FBI itself has no good answer to ransomware and has even themselves recommended that people pay the ransoms: http://www.businessinsider.com...
Yet the same government regulations make it nearly impossible for Coinbase to let people use their Bitcoin like that, ironically forcing people to unregulated or dark markets to buy Bitcoin.
Don't forget though that the market tends to highly reward the contrarian thinkers if they can prove that attacking a problem from a non-conventional way or against conventional wisdom actually turns out to provide something that gives a lot of value to people. And you can always find contrarian investors as well who are willing to take a risk on something that bucks conventional wisdom.
Uhh... the OP said "They owns us financially thanks to our over spending (both parties are culpable)". He didn't say just Obama had done it. Obama has preserved the status quo on spending, which is in fact over-spending by a large degree and running up large debts just as prior administrations have done. As far as bills go, yes there are large spending bills, just look at each year's annual budget bill and compare that to annual tax revenue. It's not for no reason that we have large annual deficits every year.
I like ZenTrack:
http://www.zentrack.net/
It's open source and works well. You can have users, make assignments, see how long a task has been open, customize fields, send automated emails when tasks are completed/changed.
Great tool
"Many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies."
Two thoughts:
* It's probably not a problem, probably
* 4 TeV ought to be enough for anybody.
At the moment, the official Google App doesnt even work for me because I use a different Google account for the Google voice than the one associated with my Android and your app lets me configure that but Google's doesn't. So I can't compare the differences because Google's app doesn't even work on my phone. However, I've also read that yours has other features that Google's doesn't have, for example, the ability to choose whether or not to make the call through Google voice or not. I really like that feature.
I say you should keep up the good work on your app for the moment, and where Google's works better see if you can polish yours to the point that those features work just as well. Your app is slow at placing outbound calls. Anyway to fix that? I hear it going through menu prompts or something. Also, it would be really cool to be able to do SMS intercepting as well (like you do with voice), and have that work seamlessly (while still being able to choose between normal and GV).
Another feature suggestion: cache some of the stuff like the Mail tab and the Call Log, so I don't have to wait for it to "log in" just to see what was already there previously.
Resources are not unlimited, whether it be land, minerals, health care, or whatever. You can't give everyone everything. What if a certain type of lifesaving cancer treatment was discovered that works with 100% efficacy but costs $150 million dollars? Would everyone 'deserve' that for essentially free from the government except for only the wealthiest who could afford to pay it?
Society needs a basic safety net, but I don't believe everyone should be entitled to, say, a premium amount of coverage on everything. One of my relatives works for social services and she says it makes her sick to see the way people take advantage of the system. In fact, she sees a majority probably abuse it. There are lots of people having kids because they get more benefits for each additional kid they have. In many cases there is little incentive for them to go hold down a regular job (even if they have the ability) because that would mean a loss of state-sponsored benefits. I don't like the fact that my government incentivizes laziness. I realize it's a difficult problem, because some people do need the benefits, which is why I am in favor of some benefits of this nature, even if they will will be abused.
But no, I don't think everyone should be put on 'equal ground'. Basic safety net? Yes. Everything you could ever need in life fully covered? No. How do you even separate need from want? Even the poorest people in America seem to have ipods, TV's, Xbox's--all kinds of things in that would be unimaginable a generation ago.
I've lived in other countries and I have to say I don't think those other countries hold a candle to the U.S. when it comes to treating diseases, illnesses, or injuries; however, they do in some cases have better health care "systems" with a greater focus on prevention.
Even if the other countries do manage to do it with fewer costs and a better system, I don't have faith that whatever emerges out of say, the latest health care reform push will actually end up costing us less and be better even if it ends up being full-blown social medicine, do you?
So, I'm middle class income. I bought health insurance, disability insurance, life insurance, etc. I also buy supplemental insurance to cover anything that the primary health or disability insurance doesn't cover, so I'm fully, 100% covered for any contingency like the one you described above.
Now, I get in the accident and have 200k for hospital stays (fully covered), lifetime income (fully covered), and lifetime health insurance (fully covered). Now my neighbor who never bothered with any of that ends up in the same condition. Are you arguing that despite the fact that he didn't take any of the precautions I did, he should be entitled to it? And who should pay for that? The government? Why then did I bother then to get covered?
If the government is going to cover us all, we might as well do away with private insurance. Yay! I was tired of paying those disability and supplemental insurance premiums anyway! I'm absolutely sure the government would have a better run system that costs less. There's no way this agency could go bad, it would have just one mission: helping the people. The executive branch would always make sure only the best non-partisan people were appointed to head this agency and the money would never be misused. And efficiency? It's logistics and operations would be the envy of every private business out there. And jobs, lots of jobs, this is money that is much better spent here in government, the number of jobs created is far more than all those private insurance businesses employed anyway. Bring it on!
'Some people are under the impression that if they sign up for a donor card that will include donating their brain for research. But it won't,' says Breen.
Does anyone else feel a uncomfortable at just doing what Dr. Breen says?
Fortunately, as a Nobel Prize winning chemist, the authorities would probably think twice before 'raiding' his house. Imagine the headlines that would generate!
...Only when Ubuntu is several orders of magnitude better because it has to fight against the strong network effects of the Windows application culture.
From John McCain's website: "John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like 'net-neutrality,' but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices. John McCain has always believed the government's role must be rooted in protecting consumers."
From Barack Obama's senate website: "So here's my view. We can't have a situation in which the corporate duopoly dictates the future of the internet and thatâ(TM)s why I'm supporting what is called net neutrality."
John McCain has put forward an excellent bill in the Senate called the Community Broadband Act of 2005, which Barack Obama has not yet signed on to. Interestingly, this bill is supported by EDUCAUSE and more than 40 education and trade associations, public interest groups, etc. This bill would protect the ability of local governments to provide Internet services to their communities.
Though Obama hasn't signed on to the McCain community broadband act, he has stated that "Every American should have the highest speed broadband accessâ"no matter where you live, or how much money you have. We'll connect schools, libraries, and hospitals. And weâ(TM)ll take on special interests to unleash the power of wireless spectrum for our safety and connectivity."
"[Biden] sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have make it a federal felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs."
"Biden signed a letter that urged the Justice Department 'to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks.'"
"Last year, Biden sponsored an RIAA-backed bill called the Perform Act aimed at restricting Americans' ability to record and play back individual songs from satellite and Internet radio services."
"Biden received a mere 37.5 percent [technology voting record] score because of his support for Internet filters in schools and libraries and occasional support for Internet taxes."
"Biden voted for the Patriot Act and the Real ID Act (which was part of a larger spending bill)."
"Biden returned to the business of targeting P2P networks this year. In April, he proposed spending $1 billion in U.S. tax dollars so police can monitor peer-to-peer networks for illegal activity. He made that suggestion after a Wyoming cop demonstrated a proof-of-concept program called "Operation Fairplay" at a hearing before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee."
"On Net neutrality, Biden has sounded skeptical. In 2006, he indicated that no preemptive laws were necessary because if violations do happen, such a public outcry will develop that 'the chairman will be required to hold this meeting in this largest room in the Capitol, and there will be lines wandering all the way down to the White House.'"
In short, Biden cannot be trusted on technology. Hopefully his influence in anything technology related will be minimal.
Slashdot Mirror
Just because their government tried to mandate something doesn't mean "venezuela" decided. The people on the ground don't want the government cryptocurrency.
Look into lightning network, or other technologies like payment channels. That can reduce transaction fees from "only pennies" to "fractions of a penny"
No, I'm saying that Bitcoin in some ways is better than the Venezuelan Bolivar, not their cyrptocurrency project.
There are plenty of uses that are better served by Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, or can be with wide adoption and further development of the field.
What? That doesn't make any sense. The US Dollar is far better for crime and used a lot more than Bitcoin for crime. Bitcoin is trivially traceable and hard to spend unlike the dollar.
Bitcoin has a lot of valid legitimate uses, such as cheap cross border payments, a hedge against inflation for countries like Venezuela and Argentina, a means of people without established banking sectors to transact, etc. It's also very useful in cases where there is risk of counter-party payment reversals in traditional systems, which lowers fees for such use cases. Another great potential future use is very small micropayments, possible future implementation for API calls without having to setup complex infrastructure and again, cross-border in countries where traditional banking systems don't operate or use different currencies. One novel current use where traditional systems fail is in rapidly purchasing a LARGE amount of anti-DOS capability in a hurry without counterparty risk. There are many new and novel uses. Here's one other small example: https://cointelegraph.com/news...
They are only saying this as a pretextual excuse to try to convince lawmakers they need even more laws or statutory authority to punish "those evil hackers". Much like the ordeal with the FBI complaining about needing new laws to stop terrorists because Apple was protecting consumer privacy and not providing them backdoors to unlock phones or allowing them mass surveillance tools, when in reality they had all the tech they needed to unlock the phone.
A common exchange rate is somewhere between 0% to 0.25% depending on how the exchange is done (market maker vs taker), and volume. See for example: https://www.gdax.com/fees/BTC-...
With the rise of technologies like lightning network and decentralized exchanges, we might see even better exchange rates if you can swap across different currencies easily.
I think you're right, there's no question there's a level of speculative activity going on in this realm. However, the interesting thing is that with the concept of "programmable money", you can create any cryptocurrency with any economic or monetary model you want. If your goal is to create a "stable value" currency, you could do that. There are some, as a matter of fact, like Tether. Bitcoin is more like gold than a currency as was pointed out, so while traditional gold is less convenient in the modern era, Bitcoin as a digital gold is much more practical, so it sort of straddles a line between a traditional asset (like gold, having a fixed supply rather than a stable value), but also like a currency (ease of spending as a medium of transaction).
If this were to happen, there's always the option to change the proof of work algorithm which would completely nullify the hundreds of millions they'd probably have to spend to do this kind of attack in one instant.
> >The transaction costs are a tiny fraction of what a bank or credit card processor charges to send Monopoly bank money.
> Sure, as long as you're buying a car. Of course, you also have to find someone selling a car for bitcoin... Now tell me what it costs to buy your groceries, go to the movies, or get a cup of coffee?
Bitcoin is still generally cheaper for purchases over $30 to pay in Bitcoin even with rising transaction costs. Transactions are getting more expensive for more limited purchases, that's true, due to the limits. But there is a lot of interesting engineering going on to fix this problem, such as the lightning network, which should be able to reduce the cost of transaction fees and allow micropayments for fractions of a cent of transaction fees. Other tech on the horizon includes sidechains, where you could use Bitcoins on a network with a different security model; the more expensive high security chain is not required for day-to-day small purchases, and could ultimately be rolled up into the main chain through a sidechain-to-main transaction, or even a lightning network bridge.
>And you keep your coins in cold storage.
>> Uh-huh. And your average person keeps their keys where? On a computer, because nobody's going to write their access keys down on paper and lock them in a fire safe. In fact, they'll keep their keys in a wallet on their smartphone, where they'll be stolen by hackers. Or they'll use a web wallet, where - in the event they're not defrauded by the wallet provider - a keylogger steals their access codes. Hence the very popular Bitcoin phrase "Sorry for your loss".
There are dedicated hardware devices now that make cold storage very easy and highly protected such as the Ledger and the Trezor. If Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies get more popular, there's not reason why this type of technology couldn't be implemented safely directly into phones as an independent chip isolated from the rest of the operating system. That would give the benefits of very high security with simple user interfaces for users. There could even be schemes for recovery with multi-factor authentication, key sharding schemes, etc. These are still fairly technical, but it's easy to imagine a world where this is a lot simpler for end users. The current hardware wallets are already light years an improvement over your "write on paper" suggestion.
>>It's a technologically better form of money, far more efficient for moving large sums across borders.
>If you find someone willing to accept it on the far side.
Adoption is continuing to increase. It's small now, but growing relatively quickly.
>>imagine what it will be like in a few years when millions more people grok the tech.
>If millions more ADOPTED bitcoin, it'd crash instantly, since it's totally unscalable.
There are a ton of improvements that have been made and are continuing to be made to increase the scale as the demand is growing. For example, the latest release of Bitcoin Core that came out just yesterday includes a 40%-50% speed-up for sync, significantly reduces memory requirements, and disk space. Another recent improvement, Segwit, increased transaction capacity by at least double while also providing the ability for more future upgrades. Many improvements are on the way as already mentioned for the volume of transactions as well, such as the lightning network, sidechains, etc. There is also a lot of experimental engineering being done that could help scale such as proposals like Mimblewimble.
There are interesting things going on with using bloom filters, and the recently released FIBRE network that is some extremely cool computer science engineering to pass Bitcoin blocks at nearly the speed of light to reduce orphans. There is so much interesting computer science and cryptographic research going on that it's astounding. A lot of this revolves around improving scale. So on a tech site like Slashdot, you probably should keep an open mind about it, read about some of the really neat developments in the pipeline, and not just dismiss it.
Why would you pay 1.5% on each end? That's not part of Bitcoin. Are you talking about transaction fees? You could easily move any arbitrary amount of money for a dollar or less in transaction fees, that's a lot less than 1.5%.
The irony of this is that the FBI itself has no good answer to ransomware and has even themselves recommended that people pay the ransoms: http://www.businessinsider.com...
Yet the same government regulations make it nearly impossible for Coinbase to let people use their Bitcoin like that, ironically forcing people to unregulated or dark markets to buy Bitcoin.
Don't forget though that the market tends to highly reward the contrarian thinkers if they can prove that attacking a problem from a non-conventional way or against conventional wisdom actually turns out to provide something that gives a lot of value to people. And you can always find contrarian investors as well who are willing to take a risk on something that bucks conventional wisdom.
Uhh... the OP said "They owns us financially thanks to our over spending (both parties are culpable)". He didn't say just Obama had done it. Obama has preserved the status quo on spending, which is in fact over-spending by a large degree and running up large debts just as prior administrations have done. As far as bills go, yes there are large spending bills, just look at each year's annual budget bill and compare that to annual tax revenue. It's not for no reason that we have large annual deficits every year.
You appreciate Phantom Menace? You have GOT to check out this epic takedown of the Phantom Menace. http://redlettermedia.com/plin...
I like ZenTrack: http://www.zentrack.net/ It's open source and works well. You can have users, make assignments, see how long a task has been open, customize fields, send automated emails when tasks are completed/changed. Great tool
"Many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies."
Two thoughts:
* It's probably not a problem, probably
* 4 TeV ought to be enough for anybody.
At the moment, the official Google App doesnt even work for me because I use a different Google account for the Google voice than the one associated with my Android and your app lets me configure that but Google's doesn't. So I can't compare the differences because Google's app doesn't even work on my phone. However, I've also read that yours has other features that Google's doesn't have, for example, the ability to choose whether or not to make the call through Google voice or not. I really like that feature.
I say you should keep up the good work on your app for the moment, and where Google's works better see if you can polish yours to the point that those features work just as well. Your app is slow at placing outbound calls. Anyway to fix that? I hear it going through menu prompts or something. Also, it would be really cool to be able to do SMS intercepting as well (like you do with voice), and have that work seamlessly (while still being able to choose between normal and GV).
Another feature suggestion: cache some of the stuff like the Mail tab and the Call Log, so I don't have to wait for it to "log in" just to see what was already there previously.
Resources are not unlimited, whether it be land, minerals, health care, or whatever. You can't give everyone everything. What if a certain type of lifesaving cancer treatment was discovered that works with 100% efficacy but costs $150 million dollars? Would everyone 'deserve' that for essentially free from the government except for only the wealthiest who could afford to pay it?
Society needs a basic safety net, but I don't believe everyone should be entitled to, say, a premium amount of coverage on everything. One of my relatives works for social services and she says it makes her sick to see the way people take advantage of the system. In fact, she sees a majority probably abuse it. There are lots of people having kids because they get more benefits for each additional kid they have. In many cases there is little incentive for them to go hold down a regular job (even if they have the ability) because that would mean a loss of state-sponsored benefits. I don't like the fact that my government incentivizes laziness. I realize it's a difficult problem, because some people do need the benefits, which is why I am in favor of some benefits of this nature, even if they will will be abused.
But no, I don't think everyone should be put on 'equal ground'. Basic safety net? Yes. Everything you could ever need in life fully covered? No. How do you even separate need from want? Even the poorest people in America seem to have ipods, TV's, Xbox's--all kinds of things in that would be unimaginable a generation ago.
I've lived in other countries and I have to say I don't think those other countries hold a candle to the U.S. when it comes to treating diseases, illnesses, or injuries; however, they do in some cases have better health care "systems" with a greater focus on prevention.
Even if the other countries do manage to do it with fewer costs and a better system, I don't have faith that whatever emerges out of say, the latest health care reform push will actually end up costing us less and be better even if it ends up being full-blown social medicine, do you?
So, I'm middle class income. I bought health insurance, disability insurance, life insurance, etc. I also buy supplemental insurance to cover anything that the primary health or disability insurance doesn't cover, so I'm fully, 100% covered for any contingency like the one you described above.
Now, I get in the accident and have 200k for hospital stays (fully covered), lifetime income (fully covered), and lifetime health insurance (fully covered). Now my neighbor who never bothered with any of that ends up in the same condition. Are you arguing that despite the fact that he didn't take any of the precautions I did, he should be entitled to it? And who should pay for that? The government? Why then did I bother then to get covered?
If the government is going to cover us all, we might as well do away with private insurance. Yay! I was tired of paying those disability and supplemental insurance premiums anyway! I'm absolutely sure the government would have a better run system that costs less. There's no way this agency could go bad, it would have just one mission: helping the people. The executive branch would always make sure only the best non-partisan people were appointed to head this agency and the money would never be misused. And efficiency? It's logistics and operations would be the envy of every private business out there. And jobs, lots of jobs, this is money that is much better spent here in government, the number of jobs created is far more than all those private insurance businesses employed anyway. Bring it on!
'Some people are under the impression that if they sign up for a donor card that will include donating their brain for research. But it won't,' says Breen.
Does anyone else feel a uncomfortable at just doing what Dr. Breen says?
Fortunately, as a Nobel Prize winning chemist, the authorities would probably think twice before 'raiding' his house. Imagine the headlines that would generate!
...Only when Ubuntu is several orders of magnitude better because it has to fight against the strong network effects of the Windows application culture.
From John McCain's website: "John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like 'net-neutrality,' but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices. John McCain has always believed the government's role must be rooted in protecting consumers."
From Barack Obama's senate website: "So here's my view. We can't have a situation in which the corporate duopoly dictates the future of the internet and thatâ(TM)s why I'm supporting what is called net neutrality."
John McCain has put forward an excellent bill in the Senate called the Community Broadband Act of 2005, which Barack Obama has not yet signed on to. Interestingly, this bill is supported by EDUCAUSE and more than 40 education and trade associations, public interest groups, etc. This bill would protect the ability of local governments to provide Internet services to their communities.
(See another great Educause article entitled A Big Blueprint for Big Broadband
Though Obama hasn't signed on to the McCain community broadband act, he has stated that "Every American should have the highest speed broadband accessâ"no matter where you live, or how much money you have. We'll connect schools, libraries, and hospitals. And weâ(TM)ll take on special interests to unleash the power of wireless spectrum for our safety and connectivity."
From the News.com Article:
"[Biden] sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have make it a federal felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs."
"Biden signed a letter that urged the Justice Department 'to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks.'"
"Last year, Biden sponsored an RIAA-backed bill called the Perform Act aimed at restricting Americans' ability to record and play back individual songs from satellite and Internet radio services."
"Biden received a mere 37.5 percent [technology voting record] score because of his support for Internet filters in schools and libraries and occasional support for Internet taxes."
"Biden voted for the Patriot Act and the Real ID Act (which was part of a larger spending bill)."
"Biden returned to the business of targeting P2P networks this year. In April, he proposed spending $1 billion in U.S. tax dollars so police can monitor peer-to-peer networks for illegal activity. He made that suggestion after a Wyoming cop demonstrated a proof-of-concept program called "Operation Fairplay" at a hearing before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee."
"On Net neutrality, Biden has sounded skeptical. In 2006, he indicated that no preemptive laws were necessary because if violations do happen, such a public outcry will develop that 'the chairman will be required to hold this meeting in this largest room in the Capitol, and there will be lines wandering all the way down to the White House.'"
In short, Biden cannot be trusted on technology. Hopefully his influence in anything technology related will be minimal.