You are absolutely correct. The original author's point is moot then, because that can't happen in the United States -- our government never tramples on the Bill of Rights.
The only thing this survey proves is that 63% of Americans can barely use Windows, and the only computer brand names they know about are Microsoft and Gateway.
Wrapping up a purported leadership strategy based on what the lowest common denominator managed to say yes or no to is pretty flawed.
By all means, call him all you want at the office, but I will continue to assert that he deserves a modicum of privacy in his own home.
Interesting concept - a man who gets free room and board deserves privacy in his own home. What about the students who pay to be there? Are they fair game for any and all invasions of privacy?
What goes around comes around; perhaps they might see the light and discover the novel concept of respecting students.
You tried to draw an analogy between Clemson's treatment of students and GM's treatment of employees. There's one minor difference:
Clemson: students pay to be there. GM: employees get paid to be there.
Besides, at the end of the day GM employees get to go home and aren't under GM regulations anymore. Clemson students get to return to their dorms and are still under Clemson regulations. Not a rosy picture.
I don't see the real problem here - bandwidth consumed by students is not negligible. I worked for the Univ of South Carolina's CSD, and student bandwith forced one upgrade while I was there.
You make it sound like the student utilizations of the network is a bad thing. But who is paying for it? Do college administrators honestly expect students to just pay tuition and fees and not use any school resources? Given the attitude of the administration at Clemson and other schools, this out of this world attitude is the norm for all institutions of higher learning.
It seems like part of the strategy here is to keep the community off-balance by scheduling everything too fast for us to keep up. Why does our legal system allow for this?
Justice is blind, for better or worse. Yes, it is a pain in the ass to our community, but it isn't likely to change, so we will have to be more responsive. This Slashdot article is a step in the right direction, giving enough notice for (hopefully) some support to be present.
Exactly what is the United States government trying to accomplish here? Pro-active crime prevention by outlawing these "criminal tools?" We already learned this lesson from gun control, the bad guys have the crypto anyway. In a peverse sense, the government will settle for as many "law abiding" citizens as possible to march off like lemmings to a totalitarian future.
As I mentioned earlier, data sitting around on your hard drive is harmful to no one, so why does the society at large need to look at it? Putting data on one's hard drive beyond the purview of society stands as a check for the individual against society at large. I didn't touch upon freedom of speech with respect to cryptography, which I will do now.
Freedom of speech isn't perfect. For example, I can't send out company secrets to a competitor. Where does cryptography fit in? While cryptography may be used in the capacity of exchanging trade secrets, it doesn't address the fact that sooner or later the competing company is going to release a product based on those services, and enough evidence will be available to track down those resposible, cryptography or not.
In spite of the government's paranoia, cryptography, as used in criminal activities, is really only a small element. For every "actual" crime (read: not thought crimes) there will be plenty of physical evidence for forensic wizards to ascertain not only the identity of the suspects but also the last time they wet their beds.
In a nutshell, an individual's ability to deploy encryption is more important than the off chance that some real crime goes unsolved due to lack of other evidence.
As Signal 11 points out, experience certainly makes taking a metric of installation ease difficult. In this day in age, it is really hard to find a sample set of people with no Windows-biased computer experience -- almost everyone knows about the A: and C: drives just like they understand touch tone telephones and ATMs. To them Linux is more alien because it starts calling A:/dev/fd0.
However the growth of Linux in spite of these handicaps demonstrates its vigor and fighting spirit. In a few years time CNN will be reporting nightmares installing Win2005 while lauding Linux's ease of installation.
Freedom of Thought, and When Society Can Go F* Off
on
Dear Mr. Straw
·
· Score: 3
Your brain. Lovely little thing, isn't it? You have every expectation that the thoughts contained therein are yours alone, and you don't have to account for your thoughts to anyone, only your actions. Thoughts hurt no one by themselves.
Your hard drive. When you can't readily remember everything, you use your handy dandy computer to store it. At this point you have various expectations of privacy, but chances are anyone encountering a file that is encrypted will realize that it isn't for them to see.
Freedom of thought is an individual right, and it is no one's business but the thinkee what is being thought about. But like the schoolyard bully, the powers that be do not wish to be humbled by anything beyond their purview. Encryption is just one of the many tools available to the individual to protect this absolute right against oppressive forces, whether or not they operate under the banner of law.
Re:About "tapping" the Internet...
on
CALEA update
·
· Score: 1
So long as the FBI is not granted a magic key by either consensus among crypto companies or by government regulation, privacy over the internet can and will exist.
As much as the government wishes otherwise, the crypto code is out there. GnuPG is free software, good luck to any organization to eliminate it.
As far as public policy goes, the one point that has to be driven home is that data sitting on someone's hard drive isn't going to hurt anybody. Logically, there is no latitude for any regulation in this area.
I'm sure Dell, IBM and friends will twist the truth as much as they can get away with. If you want solid information over industry propaganda, I suggest starting a web site devoted to pointing out what systems aren't entirely Linux kosher.
Slashdot Mirror
You are absolutely correct. The original author's point is moot then, because that can't happen in the United States -- our government never tramples on the Bill of Rights.
The only thing this survey proves is that 63% of Americans can barely use Windows, and the only computer brand names they know about are Microsoft and Gateway.
Wrapping up a purported leadership strategy based on what the lowest common denominator managed to say yes or no to is pretty flawed.
By all means, call him all you want at the office, but I will continue to assert that he deserves a modicum of privacy in his own home.
Interesting concept - a man who gets free room and board deserves privacy in his own home. What about the students who pay to be there? Are they fair game for any and all invasions of privacy?
What goes around comes around; perhaps they might see the light and discover the novel concept of respecting students.
Good idea, Magic Snail! When they come for you, we won't say anything because it doesn't involve us.
You tried to draw an analogy between Clemson's treatment of students and GM's treatment of employees. There's one minor difference:
Clemson: students pay to be there.
GM: employees get paid to be there.
Besides, at the end of the day GM employees get to go home and aren't under GM regulations anymore. Clemson students get to return to their dorms and are still under Clemson regulations. Not a rosy picture.
I don't see the real problem here - bandwidth consumed by students is not negligible. I worked for the Univ of South Carolina's CSD, and student bandwith forced one upgrade while I was there.
You make it sound like the student utilizations of the network is a bad thing. But who is paying for it? Do college administrators honestly expect students to just pay tuition and fees and not use any school resources? Given the attitude of the administration at Clemson and other schools, this out of this world attitude is the norm for all institutions of higher learning.
It seems like part of the strategy here is to keep the community off-balance by scheduling everything too fast for us to keep up. Why does our legal system allow for this?
Justice is blind, for better or worse. Yes, it is a pain in the ass to our community, but it isn't likely to change, so we will have to be more responsive. This Slashdot article is a step in the right direction, giving enough notice for (hopefully) some support to be present.
Live MP3 stream at http://128.95.10.82:8000/
This incident is a laser pointer at the crux of the problem: our old guard politicians just aren't capable of handling today's technological world.
We need to get some geeks elected soon, or at the very least get the 18-24 demographic group into the polls.
Exactly what is the United States government trying to accomplish here? Pro-active crime prevention by outlawing these "criminal tools?" We already learned this lesson from gun control, the bad guys have the crypto anyway. In a peverse sense, the government will settle for as many "law abiding" citizens as possible to march off like lemmings to a totalitarian future.
As I mentioned earlier, data sitting around on your hard drive is harmful to no one, so why does the society at large need to look at it? Putting data on one's hard drive beyond the purview of society stands as a check for the individual against society at large. I didn't touch upon freedom of speech with respect to cryptography, which I will do now.
Freedom of speech isn't perfect. For example, I can't send out company secrets to a competitor. Where does cryptography fit in? While cryptography may be used in the capacity of exchanging trade secrets, it doesn't address the fact that sooner or later the competing company is going to release a product based on those services, and enough evidence will be available to track down those resposible, cryptography or not.
In spite of the government's paranoia, cryptography, as used in criminal activities, is really only a small element. For every "actual" crime (read: not thought crimes) there will be plenty of physical evidence for forensic wizards to ascertain not only the identity of the suspects but also the last time they wet their beds.
In a nutshell, an individual's ability to deploy encryption is more important than the off chance that some real crime goes unsolved due to lack of other evidence.
As Signal 11 points out, experience certainly makes taking a metric of installation ease difficult. In this day in age, it is really hard to find a sample set of people with no Windows-biased computer experience -- almost everyone knows about the A: and C: drives just like they understand touch tone telephones and ATMs. To them Linux is more alien because it starts calling A: /dev/fd0.
However the growth of Linux in spite of these handicaps demonstrates its vigor and fighting spirit. In a few years time CNN will be reporting nightmares installing Win2005 while lauding Linux's ease of installation.
Your brain. Lovely little thing, isn't it? You have every expectation that the thoughts contained therein are yours alone, and you don't have to account for your thoughts to anyone, only your actions. Thoughts hurt no one by themselves.
Your hard drive. When you can't readily remember everything, you use your handy dandy computer to store it. At this point you have various expectations of privacy, but chances are anyone encountering a file that is encrypted will realize that it isn't for them to see.
Freedom of thought is an individual right, and it is no one's business but the thinkee what is being thought about. But like the schoolyard bully, the powers that be do not wish to be humbled by anything beyond their purview. Encryption is just one of the many tools available to the individual to protect this absolute right against oppressive forces, whether or not they operate under the banner of law.
So long as the FBI is not granted a magic key by either consensus among crypto companies or by government regulation, privacy over the internet can and will exist.
As much as the government wishes otherwise, the crypto code is out there. GnuPG is free software, good luck to any organization to eliminate it.
As far as public policy goes, the one point that has to be driven home is that data sitting on someone's hard drive isn't going to hurt anybody. Logically, there is no latitude for any regulation in this area.
I'm sure Dell, IBM and friends will twist the truth as much as they can get away with. If you want solid information over industry propaganda, I suggest starting a web site devoted to pointing out what systems aren't entirely Linux kosher.