Alternatively I'd love to get an official how-to on how to disable tracking in Windows 10 entirely.
You're joking right? Do you really think MS is going to officially support that? I get the distinct impression tracking and eventually ads is something they've decided you're getting whether you like it or not.
Nobody builds an ad platform into the OS unless they plan on using the hell out of it -- Google has you on the web? That won't compete with knowing every single damned thing you do and monetizing it -- and I find it unlikely that even if you turn it off they won't later say "too bad, we've enabled it". You don't build that as a one off to promote some apps for a little while.
It's their computer, you just paid for it and have the right to use it for a while.
For non-enterprise customers, they don't even get a say in when/if updates are applied. It's all remote management all the time, and too bad for you.
There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.
They've certainly gone out of their way to mask what those updates really are... "this update addresses issues in Windows"... like, injecting telemetry they won't ask your permission for or care even if you say no.
So many of their updates are entirely self serving to try to force you to upgrade. I'm not sure they can regain that much lost goodwill.
That's my major problem with this technology: there's an awful lot vague answers to specific questions.
A "self driving car" means you put little Timmy in it, send him to school, and monitor it on your cell phone to confirm he gets out in the right place and a teacher has collected him... or it means you come out of a bar, fall into the backseat, and say "home, James"... or it means grandpa who has lost his vision and his driver's license can get in and say "take me to my doctor's appointment".
No driver's license or legal responsibility for operating the vehicle at all. You are livestock being transported. You're not driving or operating, you simply told it your destination.
This bizarre model in which the car drives, except when it doesn't, and with no clear demarcation between is damned near impossible to make sense of.
If the car decides it's got no idea what to do, and it just says "you're in charge", and before you even know what's happening you're in an accident.. and the logs say "human was driving, his fault", you're screwed. Or, worse, someone builds in code which lies and just says "human was driving" 5 minute before any crash is triggered (so they can avoid liability).
There can't be a gray area between who is in charge and who isn't. And paying for liability insurance when the computer is in charge sounds moronic to me, why would you do that? Are you accepting liability on behalf of the computer or something?
Self-driving-ish cars? Autonom-ish cars? It just seems like everybody is pretending this is a solved issue, and I don't believe it is.
I remain convinced that law-makers, or law-enforcement are particularly concerned with Constitutionality these days.
Powers that started as "yarg, terrorists" are now for basic law enforcement, and increasingly the push to say you have no such rights is what we're seeing.
Governments are increasingly deciding any hindrance to law enforcement, including such pesky things as the law and your rights, are unacceptable.
And people are saying "well, as long as you're keeping us safe, go ahead". And that's alarming.
There's a reason it's called a "Driver's License" and not an "automobile operation permit".
There's also a reason it's called a self-driving car.
It's driving, or I'm driving. This isn't Schroedinger's driver.
From your link:
Click on the above, you will see that the âoestateâ requires liability insurance on the Mercedes. Travel by right requires no regulation and that means no requirement for Liability insurance, all you need to understand is that you are liable under common law.
No, because I'm not driving. I'm sleeping in the back.
If this is to be a hybrid model where the car drives until it blames you, then just drive the damned thing yourself.
I'm suggesting if Google is driving, and the passengers are passengers, then why the hell would anybody pay for things like liability insurance for an AI?
Could it be because it's still going to have a "fuck it, you drive" mode which passes responsibility to the human so Google can claim they're not responsible?
A self driving car becomes useful when I can have no controls, and be asleep in the back. I don't pay liability insurance on a bus, train or taxi... why the hell would I pay it when something created by Google is in charge of driving it?
Many studies have shown that much of the financial system is essentially random
Once set in motion, the financial system is essentially random. I will believe that.
But, increasingly the entire premises are just a pure con job -- from valuations of stocks at IPO being magical thinking, to the expectation companies will grow 10% year over year forever, increasingly the entire financial industry sits on a foundation of complete lies and bullshit.
The value of a company is no longer tied to its assets or revenues, but the hope that unicorn poop will create billions of dollars out of thin air, despite there being no rational reason to think that.
WHY was Twitter ever valued at $28 billion? Unicorn poop.
This is a war on your ability to have secrets from the government they're not allowed to access by going to a third party -- and that's before they even start claiming they don't need a warrant for this shit, which increasingly is exactly what the do.
How this isn't a violation of both 4th and 5th amendment rights is baffling, but apparently digital invalidated those.
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, comrade.
You gave a bad example. Twitter is a service that is still trying to establish a real revenue stream.
Twitter is a great example of what I was giving an example of.
Twitter is, essentially, an advertising company.. that's the revenue model. It just piggy-backs on inane garbage like when the Kardashians shit.
Twitter went IPO for $28 billion dollars, in the 10 years since Twitter has been operating, they've lost $2 billion dollars.
You'll note that the poster I replied to, and quoted, said tech companies are basically ad companies, and essentially ponzi schemes. Here it is again:
they are giant advertising platforms, but spend most of their revenues and investor money on user acquisition through advertising. This is like a giant ponzi scheme really.
So, in terms of an example of a company which is essentially an ad platform, which has failed to make any money, and which was overvalued from the start and is losing money... exactly like a ponzi scheme... I didn't give a "bad" example.
I gave an example of exactly what I was trying to give an example of, and in agreement with the poster I was responding to.
Twitter is a bullshit vehicle which collected $28 billion of other people's money at IPO, has lost $2 billion dollars flailing about trying to have a business model, and whose stock keeps losing value.
they are giant advertising platforms, but spend most of their revenues and investor money on user acquisition through advertising. This is like a giant ponzi scheme really.
That's actually a really good analogy.
Twitter is a great example of this -- they went IPO at $28 billion freaking dollars.
They had no business model, assets, or revenue to support that valuation. It was all hype and "ZOMG, the Twitterz". Now, fast forward, it it loses... what, $150 million per year? How do you do that on almost $600 million in revenues?
Tech companies have pretty much been starting out as grossly overvalued, by the end of the day when the big investors have laundered their profits, and the little guy is left holding the bag... the stock is never worth the same again, at least not in the long run.
The value of tech stocks relative to actual value has rarely held up. Essentially they're all over sold as ad platforms, which in the long run never actually justify the original stupid prices they fetched.
Over the last 20 years (at least), tech companies have been a series of giant ponzi schemes of grossly overvalued companies which ultimately can't deliver on the bullshit hype.
Honestly, I don't understand how the financial industry works if it's all wishful thinking, bad math, and funny money. Oh, wait, they make their money up front, and then pass the shit on to the next suckers in the scheme, of course.
It just transfers money into the hands of big investors who buy in first, and leave everyone else wondering how they got fleeced. Exactly like a ponzi scheme.
Well, too bad you've not taken ownership of your own privacy and blocked them.
France is saying "no, you can't track people who don't even know they're being tracked and aren't visiting your web site". Until the country you lives in passes privacy laws.. you've got to do it on your own. Sadly, most normal internet users have been tracked by these parasites who feel it's their right to do so.
The amount of websites which have Facebook, Twitter, or any of dozens of other sites which track you even if you don't visit them is mind boggling.
So when those companies say "boo hoo, stop blocking out ads", you need to say "fuck you, I don't consent to being tracked by 15 3rd parties" and use your own blockers.
Most other governments are too much on the fucking payroll to limit what companies can do. The US sure as hell will never to do, the US is pretty much the international champion of the rights of corporations to be douchebags. If your government isn't going to force them to stop tracking you, then you really need to do it yourself.
And, honestly, even if your government tries, you need to do it yourself.
I applaud trying to block this, but the scale on which this shit happens is beyond understanding to anybody who isn't in full possession of their own tinfoil hat.
My primary browser? It can't even see facebook.com. If you're not actively defending yourself from this shit, you're already being tracked, whether you know it or not.
So I take you to be a reasonable person worth engaging in discussion of
LOL, now that's a first.
So, basically, rather than responding to you point by point, let me point you to this story on the front-page.
And everything I said earlier, and say not boils down to "fuck you, FBI, you ignorant bastards who feel we should cede our freedoms to hypothetical scenarios without proof or probable cause, and in direct violation of the law".
When the head of the FBI is a fucking moron who things secrets from law enforcement should be illegal, I can't give a rats ass about them being hacked.
due to more sophisticated technology and wider use of encryption is "overwhelmingly affecting" law enforcement operations, including investigations into murder, car accidents, drug trafficking and the proliferation of child pornography
Sorry, I'm no longer willing to let FUD and other bullshit be the back doors to the law. Because I simply don't trust them, and don't care.
You're right, I am not defending the hackers on a specific reason, or even for their reasons. But I've moved past the point where I can simply say "as law abiding sheep we should bend over any time law enforcement asks, and stop pretending like their convenience trumps our rights".
Specifically why the hackers did it, I don't care. I just can't muster the sympathy when to happens to the FBI etc these days. Because I'm tired of them claiming they need the keys to the kingdom just in case -- that's fundamentally not compatible with the free society they've been tasked to defend.
LOL... are you expecting a rational reconciliation between the fact that you can't undermine security and enhance security at the same time?
For you and I, that would be cognitive dissonance. For people who think they can pass laws around technical problems, the wishful thinking just keeps going.
Not understanding the technology makes it far easier to pass terrible laws about the technology and then fail to understand why those laws don't work.
But, part of the problem is they fall short on some basic security things... and that stuff probably does need some fixing.
And the people who subscribe to a news paper will read it every day, probably read all of it, and do so religiously. Those people are looking to have the newspaper as a fairly significant chunk of their day.
Now, who goes to Wired every day and reads every article? And how many other websites do you think people will be willing to pay for? The subscription fatigue will kick in really quickly.
I wouldn't pay for wired, and I'm not turning off my security and privacy for them... so if next time someone posts a story on Slashdot, and it points to Wired... I will simply not read the story.
There's simply a very finite amount of money people will allocate for this kind of thing... and if Wired discovers nobody cares, that will be their own damned problem.
"it's well beyond the point where we should care about them."
That's entirely beside the point.
No, that's exactly the point.
The law does not allow you (or any other hacktivist) to go break into the FBI just because you're angry.
The law doesn't allow thw FBI to do blanket surveillance without a warrant or commit perjury either, and yet...
Let's reframe the argument... People in prison are murderers, rapists, thieves, and drug dealers. They're well past the point where we should care about them, so it's fine when facilities aren't maintained and inmates are abused, right?
Random bullshit strawman, no thanks.
You're advocating a brutal world of vigilantism and rule of force, rather than rule of law.
If the FBI et al don't follow the law, don't pretend like they should be shielded by it. Rule of law being something we have to adhere to but they can ignore? Hell no.
I don't think anybody has claimed that the government agencies are perfectly innocent, but today they are the victim
Again, an expectation of sympathy, why again? Collectively, the FBI doesn't give a shit about the law or your privacy, but we're supposed to respect theirs?
Look, I'm in no way associated with this stuff. I think the guys who do it are poking the bear, and will likely find that can sting a little. I'm not suggesting anybody run out and do this shit.
But I am saying the collective anger at the entire agency is not happening in a vacuum. If they're going to ignore the law and trample on our rights, going all boo hoo about theirs is hypocrisy.
I think the people doing this should reasonably expect a lot of law enforcement resources to be expended. But I simply can't muster up sympathy for the collective tragedy of FBI agents, who collectively don't give a fuck about the laws or our rights.
This "it's OK, we're law enforcement, we're the good guys" is just not something I can believe any more.
So, no, I don't care. I'm beyond caring. Because they stopped holding up their end years ago.
Why the hell would we let all the damned tracking shit run in the first place?
OK, so your little monkey brain doesn't see it (not "your" little monkey brain, per se)... they still get the tracking and analytics data.
What the hell is the point of that? They still know that "little monkey brain x visited this site"... I'm not giving them that information, that's why I run the ad blocker in the first place.
Letting the scripts run defeats the entire purpose.
t sounds like you are really making the point that "stupid people gonna be stupid" no matter what paint (or not paint) is on the road.
Pretty much, yes.
I'm saying the level of dangerous stupidity I see with the lines in place tells me removing the lines is going to have FAR more unintended consequences.
The people who are too damned stupid to know what side of the road to drive on or what lane they're in are far too numerous... giving them no indication of where they are is only going to make it worse.
Swerving into on-coming traffic is something which a lot of people already do.
So, yes, the idiots I already see in the world aren't going to be any less idiots with this. Which makes me think while this will slow a few people, it will cause a whole host of other problems. They'll likely cause more new problems than they fix.
Of course it isn't. The average person probably hits dozens of web sites in a week, probably one article at a time. Even for a site you use daily, $1/week is well outside what people are going to pay -- which, let's face it is pretty much zero.
The publishing model of the web doesn't include revenue, and the security mode of ads doesn't mean it makes any sense to keep trusting that shit.
I don't know what the solution is, but it's not my job to find it. We can't trust the ad companies -- neither to have any security, nor to respect our privacy -- and we won't pay for the content, we'll just move on.
For a tech website to not understand that tech savvy users use ad blocking stuff because we can't trust the ad companies says they don't understand the issue... or they only see it as "we need revenue, we don't give a fuck about your security".
If you can't find a solution which allows for our privacy and security, we don't give a fuck about your revenue. And Wired will join the list of sites like Forbes and the NYT which I'll just ignore, or click the back button and move on.
Go ahead, block us. And fall even further into irrelevancy.
There's a very important fourth option that they neglected to mention, yet is entirely in their control: stop delivering ads they don't host and haven't vetted.
Pretty much this.
Serve an ad from your own server, which doesn't require scripts, and doesn't rely on 15 external tracking sites to monitor my visit (OK, on that particular page it was 5), and I don't have a problem.
What's that? You can't serve those ads, or having it be non-targeted isn't as effective? Too fucking bad.
This bullshit about letting a bunch of external sites set cookies, run scripts, run plugins, and track everything I do... that's your problem. Because I'm not trusting some 3rd party just because you're getting a few shekels from them -- I have no reason to trust those 3rd parties. That's an idiotic security model, and wired should know it.
Serve a script-less ad from your own servers without external tracking, and I won't even bother blocking them.
these people... show so little regard for us.... when these agencies use Sting Rays, or commit perjury...not only can we not trust you bastards... So, are they entitled
Wow, that's a nice hack job of a quote you did.
Most of the people on that list aren't doing any of the the hings you complained about. You just lumped every individual law enforcement officer, undercover agent, secretary, and janitor who work for the FBI under one umbrella.
I'm not advocating it, I'm not condoning it, but I sure as fuck understand it.
The problem is, the agency as a whole has raised the ire of a lot of people. It's not like you can only target the people who do this stuff, and it's not like they give a shit.
The problem is, when they use things like Sting Rays or other blanket surveillance crap, suddenly other innocent people can end up on their radar without any legal basis other than "while we were listening to everybody else we saw this and then suddenly investigated you for fun". They do this shit to us already.
So, are we supposed to extend a courtesy to law enforcement they won't extend to us? Because that's some pretty wishful thinking.
because then me and 30,000 other innocent people who work for this company suddenly get on your shit list, and you think it is okay to release our personal data.
You're not on MY shitlist, I'm not the one doing this stuff.
But I'm afraid I can understand why someone who is angry at the FBI isn't willing to extend a courtesy to the rest of the members of the FBI that, as an agency, they don't extend to us -- because they don't concern themselves with our rights while they do this. These people work for an agency which is doing some things which are fairly widely known to violate your rights, bypass the Constitution, and ignore the letter and spirit of the law.
Which means the people lashing out at that agency aren't discriminating between the janitors, and the guys running the programs -- any more than the FBI are worrying about the rest of us.
Illegal blanket surveillance doesn't prune out the innocent people either. Parallel construction to lie in court about how they came to be looking at you violates your right to due process and the right to see your accuser, instead of someone who has fabricated a story after the fact to make it look like they didn't break the law -- you know perjury.
I have a hard time seeing this as some egregious offense against their rights while they do the same to us.
This is asinine. There are good reasons why some of the employees of the DHS and DOJ aren't made public. For people working in an intelligence analyst role, an undercover agent, or something along those lines, leaking that information could make those people or their families vulnerable to kidnapping and violence.
But you know what, it really boils down to "if these agencies are going to spy on us, often in violation of the law and our rights... and then use parallel construction to commit perjury, why should we care?"
I don't disagree with your sentiment, but the reality is the reasons these people don't want their information made public are their own problem. Especially when they show so little regard for us.
Just because you have unauthorized access to do something and you have the skills to do so, that doesn't make it right.
So, when these agencies use Sting Rays, or commit perjury via parallel construction so they can lie about how they got information and deny you legal process, or otherwise ignore the law... is that right? Because a lot of people disagree that "because we said so" is a valid reason.
Yes, it's reckless and dangerous.. but it seems the kind of thing which is intended to say "not only can we not trust you bastards, you can't even secure your own shit." I can see the point: when law enforcement stops caring about our rights, it's well beyond the point where we should care about them.
There's an awful lot of anger over the fact that law enforcement has taken the attitude of we'll do whatever we can get away with. So, are they entitled to expect anything different?
But let's not pretend that there aren't on-going abuses by these agencies which happen all the time, and which undermine the very rights and freedoms they pretend to be protecting.
Slashdot Mirror
You're joking right? Do you really think MS is going to officially support that? I get the distinct impression tracking and eventually ads is something they've decided you're getting whether you like it or not.
Nobody builds an ad platform into the OS unless they plan on using the hell out of it -- Google has you on the web? That won't compete with knowing every single damned thing you do and monetizing it -- and I find it unlikely that even if you turn it off they won't later say "too bad, we've enabled it". You don't build that as a one off to promote some apps for a little while.
It's their computer, you just paid for it and have the right to use it for a while.
For non-enterprise customers, they don't even get a say in when/if updates are applied. It's all remote management all the time, and too bad for you.
I think you meant:
They've certainly gone out of their way to mask what those updates really are ... "this update addresses issues in Windows" ... like, injecting telemetry they won't ask your permission for or care even if you say no.
So many of their updates are entirely self serving to try to force you to upgrade. I'm not sure they can regain that much lost goodwill.
That's my major problem with this technology: there's an awful lot vague answers to specific questions.
A "self driving car" means you put little Timmy in it, send him to school, and monitor it on your cell phone to confirm he gets out in the right place and a teacher has collected him ... or it means you come out of a bar, fall into the backseat, and say "home, James" ... or it means grandpa who has lost his vision and his driver's license can get in and say "take me to my doctor's appointment".
No driver's license or legal responsibility for operating the vehicle at all. You are livestock being transported. You're not driving or operating, you simply told it your destination.
This bizarre model in which the car drives, except when it doesn't, and with no clear demarcation between is damned near impossible to make sense of.
If the car decides it's got no idea what to do, and it just says "you're in charge", and before you even know what's happening you're in an accident .. and the logs say "human was driving, his fault", you're screwed. Or, worse, someone builds in code which lies and just says "human was driving" 5 minute before any crash is triggered (so they can avoid liability).
There can't be a gray area between who is in charge and who isn't. And paying for liability insurance when the computer is in charge sounds moronic to me, why would you do that? Are you accepting liability on behalf of the computer or something?
Self-driving-ish cars? Autonom-ish cars? It just seems like everybody is pretending this is a solved issue, and I don't believe it is.
You seem to think they care about such things.
I remain convinced that law-makers, or law-enforcement are particularly concerned with Constitutionality these days.
Powers that started as "yarg, terrorists" are now for basic law enforcement, and increasingly the push to say you have no such rights is what we're seeing.
Governments are increasingly deciding any hindrance to law enforcement, including such pesky things as the law and your rights, are unacceptable.
And people are saying "well, as long as you're keeping us safe, go ahead". And that's alarming.
There's also a reason it's called a self-driving car.
It's driving, or I'm driving. This isn't Schroedinger's driver.
From your link:
No, because I'm not driving. I'm sleeping in the back.
If this is to be a hybrid model where the car drives until it blames you, then just drive the damned thing yourself.
I'm suggesting if Google is driving, and the passengers are passengers, then why the hell would anybody pay for things like liability insurance for an AI?
Could it be because it's still going to have a "fuck it, you drive" mode which passes responsibility to the human so Google can claim they're not responsible?
A self driving car becomes useful when I can have no controls, and be asleep in the back. I don't pay liability insurance on a bus, train or taxi ... why the hell would I pay it when something created by Google is in charge of driving it?
Then Google can pay the insurance, right? This should save consumers billions.
Oh, wait, what ... Google is going to make you pay to insure their product from defects?
Thought so.
Once set in motion, the financial system is essentially random. I will believe that.
But, increasingly the entire premises are just a pure con job -- from valuations of stocks at IPO being magical thinking, to the expectation companies will grow 10% year over year forever, increasingly the entire financial industry sits on a foundation of complete lies and bullshit.
The value of a company is no longer tied to its assets or revenues, but the hope that unicorn poop will create billions of dollars out of thin air, despite there being no rational reason to think that.
WHY was Twitter ever valued at $28 billion? Unicorn poop.
This is far more than a war on encryption.
This is a war on your ability to have secrets from the government they're not allowed to access by going to a third party -- and that's before they even start claiming they don't need a warrant for this shit, which increasingly is exactly what the do.
How this isn't a violation of both 4th and 5th amendment rights is baffling, but apparently digital invalidated those.
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, comrade.
Twitter is a great example of what I was giving an example of.
Twitter is, essentially, an advertising company .. that's the revenue model. It just piggy-backs on inane garbage like when the Kardashians shit.
Twitter went IPO for $28 billion dollars, in the 10 years since Twitter has been operating, they've lost $2 billion dollars.
You'll note that the poster I replied to, and quoted, said tech companies are basically ad companies, and essentially ponzi schemes. Here it is again:
So, in terms of an example of a company which is essentially an ad platform, which has failed to make any money, and which was overvalued from the start and is losing money ... exactly like a ponzi scheme ... I didn't give a "bad" example.
I gave an example of exactly what I was trying to give an example of, and in agreement with the poster I was responding to.
Twitter is a bullshit vehicle which collected $28 billion of other people's money at IPO, has lost $2 billion dollars flailing about trying to have a business model, and whose stock keeps losing value.
Giant. Fucking. Ponzi. Scheme.
That's actually a really good analogy.
Twitter is a great example of this -- they went IPO at $28 billion freaking dollars.
They had no business model, assets, or revenue to support that valuation. It was all hype and "ZOMG, the Twitterz". Now, fast forward, it it loses ... what, $150 million per year? How do you do that on almost $600 million in revenues?
Tech companies have pretty much been starting out as grossly overvalued, by the end of the day when the big investors have laundered their profits, and the little guy is left holding the bag ... the stock is never worth the same again, at least not in the long run.
The value of tech stocks relative to actual value has rarely held up. Essentially they're all over sold as ad platforms, which in the long run never actually justify the original stupid prices they fetched.
Over the last 20 years (at least), tech companies have been a series of giant ponzi schemes of grossly overvalued companies which ultimately can't deliver on the bullshit hype.
Honestly, I don't understand how the financial industry works if it's all wishful thinking, bad math, and funny money. Oh, wait, they make their money up front, and then pass the shit on to the next suckers in the scheme, of course.
It just transfers money into the hands of big investors who buy in first, and leave everyone else wondering how they got fleeced. Exactly like a ponzi scheme.
Well, too bad you've not taken ownership of your own privacy and blocked them.
France is saying "no, you can't track people who don't even know they're being tracked and aren't visiting your web site". Until the country you lives in passes privacy laws .. you've got to do it on your own. Sadly, most normal internet users have been tracked by these parasites who feel it's their right to do so.
The amount of websites which have Facebook, Twitter, or any of dozens of other sites which track you even if you don't visit them is mind boggling.
So when those companies say "boo hoo, stop blocking out ads", you need to say "fuck you, I don't consent to being tracked by 15 3rd parties" and use your own blockers.
Most other governments are too much on the fucking payroll to limit what companies can do. The US sure as hell will never to do, the US is pretty much the international champion of the rights of corporations to be douchebags. If your government isn't going to force them to stop tracking you, then you really need to do it yourself.
And, honestly, even if your government tries, you need to do it yourself.
I applaud trying to block this, but the scale on which this shit happens is beyond understanding to anybody who isn't in full possession of their own tinfoil hat.
My primary browser? It can't even see facebook.com. If you're not actively defending yourself from this shit, you're already being tracked, whether you know it or not.
Well, they could make aerogel out of children if that makes you feel better.
Seriously? Why must every scientific advancement help children?
LOL, now that's a first.
So, basically, rather than responding to you point by point, let me point you to this story on the front-page.
And everything I said earlier, and say not boils down to "fuck you, FBI, you ignorant bastards who feel we should cede our freedoms to hypothetical scenarios without proof or probable cause, and in direct violation of the law".
When the head of the FBI is a fucking moron who things secrets from law enforcement should be illegal, I can't give a rats ass about them being hacked.
Sorry, I'm no longer willing to let FUD and other bullshit be the back doors to the law. Because I simply don't trust them, and don't care.
You're right, I am not defending the hackers on a specific reason, or even for their reasons. But I've moved past the point where I can simply say "as law abiding sheep we should bend over any time law enforcement asks, and stop pretending like their convenience trumps our rights".
Specifically why the hackers did it, I don't care. I just can't muster the sympathy when to happens to the FBI etc these days. Because I'm tired of them claiming they need the keys to the kingdom just in case -- that's fundamentally not compatible with the free society they've been tasked to defend.
The back button?
That's my solution to "you must have javascript enabled".
Right, because I'm sure the people trying to make money off selling their games are all crusading for free software.
Why would you expect Amazon to be making an open source tool here?
LOL ... are you expecting a rational reconciliation between the fact that you can't undermine security and enhance security at the same time?
For you and I, that would be cognitive dissonance. For people who think they can pass laws around technical problems, the wishful thinking just keeps going.
Not understanding the technology makes it far easier to pass terrible laws about the technology and then fail to understand why those laws don't work.
But, part of the problem is they fall short on some basic security things ... and that stuff probably does need some fixing.
And the people who subscribe to a news paper will read it every day, probably read all of it, and do so religiously. Those people are looking to have the newspaper as a fairly significant chunk of their day.
Now, who goes to Wired every day and reads every article? And how many other websites do you think people will be willing to pay for? The subscription fatigue will kick in really quickly.
I wouldn't pay for wired, and I'm not turning off my security and privacy for them ... so if next time someone posts a story on Slashdot, and it points to Wired ... I will simply not read the story.
There's simply a very finite amount of money people will allocate for this kind of thing ... and if Wired discovers nobody cares, that will be their own damned problem.
No, that's exactly the point.
The law doesn't allow thw FBI to do blanket surveillance without a warrant or commit perjury either, and yet ...
Random bullshit strawman, no thanks.
If the FBI et al don't follow the law, don't pretend like they should be shielded by it. Rule of law being something we have to adhere to but they can ignore? Hell no.
Again, an expectation of sympathy, why again? Collectively, the FBI doesn't give a shit about the law or your privacy, but we're supposed to respect theirs?
Look, I'm in no way associated with this stuff. I think the guys who do it are poking the bear, and will likely find that can sting a little. I'm not suggesting anybody run out and do this shit.
But I am saying the collective anger at the entire agency is not happening in a vacuum. If they're going to ignore the law and trample on our rights, going all boo hoo about theirs is hypocrisy.
I think the people doing this should reasonably expect a lot of law enforcement resources to be expended. But I simply can't muster up sympathy for the collective tragedy of FBI agents, who collectively don't give a fuck about the laws or our rights.
This "it's OK, we're law enforcement, we're the good guys" is just not something I can believe any more.
So, no, I don't care. I'm beyond caring. Because they stopped holding up their end years ago.
Why the hell would we let all the damned tracking shit run in the first place?
OK, so your little monkey brain doesn't see it (not "your" little monkey brain, per se) ... they still get the tracking and analytics data.
What the hell is the point of that? They still know that "little monkey brain x visited this site" ... I'm not giving them that information, that's why I run the ad blocker in the first place.
Letting the scripts run defeats the entire purpose.
Pretty much, yes.
I'm saying the level of dangerous stupidity I see with the lines in place tells me removing the lines is going to have FAR more unintended consequences.
The people who are too damned stupid to know what side of the road to drive on or what lane they're in are far too numerous ... giving them no indication of where they are is only going to make it worse.
Swerving into on-coming traffic is something which a lot of people already do.
So, yes, the idiots I already see in the world aren't going to be any less idiots with this. Which makes me think while this will slow a few people, it will cause a whole host of other problems. They'll likely cause more new problems than they fix.
Of course it isn't. The average person probably hits dozens of web sites in a week, probably one article at a time. Even for a site you use daily, $1/week is well outside what people are going to pay -- which, let's face it is pretty much zero.
The publishing model of the web doesn't include revenue, and the security mode of ads doesn't mean it makes any sense to keep trusting that shit.
I don't know what the solution is, but it's not my job to find it. We can't trust the ad companies -- neither to have any security, nor to respect our privacy -- and we won't pay for the content, we'll just move on.
For a tech website to not understand that tech savvy users use ad blocking stuff because we can't trust the ad companies says they don't understand the issue ... or they only see it as "we need revenue, we don't give a fuck about your security".
If you can't find a solution which allows for our privacy and security, we don't give a fuck about your revenue. And Wired will join the list of sites like Forbes and the NYT which I'll just ignore, or click the back button and move on.
Go ahead, block us. And fall even further into irrelevancy.
Pretty much this.
Serve an ad from your own server, which doesn't require scripts, and doesn't rely on 15 external tracking sites to monitor my visit (OK, on that particular page it was 5), and I don't have a problem.
What's that? You can't serve those ads, or having it be non-targeted isn't as effective? Too fucking bad.
This bullshit about letting a bunch of external sites set cookies, run scripts, run plugins, and track everything I do ... that's your problem. Because I'm not trusting some 3rd party just because you're getting a few shekels from them -- I have no reason to trust those 3rd parties. That's an idiotic security model, and wired should know it.
Serve a script-less ad from your own servers without external tracking, and I won't even bother blocking them.
Wow, that's a nice hack job of a quote you did.
I'm not advocating it, I'm not condoning it, but I sure as fuck understand it.
The problem is, the agency as a whole has raised the ire of a lot of people. It's not like you can only target the people who do this stuff, and it's not like they give a shit.
The problem is, when they use things like Sting Rays or other blanket surveillance crap, suddenly other innocent people can end up on their radar without any legal basis other than "while we were listening to everybody else we saw this and then suddenly investigated you for fun". They do this shit to us already.
So, are we supposed to extend a courtesy to law enforcement they won't extend to us? Because that's some pretty wishful thinking.
You're not on MY shitlist, I'm not the one doing this stuff.
But I'm afraid I can understand why someone who is angry at the FBI isn't willing to extend a courtesy to the rest of the members of the FBI that, as an agency, they don't extend to us -- because they don't concern themselves with our rights while they do this. These people work for an agency which is doing some things which are fairly widely known to violate your rights, bypass the Constitution, and ignore the letter and spirit of the law.
Which means the people lashing out at that agency aren't discriminating between the janitors, and the guys running the programs -- any more than the FBI are worrying about the rest of us.
Illegal blanket surveillance doesn't prune out the innocent people either. Parallel construction to lie in court about how they came to be looking at you violates your right to due process and the right to see your accuser, instead of someone who has fabricated a story after the fact to make it look like they didn't break the law -- you know perjury.
I have a hard time seeing this as some egregious offense against their rights while they do the same to us.
But you know what, it really boils down to "if these agencies are going to spy on us, often in violation of the law and our rights ... and then use parallel construction to commit perjury, why should we care?"
I don't disagree with your sentiment, but the reality is the reasons these people don't want their information made public are their own problem. Especially when they show so little regard for us.
So, when these agencies use Sting Rays, or commit perjury via parallel construction so they can lie about how they got information and deny you legal process, or otherwise ignore the law ... is that right? Because a lot of people disagree that "because we said so" is a valid reason.
Yes, it's reckless and dangerous .. but it seems the kind of thing which is intended to say "not only can we not trust you bastards, you can't even secure your own shit." I can see the point: when law enforcement stops caring about our rights, it's well beyond the point where we should care about them.
There's an awful lot of anger over the fact that law enforcement has taken the attitude of we'll do whatever we can get away with. So, are they entitled to expect anything different?
But let's not pretend that there aren't on-going abuses by these agencies which happen all the time, and which undermine the very rights and freedoms they pretend to be protecting.