The problem isn't that the server sent a response, it's that it sent a response to the wrong person. This was accomplished by spoofing an IP. If the spoofing couldn't happen, then the attacker would only be able to DOS themselves.
Because for some completely unknown reason, IP spoofing is still a thing, and most routers still pass packets that claim to come from an IP that couldn't possibly be on the interface it connected from.
I can't even fathom why this is still a thing (or even why it was a thing in the first place) but unfortunately it is, and there doesn't seem to be any way to get these things actually fixed.
This is honestly one of the absolute biggest threats on the internet. Not because it enables this particular attack, but because it is the main thing that enables almost every attack. (It also happens to be one of the things that enables spam)
This exact law didn't exist before, and this exact challenge didn't happen before, but the exact same mental gymnastics as to who has authority over what and why have.
The only way that this could possibly go down without one side or the other caving is an all out war. And that's not going to happen over this issue. I highly doubt the US is going to cave, so that leaves the EU which has caved to US pressure too many times to count.
I think I missed where the leader of any western democracy was promoted from within. I seem to remember this thing called "elections" which completely negate that argument.
That still is no justification for term limits. What guarantees that the corruption won't take place on day 1? or that it won't take until year 23? Term limits are arbitrary, and hence useless for fighting that corruption.
If you want to fight the corruption, don't have an arbitrary term limit, instead have a method in place to remove a bad leader at ANY time, not just at specific multi-year intervals.
I'm not advocating for anarchy. In fact I specifically stated that I'm FOR regulation. But only the kind that protects consumers, not the kind that protects corrupt monopolies.
There is zero justification for limiting the supply of Taxis or for mandating minimum pricing. There is however perfectly justifiable reasons for regulating maximum prices (or at least transparent pricing) and for regulating the safety of the vehicles and the drivers. Unfortunately Taxi regulation has made Taxis so expensive, and so scarce that people are willing to throw out the safety regulation just to get an affordable and effective system in place. That's why people ignore the fact that Uber is a taxi service and try mental gymnastics to pretend it isn't. Because they're tired of the corrupt industry as it stands, and the regulatory capture imposing a monopoly on them when no justification for one exists.
As for "I just have respect for laws". That's a horrible position to take. Laws do not deserve blind respect, they deserve critical thinking, and to be changed when they don't meet the needs of society. Many horrible, unethical things have been done in the past while being perfectly legal under the laws of the time. The fact that they were legal didn't make them right. Under your world view any law that's passed is guaranteed to be perfect, despite being crafted by humans who are always imperfect, and often corrupt. That said, in my jurisdiction Uber is 100% legal. So I guess you now must love Uber right? Or do you only respect laws that protect YOUR industry from competition?
Putin has leverage, but it isn't the blackmail kind.
As you point out, threatening to reveal Trump's secrets is likely pointless as Trump doesn't care. But there is something that trump cares about above all other things. POWER. Putin put him in power, and Putin can take him out of power just as easily.
In most companies you are NOT paid to make recommendations and suggestions. You ARE paid to tell your boss what he wants to hear. Sometimes the 2 are the same things (and in any organization with competent management they are). However when your boss is... less competent... it's stupid to give them recommendations that you know they don't want to hear. And it's pretty obvious that Trump does NOT want to hear that recommendation.
It's an effective monopoly because the prices are all identical between the companies, and the barrier to entry is 100% absolute. It is illegal to enter the market without someone already in the market selling you their license (a practice that in itself proves that the licensing system is horribly corrupt and serves no defensible purpose)
As for "charge what they are regulated to charge". That's exactly the point. They charge inflated rates because corrupt regulators have set rates far higher than the free market ever would have settled on. As for "limiting congestion". Sure, if people can't get anywhere because they can't afford it, or because there are no taxis available, I guess there's less congestion. It's also a complete 100% failure of a system whose sole goal is to provide transportation. By that logic we could reduce congestion further by tearing up all the streets and outlawing vehicles. But it would hardly be an ideal solution.
I never said Uber would stay "as clean as presently" (whatever that means?). What I said was that there are so many companies now competing that we no longer have to tolerate corrupt mediocre taxi service. If taxis want to compete, and be seen by citizens as legitimate options to Uber, Lyft, etc, they need to shape up and start providing levels of service at least equal to those companies, at similar prices. If they refuse to do that, then I hope they DO go bankrupt, they'll be replaced by people who ARE willing to compete.
If you personally feel threatened by competition, tough luck. Most of us already work in industries with competition, and we've survived just fine. If you're unwilling to do so. Move somewhere where there is no free market. I'm sure you'll be much happier if all the companies you do business work as nicely as taxi companies. Imagine if the grocery store only stocked 4 jugs of milk per day, and charge $50 each as that's the regulated number and price. You have to wait a week to get a jug of milk? too bad, it limits congestion of milk delivery trucks.
I'm going to just assume you're a taxi driver, because you're doing well at repeating all their usual talking points.
That said, I'm no fan of Uber, I don't think they should exist at all to be honest. But that said, I think Taxi regulations should have stuck with regulating passenger safety and honest fares. Nothing more. Taxi regulations that limit the number of taxis, or impose a minimum price are the sole reason that Uber has managed to exist, and why they have enough popular support for people to ignore the fact that they are in fact taxis. If taxi regulators weren't in the pocket of the taxi companies, there'd be no demand for Uber, and they'd have no public support when they try to enter a market and subvert the local taxi laws.
Government should guarantee that the taxi I get in to is safe, and that I won't be gouged by unscrupulous pricing. But beyond that the free market is far more efficient at deciding how many of these cars should be on the road, and what a fair fare is. The mere fact that so many people are willing to drive for Uber at pennies on the dollar compared to normal taxis just proves how over-priced the taxi market really is. Corrupt regulations have completely decoupled taxi fares from supply and demand, and people are fighting back by pretending that Ubers aren't taxis, and I don't blame them.
As for Uber putting taxis out of business and then jacking up the prices. I actually laughed at your suggestion, because your example is exactly the current situation for taxis. Taxis have a legal monopoly and have blocked anyone else from the market, which then resulted in the predictable end result of rates that are jacked up to ridiculous levels, and service has fallen to pitiful levels, all because you have no choice. Uber couldn't do that even if they wanted to, because there's competition from other "ride-sharing" services, as well as the taxi industry itself. If they put taxis out of business, and then raise their rates, someone will start a taxi company to undercut them, or another ride-sharing service will do so. There are already 2 big players in the space (Uber and Lyft) as well as dozens of smaller ones all waiting for Uber to make such a mistake. What Uber has done is create a competitive market place where none existed before, they are just as much slaves to that market as anyone else. This is hard for taxi companies that haven't had to play fair for many many decades, but it's no different from most other industries where competitive pressure is considered a normal part of doing business.
Hence the ability to remove the leader being far more important. Once they're in power, it's too late. Most of those high-level connections and back-room deals happened long before they actually got in to office, otherwise they'd be unlikely to get there in the first place.
I see no reason to oust a good leader just to try to thwart a bad one. The much better approach is to make sure that the process is in place to remove the bad one.
And that last term I think is the problem. Politicians should never have an opportunity where they don't have to listen, because they tend to exploit it.
As for "successful" past leaders. You can still have those in the UK, or any of the MANY other countries without term limits. They just have to know when to call it a day (and many have. They retire and don't seek re-election). That said, why do I care if a past leader was "tainted" or not? I care that I have the best person for the job at any given time. I don't care if the best person has been there for 2 months, or their entire adult life. I *DO* care that once they stop being the best person that we have a means of removing them though, and ideally without having to wait for a set term to pass.
We know why the first is important, But I don't know what the point is to the second. You must have a way of removing a leader from office, but a limit on their term doesn't make any real sense. If you have the best leader ever, you need to kick them out despite overwhelming public support just because some arbitrary date has passed? Conversely, many countries with term limits fail to have any way to remove a horrible leader before a set amount of time has passed (a term minimum?) which is, in my opinion, an even worse problem.
No, I think #2 should be replaced with: An effective mechanism to remove leaders.
I can guarantee that the system to get them medical response if they need it is the public 911 system (or 999, or 112, or whatever your local emergency number is) I can also 100% guarantee that the taxis get no preferential treatment to that service when compared to any other person calling in an identical patient presentation. Now they may call their dispatch who then call the emergency number, instead of calling it direct, but that's not a point in their favour, that's a point against. Every layer of middleman you add to an emergency call slows down the response, and introduces more chances for error. The best thing those drivers could do (Uber or Taxi) is to call the emergency number themselves. If policy requires notifying their dispatch, that should be done only after they hang up with emergency services.
As for the regulation, and the "good with the bad", Most people have personal experience that shows that the "good" is pretty limited, and the "bad" translates to lousy service at inflated prices.
I don't know why this is a story. There's absolutely nothing different here from the exact same incident on a city bus, or in a taxi, or when carpooling with your buddy next door (which is what Uber pretends they want to be). And you'd be incredibly naive to think that those versions of this same incident don't happen every single day.
From the driver's standpoint it's actually very simple too. Do you feel comfortable transporting this person to the destination they're paying to go to? - Yes: Treat them as you treat every other paying passenger and take them to the destination and get paid. - No: Refuse transport, as you would any other person you don't feel comfortable transporting, call 911 and request an ambulance. If the patient refuses the ambulance when it gets there, that's not your problem, that's between the paramedics and the patient.
On slashdot we frequently repeat that "on a computer" or "on the internet" do not make an invention new and novel. Well "in an Uber" is the same thing for the transportation industry. "in an Uber" isn't new and novel. It's the same thing as everyone else has been doing since the first person carried another person to the tribe's medicine man. This is no different than a taxi or a city bus which run in to the same issue every single day.
It has nothing to do with discouraging frivolous calls. It has everything to do with a technicality in the Canada Health Act that doesn't list Ambulances as a medical service, and as such, doesn't force it to be included in health care in Canada.
Ambulance service in Canada is surprisingly new, and especially the modern variety where the crew on board is trained in advanced medical practices and does more than simply drive you to a hospital. As such many laws pre-date what we consider to be a normal EMS system, and have not been updated for a variety of political reasons. This is the same reason that in many places EMS is not considered an essential service like police or fire. Did you know that in many places it's perfectly legal for paramedics to strike and withhold all services? Ambulances are not a guarantee in Canada.
That said, there is some political pressure to start including ambulances in the public healthcare system and stop billing for their use, but politics make it very difficult as there are lots of concerns around the cost.
As for frivolous calls. I don't think that the existing model really does much to stop those. Keep in mind there are huge swaths of the population that already never see a bill, these include: - Anyone over 65 years of age - The entire Native population - All low income people (including minimum wage earners, as well as the unemployed, and welfare recipients) - Anyone on AISH (handicapped) - Pretty much anyone working for a mid to large company as most of those companies provide medical plans which completely cover ambulance services.
After looking at the list, you quickly realize that all the groups who statistically are most likely to call an ambulance for minor or fraudulent reasons already get it for free anyway. The only people who have to pay tend to be people who are self employed, or who work for small companies without health plans. These people are also the types of people who are more used to being self reliant, and less likely to call for frivolous reasons.
Really the only deterrent to frivolous use right now is that it's illegal, that said, it is a law that's rarely enforced because no health service wants to be seen as discouraging use, and don't want people to think twice before calling. Also, even the most "frivolous" calls do usually involve some form of medical issue, even if we wouldn't consider it urgent enough for an actual ambulance, but knowing where to draw that line is very tricky, and again, as a society we'd prefer that people didn't have to think about it.
That said, most estimates seem to point to over 80% of ambulance calls in Canada being something that could have been taken care of by other transportation options.
Taxi drivers do not require any specialized training in dealing with emergency medical situations. And have no different legal responsibilities. As for "radio support".... What is this 1973? Uber drivers carry cell phones. They are perfectly capable of calling 911 if they believe something is a medical emergency. (which is actually BETTER than doing the exact same thing through a radio "dispatching station" as you cut out a layer of "middleman" as well as maintain more privacy vs an open radio channel)
As for "higher priority" you're being ridiculous. all 911 calls are handled based on the description of the incident, and not based on who is calling. It doesn't matter if a doctor calls 911 vs a 5 year old, MPDS doesn't care, and priorities are assigned based on the description of the incident, nothing more. And even if it was based on caller, I can guarantee you that "taxi driver" wouldn't be a class that would merit any special treatment from an EMS dispatcher.
Uber *IS* a taxi service by every single definition of the word. They only pretend to be different to avoid corrupt laws governing the existing industry. Somehow it's worked for them. But Taxi services aren't the saints they try to make themselves out to be. In most locations their training is nonexistent, and the only difference between the taxi and the Uber is that the Uber tends to provide better service at a lower cost.
Cloud storage isn't so useful when it's not accessible remotely.... If they didn't want anyone to access the data, they'd have been better off simply deleting it. (And before we talk about obstruction of justice for doing so, remember that the argument is that they aren't subject to US law anyway, so there's no difference here between refusing to deliver it, and deleting it entirely)
A little pedantic I see. "at" was not intended to mean a crash course. It was meant to indicate it would visit Mars proximity, something it will no longer do because they missed.
This is nothing new, it has happened many times before, and it's always forgotten about quickly. This will be no different.
I'd like to think something will change, but there's just no rational reason to believe it will. There's nothing different about this time to all the previous times this has happened.
Leaves them some wiggle room. When it inevitably comes out much larger than expected, they only need to manufacture a bag of sugar that's slightly larger and they'll be completely accurate in their description.
Back to reality. Who comes up with these ridiculous measurements???? I have 2 completely different size bags of sugar in my kitchen right now, my parents always buy a 3rd size that's 4 times the size of the larger of the 2 I have right now, and I bet most bakeries get even larger bags. I've mocked things in the past that are described as the size of a toaster or a volkswagen, etc, but I don't think I've ever seen a comparison with quite as much variability as this one!
Slashdot Mirror
The problem isn't that the server sent a response, it's that it sent a response to the wrong person. This was accomplished by spoofing an IP. If the spoofing couldn't happen, then the attacker would only be able to DOS themselves.
Because for some completely unknown reason, IP spoofing is still a thing, and most routers still pass packets that claim to come from an IP that couldn't possibly be on the interface it connected from.
I can't even fathom why this is still a thing (or even why it was a thing in the first place) but unfortunately it is, and there doesn't seem to be any way to get these things actually fixed.
This is honestly one of the absolute biggest threats on the internet. Not because it enables this particular attack, but because it is the main thing that enables almost every attack. (It also happens to be one of the things that enables spam)
Listen to him talk some time, all he ever talks about is how much power he has. And that didn't start when he got in to politics.
As for a businessman not having the power. I don't know where you've been, but business men often pull the strings of politicians.
Sure, you go ahead and believe that.
This exact law didn't exist before, and this exact challenge didn't happen before, but the exact same mental gymnastics as to who has authority over what and why have.
The only way that this could possibly go down without one side or the other caving is an all out war. And that's not going to happen over this issue. I highly doubt the US is going to cave, so that leaves the EU which has caved to US pressure too many times to count.
Ok, get back to me when this is all done and played out.
Your world view is far more optimistic than anything that has EVER happened in the history of mankind.
I think I missed where the leader of any western democracy was promoted from within. I seem to remember this thing called "elections" which completely negate that argument.
That still is no justification for term limits. What guarantees that the corruption won't take place on day 1? or that it won't take until year 23? Term limits are arbitrary, and hence useless for fighting that corruption.
If you want to fight the corruption, don't have an arbitrary term limit, instead have a method in place to remove a bad leader at ANY time, not just at specific multi-year intervals.
I'm not advocating for anarchy. In fact I specifically stated that I'm FOR regulation. But only the kind that protects consumers, not the kind that protects corrupt monopolies.
There is zero justification for limiting the supply of Taxis or for mandating minimum pricing. There is however perfectly justifiable reasons for regulating maximum prices (or at least transparent pricing) and for regulating the safety of the vehicles and the drivers. Unfortunately Taxi regulation has made Taxis so expensive, and so scarce that people are willing to throw out the safety regulation just to get an affordable and effective system in place. That's why people ignore the fact that Uber is a taxi service and try mental gymnastics to pretend it isn't. Because they're tired of the corrupt industry as it stands, and the regulatory capture imposing a monopoly on them when no justification for one exists.
As for "I just have respect for laws". That's a horrible position to take. Laws do not deserve blind respect, they deserve critical thinking, and to be changed when they don't meet the needs of society. Many horrible, unethical things have been done in the past while being perfectly legal under the laws of the time. The fact that they were legal didn't make them right. Under your world view any law that's passed is guaranteed to be perfect, despite being crafted by humans who are always imperfect, and often corrupt. That said, in my jurisdiction Uber is 100% legal. So I guess you now must love Uber right? Or do you only respect laws that protect YOUR industry from competition?
Putin has leverage, but it isn't the blackmail kind.
As you point out, threatening to reveal Trump's secrets is likely pointless as Trump doesn't care. But there is something that trump cares about above all other things. POWER. Putin put him in power, and Putin can take him out of power just as easily.
In most companies you are NOT paid to make recommendations and suggestions. You ARE paid to tell your boss what he wants to hear. Sometimes the 2 are the same things (and in any organization with competent management they are). However when your boss is... less competent... it's stupid to give them recommendations that you know they don't want to hear. And it's pretty obvious that Trump does NOT want to hear that recommendation.
It's an effective monopoly because the prices are all identical between the companies, and the barrier to entry is 100% absolute. It is illegal to enter the market without someone already in the market selling you their license (a practice that in itself proves that the licensing system is horribly corrupt and serves no defensible purpose)
As for "charge what they are regulated to charge". That's exactly the point. They charge inflated rates because corrupt regulators have set rates far higher than the free market ever would have settled on. As for "limiting congestion". Sure, if people can't get anywhere because they can't afford it, or because there are no taxis available, I guess there's less congestion. It's also a complete 100% failure of a system whose sole goal is to provide transportation. By that logic we could reduce congestion further by tearing up all the streets and outlawing vehicles. But it would hardly be an ideal solution.
I never said Uber would stay "as clean as presently" (whatever that means?). What I said was that there are so many companies now competing that we no longer have to tolerate corrupt mediocre taxi service. If taxis want to compete, and be seen by citizens as legitimate options to Uber, Lyft, etc, they need to shape up and start providing levels of service at least equal to those companies, at similar prices. If they refuse to do that, then I hope they DO go bankrupt, they'll be replaced by people who ARE willing to compete.
If you personally feel threatened by competition, tough luck. Most of us already work in industries with competition, and we've survived just fine. If you're unwilling to do so. Move somewhere where there is no free market. I'm sure you'll be much happier if all the companies you do business work as nicely as taxi companies. Imagine if the grocery store only stocked 4 jugs of milk per day, and charge $50 each as that's the regulated number and price. You have to wait a week to get a jug of milk? too bad, it limits congestion of milk delivery trucks.
Now we're getting in to revisionist history.
I missed my target? No, I MEANT to do that... honest!
I'm going to just assume you're a taxi driver, because you're doing well at repeating all their usual talking points.
That said, I'm no fan of Uber, I don't think they should exist at all to be honest. But that said, I think Taxi regulations should have stuck with regulating passenger safety and honest fares. Nothing more. Taxi regulations that limit the number of taxis, or impose a minimum price are the sole reason that Uber has managed to exist, and why they have enough popular support for people to ignore the fact that they are in fact taxis.
If taxi regulators weren't in the pocket of the taxi companies, there'd be no demand for Uber, and they'd have no public support when they try to enter a market and subvert the local taxi laws.
Government should guarantee that the taxi I get in to is safe, and that I won't be gouged by unscrupulous pricing. But beyond that the free market is far more efficient at deciding how many of these cars should be on the road, and what a fair fare is. The mere fact that so many people are willing to drive for Uber at pennies on the dollar compared to normal taxis just proves how over-priced the taxi market really is. Corrupt regulations have completely decoupled taxi fares from supply and demand, and people are fighting back by pretending that Ubers aren't taxis, and I don't blame them.
As for Uber putting taxis out of business and then jacking up the prices. I actually laughed at your suggestion, because your example is exactly the current situation for taxis. Taxis have a legal monopoly and have blocked anyone else from the market, which then resulted in the predictable end result of rates that are jacked up to ridiculous levels, and service has fallen to pitiful levels, all because you have no choice. Uber couldn't do that even if they wanted to, because there's competition from other "ride-sharing" services, as well as the taxi industry itself. If they put taxis out of business, and then raise their rates, someone will start a taxi company to undercut them, or another ride-sharing service will do so. There are already 2 big players in the space (Uber and Lyft) as well as dozens of smaller ones all waiting for Uber to make such a mistake. What Uber has done is create a competitive market place where none existed before, they are just as much slaves to that market as anyone else. This is hard for taxi companies that haven't had to play fair for many many decades, but it's no different from most other industries where competitive pressure is considered a normal part of doing business.
Hence the ability to remove the leader being far more important. Once they're in power, it's too late. Most of those high-level connections and back-room deals happened long before they actually got in to office, otherwise they'd be unlikely to get there in the first place.
I see no reason to oust a good leader just to try to thwart a bad one. The much better approach is to make sure that the process is in place to remove the bad one.
And that last term I think is the problem. Politicians should never have an opportunity where they don't have to listen, because they tend to exploit it.
As for "successful" past leaders. You can still have those in the UK, or any of the MANY other countries without term limits. They just have to know when to call it a day (and many have. They retire and don't seek re-election). That said, why do I care if a past leader was "tainted" or not? I care that I have the best person for the job at any given time. I don't care if the best person has been there for 2 months, or their entire adult life. I *DO* care that once they stop being the best person that we have a means of removing them though, and ideally without having to wait for a set term to pass.
We know why the first is important, But I don't know what the point is to the second. You must have a way of removing a leader from office, but a limit on their term doesn't make any real sense. If you have the best leader ever, you need to kick them out despite overwhelming public support just because some arbitrary date has passed? Conversely, many countries with term limits fail to have any way to remove a horrible leader before a set amount of time has passed (a term minimum?) which is, in my opinion, an even worse problem.
No, I think #2 should be replaced with: An effective mechanism to remove leaders.
I can guarantee that the system to get them medical response if they need it is the public 911 system (or 999, or 112, or whatever your local emergency number is) I can also 100% guarantee that the taxis get no preferential treatment to that service when compared to any other person calling in an identical patient presentation. Now they may call their dispatch who then call the emergency number, instead of calling it direct, but that's not a point in their favour, that's a point against. Every layer of middleman you add to an emergency call slows down the response, and introduces more chances for error. The best thing those drivers could do (Uber or Taxi) is to call the emergency number themselves. If policy requires notifying their dispatch, that should be done only after they hang up with emergency services.
As for the regulation, and the "good with the bad", Most people have personal experience that shows that the "good" is pretty limited, and the "bad" translates to lousy service at inflated prices.
I don't know why this is a story. There's absolutely nothing different here from the exact same incident on a city bus, or in a taxi, or when carpooling with your buddy next door (which is what Uber pretends they want to be). And you'd be incredibly naive to think that those versions of this same incident don't happen every single day.
From the driver's standpoint it's actually very simple too. Do you feel comfortable transporting this person to the destination they're paying to go to?
- Yes: Treat them as you treat every other paying passenger and take them to the destination and get paid.
- No: Refuse transport, as you would any other person you don't feel comfortable transporting, call 911 and request an ambulance.
If the patient refuses the ambulance when it gets there, that's not your problem, that's between the paramedics and the patient.
On slashdot we frequently repeat that "on a computer" or "on the internet" do not make an invention new and novel. Well "in an Uber" is the same thing for the transportation industry. "in an Uber" isn't new and novel. It's the same thing as everyone else has been doing since the first person carried another person to the tribe's medicine man. This is no different than a taxi or a city bus which run in to the same issue every single day.
It has nothing to do with discouraging frivolous calls. It has everything to do with a technicality in the Canada Health Act that doesn't list Ambulances as a medical service, and as such, doesn't force it to be included in health care in Canada.
Ambulance service in Canada is surprisingly new, and especially the modern variety where the crew on board is trained in advanced medical practices and does more than simply drive you to a hospital. As such many laws pre-date what we consider to be a normal EMS system, and have not been updated for a variety of political reasons. This is the same reason that in many places EMS is not considered an essential service like police or fire. Did you know that in many places it's perfectly legal for paramedics to strike and withhold all services? Ambulances are not a guarantee in Canada.
That said, there is some political pressure to start including ambulances in the public healthcare system and stop billing for their use, but politics make it very difficult as there are lots of concerns around the cost.
As for frivolous calls. I don't think that the existing model really does much to stop those. Keep in mind there are huge swaths of the population that already never see a bill, these include:
- Anyone over 65 years of age
- The entire Native population
- All low income people (including minimum wage earners, as well as the unemployed, and welfare recipients)
- Anyone on AISH (handicapped)
- Pretty much anyone working for a mid to large company as most of those companies provide medical plans which completely cover ambulance services.
After looking at the list, you quickly realize that all the groups who statistically are most likely to call an ambulance for minor or fraudulent reasons already get it for free anyway. The only people who have to pay tend to be people who are self employed, or who work for small companies without health plans. These people are also the types of people who are more used to being self reliant, and less likely to call for frivolous reasons.
Really the only deterrent to frivolous use right now is that it's illegal, that said, it is a law that's rarely enforced because no health service wants to be seen as discouraging use, and don't want people to think twice before calling. Also, even the most "frivolous" calls do usually involve some form of medical issue, even if we wouldn't consider it urgent enough for an actual ambulance, but knowing where to draw that line is very tricky, and again, as a society we'd prefer that people didn't have to think about it.
That said, most estimates seem to point to over 80% of ambulance calls in Canada being something that could have been taken care of by other transportation options.
You're funny.
Taxi drivers do not require any specialized training in dealing with emergency medical situations. And have no different legal responsibilities. As for "radio support".... What is this 1973? Uber drivers carry cell phones. They are perfectly capable of calling 911 if they believe something is a medical emergency. (which is actually BETTER than doing the exact same thing through a radio "dispatching station" as you cut out a layer of "middleman" as well as maintain more privacy vs an open radio channel)
As for "higher priority" you're being ridiculous. all 911 calls are handled based on the description of the incident, and not based on who is calling. It doesn't matter if a doctor calls 911 vs a 5 year old, MPDS doesn't care, and priorities are assigned based on the description of the incident, nothing more. And even if it was based on caller, I can guarantee you that "taxi driver" wouldn't be a class that would merit any special treatment from an EMS dispatcher.
Uber *IS* a taxi service by every single definition of the word. They only pretend to be different to avoid corrupt laws governing the existing industry. Somehow it's worked for them. But Taxi services aren't the saints they try to make themselves out to be. In most locations their training is nonexistent, and the only difference between the taxi and the Uber is that the Uber tends to provide better service at a lower cost.
Cloud storage isn't so useful when it's not accessible remotely....
If they didn't want anyone to access the data, they'd have been better off simply deleting it. (And before we talk about obstruction of justice for doing so, remember that the argument is that they aren't subject to US law anyway, so there's no difference here between refusing to deliver it, and deleting it entirely)
A little pedantic I see. "at" was not intended to mean a crash course. It was meant to indicate it would visit Mars proximity, something it will no longer do because they missed.
Funny. You think laws actually apply to governments and large corporations.
There would be an exception 100% guaranteed.
"too big to fail" comes to mind.
You're quite the idealist.
This is nothing new, it has happened many times before, and it's always forgotten about quickly. This will be no different.
I'd like to think something will change, but there's just no rational reason to believe it will. There's nothing different about this time to all the previous times this has happened.
Leaves them some wiggle room. When it inevitably comes out much larger than expected, they only need to manufacture a bag of sugar that's slightly larger and they'll be completely accurate in their description.
Back to reality. Who comes up with these ridiculous measurements???? I have 2 completely different size bags of sugar in my kitchen right now, my parents always buy a 3rd size that's 4 times the size of the larger of the 2 I have right now, and I bet most bakeries get even larger bags. I've mocked things in the past that are described as the size of a toaster or a volkswagen, etc, but I don't think I've ever seen a comparison with quite as much variability as this one!