And if you try to drive a bike drunk, you probably will fall instead of killing yourself and others, as happens most of the time with cars. In fact, mile by mile, unless hit by a car (that qualifies as car or bike accident?) or falling off a cliff is harder to die in one.
Car accidents is one of the main causes of death in US, 1 in 108 (and maybe other causes in that report should be grouped in that category as are caused directly or indirectly by cars), while bicycles are 1 in 5000 (and a lot of them could be caused by cars). And those 2 are often ignored by the people that mainly fear being killed by a shark or terrorists that are 1 in several millons each.
Intellectual property is not about property of intellectuals, but of what your intellect creates, even if was just a phone conversation with a friend. You can't have both intellectual property and the right of spy on everyone, you are denying one doing the other.
Who I am, where, with who, doing what, that is privacy. But what i do, what i write, say, draw, etc specially in private or shared with a limited group, that is intellectual property... and that is what is being violated by US official policies.
Why Europe should honor US intellectual property if the US government is officially ignoring the intellectual property of all EU citizens, including the one of their leaders?
The exploit was on the old version of Firefox that had the Tor Bundle. And Firefox OS seem to have a good push for upgrading it.
Open source security advantage in this is not being bug free (nor is closed source one), but that is auditable. Backdoors are harder to slip in and also more visible (so if you sneak one in a system that you use too, it can be used by others against you, something that you as a government don't want)
Why not? Money is printed, the manufacturers contractors are more than happy to get it and give something back to the legislators that approve those measures. If they could waste 77 billons in jets that never went to war, $88k is just pocket change. They don't need to go after every and each one, just set some precedents.
In fact, you should be shitting bricks right now. If US have no problem spying foreing presidents communications or even deviating official presidential planes, you think it will care a lot about the diplomatics implications of sending a drone to you or your approximate neighbourhood?
The market, google apps, bundled apps with your phones, and, well, most of what can be installed with the market are not open source, in fact the AOSP versions of google apps lacks some functionality. With cyanogenmod and f-droid as market you get something closer to being open source with the exception that you pointed out.
You can always install CyanogenMod + F-Droid as market replacement for a more open source Android experience, that supports a lot of devices. The device drivers could not be very open, but in the end, Ubuntu Touch is based on android kernel and drivers too (what shortened the path to support a lot of devices). That approach is also used by Firefox OS, and I think that Sailfish will use it too, and for phones those 2 are good alternatives. Now, for tablets or for attaching a big screen/keyboard to make it behave like a desktop computer the option will be Ubuntu Touch.
The sources of the attacks is not so much where the person launching the attack lives, but computers that takes part in a botnet/have a trojan/visit special pages, or hacked sites (usually with the owner of those computers/sites having no clue of that happening). It could give new information on DDoSed targets, but for sources could have too much noise to be useful.
If want some sympathy, don't look outside. The future of the country is on stake by the actions of the ones that are in power. So, spy on all of them, report to the public (and justice) any misbehavior, bribe, abuse, etc and that threat could be subverted. After all working for america is not working for some particular rich guys but for all its citizens.
Don't matter what i judge or not. What matter is that the people behind this research take that into account or not. Remember how promising was the research on nuclear energy at the start of the last century, and how muted were the scientists trying to avoid the government to use it against people, in fact the first practical use of it was killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. Do you think that the current government or the next one won't use it as a weapon if feels that have to do it, directly or indirectly? Or even try it on humans, whichever one are the less popular by that time.
We are not mature enough as culture, and the people with resources and power to produce and weaponize (or comercialize without enough/ignored testing, check tobacco) it could actually use it in big scale. That is a bad combo.
That is lower odds of success. This is about very low odds of failure. Tell any banker that the odds of losing in an investment are so low and probably will lend all the money of the world to bet all on it (probably 1 in 10 would be enough to invest millons, and this is several orders better).
Didn't got the memo? Life, love, having a future, those pesky humans that ask for their rights, health, etc have the lowest priority. What really matters is money, making it as fast as possible, is like checkmating the other king in chess, no matter how much pawns or higher pieces you must sacrify for that. HFT, as a refinement for reaching that ultimate goal, is great for that. Even if things screws up badly and big banks behind it gets hit, they will be bailed out, is a no risk bet. And while money keeps being the ultimate good, that kind of tools will still be around.
Most will end like a frog in boiling water. Releasing the documents bit by bit don't let people absorb how bad the whole thing is. They got the first memory, and then all is more of the same, without analyzing what implies or what new thing had come to light.
Also had been a good media (and social networks) campaing downplaying it, it was just metadata, then was just snooping, then that others governments do something similar, and so on. By the time most of people know someone affected by this would be already too late.
Regarding the rest of the world, some of them are doing something to protect themselves (i.e. Brazil), some are partners in crime (i.e. UK), and others behave like minions (like some european countries).
You should not compare documentation between open source and closed source programs. They just mean different things (in particular, with the Oracle one).
In open source anyone can write a documentation, put it in his site, and become official, or worthy of reading, or better than the "bundled" one, documentation is also as open source and collaborative as the product development, and if someone thinks that it is not enough, or want to explore/extend something that is not fully explained in the documentation, he could go down to the source to see how that really works. And because of that, is not a so high priority for the devels because there are ways to know what you want about the product, and is one of the typical contributions that they expect from the community using that product. Also is more "informal" as a lot on how it works or can be used, or internals, are more found using google (in forums, stackoverflow, etc) than in the documentation.
In closed source there is one authoritative documentation, that is the ultimate reference, and most of what people write about that product goes around it. You can do benchmarks, test it under different scenarios, guess, recommend what he thinks is better, but still is a long shot to the process that happens in open source projects. If something is not documented, then noone (should?) know that it is there (and is pretty common that the companies with closed source products take a lot of advantage of those undocumented bits to be the main one that can extend it or that can do it more efficiently). It could work outside of internet, you get your product, your stack of books, and thats all that you should and will know about it,
Both approachs are different, and there are a lot of gray areas where you can have a great community around a closed source product, or a great bundled documentation for an open source one, but which approach one is the "right" one? YYMV
Anyway, in this moment (maybe mainly for the rest of the world, the DoD could be pretty safe on that) the "undocumented" part that matters is the one that is not in the "complete" documentation, and there is no source available to verify/audit/etc.
One of the more immediate consequences of snooping (even if were only metadata, and is far more than that), was that "normal" americans getting spam (or other kinds of unsolicited email) from elsewhere could be put into watch lists, with the collateral effects of getting all their mail inspected and backdoors installed in their PCs/cellphones just in case, and more "real world" consequences with the TSA or others in the present or future (maybe exaggerating, i liked a lot this story, but reality seem to be stranger than fiction). That they can't tell that it is spam before triggering all those actions should be worrysome.
The same federal government? And at least tries to provide an alternative to the email controlled by the US federal government (i.e. all the ones of companies that are US based or have their servers there).
At least for braziians, is the lesser evil, else they will be empowerign the federal government behind overthrowing democratically elected governments all around the world since last century, including the brazilian one, of course.
What you do what those books were written in a culture different than ours, describing things that were normal, accepted or according with the moral values of that time or place compared with the ones of our times? what about the future with our own values? Oh, wait there is no place in the future for our current books.
Maybe most of what was banned deserved it, had no literary or any other value at all. But was all? And setting this precedent is opening the door for bad abuses of it, specially when people use their subjectivity (and political agenda, and economical interests, and so on) to decide what goes and what not.
Maybe will be for the best, it will open an opportunity for alternate/uncensored markets (and no markets as "selling" could not be the main target there), leaving the current "sell digital as if it were paper" establishment behind at last.
I wonder at which temperature digital books gets banned. The article suggest that what they are banning have hot content, but that means that it will applied to any hot topic like surveillance, corporate greed and government abuses?
must come big responsibility. Internet empowered all of us, we should be thankful for that. But having that power implies new rules of convivence. And abusing of that power just because you can always have undesirable consequences in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
And if you try to drive a bike drunk, you probably will fall instead of killing yourself and others, as happens most of the time with cars. In fact, mile by mile, unless hit by a car (that qualifies as car or bike accident?) or falling off a cliff is harder to die in one.
It is not the first time (nor the last) that the car industry try to eliminate alternatives to their products.
Car accidents is one of the main causes of death in US, 1 in 108 (and maybe other causes in that report should be grouped in that category as are caused directly or indirectly by cars), while bicycles are 1 in 5000 (and a lot of them could be caused by cars). And those 2 are often ignored by the people that mainly fear being killed by a shark or terrorists that are 1 in several millons each.
Intellectual property is not about property of intellectuals, but of what your intellect creates, even if was just a phone conversation with a friend. You can't have both intellectual property and the right of spy on everyone, you are denying one doing the other.
Who I am, where, with who, doing what, that is privacy. But what i do, what i write, say, draw, etc specially in private or shared with a limited group, that is intellectual property... and that is what is being violated by US official policies.
Why Europe should honor US intellectual property if the US government is officially ignoring the intellectual property of all EU citizens, including the one of their leaders?
The exploit was on the old version of Firefox that had the Tor Bundle. And Firefox OS seem to have a good push for upgrading it.
Open source security advantage in this is not being bug free (nor is closed source one), but that is auditable. Backdoors are harder to slip in and also more visible (so if you sneak one in a system that you use too, it can be used by others against you, something that you as a government don't want)
NSA free? Or at least, harder to get in unnoticed than in some bundled google/apple app, or even 3rd party, installable apps. Specially, for Brazil.
Why not? Money is printed, the manufacturers contractors are more than happy to get it and give something back to the legislators that approve those measures. If they could waste 77 billons in jets that never went to war, $88k is just pocket change. They don't need to go after every and each one, just set some precedents.
In fact, you should be shitting bricks right now. If US have no problem spying foreing presidents communications or even deviating official presidential planes, you think it will care a lot about the diplomatics implications of sending a drone to you or your approximate neighbourhood?
Being Android the OS with the biggest marketshare on tablets this year could qualify it as the year of the linux tablet.
What ubuntu (and other linux derivatives taking the same approach as it) must do is grow the market share of proper linux distributions.
The market, google apps, bundled apps with your phones, and, well, most of what can be installed with the market are not open source, in fact the AOSP versions of google apps lacks some functionality. With cyanogenmod and f-droid as market you get something closer to being open source with the exception that you pointed out.
You can always install CyanogenMod + F-Droid as market replacement for a more open source Android experience, that supports a lot of devices. The device drivers could not be very open, but in the end, Ubuntu Touch is based on android kernel and drivers too (what shortened the path to support a lot of devices). That approach is also used by Firefox OS, and I think that Sailfish will use it too, and for phones those 2 are good alternatives. Now, for tablets or for attaching a big screen/keyboard to make it behave like a desktop computer the option will be Ubuntu Touch.
The sources of the attacks is not so much where the person launching the attack lives, but computers that takes part in a botnet/have a trojan/visit special pages, or hacked sites (usually with the owner of those computers/sites having no clue of that happening). It could give new information on DDoSed targets, but for sources could have too much noise to be useful.
If want some sympathy, don't look outside. The future of the country is on stake by the actions of the ones that are in power. So, spy on all of them, report to the public (and justice) any misbehavior, bribe, abuse, etc and that threat could be subverted. After all working for america is not working for some particular rich guys but for all its citizens.
Don't matter what i judge or not. What matter is that the people behind this research take that into account or not. Remember how promising was the research on nuclear energy at the start of the last century, and how muted were the scientists trying to avoid the government to use it against people, in fact the first practical use of it was killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. Do you think that the current government or the next one won't use it as a weapon if feels that have to do it, directly or indirectly? Or even try it on humans, whichever one are the less popular by that time.
We are not mature enough as culture, and the people with resources and power to produce and weaponize (or comercialize without enough/ignored testing, check tobacco) it could actually use it in big scale. That is a bad combo.
That is lower odds of success. This is about very low odds of failure. Tell any banker that the odds of losing in an investment are so low and probably will lend all the money of the world to bet all on it (probably 1 in 10 would be enough to invest millons, and this is several orders better).
Didn't got the memo? Life, love, having a future, those pesky humans that ask for their rights, health, etc have the lowest priority. What really matters is money, making it as fast as possible, is like checkmating the other king in chess, no matter how much pawns or higher pieces you must sacrify for that. HFT, as a refinement for reaching that ultimate goal, is great for that. Even if things screws up badly and big banks behind it gets hit, they will be bailed out, is a no risk bet. And while money keeps being the ultimate good, that kind of tools will still be around.
Most will end like a frog in boiling water. Releasing the documents bit by bit don't let people absorb how bad the whole thing is. They got the first memory, and then all is more of the same, without analyzing what implies or what new thing had come to light.
Also had been a good media (and social networks) campaing downplaying it, it was just metadata, then was just snooping, then that others governments do something similar, and so on. By the time most of people know someone affected by this would be already too late.
Regarding the rest of the world, some of them are doing something to protect themselves (i.e. Brazil), some are partners in crime (i.e. UK), and others behave like minions (like some european countries).
You should not compare documentation between open source and closed source programs. They just mean different things (in particular, with the Oracle one).
In open source anyone can write a documentation, put it in his site, and become official, or worthy of reading, or better than the "bundled" one, documentation is also as open source and collaborative as the product development, and if someone thinks that it is not enough, or want to explore/extend something that is not fully explained in the documentation, he could go down to the source to see how that really works. And because of that, is not a so high priority for the devels because there are ways to know what you want about the product, and is one of the typical contributions that they expect from the community using that product. Also is more "informal" as a lot on how it works or can be used, or internals, are more found using google (in forums, stackoverflow, etc) than in the documentation.
In closed source there is one authoritative documentation, that is the ultimate reference, and most of what people write about that product goes around it. You can do benchmarks, test it under different scenarios, guess, recommend what he thinks is better, but still is a long shot to the process that happens in open source projects. If something is not documented, then noone (should?) know that it is there (and is pretty common that the companies with closed source products take a lot of advantage of those undocumented bits to be the main one that can extend it or that can do it more efficiently). It could work outside of internet, you get your product, your stack of books, and thats all that you should and will know about it,
Both approachs are different, and there are a lot of gray areas where you can have a great community around a closed source product, or a great bundled documentation for an open source one, but which approach one is the "right" one? YYMV Anyway, in this moment (maybe mainly for the rest of the world, the DoD could be pretty safe on that) the "undocumented" part that matters is the one that is not in the "complete" documentation, and there is no source available to verify/audit/etc.
One of the more immediate consequences of snooping (even if were only metadata, and is far more than that), was that "normal" americans getting spam (or other kinds of unsolicited email) from elsewhere could be put into watch lists, with the collateral effects of getting all their mail inspected and backdoors installed in their PCs/cellphones just in case, and more "real world" consequences with the TSA or others in the present or future (maybe exaggerating, i liked a lot this story, but reality seem to be stranger than fiction). That they can't tell that it is spam before triggering all those actions should be worrysome.
The same federal government? And at least tries to provide an alternative to the email controlled by the US federal government (i.e. all the ones of companies that are US based or have their servers there).
At least for braziians, is the lesser evil, else they will be empowerign the federal government behind overthrowing democratically elected governments all around the world since last century, including the brazilian one, of course.
What you do what those books were written in a culture different than ours, describing things that were normal, accepted or according with the moral values of that time or place compared with the ones of our times? what about the future with our own values? Oh, wait there is no place in the future for our current books.
Maybe most of what was banned deserved it, had no literary or any other value at all. But was all? And setting this precedent is opening the door for bad abuses of it, specially when people use their subjectivity (and political agenda, and economical interests, and so on) to decide what goes and what not.
Maybe will be for the best, it will open an opportunity for alternate/uncensored markets (and no markets as "selling" could not be the main target there), leaving the current "sell digital as if it were paper" establishment behind at last.
I wonder at which temperature digital books gets banned. The article suggest that what they are banning have hot content, but that means that it will applied to any hot topic like surveillance, corporate greed and government abuses?
must come big responsibility. Internet empowered all of us, we should be thankful for that. But having that power implies new rules of convivence. And abusing of that power just because you can always have undesirable consequences in the future.