I can understand the earlier developments relating to this whole incident being on Slashdot. There was the technological aspect to it....... Please, editors, let's leave these purely-political stories off of the front page. I don't dispute that they have value, but they just don't belong here.
While I don't disagree that slashdot seems to put trollish/public-subset-opinion-polling/alarmist style headlines all over the front page more often than optimal, I have to disagree here about Snowden. I believe the Snowden revelations, and the way they came about, and continue to transpire as so, have so paradigm-shifted the computer and network security landscape, that articles such as this one are more than appropriate. First, it's merely a side-effect conveniency issue. While yes, some of your points may have merit, you have to forgive a bit that the slashdot audience really is that interested in how the Snowden saga transpires. I mean, this is some Epic War and Peace Shit going on here. A martyr being martyred slowly over years. How exactly, and how much pain and vindication end up in that story, I really think will have a profound place in the history of the internet's chapter in the history of humanity. This is a *BIG DEAL*.
And even setting asside that real-politik drama and the slashdot audience's 'non-technical' interest, you must look at the legitimate 'technical' interest of the slashdot audience. How Snowden is handled by the overwhelming powers that be, truly does shape how many of us here will be developing technology throughout the remaining future of our carreers. At some point, one is tempted to say - 'if computer security matters are treated this profoundly by the un-(directly)-opposable powers that be, then you know what, I'm actually going to stop worrying about whether the firmware in my BIGNAMEBRAND computer system or consumer device is a security risk or not. But if Snowden is fully vindicated, and reclaims the rights and protections of a free citizen of the United States of America, including rigourous protection of his freedom of speech, then I may well say- I'd like to spend more of my carreer working on more secure open source firmware.
wow, maybe the first time I've ever been personally _asked_ for an opinion on slashdot. No, that AC was not me. The Bro thing was nothing personal, just think of it as a snark tag.
Here is your response- First, my response was instigated by your comments here -
you, AC, and every critic of this policy must either be criticizing the very *existence* of government OR the debate is about when/how not if the government can access your personal data
the debate is about WHEN and HOW...the government has the right to access your personal data with proper warrant
My personal reaction was sufficiently summed up by another comment which basically quoted and explained the 4th ammendment.
My secondary reaction was to get a little snarky, and bring up- not strawmen, but real similar scenarios. The 4th ammendment is (somewhat sadly) all about a subjective interpretation of the word 'reasonable'. Obviously, if the feds and police were perfectly trustworthy, letting them have keys to all of our houses, and letting them search any house they like, whenever they like, when the home is empty, would give the authorities an obviously useful and efficient tool to fight crime. Lives would be saved, more rapists and thieves put in jail, etc. So, clearly as a society we have decided that that is not 'reasonable'. We want more privacy than that, even if it costs lives and victims. The same thing with mandating microphones tapped into the phonesystem embedded in every home/apartement wall. Again, an amazingly useful intelligence tool for the authorities to combat crime and terrorism. And again as a society we've decided that it is 'unreasonable' to go that far.
I brought up the cheap 3d printed solar powered drone w/ parabolic mic theory because I think it is usefully analagous in the current situation between the tech-capability jump between pre-internet and internet, and current-internet and - future with $1 solar drones with parabolic mics.
I believe the problem with the internet, and the related interp of 4th ammendment 'reasonable', is that recently much of society was simply ignorant of internet technology. They largely still are (think net neutrality, metered bandwidth, peak vs non-peak, etc). What is really horrible is I believe the NSA engaged in a massive decade long campaign of disinformation and other deeds to keep the public basically ignorant of the internet, and related security concerns.
Anyway, I can blather on at length, but the short answer is - I think the policy should follow the spirit of the 4th ammendment. And this human being doesn't consider the collection of internet SIGINT/LOVINT indiscriminately from all citizens all the time is 'reasonable'. I think it would be reasonable to _start collection after targeting and getting a judge to sign a warrant_. But I don't consider it reasonable to collect SIGINT/LOVINT in a database that _could be used politically against every citizen_ _before_ a target has been selected, and a legal warrant issued by the judicial branch.
It's also false because bedbugs are insanely awesome hiders (advanced persistent parasites). As someone that had them for 2 years spanning 2 residences, and was finally able to out-smart/engineer them (with heat in addition to ridiculous housekeeping measures), and now been rid of them for more than 2 years... I'm just saying, you gotta respect them. They are _nothing_ like roaches when it comes to 'poor housekeeping'. With roaches, you can do pretty well just by working on better housekeeping. With bedbugs, there is no fucking hope without further measures (heat- but done right, took me 3 months of 'heat waves' before I finally achieved full eradication, and my problem-space was much simpler than most peoples.
Many kids now spend more time inside than previous generations, so they don't develop as strong social skills as they might have.
The globe is getting more crowded. The children are developing the appropriate social skills to their day and age and local population density.
This allows the Internet to somewhat supplement face-to-face contact, and adds considerable anxiety to going outside.
No, I think it's the existence of the internet that allows the internet to somewhat supplant face to face contact. The internet is where life goes on these days. For our parents, that technology did not exist, and gasoline was much cheaper. As a result their lives were lived more often in cars and places you can get to with cars (your local downtown, parks and other points of interest say 50 miles away, etc).
So I wonder if there is a correlation with China's One Child Policy, where parents may be more likely to shelter their only child? Or is there some other cultural cause?
You do realize China is a pretty completely fucked up place to live right? 1989, Tiananmen Square- go watch some mainstream news coverage (from '89, not from the last 10 years) of that. Then read about the working conditions, and thoughtful 'suicide nets' at factories like Foxconn that make all those wonderful Apple and Samsung products. Then read about the history of the Great Firewall, and the history of Yahoo, Microsoft, and then Google caving into free speech pressure to do business there. I.e. Yahoo revealing the identity of yahoo-email users that were clearly only criminal (in China) for wanting to excercise what we in the U.S. consider as an 'inalienable right' (free speech). Google agreeing to censor search results for information about the Tiananmen Square Mass^H^H Incident.
Probably yes, there is some dimension of the influence of the One Child Policy here. But you won't get anywhere in understanding if you ignore the obvious importance of those other things. China wants to control it's citizen's political expression. Massively over-diagnosing schizophria, or homosexuality as a psychological illness, or those sort of things is a little too passe for state oppression. These day's you just send the free-speech loving dissidents to "internet addiction rehab".
Bro, what is your fetish with 'digital communications'? Imagine all of the thoughts you expressed, but instead of the context of a voice conversation using the internet, imagine a voice conversation between you and your wife as you stroll in the park, or sit in your back yard.
Just because the government _has the technical capability_ to inexpensively (if not today, watch out for next week) fly solar drones infinitely recording via parabolic microphones everyone's backyards and every public park- DOESN'T MEAN THEY SHOULD, just because it will probably help them prevent some amount of lawbreaking, and save some amount of lives. Just because the government _could_ send local police departments to do random inspections of everyone's houses (conveniently while they are not at home perhaps), DOESN'T MEAN THEY SHOULD, just because it will probably help them prevent some amount of lawbreaking, and save some amount of lives.
Now think to the current headlines about Obama's theories on restructuring the program. The concept that doesn't seem to get much airplay is- maybe ever single bit flowing across the internet does not need to be stored and accessible to the government forever, or even for a limited time with their promise that they will delete their copy eventually. Maybe, *just maybe*, in a couple years when the government can 3D print a swarm of a million solar powered drones with parabolic microphones to cover the world, humanity will decide that it doesn't need to be able to listen to every conversation between every married couple whispering to each other in a public park or their own backyard. Maybe. But probably not. They are addicted to spying. It gives them a rush of power, a sense of control. It's about domination, and the ability to have comforts in your world, at the expense of the victims.
We need to get rid of the idiotic idea that quasi-public information like SSNs and CC numbers are "secret".
I'm 38, my father is about twice my age. When I was a child I remember some philosophically strong arguments against the use of SSNs in any venue other than the government program they were created for. My father wasn't religious, though later I discovered myself the whole "number of the beast" thing (i.e. christian prophecy about things like the tattooed ID numbers on jewish prisoners of the nazis. To a lesser extent, the idea of humans viewed as consumer cattle by society. I.e. you can't buy or sell or basically function in society without providing your unique numerical identifier to help you be tracked to that level of detail.
Now it seems we've infected south korea with our Social Security Number system. Que Sera Sera.
The only bothersome part is that if any information exists about you in a database somewhere, the government CAN force it out of them legally, regardless of whether or not they want to share it. But that problem isn't caused by the advertisers or marketers, rather it's caused by the government.
I disagree. Though agree that is the "bothersome" (your words, mine is "terrifying") part. I disagree that the problem isn't caused by the advertisers and marketers. While the government also would like to be able to cause the situation, it really takes the full force of the advertisers to get it past the otherwise wise historical teachings against state power. If it weren't for the advertisers raking in countless dollars with the system, the people would demand that their data be completely under their control, and completely encrypted in transit, and not correlatable with other data, unless they are explicitly paid for the privilege of having their data correlated in a database.
You should review the historical tactics of the East German Stasi if you want to properly elevate your sense of "bothersome" to my sense of "terrifying". If you argue that the U.S. govt is an entirely different breed, with some higher moral ground, then I can only say - "have you been reading the news headlines these past 10 years?" I have ZERO faith that the evil human motivations that drove the Stasi to wantonly violate the privacy of all citizens are absent and/or powerless within the humans of the U.S. govt. Within myself even. This is why hard-lines on privacy must be taken. There are slippery slopes. We are probably sliding fast down a few already.
you know, in some sense you just convinced me that the CentOS 6 debacle could well have been the motivating factor here. Basically RH was cheapskately depending on CentOS for it's overall business strategy (same way microsoft turned a blind eye to piracy in China), and CentOS basically retaliated by being unable or unwilling to invest energy to get the early v6 releases done anywhere near in time to the corresponding RH releases. And thusly, RH now has to respond by actually ponying up the effort to keep the CentOS community more viable. I.e. the quicker they can get people on CentOS-7, the quicker they can cash in on the substantial percentage of those that eventually want the RHEL7 support level. For this and other good reasons mentioned in the comments, I wonder why I'm still so shocked by this move... I guess it's like the end of cannabis prohibition. Something so blazingly obviously ignored for so long, that when people finally get around to doing the obvious right thing, it's - breathtaking. Sad, but true.
To use a simple example. A coffee shop should be opened and chartered to provide the community with excellent coffee and atmosphere for social gathering. Profits keep it in business, and keep the owner and workers able to do it, and able to live and enjoy these things like everyone else. It is entirely backwards to look at providing coffee as a means to profit.
I love coffee. I'm probably addicted to coffee. Did I mention, I love coffee? And while in this forum, I'm likelier to retort against knee-jerk pro-leisse-faiire-capitalistic attitutes, I have to stand against your point. The problem with viewing the world like yours is that *not everyone loves coffee as much as I, err, I mean you do*. Sure, coffee is popular right now, maybe it won't be in the future (cough, probably a bad example there, but... I'm guessing you see my wider point). You can't look at the "chartered" reason for an establishments existence as the subjective and transient fact that plenty of people would enjoy it today. You have to as much or more, look at its "chartered" reason for existence under the lense of that fluctuating demand. I.e. you should have as many coffeeshops available as needed to satisfy demand. And for efficiency sake, some demand has to be sacrified. I.e. just because a few freaks like me often enjoy a double mocha at 4am, doesn't justify having a coffeeshop open at 4am just for me. Thus, the whole ferengi river-of-opportunity / traditional capitalism thing comes into play. And so as a society we agree that it's the best model so far, allowing the people who would most enjoy and relatedly are the best at delivering a coffee shops services, to be most likely to be able to pay their own bills and buy some amount of personal luxuries for themselve, in that way. But yes, between the value of the coffee shop runners making a living that way, and the value of the service being able in most appropriate level of satisfaction to those that demand it, it is... well, you know what, I can't decide which of those two is the most important reason-for-existence of the coffee shop. But what was your problem with it again? I think I need another shot of espresso....:)
The only solution, really, is some sort of socialist system, with higher taxes for the high-earners so that everyone has a fair share of the increased productivity. And with bigger strides in robotization, this will be mandatory, or else we'll have revolts and heads will literally roll, which would be unpleasant.
The problem is the charged nature of the language. You started with 'socialist' but then jump right into 'high-earners'. Traditionally in the U.S. we have been conditioned to understand 'socialist' as a system with no 'earners', at least not of the high/low classifiable type. So I just worry that too many people reading your comment will stop at the word 'socialist'. I think I agree with your point, but it should start with "The only solution, really, is some sort of hybrid socialist-capitalist system, with a sufficient safety net for the low earners so that nobody has to walk through their downtown looking at people being left to rot and die in the streets".
That isn't true at all, in fact quite the opposite. The information age has empowered customers over the last two decades, and marketing departments have to work with this fact (the exact words I've heard used are "more powerful customers," which are customers described as having easier access to competitors as well as doing research on the internet.)...
In other words, who needs a middle class when the poor have a higher standard of living today than the middle class and even some of the wealthy of any period earlier than the 60's? The difference between middle class after all is just an arbitrary number on a spreadsheet that some government bureaucrat decided upon.
I can play that game too. That isn't true at all, in fact quite the opposite. I am truly terrified at how empowered the advertisers and marketers are these days. How informed they are about my, and every consumer via the privacy invasion that technology has facilitated. (yes, it was mostly voluntary on the consumer's part, but with no small amount of spin on the security and privacy issues put on the matter by the NSA over the last decade).
mod parent insightful. The comparison to USENET is important for younger readers to consider. 'The Man' was and is afraid of USENET. For reasons concisely stated by the the parent post.
"it launched last year as its attempt to muscle in on that other flavour-of-the-month market: the so-called Internet of Things."
I had to specifically point out to the Wired.com journalist writing about my "Right To Serve" issue that he was putting the phrase "Internet of Things" into my mouth in his first draft article. The "Internet of Things" from what I can tell is the establishment dipping its toes into the wonderous waters of IPv6, but finding a way to do it without allowing the residential user to _profit in any way_ from their "internet of things". Because all profit shall be reserved for the establishment. Or so goes the party line.
Regardless, there are serious problems here and the country could well trend towards tyranny.
I'm often dramatic. I often effectively troll. I often speak first and think better of it later. I often overestimate threats. I often overestimate other's likelyhood of agreeing with my thinking.
But I am really not trying to be over-the-top when I react to you by saying "let me stop you right there. 'could well trend'??? Look at what has happened since 9/11. The only silver lining is that the form of the tyranny is one that understands that many facets of multiculturalism and tolerance are necessary, at least superficially, for them to get away with their style of leadership'. And that is a pretty big silver lining. Let's everybody repeat to ourselves a few times "first (unassassinated as yet) non-white-male president of the United States of America". Ok, now that we feel better about apocalyptic extremities (except for the racists and sexists to whome such a statement is the apocalypse)... Let's get back to the "trending toward tyranny" bit. Yes, this is a big deal. It seems to me lately that the FBI is becoming more of an organization that _allows lawbreaking_ to entrench its power, more than _prevents lawbreaking_ to serve it's just purpose. And I say this as someone who emailed kansas.city@ic.fbi.gov on December 15th informing them of my crop of cannabis being grown in Kansas. I haven't heard back from them yet. I'm pretty convinced that their organization has an M.O. of allowing, and in some cases, *encouraging* law breaking behavior, hoping that the 'perps' will *escalate* the law breaking, so that they can then come in and portray themselves as big-bad-guy-busting heroes of the day. And that just spins the cycle of them getting more terrorist-fighting power and budget. Wheras if they were actually following their just charter, they might actually have a butterfly effect on the fabric of society. Who knows how many interpersonal interactions the poor entrapped and escalating souls go through before they are brought down for the FBI's public glory. Instead of the FBI just sitting the perp down in the beginning, and respecting them as a human being, instead of using them as a pawn in a sick game best explained by watching all five seasons of 'The Wire' over and over again until you realize that maybe the war on drugs was a really stupid fucking idea all along.
I am convinced that Mr. Snowden represents more than himself, and that he has help and assistance from a faction or factions inside the organs of state security that do not like the way things are headed.
This piece by Mr. Kaplan clearly represents a bit of propaganda from the other side, the elements inside state security that do like the way things are going. In that light, while not informational, it is informative about the shadow play going on behind the scenes.
I agree, s/convinced/strongly_suspect/. The clearest indicator being the 100% lack of a Snowden followup. Amongst my theories for plausible explanation for 100% lack of a Snowden followup (a 2nd NSA employee coming out of the closet and speaking up with as much conviction and defiance of the U.S. govt as Snowden has)-
1) the neo-fascists, with modern technology, are actually already worse than the nazis. And the rest of the NSA members that have had pangs of conscience about the Snowden revelations are still far more afraid of their master's power than anything else.
2) as you said, Snowden is a mere figurehead for an organized resistance. The propoganda piece of this article (U.S. govt sanctioned I presume) is exactly as you state. Some sort of shadowplay amongst factions.
3) you and I are both 100% completely delusional.
4) Snowden really was a lone sysadmin gunman, able to pull off what he did, with the impact it has had.
Much as I'd like to give Snowden credit for (4), or the rest of the universe credit for (3), I find (2) the most plausible, but don't discount at all (1).
As long as there is the ability for someone to stand behind you and make sure vote a certain way, I won't support it. No one knows how I vote when I step into a voting booth.
Unfortunately we seem to have already gained momentum on that particular slippery slope. The stats for absentee ballots of late... I'm almost too dejected to research myself, but I wonder if those used to be highly restricted (e.g. people who legitimately would otherwise have no way to get to the polls.)
Exposing our violation of the rights of practically the entire Earth population was the right thing to do. Snowden deserves more than clemency. He deserves a sainthood.
This christian agrees, with the added qualifier- "He deserves a sainthood... as much as anybody"
i'll burn some karma to try and get the parent sentiment modded from 5:informative to 5:insightful (i assume that is possible with enough over the top/max +1 insightful mods)
Once you have standardized page size and other challenges inherent with POD, you might as well just be downloading an e-book.
I know I am in a very small 'paranoid' minority on this one but- POD gets you the ability to read the book, without having a psychological profile of you developed based on the relative times spent on each page. A profile that can and will be sold to advertisers (if only to fund the library building and license costs) . A profile that can and will be stored forever by the NSA so that should they ever find a reason to 'target' that 'collected data' it is there, and able to either help them understand and/or misportray your personality.
If you could buy medical grade cocaine at the corner store with only the usual commercial markup, how many people do you suppose would choose black-market heroin instead?
I'm curious, since I like your comment generally- was this a 'typo' or did you really mean this. If so, please explain your reasoning. I.e. one is a stimulant, the other a depressant.
This is another good argument for not using drugs like heroine and coke which you can OD on. I forget the exact quote, but it goes something like "The L.D.50 of cannabis is a 5kg brick thrown from the 7th floor of a high rise".
I'm willing to bet the majority of congress knows exactly what the NSA has on them. It was discussed last time the NSA gave them their voting instructions.
You were modded insightful instead of funny, don't know if that matches your true sentiment. I doubt what you said was truly insightful. I have this very strong feeling that the NSA is intelligent and skilled enough to be a good deal more subtle than that. They can make sure the appropriately plausibly deniable targeted advertisements are served up to the senators letting them know the peculiar embarassing personal habbits and other things they know, demonstrating the reach of their surveillance. If that isn't enough, they can have a few deconfliction shills feed some similar targeted comments to the discussions streams they know that senator follows. Do that subtley over months and years, and you don't need a 'dr evil' moment where you give the senator their voting instructions. They become conditioned to 'fall in line'. Then the dark power elements in the NSA and CIA just ramp up or down the subtle harassment based on how much the senator is falling in line with the obvious agenda being pushed by the D.C. elite of the moment (e.g. Obama currently doing nothing to stand up for Snowdens entirely validated act of conscience). Or at least, that is how I guess they do it. It's not a Dr. Evil thing. It's real political manipulation enabled by digital communication insecurity that the NSA has spent a lot of money fostering over the last decade because they think it puts them at an advantage. (it does, but they sell it to their friends and family as putting the U.S. at advantage instead of the N.S.A. at advantage. And that part is the ugly lie. Their spying puts everyone other than them at a horrible disadvantage).
I hope the person who modded me down understood that I was being sincere, and not a troll. If you downmodded me because I forgot to add to the list access to legal contraception and abortion, and great - if incomplete - progress on the gender gap in civil rights, then that is cool.
1. Global governance: why not, we badly needed. The only problem is that people on any given spot of the world think the guys across the border are out to get them.
methinks you undersell the problem of language and cultural differences. If we see universal translator technology go much closer to star-trek levels than the reality of recent decades (despite the hype) I think a global democracy will become much more possible
Slashdot Mirror
I can understand the earlier developments relating to this whole incident being on Slashdot. There was the technological aspect to it. ... ... Please, editors, let's leave these purely-political stories off of the front page. I don't dispute that they have value, but they just don't belong here.
While I don't disagree that slashdot seems to put trollish/public-subset-opinion-polling/alarmist style headlines all over the front page more often than optimal, I have to disagree here about Snowden. I believe the Snowden revelations, and the way they came about, and continue to transpire as so, have so paradigm-shifted the computer and network security landscape, that articles such as this one are more than appropriate. First, it's merely a side-effect conveniency issue. While yes, some of your points may have merit, you have to forgive a bit that the slashdot audience really is that interested in how the Snowden saga transpires. I mean, this is some Epic War and Peace Shit going on here. A martyr being martyred slowly over years. How exactly, and how much pain and vindication end up in that story, I really think will have a profound place in the history of the internet's chapter in the history of humanity. This is a *BIG DEAL*.
And even setting asside that real-politik drama and the slashdot audience's 'non-technical' interest, you must look at the legitimate 'technical' interest of the slashdot audience. How Snowden is handled by the overwhelming powers that be, truly does shape how many of us here will be developing technology throughout the remaining future of our carreers. At some point, one is tempted to say - 'if computer security matters are treated this profoundly by the un-(directly)-opposable powers that be, then you know what, I'm actually going to stop worrying about whether the firmware in my BIGNAMEBRAND computer system or consumer device is a security risk or not. But if Snowden is fully vindicated, and reclaims the rights and protections of a free citizen of the United States of America, including rigourous protection of his freedom of speech, then I may well say- I'd like to spend more of my carreer working on more secure open source firmware.
Dunno...
wow, maybe the first time I've ever been personally _asked_ for an opinion on slashdot. No, that AC was not me. The Bro thing was nothing personal, just think of it as a snark tag.
Here is your response- First, my response was instigated by your comments here -
you, AC, and every critic of this policy must either be criticizing the very *existence* of government OR the debate is about when/how not if the government can access your personal data
the debate is about WHEN and HOW...the government has the right to access your personal data with proper warrant
My personal reaction was sufficiently summed up by another comment which basically quoted and explained the 4th ammendment.
My secondary reaction was to get a little snarky, and bring up- not strawmen, but real similar scenarios. The 4th ammendment is (somewhat sadly) all about a subjective interpretation of the word 'reasonable'. Obviously, if the feds and police were perfectly trustworthy, letting them have keys to all of our houses, and letting them search any house they like, whenever they like, when the home is empty, would give the authorities an obviously useful and efficient tool to fight crime. Lives would be saved, more rapists and thieves put in jail, etc. So, clearly as a society we have decided that that is not 'reasonable'. We want more privacy than that, even if it costs lives and victims. The same thing with mandating microphones tapped into the phonesystem embedded in every home/apartement wall. Again, an amazingly useful intelligence tool for the authorities to combat crime and terrorism. And again as a society we've decided that it is 'unreasonable' to go that far.
I brought up the cheap 3d printed solar powered drone w/ parabolic mic theory because I think it is usefully analagous in the current situation between the tech-capability jump between pre-internet and internet, and current-internet and - future with $1 solar drones with parabolic mics.
I believe the problem with the internet, and the related interp of 4th ammendment 'reasonable', is that recently much of society was simply ignorant of internet technology. They largely still are (think net neutrality, metered bandwidth, peak vs non-peak, etc). What is really horrible is I believe the NSA engaged in a massive decade long campaign of disinformation and other deeds to keep the public basically ignorant of the internet, and related security concerns.
Anyway, I can blather on at length, but the short answer is - I think the policy should follow the spirit of the 4th ammendment. And this human being doesn't consider the collection of internet SIGINT/LOVINT indiscriminately from all citizens all the time is 'reasonable'. I think it would be reasonable to _start collection after targeting and getting a judge to sign a warrant_. But I don't consider it reasonable to collect SIGINT/LOVINT in a database that _could be used politically against every citizen_ _before_ a target has been selected, and a legal warrant issued by the judicial branch.
$0.02...
It's also false because bedbugs are insanely awesome hiders (advanced persistent parasites). As someone that had them for 2 years spanning 2 residences, and was finally able to out-smart/engineer them (with heat in addition to ridiculous housekeeping measures), and now been rid of them for more than 2 years... I'm just saying, you gotta respect them. They are _nothing_ like roaches when it comes to 'poor housekeeping'. With roaches, you can do pretty well just by working on better housekeeping. With bedbugs, there is no fucking hope without further measures (heat- but done right, took me 3 months of 'heat waves' before I finally achieved full eradication, and my problem-space was much simpler than most peoples.
Many kids now spend more time inside than previous generations, so they don't develop as strong social skills as they might have.
The globe is getting more crowded. The children are developing the appropriate social skills to their day and age and local population density.
This allows the Internet to somewhat supplement face-to-face contact, and adds considerable anxiety to going outside.
No, I think it's the existence of the internet that allows the internet to somewhat supplant face to face contact. The internet is where life goes on these days. For our parents, that technology did not exist, and gasoline was much cheaper. As a result their lives were lived more often in cars and places you can get to with cars (your local downtown, parks and other points of interest say 50 miles away, etc).
So I wonder if there is a correlation with China's One Child Policy, where parents may be more likely to shelter their only child? Or is there some other cultural cause?
You do realize China is a pretty completely fucked up place to live right? 1989, Tiananmen Square- go watch some mainstream news coverage (from '89, not from the last 10 years) of that. Then read about the working conditions, and thoughtful 'suicide nets' at factories like Foxconn that make all those wonderful Apple and Samsung products. Then read about the history of the Great Firewall, and the history of Yahoo, Microsoft, and then Google caving into free speech pressure to do business there. I.e. Yahoo revealing the identity of yahoo-email users that were clearly only criminal (in China) for wanting to excercise what we in the U.S. consider as an 'inalienable right' (free speech). Google agreeing to censor search results for information about the Tiananmen Square Mass^H^H Incident.
Probably yes, there is some dimension of the influence of the One Child Policy here. But you won't get anywhere in understanding if you ignore the obvious importance of those other things. China wants to control it's citizen's political expression. Massively over-diagnosing schizophria, or homosexuality as a psychological illness, or those sort of things is a little too passe for state oppression. These day's you just send the free-speech loving dissidents to "internet addiction rehab".
Bro, what is your fetish with 'digital communications'? Imagine all of the thoughts you expressed, but instead of the context of a voice conversation using the internet, imagine a voice conversation between you and your wife as you stroll in the park, or sit in your back yard.
Just because the government _has the technical capability_ to inexpensively (if not today, watch out for next week) fly solar drones infinitely recording via parabolic microphones everyone's backyards and every public park- DOESN'T MEAN THEY SHOULD, just because it will probably help them prevent some amount of lawbreaking, and save some amount of lives. Just because the government _could_ send local police departments to do random inspections of everyone's houses (conveniently while they are not at home perhaps), DOESN'T MEAN THEY SHOULD, just because it will probably help them prevent some amount of lawbreaking, and save some amount of lives.
Now think to the current headlines about Obama's theories on restructuring the program. The concept that doesn't seem to get much airplay is- maybe ever single bit flowing across the internet does not need to be stored and accessible to the government forever, or even for a limited time with their promise that they will delete their copy eventually. Maybe, *just maybe*, in a couple years when the government can 3D print a swarm of a million solar powered drones with parabolic microphones to cover the world, humanity will decide that it doesn't need to be able to listen to every conversation between every married couple whispering to each other in a public park or their own backyard. Maybe. But probably not. They are addicted to spying. It gives them a rush of power, a sense of control. It's about domination, and the ability to have comforts in your world, at the expense of the victims.
We need to get rid of the idiotic idea that quasi-public information like SSNs and CC numbers are "secret".
I'm 38, my father is about twice my age. When I was a child I remember some philosophically strong arguments against the use of SSNs in any venue other than the government program they were created for. My father wasn't religious, though later I discovered myself the whole "number of the beast" thing (i.e. christian prophecy about things like the tattooed ID numbers on jewish prisoners of the nazis. To a lesser extent, the idea of humans viewed as consumer cattle by society. I.e. you can't buy or sell or basically function in society without providing your unique numerical identifier to help you be tracked to that level of detail.
Now it seems we've infected south korea with our Social Security Number system. Que Sera Sera.
The only bothersome part is that if any information exists about you in a database somewhere, the government CAN force it out of them legally, regardless of whether or not they want to share it. But that problem isn't caused by the advertisers or marketers, rather it's caused by the government.
I disagree. Though agree that is the "bothersome" (your words, mine is "terrifying") part. I disagree that the problem isn't caused by the advertisers and marketers. While the government also would like to be able to cause the situation, it really takes the full force of the advertisers to get it past the otherwise wise historical teachings against state power. If it weren't for the advertisers raking in countless dollars with the system, the people would demand that their data be completely under their control, and completely encrypted in transit, and not correlatable with other data, unless they are explicitly paid for the privilege of having their data correlated in a database.
You should review the historical tactics of the East German Stasi if you want to properly elevate your sense of "bothersome" to my sense of "terrifying". If you argue that the U.S. govt is an entirely different breed, with some higher moral ground, then I can only say - "have you been reading the news headlines these past 10 years?" I have ZERO faith that the evil human motivations that drove the Stasi to wantonly violate the privacy of all citizens are absent and/or powerless within the humans of the U.S. govt. Within myself even. This is why hard-lines on privacy must be taken. There are slippery slopes. We are probably sliding fast down a few already.
True, it's probably employing a software programmer somewhere, but that is at the expense of thousands of paralegals and even lawyers.
Won't someone, but someone, please think of the lawyers. Oh the humanity...
you know, in some sense you just convinced me that the CentOS 6 debacle could well have been the motivating factor here. Basically RH was cheapskately depending on CentOS for it's overall business strategy (same way microsoft turned a blind eye to piracy in China), and CentOS basically retaliated by being unable or unwilling to invest energy to get the early v6 releases done anywhere near in time to the corresponding RH releases. And thusly, RH now has to respond by actually ponying up the effort to keep the CentOS community more viable. I.e. the quicker they can get people on CentOS-7, the quicker they can cash in on the substantial percentage of those that eventually want the RHEL7 support level. For this and other good reasons mentioned in the comments, I wonder why I'm still so shocked by this move... I guess it's like the end of cannabis prohibition. Something so blazingly obviously ignored for so long, that when people finally get around to doing the obvious right thing, it's - breathtaking. Sad, but true.
To use a simple example. A coffee shop should be opened and chartered to provide the community with excellent coffee and atmosphere for social gathering. Profits keep it in business, and keep the owner and workers able to do it, and able to live and enjoy these things like everyone else. It is entirely backwards to look at providing coffee as a means to profit.
I love coffee. I'm probably addicted to coffee. Did I mention, I love coffee? And while in this forum, I'm likelier to retort against knee-jerk pro-leisse-faiire-capitalistic attitutes, I have to stand against your point. The problem with viewing the world like yours is that *not everyone loves coffee as much as I, err, I mean you do*. Sure, coffee is popular right now, maybe it won't be in the future (cough, probably a bad example there, but... I'm guessing you see my wider point). You can't look at the "chartered" reason for an establishments existence as the subjective and transient fact that plenty of people would enjoy it today. You have to as much or more, look at its "chartered" reason for existence under the lense of that fluctuating demand. I.e. you should have as many coffeeshops available as needed to satisfy demand. And for efficiency sake, some demand has to be sacrified. I.e. just because a few freaks like me often enjoy a double mocha at 4am, doesn't justify having a coffeeshop open at 4am just for me. Thus, the whole ferengi river-of-opportunity / traditional capitalism thing comes into play. And so as a society we agree that it's the best model so far, allowing the people who would most enjoy and relatedly are the best at delivering a coffee shops services, to be most likely to be able to pay their own bills and buy some amount of personal luxuries for themselve, in that way. But yes, between the value of the coffee shop runners making a living that way, and the value of the service being able in most appropriate level of satisfaction to those that demand it, it is... well, you know what, I can't decide which of those two is the most important reason-for-existence of the coffee shop. But what was your problem with it again? I think I need another shot of espresso.... :)
The only solution, really, is some sort of socialist system, with higher taxes for the high-earners so that everyone has a fair share of the increased productivity. And with bigger strides in robotization, this will be mandatory, or else we'll have revolts and heads will literally roll, which would be unpleasant.
The problem is the charged nature of the language. You started with 'socialist' but then jump right into 'high-earners'. Traditionally in the U.S. we have been conditioned to understand 'socialist' as a system with no 'earners', at least not of the high/low classifiable type. So I just worry that too many people reading your comment will stop at the word 'socialist'. I think I agree with your point, but it should start with "The only solution, really, is some sort of hybrid socialist-capitalist system, with a sufficient safety net for the low earners so that nobody has to walk through their downtown looking at people being left to rot and die in the streets".
That isn't true at all, in fact quite the opposite. The information age has empowered customers over the last two decades, and marketing departments have to work with this fact (the exact words I've heard used are "more powerful customers," which are customers described as having easier access to competitors as well as doing research on the internet.) ...
In other words, who needs a middle class when the poor have a higher standard of living today than the middle class and even some of the wealthy of any period earlier than the 60's? The difference between middle class after all is just an arbitrary number on a spreadsheet that some government bureaucrat decided upon.
I can play that game too. That isn't true at all, in fact quite the opposite. I am truly terrified at how empowered the advertisers and marketers are these days. How informed they are about my, and every consumer via the privacy invasion that technology has facilitated. (yes, it was mostly voluntary on the consumer's part, but with no small amount of spin on the security and privacy issues put on the matter by the NSA over the last decade).
mod parent insightful. The comparison to USENET is important for younger readers to consider. 'The Man' was and is afraid of USENET. For reasons concisely stated by the the parent post.
"it launched last year as its attempt to muscle in on that other flavour-of-the-month market: the so-called Internet of Things."
I had to specifically point out to the Wired.com journalist writing about my "Right To Serve" issue that he was putting the phrase "Internet of Things" into my mouth in his first draft article. The "Internet of Things" from what I can tell is the establishment dipping its toes into the wonderous waters of IPv6, but finding a way to do it without allowing the residential user to _profit in any way_ from their "internet of things". Because all profit shall be reserved for the establishment. Or so goes the party line.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/google-neutrality/
http://cloudsession.com/dawg/downloads/misc/kag-draft-2k121024.pdf
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/google-we-can-ban-servers-on-fiber-without-violating-net-neutrality/
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/google-fiber-continues-awful-isp-tradition-banning-servers
http://crossies.com/pissed.html
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/google-fiber-now-explicitly-permits-home-servers/
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/01/198327/googles-call-for-open-internet.html
Regardless, there are serious problems here and the country could well trend towards tyranny.
I'm often dramatic. I often effectively troll. I often speak first and think better of it later. I often overestimate threats. I often overestimate other's likelyhood of agreeing with my thinking.
But I am really not trying to be over-the-top when I react to you by saying "let me stop you right there. 'could well trend'??? Look at what has happened since 9/11. The only silver lining is that the form of the tyranny is one that understands that many facets of multiculturalism and tolerance are necessary, at least superficially, for them to get away with their style of leadership'. And that is a pretty big silver lining. Let's everybody repeat to ourselves a few times "first (unassassinated as yet) non-white-male president of the United States of America". Ok, now that we feel better about apocalyptic extremities (except for the racists and sexists to whome such a statement is the apocalypse)... Let's get back to the "trending toward tyranny" bit. Yes, this is a big deal. It seems to me lately that the FBI is becoming more of an organization that _allows lawbreaking_ to entrench its power, more than _prevents lawbreaking_ to serve it's just purpose. And I say this as someone who emailed kansas.city@ic.fbi.gov on December 15th informing them of my crop of cannabis being grown in Kansas. I haven't heard back from them yet. I'm pretty convinced that their organization has an M.O. of allowing, and in some cases, *encouraging* law breaking behavior, hoping that the 'perps' will *escalate* the law breaking, so that they can then come in and portray themselves as big-bad-guy-busting heroes of the day. And that just spins the cycle of them getting more terrorist-fighting power and budget. Wheras if they were actually following their just charter, they might actually have a butterfly effect on the fabric of society. Who knows how many interpersonal interactions the poor entrapped and escalating souls go through before they are brought down for the FBI's public glory. Instead of the FBI just sitting the perp down in the beginning, and respecting them as a human being, instead of using them as a pawn in a sick game best explained by watching all five seasons of 'The Wire' over and over again until you realize that maybe the war on drugs was a really stupid fucking idea all along.
I am convinced that Mr. Snowden represents more than himself, and that he has help and assistance from a faction or factions inside the organs of state security that do not like the way things are headed.
This piece by Mr. Kaplan clearly represents a bit of propaganda from the other side, the elements inside state security that do like the way things are going. In that light, while not informational, it is informative about the shadow play going on behind the scenes.
I agree, s/convinced/strongly_suspect/. The clearest indicator being the 100% lack of a Snowden followup. Amongst my theories for plausible explanation for 100% lack of a Snowden followup (a 2nd NSA employee coming out of the closet and speaking up with as much conviction and defiance of the U.S. govt as Snowden has)-
1) the neo-fascists, with modern technology, are actually already worse than the nazis. And the rest of the NSA members that have had pangs of conscience about the Snowden revelations are still far more afraid of their master's power than anything else.
2) as you said, Snowden is a mere figurehead for an organized resistance. The propoganda piece of this article (U.S. govt sanctioned I presume) is exactly as you state. Some sort of shadowplay amongst factions.
3) you and I are both 100% completely delusional.
4) Snowden really was a lone sysadmin gunman, able to pull off what he did, with the impact it has had.
Much as I'd like to give Snowden credit for (4), or the rest of the universe credit for (3), I find (2) the most plausible, but don't discount at all (1).
As long as there is the ability for someone to stand behind you and make sure vote a certain way, I won't support it. No one knows how I vote when I step into a voting booth.
Unfortunately we seem to have already gained momentum on that particular slippery slope. The stats for absentee ballots of late... I'm almost too dejected to research myself, but I wonder if those used to be highly restricted (e.g. people who legitimately would otherwise have no way to get to the polls.)
Exposing our violation of the rights of practically the entire Earth population was the right thing to do. Snowden deserves more than clemency. He deserves a sainthood.
This christian agrees, with the added qualifier- "He deserves a sainthood ... as much as anybody"
i'll burn some karma to try and get the parent sentiment modded from 5:informative to 5:insightful (i assume that is possible with enough over the top/max +1 insightful mods)
Once you have standardized page size and other challenges inherent with POD, you might as well just be downloading an e-book.
I know I am in a very small 'paranoid' minority on this one but- POD gets you the ability to read the book, without having a psychological profile of you developed based on the relative times spent on each page. A profile that can and will be sold to advertisers (if only to fund the library building and license costs) . A profile that can and will be stored forever by the NSA so that should they ever find a reason to 'target' that 'collected data' it is there, and able to either help them understand and/or misportray your personality.
If you could buy medical grade cocaine at the corner store with only the usual commercial markup, how many people do you suppose would choose black-market heroin instead?
I'm curious, since I like your comment generally- was this a 'typo' or did you really mean this. If so, please explain your reasoning. I.e. one is a stimulant, the other a depressant.
This is another good argument for not using drugs like heroine and coke which you can OD on. I forget the exact quote, but it goes something like "The L.D.50 of cannabis is a 5kg brick thrown from the 7th floor of a high rise".
I'm willing to bet the majority of congress knows exactly what the NSA has on them. It was discussed last time the NSA gave them their voting instructions.
You were modded insightful instead of funny, don't know if that matches your true sentiment. I doubt what you said was truly insightful. I have this very strong feeling that the NSA is intelligent and skilled enough to be a good deal more subtle than that. They can make sure the appropriately plausibly deniable targeted advertisements are served up to the senators letting them know the peculiar embarassing personal habbits and other things they know, demonstrating the reach of their surveillance. If that isn't enough, they can have a few deconfliction shills feed some similar targeted comments to the discussions streams they know that senator follows. Do that subtley over months and years, and you don't need a 'dr evil' moment where you give the senator their voting instructions. They become conditioned to 'fall in line'. Then the dark power elements in the NSA and CIA just ramp up or down the subtle harassment based on how much the senator is falling in line with the obvious agenda being pushed by the D.C. elite of the moment (e.g. Obama currently doing nothing to stand up for Snowdens entirely validated act of conscience). Or at least, that is how I guess they do it. It's not a Dr. Evil thing. It's real political manipulation enabled by digital communication insecurity that the NSA has spent a lot of money fostering over the last decade because they think it puts them at an advantage. (it does, but they sell it to their friends and family as putting the U.S. at advantage instead of the N.S.A. at advantage. And that part is the ugly lie. Their spying puts everyone other than them at a horrible disadvantage).
I hope the person who modded me down understood that I was being sincere, and not a troll. If you downmodded me because I forgot to add to the list access to legal contraception and abortion, and great - if incomplete - progress on the gender gap in civil rights, then that is cool.
1. Global governance: why not, we badly needed. The only problem is that people on any given spot of the world think the guys across the border are out to get them.
methinks you undersell the problem of language and cultural differences. If we see universal translator technology go much closer to star-trek levels than the reality of recent decades (despite the hype) I think a global democracy will become much more possible