I agree. This article was basically worthless. The author is obviously some sort of 3l33t script kiddie (Look at his "encryption" scheme...a time based shift cipher? Give me a break. That would be cracked in about 2 seconds flat by any non-naive intercepter).
The main problem which he fails to account for is what Carnivore ACTUALLY DOES. While it may do more than this, the FBI has basically said it records who you send email to. Going along with this assumption is that the reason the FBI sicced Carnivore on you is that they already suspect you of doing something naughty. It's (probably) not a general system a al Echelon. This is just like a wire tap -- who you call and when you call them (regardless of the message content) is important evidence.
I'm not convinced anything he suggested would defeat this aspect of the system. He was mainly concerned with spoofing its supposed patern matching abilities inside the message itself. Even if your messages are encrypted, they still have a To: header.
To actually get around Carnivore, you'd need to post your encrypted messages (preferably through some sort of proxy) to a pre-agreed USENET newsgroup (or other forum). The FBI would have no message log to track then.
Don't get me wrong, I don't support Carnivore. I think it's an absurd attempt to trample on our rights. But this guy is a moron.
Of course, then she'd have to be a VisualBasic programmer -- a fate I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy.
One of my professors once said, "Most of you will probably work with Visual Basic. If you're good, you'll do Visual C++...If you're insane, you'll do Unix..."
Truth. But getting rid of patents will go a long way towards eliminating the problems Katz is addressing. End intellectual property, and a large number of problems we face cease to exist. It's like Eblen Moglen says: when the law draws arbitrary distinctions (between one group of bits -- copyrighted -- and another group of bits -- public domain), it fails.
How in the hell did this get moderated up? To *5* no less! Katz has his faults (in particular, I would have liked more examples), but this is ridiculous.
Moderators, use your brains. This is flamebait, not insightful.
Trees are renewable, but you can grow three hemp crops in one season in a good climate (i.e., cotton country).
It is true the Heart (along with Du Pont) killed the hemp industry over its effectiveness: when they began their campain, machines for the cheap creation of hemp paper had just been invented. It's not a coincidence. You should read Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do. Here's the link to the relevant chapter: How and Why Drugs Became Illegal
This is an excellent idea. It's one of the things on my list of principles which I uphold. I don't believe in government (per se), but as long as there is one, I should be allowed to decide where my tax money goes.
Or at least, I should be allowed to decide that it shouldn't go to the military.
Actually, wearing your seat belt helps keep you in control of your car during an accident. Since actions taken after the initial contact may reduce the severity of an accident -- including to other parties -- there is justification for seat belt laws on those grounds.
I don't want to give the impression that I'm against wearing seat belts. I always wear mine. Not wearing a seat belt is incredibly stupid.
But I disagree with any entity telling another that they HAVE to wear their seatbelt. If they splatter all over the side walk, it's their problem.
You have an excellent point about loosing control of the vechicle, though. This isn't going to matter one way or another if you get in a real accident though.
So, I would support seatbelt usage through social pressure (telling people to wear their seatbelts, advertisements, cars that won't start without seatbelts engadged) and legal remidies for those who are injured or killed because a car went out of control due to the driver not wearing a seatbelt.
Nozick didn't actually advocate the total absense of government. His book Anarchy, the State, and Utopia describes how a microstate could develop from anarcho-capitalism without violating anyone's rights. He then used that as justification for the existence today's states (even though they did not arise that way), and as justification for reducing them to the microstate level.
It's a good book, but I disagreed with it when I read it. But that was four years ago, so maybe I'd have changed my opinion. Nozick is a brilliant man. Ironically, he was a Harvard classmate of John Rawls, welfare state appologist.
Microsoft would not be an issue if it weren't for *government* enforcement of copyright laws -- a government-granted monopoly.
I'm one of those odd anti-corporation libertarians. The corporate charter is another artifact of government, and it should be eliminated or reduced in scope (i.e., corporate responsibility).
But I agree with the notion that less government leads to less government for corporations to abuse. That's the real problem: the corporations own the government. Remove government, remove problem.
Ah but there's an important distinction to be made - objectivists would probably say that there is only one true way when
reason is being used, while libertarians say that intelligent people can differ, but they're not necessarily using reason. For
example, libertarians support drug legalization (or at least decriminilization) just like most of us, but I don't think that they'd
say that an individual's decision to use drugs is based out of pure reason per se. Libertarians would support freedom of religion
staunchly, where religion has little to do with reason, etc.
The reason for this dichotomy is that libertarianism is all about one thing: freedom. Libertarians support drug legalization because drug criminalization hurts freedom. It is, at its core, paternalistic like manditory seatbelt laws (you can't hurt anyone *else* because you don't wear *your* seatbelt). And its secondary effects are devistating to liberty: random drug tests and stops, assest foriture laws, and worst of all, selective enforcement (hmmm...I wonder if more blacks are in jail for drug use because more blacks use drugs, or because cops are racist?)
In this way, libertarians are sort of like RMS: software/people should be free because it's right, not because it's practical. You can even draw analogies to the "open source" libertarians -- they champion the economic benifits of freedom. Others are more purist and simply believe freedom is a reason in and of itself.
An aside: I love the "just like most of us" part of your reply. I hope it's true -- the drug war has to be the greatest crime against freedom in America in the last 100 years. We have one of the largest prision populations in the world, something like 1/3 of black males can't vote because they have felony drug convictions, the 4th amendment (no unnecessary search and seizures) is being trapled on. If you're interested in this, check out Peter McWilliam's book Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do (which is not actually libertarian), and read what happened to him because he published it: forahero.com, "Spotlight on Peter McWilliams"
Agreed. And programmers are the mechanics of the revolution. But the architects of information systems have *incredible* power to change things the way they want them. "Code is Law" as Lawrence Lessing says. But conter Lessing, the way the architects want it is pro-privacy, anti-government interfernce.
This can be summed up basically as "All Objectivists are libertarians, but not all libertarians are Objectivists." It's actually one of the deepest divisions in the libertarian community. Objectivists who toe Ayn Rand's line believe that their philosophical system is the only rational choice -- therefore any disagreement with it is irrational, and not even worthy of aknowledgement. So, many Objectivists won't even debate libertarians on the issues they disagree with, because the libertarians are obviously being "irrational".
As for myself, I consider myself of the more general type of libertarian (I don't belong to the Libertarian party), with leanings toward even more radical things. I disagree with Rand that there is only one kind of truth (I'm a math person, and for me Godel disproves this notion). I find the dogmatism present in many Objectivists baffling and disheartening. I believe in the value of altruism.
I simply think people should be free to live their own way, be it under government, socialist, anarcho-capitalist, or libertarian micro-state. My main problem with the status quo is that it does not give me or anyone else the freedom to choose. And that drugs are illegal.;^)
The sad thing is, Slashdot is more readable in Mosaic.9 than Netscape 4!
*sigh*
Progress, huh?
Re:Irridium Satellites to be 'Deorbited' after all
on
Sea Launch Success
·
· Score: 1
That's a good idea. Did you ever read about the plan to fill decommissioned ICBMs with pyrotechnics and use them as gigantic fireworks for the millenium? It'd be cool, but I'd be afraid of a nuke slipping in...d'oh!
While I must admitt I'm guilty of moderating at a, ahem, relatively high threshold, I agree this is a good idea.
Slashdot should 1) tell you you are moderator on the front page 2) force you to browse at -1 or 0 3) strip off the person's name (like in Meta-Mod) AND their.sig (because you can identify prolific posters by their.sigs -- sometimes they even have a name) and 4) force moderators to view the comments as Oldest First (to give late-comers a chance at getting moderated up).
Uh huh. That's why he sells out every arena he goes to now for days and days, right?
I wish he were wasting away, but he's not. He's probably going to be the highest-selling artist ever in total records sold. He's catching up to the Beatles.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. This article was basically worthless. The author is obviously some sort of 3l33t script kiddie (Look at his "encryption" scheme...a time based shift cipher? Give me a break. That would be cracked in about 2 seconds flat by any non-naive intercepter).
The main problem which he fails to account for is what Carnivore ACTUALLY DOES. While it may do more than this, the FBI has basically said it records who you send email to. Going along with this assumption is that the reason the FBI sicced Carnivore on you is that they already suspect you of doing something naughty. It's (probably) not a general system a al Echelon. This is just like a wire tap -- who you call and when you call them (regardless of the message content) is important evidence.
I'm not convinced anything he suggested would defeat this aspect of the system. He was mainly concerned with spoofing its supposed patern matching abilities inside the message itself. Even if your messages are encrypted, they still have a To: header.
To actually get around Carnivore, you'd need to post your encrypted messages (preferably through some sort of proxy) to a pre-agreed USENET newsgroup (or other forum). The FBI would have no message log to track then.
Don't get me wrong, I don't support Carnivore. I think it's an absurd attempt to trample on our rights. But this guy is a moron.
Of course, then she'd have to be a VisualBasic programmer -- a fate I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy.
One of my professors once said, "Most of you will probably work with Visual Basic. If you're good, you'll do Visual C++...If you're insane, you'll do Unix..."
It sent a shiver through my spine...
But not until 1998. He wrote the first edition of the book in 1993, I believe, and the second in 1996.
I agree! Equal time! I'd love to have some sort of corporate appologist to flame. That'd be fun, and it'd shut up the Republicans.
Truth. But getting rid of patents will go a long way towards eliminating the problems Katz is addressing. End intellectual property, and a large number of problems we face cease to exist. It's like Eblen Moglen says: when the law draws arbitrary distinctions (between one group of bits -- copyrighted -- and another group of bits -- public domain), it fails.
And I'm a libertarian!
How in the hell did this get moderated up? To *5* no less! Katz has his faults (in particular, I would have liked more examples), but this is ridiculous.
Moderators, use your brains. This is flamebait, not insightful.
Trees are renewable, but you can grow three hemp crops in one season in a good climate (i.e., cotton country).
It is true the Heart (along with Du Pont) killed the hemp industry over its effectiveness: when they began their campain, machines for the cheap creation of hemp paper had just been invented. It's not a coincidence. You should read Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do. Here's the link to the relevant chapter: How and Why Drugs Became Illegal
This is an excellent idea. It's one of the things on my list of principles which I uphold. I don't believe in government (per se), but as long as there is one, I should be allowed to decide where my tax money goes.
Or at least, I should be allowed to decide that it shouldn't go to the military.
Yeah, except that the Republicans are doing their share of the taking!
Just scrap the whole damn thing, I say.
I don't want to give the impression that I'm against wearing seat belts. I always wear mine. Not wearing a seat belt is incredibly stupid.
But I disagree with any entity telling another that they HAVE to wear their seatbelt. If they splatter all over the side walk, it's their problem.
You have an excellent point about loosing control of the vechicle, though. This isn't going to matter one way or another if you get in a real accident though.
So, I would support seatbelt usage through social pressure (telling people to wear their seatbelts, advertisements, cars that won't start without seatbelts engadged) and legal remidies for those who are injured or killed because a car went out of control due to the driver not wearing a seatbelt.
I am. But I'm also against copyright law, so...
Nozick didn't actually advocate the total absense of government. His book Anarchy, the State, and Utopia describes how a microstate could develop from anarcho-capitalism without violating anyone's rights. He then used that as justification for the existence today's states (even though they did not arise that way), and as justification for reducing them to the microstate level.
It's a good book, but I disagreed with it when I read it. But that was four years ago, so maybe I'd have changed my opinion. Nozick is a brilliant man. Ironically, he was a Harvard classmate of John Rawls, welfare state appologist.
You should read Guns, Germs and Steel to see how they faired.
It's actually an excellent book. It changed my view of the necessity of government, and I'm an anarchist of sorts.
Microsoft would not be an issue if it weren't for *government* enforcement of copyright laws -- a government-granted monopoly.
I'm one of those odd anti-corporation libertarians. The corporate charter is another artifact of government, and it should be eliminated or reduced in scope (i.e., corporate responsibility).
But I agree with the notion that less government leads to less government for corporations to abuse. That's the real problem: the corporations own the government. Remove government, remove problem.
The reason for this dichotomy is that libertarianism is all about one thing: freedom. Libertarians support drug legalization because drug criminalization hurts freedom. It is, at its core, paternalistic like manditory seatbelt laws (you can't hurt anyone *else* because you don't wear *your* seatbelt). And its secondary effects are devistating to liberty: random drug tests and stops, assest foriture laws, and worst of all, selective enforcement (hmmm...I wonder if more blacks are in jail for drug use because more blacks use drugs, or because cops are racist?)
In this way, libertarians are sort of like RMS: software/people should be free because it's right, not because it's practical. You can even draw analogies to the "open source" libertarians -- they champion the economic benifits of freedom. Others are more purist and simply believe freedom is a reason in and of itself.
An aside: I love the "just like most of us" part of your reply. I hope it's true -- the drug war has to be the greatest crime against freedom in America in the last 100 years. We have one of the largest prision populations in the world, something like 1/3 of black males can't vote because they have felony drug convictions, the 4th amendment (no unnecessary search and seizures) is being trapled on. If you're interested in this, check out Peter McWilliam's book Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do (which is not actually libertarian), and read what happened to him because he published it: forahero.com, "Spotlight on Peter McWilliams"
Agreed. And programmers are the mechanics of the revolution. But the architects of information systems have *incredible* power to change things the way they want them. "Code is Law" as Lawrence Lessing says. But conter Lessing, the way the architects want it is pro-privacy, anti-government interfernce.
So hopefully that's the way it'll be...
This can be summed up basically as "All Objectivists are libertarians, but not all libertarians are Objectivists." It's actually one of the deepest divisions in the libertarian community. Objectivists who toe Ayn Rand's line believe that their philosophical system is the only rational choice -- therefore any disagreement with it is irrational, and not even worthy of aknowledgement. So, many Objectivists won't even debate libertarians on the issues they disagree with, because the libertarians are obviously being "irrational".
As for myself, I consider myself of the more general type of libertarian (I don't belong to the Libertarian party), with leanings toward even more radical things. I disagree with Rand that there is only one kind of truth (I'm a math person, and for me Godel disproves this notion). I find the dogmatism present in many Objectivists baffling and disheartening. I believe in the value of altruism.
I simply think people should be free to live their own way, be it under government, socialist, anarcho-capitalist, or libertarian micro-state. My main problem with the status quo is that it does not give me or anyone else the freedom to choose. And that drugs are illegal. ;^)
Does this work under florescent light? :)
Now, this is *my* kinda savior!
If You do this again, You should capitalize Your name whenever you refer to Your heavenly self. It completes the effect (cf. The Onion).
The sad thing is, Slashdot is more readable in Mosaic .9 than Netscape 4!
*sigh*
Progress, huh?
That's a good idea. Did you ever read about the plan to fill decommissioned ICBMs with pyrotechnics and use them as gigantic fireworks for the millenium? It'd be cool, but I'd be afraid of a nuke slipping in...d'oh!
Actually, the lead singer of the Offspring has more than a "degree" -- he has a Ph.D.
Opps, I ment NEWEST FIRST, damn dyslexia ;)
While I must admitt I'm guilty of moderating at a, ahem, relatively high threshold, I agree this is a good idea.
.sig (because you can identify prolific posters by their .sigs -- sometimes they even have a name) and 4) force moderators to view the comments as Oldest First (to give late-comers a chance at getting moderated up).
Slashdot should 1) tell you you are moderator on the front page 2) force you to browse at -1 or 0 3) strip off the person's name (like in Meta-Mod) AND their
Uh huh. That's why he sells out every arena he goes to now for days and days, right?
I wish he were wasting away, but he's not. He's probably going to be the highest-selling artist ever in total records sold. He's catching up to the Beatles.