So you want to replace one single point of failure with a different one?
It was a suggestion for this the duration of this incident and is not a comment intended to fix any other issues beyond the immediate need. Read the word "today" in the post.
There is a lot of overlap between preparing for solar caused events like the 1859 Carrington event and modern EMP weapon detonation (which would be similar to a man-made Carrington event).
Based on the 1859 event accounts, we could expect massive infrastructure failure in certain parts of the world if such an event would repeat itself. The storm was a nuisance with the main damages being to telegraph operators and equipment back then. Today, it could be catastrophic.
There have been large solar events that have been near misses of earth in the past as well. It just takes one unlucky direct strike (or the use of an EMP by some nefarious actor) to bring large parts of our electrical grid to a halt. Some estimates put the damage expected at somewhere around $2 trillion.
Some of my best learning opportunities came from play. I played in the woods and road my bike around town with friends (those big scary places that today's parents tell their kids to avoid). I had to fix my dad's computer after breaking stuff because I messed with IRQ settings to get my mouse and my sound working at the same time (and I had to do it before he got home from work and found out!). I played Axis and Allies, Risk, Chess, and other games that required thinking. I pieced together civilizations and learned how people react when playing Sim City and Civilization games. I tinkered with electronics. My parents let me build a fort. I planted seeds I found and watched them grow. I moved spiders to different parts of the yard, watched them build a web, then observed them eating mosquitoes.
This is where I learned the most. Play keeps learners engaged. Strictly academics is boring. I think society is too focused on maintaining the status quo and it is killing the fire of desire for learning that burns in the hearts of young children. Without play, and with an overemphasis on memorization (as opposed to experimentation) you make dull, lifeless people who lose the ability to be more than cogs in the machine of society.
People have become so risk averse in the western world that we would rather watch someone die a slow suffocating death from an allergy than actually help the person because, "only experts can do that." We have this phobia of doing anything outside of our specialization. A phobia that is largely propagated by the "experts" of various fields to ensure their own job security and their elite status. Several of the commentators on this article need to stop whimpering in the corner, worried about the new, and instead do what it takes to help those around you. Sometimes that means working on changing the laws and changing the way we do things.
As others mentioned, the real key is that the EpiPen is fairly foolproof. However, for the cost, it seems like an extreme hurdle to cross. It is at the point where some facilities, and some families, do not keep one on hand, even when they know there are those that have severe allergies, simply because of the cost.
I would propose that most institutions, and families with allergy sufferers, could bring a lay person to a level of understanding and skill such that they could administer an injection of epinephrine via syringe if needed. This is not rocket science. You could have classes on this administered by the Red Cross (much like some of the CPR and first aid classes). For the $50 to $100 that it would take to take the class, it would more than make up for the savings for the EpiPen, even if you had to renew yearly. Also, you could always scholarship in those that could not afford the class cost. For schools and summer camps, this would be a no brainer as I imagine the policy is that only the trained nurse administers the EpiPen anyway.
This is one of those situations where regulations kill. Because we have private companies steering government policy to keep the competition out, and because these governments and businesses engage in a symbiotic relationship to maintain each other's power (also known as fascism), we run into extremely high costs where literally only the rich and well connected can afford to be ready for a bee sting or other reaction.
Humans adapt. Throughout history, there have been periods that have been frigid and periods that have been hot. People were able to adjust lifestyles and the human race went on.
However, equally true is the common narrative throughout history that nature will soon cause our end. There is just a subset of the population that will always fear what they do not understand. Not that fear is all bad, but some become obsessed with their fears to the point that they cannot see the tools they have at their disposal to adapt to the circumstances.
When the world went through the little ice age, lasting approximately 550 years (1300-1850), the world did not come to an end. Neither did it come to an end in the warm period preceding the little ice age.
The world is bigger than the time period that you have been a part of. The climate (and probably most things on earth) tends to work within the confines of a bell curve. Adjusting variables can have some effect. The further from the center you go, the harder it is to have an effect. As we move from the center, we run into bigger issues of which we have no control (i.e. planetary location, solar cycles, etc). The world has been through all sorts of climate patterns and temperature ranges in which adaptations were needed. The point is that Earth, and the species that exist on the planet, are well suited for such variances.
If I had massive crime on the street I lived on, my responsibility would be to protect myself and my property.
Imagine that during that crime spree a a local business owner told me that a thief (that had robbed the business down the street) hid in my basement and would not leave. If the business owner came over and said "there is a thief hiding in your basement and I want to get him". I would refuse entry. I would tell him to call the police. If I did my own internal investigation and found that a thief might be hiding there, I would also choose to call the police.
However, under no foreseeable circumstances would I let the business owner in to deal with the criminal. Furthermore, if the business owner continuously asked me to check for thieves, it would be a great inconvenience for me. I would tell them to take a hike and call the police if you have real evidence.
If you really think you have a case, get a prosecutor to go after CloudFlare. Until then, CloudFlare has every right to deal with it internally or just ignore the issue.
We have seen companies using the guise of DMCA violations for sabotaging competition, corporate espionage, and more. If I were CloudFlare, I would also do all I could to remain the neutral party and just focus on serving paying customers.
Wow, good argument, AC. You rebutted that argument with a lot of really good facts! I can tell it is something in which you truly excel.
I did notice, that your argument could have been laid out a bit better. For future reference, check out http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/... for a list of a few fallacies in arguments. With a few minor deletions from your above argument, it would even sound better.
I don't use Windows 10, but I heard that the anniversary update developer mode now allows access to a jailed Linux Kernel, allowing people to run all kinds of things that one might run from a Linux shell. This means users can run RSync and other Linux tools more easily and without Cygwin.
However, in this special environment, I would say that if Trump had a republican congress, he still would not be able to advance his agenda really fast either. With all the "never trump" Republicans, any serious legislation will need to probably get support from both sides of the aisle before getting passed to the president's desk. If Sanders were running still and he had a Democrat majority, it would be mildly similar. Having non-establishment presidents (which rarely happens) messes with your theory. But otherwise, I think it is a pretty good observation that having opposing parties keeps power hungry politicians on both sides at bay.
There were shark notification systems longer than 10 years ago (I was referring to general notification, not just newfangled fancy electronic notifications). I remember a beach I lived near that had helicopter and/or boat patrols that would notify lifeguards on shore when sharks got too close to swimming areas.
As a population of a species becomes more dense, communicable diseases tend to transfer to larger percentages of the population. In the case of bats, larger bat populations in closer proximity, would result in a higher percentage of bats contracting rabies.
I am not necessarily opposed to bat houses (I used to build them as a kid), but people arguing that lightning strikes are more common, therefore throw caution to the wind with bats is full of logical fallacies and simplistic thinking.
Bats can be a major vector for the spread of rabies. First world countries generally control this risk by reducing other vectors (i.e. immunizing pets). By reducing the other vectors, you reduce the chance of the spread of the disease back and forth between species of animals and therefore decrease a bat's chance of contracting rabies. Once you increase the unvaccinated population of animals that CAN contract rabies, the number of rabies cases will compound (not linearly).
Oh and regarding sharks, lightning strikes, and other such rare and scary ways to die... Comparing those stats with other risks is generally not a real good comparison. People take steps to mitigate those risks. Every tall structure has lightning rods, beaches have shark notification systems, etc. If you threw caution out and swam around lighting rods in shark infested waters, your chances would be different. Bat-rabies risk is sort of like that. The risk is low, because we take precautions and because the population of bats is low in populated areas.
Now please don't think I am advocating stopping the bat house programs. I generally think they are a good idea, but I also think that it would be a very good research project for some universities/departments of natural resources to find a way to vaccinate the bat population if we are going to continue to try to expand the population.
I am all for parody, but isn't claiming to be supported by the organization you are parodying a bit much?
I agree. Parodies are all good fun, but once you claim to be the actual organization, it enters a different realm. The Masson v. New Yorker Magazine decision comes to mind as an example of this. You cannot falsely attribute a quote to another person or organization.
Some people "can't" abandon Facebook. (Not saying they shouldn't, but they think it is too important).
They could secure more privacy by ditching the official Facebook app and installing the open source lightweight FaceSlim app instead ( https://f-droid.org/repository... ) I believe it does not use background data and best of all, it still allows access to Facebook messaging without Facebook Messenger being installed.
That is all well and good, however, Facebook disabled viewing messages on their mobile website after this news came out. They now force you to install the app if you wish to view messages.
If there is one almost smoking gun here, it is that after Facebook's app was "exposed" as potentially spying on people, they immediately worked to force you to stop using the only work around for the spying.
Rather than deal with the implications of the death penalty (moral and otherwise), revoke their citizenship and banish them to an island. It seems that they would either learn to work hard to survive, or they would die trying. Australia comes to mind as a success story in this method.
I've worked for companies that had pretty much all full time employees, and a stable workforce that was probably too dedicated to their company. Yet they had security issues too. I found that over-management actually encouraged mistakes in coding, even if it was their intention to help.
I think the real issue here is that we expect managers, whether they be government officials or actual managers, to motivate people into providing better security. The truth is that every year, more inexperienced people enter the workforce while the experienced ones leave to retire. No matter how much security cheer-leading you can do, eventually, you get new people who screw up just because of lack of experience.
I don't think this is a management issue at all. This is a technical issue that should be addressed technically. We can build better automated security checking that helps educate programmers where their code is lacking. We can pair new tech workers with more established workers, etc. But I don't think you are going to spend or manage your way about this issue. We will always have the dichotomy of experienced intruders targeting systems weakened by inexperienced tech workers (and vice versa).
The solution is to accept the risk of these things happening and just doing the best you can to automate testing and educate newcomers. Security will always be an issue as long as your systems are accessible to users.
There could also be the problem of failed parts seizing up the wheels upon landing. When you introduce abilities to recapture energy and to rotate the wheel through a motor, you greatly increase the chance of wheel problems. If such a problem happened with your Prius, it might not be too major. However, bringing a 150,000 object out of the sky at 150 miles per hour, I think you would want more every assurance available that this thing is going to work.
I am sure the NSA has two sets of books. They will dump the data on the public books, but still keep the data in their huge data center out west. There is no getting rid of this data, only getting rid of the public's ability to use it against them.
They do the tests to check for certain genetic disorders that are more treatable if detected early. Anyway, being someone concerned with privacy myself, I asked the same question in a different state. In my state, there was a big legal battle about this, and the supreme court ordered the DNA to be destroyed. This was after the health department denied they were keeping records of each person's DNA, until evidence presented itself to the contrary.So the state office holders "addressed the issue" by just making it mandatory.
Before it became law, I actually filled out the paperwork that said I do not consent, unfortunately, the nurse took the baby for a checkup in the middle of the night and did it anyway. When we complained, they said, don't worry, it is not a big deal.
With our second child, I asked if I could opt out again (or at least try). They informed me that I no longer had that option. So I asked if I could hire a private doctor to do the genetic screening and just pay out of pocket. Again, they said that was impossible.
I hate to sound like I am wearing a tin foil hat. Maybe I've watched too many distopian and sci-fi movies, this just screams of massive problems down the road. Sure, good can come out of it, but there is a lot of evil that can be done as well, especially considering this is essentially in the hands of the politicians.
I somehow got on a "list" because a long time ago I had lived at the same address of someone, who later had massive debt issues. I began getting daily calls asking me to give contact info for the person, asking me to hand phone over to person, etc. Over and over again, I told the caller that I did not know the person and could not provide info and that I was not that person. Yet, they kept calling. I had to go through and delist my contact info from everywhere I could. Then I changed my phone number to something I never give out. Finally, I was free of these idiots.
It is bad enough that politicians already have an exemption to the do not call list (and to robo-calls). How much more abuse will we all get when debt collectors can indiscriminately spam us in hopes of "catching" the person they are looking for?
The thing is, anyone can checkout and fork the Linux kernel. This is what Git does best. Developers can fork and remerge to their heart's content.
Most forks in a Git tree maintain some relationship with the parent. My guess is the maintainers of this fork will still merge in updates from Linus's kernel. So what is the big deal? Depending on how the do it, some of their features may eventually get merged into Linus's branch as well.
Forking the kernel and creating are exactly the way Git development is supposed to work. If enough people like it and it proves successful, it can easily be merged back in. This is massively distributed development. It may be a hard concept for some corporate-led programmers to understand, but this is seriously nothing of significant importance. Things are working as expected. There is no central brain in Linux development, only trusted repositories and relationship, and the merges between repositories. As long as the crowd trusts one repo more than another, that will be seen as the main repo. If Linus dies tomorrow, Linux would go on under another trusted repo.
Last time I checked, the reason you had an SSL certificate issued (as opposed to just generating a private one) was to validate the identity of the website. Services that run on.onion domains do so to remain anonymous.
One can already access "normal" websites through the Tor network, so I am really not sure what the point of all this is. I guess I would assume that if a site operator purchases a ".onion" certificate from a Certificate Authority, they do not understand the reasons for the security model. I would not trust such a site. One could assume that since the site owner's identity has been compromised (by their own volition) that the site itself is also to be untrusted.
Slashdot Mirror
So you want to replace one single point of failure with a different one?
It was a suggestion for this the duration of this incident and is not a comment intended to fix any other issues beyond the immediate need. Read the word "today" in the post.
Most of your internet problems can be solved today with OpenDNS. https://use.opendns.com/
I can access Github, Twitter, etc. right now after I updated my dns settings. It is literally a one minute fix.
There is a lot of overlap between preparing for solar caused events like the 1859 Carrington event and modern EMP weapon detonation (which would be similar to a man-made Carrington event).
Based on the 1859 event accounts, we could expect massive infrastructure failure in certain parts of the world if such an event would repeat itself. The storm was a nuisance with the main damages being to telegraph operators and equipment back then. Today, it could be catastrophic.
There have been large solar events that have been near misses of earth in the past as well. It just takes one unlucky direct strike (or the use of an EMP by some nefarious actor) to bring large parts of our electrical grid to a halt. Some estimates put the damage expected at somewhere around $2 trillion.
I am sure, our courts being fair and all, that the RIAA will pay full restitution for the damages caused by their neglectful actions. :/
Some of my best learning opportunities came from play. I played in the woods and road my bike around town with friends (those big scary places that today's parents tell their kids to avoid). I had to fix my dad's computer after breaking stuff because I messed with IRQ settings to get my mouse and my sound working at the same time (and I had to do it before he got home from work and found out!). I played Axis and Allies, Risk, Chess, and other games that required thinking. I pieced together civilizations and learned how people react when playing Sim City and Civilization games. I tinkered with electronics. My parents let me build a fort. I planted seeds I found and watched them grow. I moved spiders to different parts of the yard, watched them build a web, then observed them eating mosquitoes.
This is where I learned the most. Play keeps learners engaged. Strictly academics is boring. I think society is too focused on maintaining the status quo and it is killing the fire of desire for learning that burns in the hearts of young children. Without play, and with an overemphasis on memorization (as opposed to experimentation) you make dull, lifeless people who lose the ability to be more than cogs in the machine of society.
People have become so risk averse in the western world that we would rather watch someone die a slow suffocating death from an allergy than actually help the person because, "only experts can do that." We have this phobia of doing anything outside of our specialization. A phobia that is largely propagated by the "experts" of various fields to ensure their own job security and their elite status. Several of the commentators on this article need to stop whimpering in the corner, worried about the new, and instead do what it takes to help those around you. Sometimes that means working on changing the laws and changing the way we do things.
As others mentioned, the real key is that the EpiPen is fairly foolproof. However, for the cost, it seems like an extreme hurdle to cross. It is at the point where some facilities, and some families, do not keep one on hand, even when they know there are those that have severe allergies, simply because of the cost.
I would propose that most institutions, and families with allergy sufferers, could bring a lay person to a level of understanding and skill such that they could administer an injection of epinephrine via syringe if needed. This is not rocket science. You could have classes on this administered by the Red Cross (much like some of the CPR and first aid classes). For the $50 to $100 that it would take to take the class, it would more than make up for the savings for the EpiPen, even if you had to renew yearly. Also, you could always scholarship in those that could not afford the class cost. For schools and summer camps, this would be a no brainer as I imagine the policy is that only the trained nurse administers the EpiPen anyway.
This is one of those situations where regulations kill. Because we have private companies steering government policy to keep the competition out, and because these governments and businesses engage in a symbiotic relationship to maintain each other's power (also known as fascism), we run into extremely high costs where literally only the rich and well connected can afford to be ready for a bee sting or other reaction.
Humans adapt. Throughout history, there have been periods that have been frigid and periods that have been hot. People were able to adjust lifestyles and the human race went on.
However, equally true is the common narrative throughout history that nature will soon cause our end. There is just a subset of the population that will always fear what they do not understand. Not that fear is all bad, but some become obsessed with their fears to the point that they cannot see the tools they have at their disposal to adapt to the circumstances.
When the world went through the little ice age, lasting approximately 550 years (1300-1850), the world did not come to an end. Neither did it come to an end in the warm period preceding the little ice age.
The world is bigger than the time period that you have been a part of. The climate (and probably most things on earth) tends to work within the confines of a bell curve. Adjusting variables can have some effect. The further from the center you go, the harder it is to have an effect. As we move from the center, we run into bigger issues of which we have no control (i.e. planetary location, solar cycles, etc). The world has been through all sorts of climate patterns and temperature ranges in which adaptations were needed. The point is that Earth, and the species that exist on the planet, are well suited for such variances.
If I had massive crime on the street I lived on, my responsibility would be to protect myself and my property.
Imagine that during that crime spree a a local business owner told me that a thief (that had robbed the business down the street) hid in my basement and would not leave. If the business owner came over and said "there is a thief hiding in your basement and I want to get him". I would refuse entry. I would tell him to call the police. If I did my own internal investigation and found that a thief might be hiding there, I would also choose to call the police.
However, under no foreseeable circumstances would I let the business owner in to deal with the criminal. Furthermore, if the business owner continuously asked me to check for thieves, it would be a great inconvenience for me. I would tell them to take a hike and call the police if you have real evidence.
If you really think you have a case, get a prosecutor to go after CloudFlare. Until then, CloudFlare has every right to deal with it internally or just ignore the issue.
We have seen companies using the guise of DMCA violations for sabotaging competition, corporate espionage, and more. If I were CloudFlare, I would also do all I could to remain the neutral party and just focus on serving paying customers.
Wow, good argument, AC. You rebutted that argument with a lot of really good facts! I can tell it is something in which you truly excel.
I did notice, that your argument could have been laid out a bit better. For future reference, check out http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/... for a list of a few fallacies in arguments. With a few minor deletions from your above argument, it would even sound better.
Wait, you "accepted the challenge" and then passed the buck on to somebody else? I do not think that phrase means what you think it means. :-)
I don't use Windows 10, but I heard that the anniversary update developer mode now allows access to a jailed Linux Kernel, allowing people to run all kinds of things that one might run from a Linux shell. This means users can run RSync and other Linux tools more easily and without Cygwin.
I tend to agree.
However, in this special environment, I would say that if Trump had a republican congress, he still would not be able to advance his agenda really fast either. With all the "never trump" Republicans, any serious legislation will need to probably get support from both sides of the aisle before getting passed to the president's desk. If Sanders were running still and he had a Democrat majority, it would be mildly similar. Having non-establishment presidents (which rarely happens) messes with your theory. But otherwise, I think it is a pretty good observation that having opposing parties keeps power hungry politicians on both sides at bay.
There were shark notification systems longer than 10 years ago (I was referring to general notification, not just newfangled fancy electronic notifications). I remember a beach I lived near that had helicopter and/or boat patrols that would notify lifeguards on shore when sharks got too close to swimming areas.
^^^This
As a population of a species becomes more dense, communicable diseases tend to transfer to larger percentages of the population. In the case of bats, larger bat populations in closer proximity, would result in a higher percentage of bats contracting rabies.
I am not necessarily opposed to bat houses (I used to build them as a kid), but people arguing that lightning strikes are more common, therefore throw caution to the wind with bats is full of logical fallacies and simplistic thinking.
Bats can be a major vector for the spread of rabies. First world countries generally control this risk by reducing other vectors (i.e. immunizing pets). By reducing the other vectors, you reduce the chance of the spread of the disease back and forth between species of animals and therefore decrease a bat's chance of contracting rabies. Once you increase the unvaccinated population of animals that CAN contract rabies, the number of rabies cases will compound (not linearly).
Oh and regarding sharks, lightning strikes, and other such rare and scary ways to die... Comparing those stats with other risks is generally not a real good comparison. People take steps to mitigate those risks. Every tall structure has lightning rods, beaches have shark notification systems, etc. If you threw caution out and swam around lighting rods in shark infested waters, your chances would be different. Bat-rabies risk is sort of like that. The risk is low, because we take precautions and because the population of bats is low in populated areas.
Now please don't think I am advocating stopping the bat house programs. I generally think they are a good idea, but I also think that it would be a very good research project for some universities/departments of natural resources to find a way to vaccinate the bat population if we are going to continue to try to expand the population.
I am all for parody, but isn't claiming to be supported by the organization you are parodying a bit much?
I agree. Parodies are all good fun, but once you claim to be the actual organization, it enters a different realm. The Masson v. New Yorker Magazine decision comes to mind as an example of this. You cannot falsely attribute a quote to another person or organization.
Some people "can't" abandon Facebook. (Not saying they shouldn't, but they think it is too important).
They could secure more privacy by ditching the official Facebook app and installing the open source lightweight FaceSlim app instead ( https://f-droid.org/repository... ) I believe it does not use background data and best of all, it still allows access to Facebook messaging without Facebook Messenger being installed.
That is all well and good, however, Facebook disabled viewing messages on their mobile website after this news came out. They now force you to install the app if you wish to view messages.
If there is one almost smoking gun here, it is that after Facebook's app was "exposed" as potentially spying on people, they immediately worked to force you to stop using the only work around for the spying.
Rather than deal with the implications of the death penalty (moral and otherwise), revoke their citizenship and banish them to an island. It seems that they would either learn to work hard to survive, or they would die trying. Australia comes to mind as a success story in this method.
I've worked for companies that had pretty much all full time employees, and a stable workforce that was probably too dedicated to their company. Yet they had security issues too. I found that over-management actually encouraged mistakes in coding, even if it was their intention to help.
I think the real issue here is that we expect managers, whether they be government officials or actual managers, to motivate people into providing better security. The truth is that every year, more inexperienced people enter the workforce while the experienced ones leave to retire. No matter how much security cheer-leading you can do, eventually, you get new people who screw up just because of lack of experience.
I don't think this is a management issue at all. This is a technical issue that should be addressed technically. We can build better automated security checking that helps educate programmers where their code is lacking. We can pair new tech workers with more established workers, etc. But I don't think you are going to spend or manage your way about this issue. We will always have the dichotomy of experienced intruders targeting systems weakened by inexperienced tech workers (and vice versa).
The solution is to accept the risk of these things happening and just doing the best you can to automate testing and educate newcomers. Security will always be an issue as long as your systems are accessible to users.
I love the idea in theory, but you are most likely correct about the weight... http://aviation.stackexchange....
There could also be the problem of failed parts seizing up the wheels upon landing. When you introduce abilities to recapture energy and to rotate the wheel through a motor, you greatly increase the chance of wheel problems. If such a problem happened with your Prius, it might not be too major. However, bringing a 150,000 object out of the sky at 150 miles per hour, I think you would want more every assurance available that this thing is going to work.
I am sure the NSA has two sets of books. They will dump the data on the public books, but still keep the data in their huge data center out west. There is no getting rid of this data, only getting rid of the public's ability to use it against them.
They do the tests to check for certain genetic disorders that are more treatable if detected early. Anyway, being someone concerned with privacy myself, I asked the same question in a different state. In my state, there was a big legal battle about this, and the supreme court ordered the DNA to be destroyed. This was after the health department denied they were keeping records of each person's DNA, until evidence presented itself to the contrary.So the state office holders "addressed the issue" by just making it mandatory.
Before it became law, I actually filled out the paperwork that said I do not consent, unfortunately, the nurse took the baby for a checkup in the middle of the night and did it anyway. When we complained, they said, don't worry, it is not a big deal.
With our second child, I asked if I could opt out again (or at least try). They informed me that I no longer had that option. So I asked if I could hire a private doctor to do the genetic screening and just pay out of pocket. Again, they said that was impossible.
I hate to sound like I am wearing a tin foil hat. Maybe I've watched too many distopian and sci-fi movies, this just screams of massive problems down the road. Sure, good can come out of it, but there is a lot of evil that can be done as well, especially considering this is essentially in the hands of the politicians.
I somehow got on a "list" because a long time ago I had lived at the same address of someone, who later had massive debt issues. I began getting daily calls asking me to give contact info for the person, asking me to hand phone over to person, etc. Over and over again, I told the caller that I did not know the person and could not provide info and that I was not that person. Yet, they kept calling. I had to go through and delist my contact info from everywhere I could. Then I changed my phone number to something I never give out. Finally, I was free of these idiots.
It is bad enough that politicians already have an exemption to the do not call list (and to robo-calls). How much more abuse will we all get when debt collectors can indiscriminately spam us in hopes of "catching" the person they are looking for?
The thing is, anyone can checkout and fork the Linux kernel. This is what Git does best. Developers can fork and remerge to their heart's content.
Most forks in a Git tree maintain some relationship with the parent. My guess is the maintainers of this fork will still merge in updates from Linus's kernel. So what is the big deal? Depending on how the do it, some of their features may eventually get merged into Linus's branch as well.
Forking the kernel and creating are exactly the way Git development is supposed to work. If enough people like it and it proves successful, it can easily be merged back in. This is massively distributed development. It may be a hard concept for some corporate-led programmers to understand, but this is seriously nothing of significant importance. Things are working as expected. There is no central brain in Linux development, only trusted repositories and relationship, and the merges between repositories. As long as the crowd trusts one repo more than another, that will be seen as the main repo. If Linus dies tomorrow, Linux would go on under another trusted repo.
Last time I checked, the reason you had an SSL certificate issued (as opposed to just generating a private one) was to validate the identity of the website. Services that run on .onion domains do so to remain anonymous.
One can already access "normal" websites through the Tor network, so I am really not sure what the point of all this is. I guess I would assume that if a site operator purchases a ".onion" certificate from a Certificate Authority, they do not understand the reasons for the security model. I would not trust such a site. One could assume that since the site owner's identity has been compromised (by their own volition) that the site itself is also to be untrusted.