"What people want laws for is so that private institutions (banks, especially) can be punished for letting customers' private information out."
if someone else, anyone else, has information about you, it isn't private information anymore, is it?
you've moved the goalpost, redefined the term
what you've described above isn't the notion of privacy at all
not that i think there should be no laws. just that people should understand those laws provide you no real protection, in regard to what you actually consider to be your PRIVATE information, as opposed to your CONFIDENTIAL information with another party
what you decide is private, and what isn't, is completely decided by you, no bank or government organzation decides that
and when you put it out there, you've just relinquished your privacy
The first one says, "General, we've designed a new gun! It's better than the ones before it, and best of all, it only misfires-- thus killing the gunner-- one out of every 100 shots!"
The second engineer says, "General, our new gun is even better! It only misfires-- thus killing the gunner-- one out of every {x} shots! Where {x} is a number we do not know, because it hasn't been tested in battle enough"
Honestly, now, which gun do you pick?
The devil you know? Or the devil you don't?
firefox hasn't been tested to the extreme microsoft has been in exposure to hackerdom, simply because it doesn't warrant as much attention, simply because it has a fraction of the market compared to ie
insecurity is a natural aspect of human psychology. it is not taught. it requires no prerequisite except normal social development. everyone is insecure to some extent or another, in every culture, who has ever lived (except for the pathological, which again, is organic, and is not cultural)
there is tension between naturally laziness and the exertion required to keep data relatively private. such that people are always screwing up and letting things slip. such that you wind up accepting that you cannot have absolute privacy, because you yourself are not willing to exert oneself enough to have that
within those realizations, you figure that all external factors on the issue of your privacy and how you manage your privacy are completely beyond the scope of any valid discussion of the topic: the entirety of the topic is put forth and resolved within the realm of the self. it has nothing to do with government snooping. it has to do entirely with: how much effort are you willing to exert to keep things private? if you want, the government will never see anything about you. but no one is willing to go through that effort, because essentially, not much of your life is that vital to be so private
and besides, there is this entirely absurd notion that people somehow expect a GOVERNMENT POLICY to maintian their privacy. huh? the only entity in this world that guarantee your privacy is YOU. shoving that job out to the government is so logically contradictory to describe it as absurd is mild. a more accurate description of expecting the government to maintain your privacy is: its stupid. yet here you find a bunch of chattering buffoons expecting exactly that: "the government should have laws protecting my privacy"
wtf?!
"i will trust to that which can only destroy my privacy the job of maintaining my privacy"
if/ when the bulk of that piechart is firefox, rather than ie, revisit what you just said
you think microsoft doesn't patch bugs it finds first? really?
more ie bugs are found in the wild, simply because the rewards for finding such bugs are much larger
i'm sick of mac and firefox fanboys claiming their browser/ os is somehow more secure. its not more secure, its just less attacked, because less people use it
if this strikes many of you as too low tech, recall that most of western liberal notions such as freedom of the press and freedom of expression were established BEFORE the internet. obviously! but we in the west have become so addicted and enamored of the permanence and instantaneousness of the internet, we almost can't imagine life before it, or a struggle for freedom without this aid. but the struggle for basic human dignity can and will happen, even without the net
life without a free net retards progress, but doesn't stop it. progress on basic human rights WILL come to china eventually. the grumpy old men in beijing can't hold on forever. they are human, they make mistakes. the best they can do is make the rightful fight for basic human rights in china a painful one for their fellow chinese
to any "faithful" chinese reading this message: i didn't know being a proud chinese meant being a dumb chinese. but if you defend the policies of the grumpy old technocrats to keep the average chinese's media strictly controlled, that's what exactly what you do. the only way to a strong china is a free china. if you think just an authoritarian ultracapitalist china is a strong china, whoa boy, watch what happens as the world economy continues to shrink. china is not immune to the inevitable lessons of history about economic recessions and draconian governemnts. enjoy your defensive posture
"Microsoft is resolving eight critical vulnerabilities found in the current version of IE -- a move sure to garner applause from devoted IE users."
slashdot users laugh at the propaganda
but when a firefox shill says
"Mozilla is resolving eight critical vulnerabilities found in the current version of Firefox -- a move sure to garner applause from devoted Firefox users."
slashdot puts it in the story summary reverently
propaganda is propaganda is propaganda. no matter the source, even if you love the source. just say "firefox fixed some bugs." and leave the sleazy ad copy out of it please
what next?
"the exploit found in firefox is a feature, not a bug" maybe?
why people talk about privacy in relation to anything that happens on the internet
i'm not talking about government policy, i'm talking philosophical reality
if you put something on a wire, beyond your control, its no longer private. beginning and ending of discussion
but since most of what gets put on the net is willingly understood by most people as not private, since it just is detritus of their lives, not vital life-altering information, this is not a big deal
if you want privacy, take an airplane, and take a walk on a beach with the other person so the crashing surf drowns out the conversation beyond 2 meters
anything else, especially on the internet, can be spied on, and not just by the government. if you bound the government to draconian privacy laws in 72 bold font written in the blood of a virgin, they would still spy if they thought it important enough, and we aren't even beginning to examine other culprits: IT personnel, hackers, cable/ phone infrastructure employees, competing business interests, random busybodies, etc
and guess what? this arrangement is perfectly fine for all non paranoid schizophrenics, since most of what is put on the internet can be easily compromised without compromising your life
that's the real issue with privacy on the internet: give it up when you hit click
once you put it on a wire, its beyond your control, and beyond the philosphical realm of privacy
why does the concept of privacy even figure in with that arrangement in some people's minds?
you are communicating, across the wires of a corporate interest, across international boundaries often, with governments keen to mine data, usually involving destinations who want to sell you advertising via profiling, which you found with a search engine which keeps tabs on you...
abnd you want to talk about even the possibility of privacy in this realm?
really?
why isn't it just understood that privacy is forfeit on the internet?
and this is FINE. if its really important to you, KEEP IT OFF THE NET. there: a surefire personal privacy policy
they give you a little red dongle, and everytime you log in, you have to enter a 6 digit number you read from the dongle's screen after pushing its button
its annoying because i'm always misplacing the dongle
but every time i hear a story like this one, i begin to appreciate the extra effort
and that's really why you don't see more widespread adoption of things like this dongle: people favor convenience over security. i can see plenty of people whining about the dongle and banks worrying about losing customers
of course, one of these days we're going to have an armageddeon-level type identity theft event, and then we'll all be using 3 factor authentication. humanity is lazy and shortsighted until its too late
i don't see why they couldn't make the second factor elective rather than mandatory though, for security minded folks like yourself. it would be a customer relations boon for a small subsection of banking customers. its just a shame that you really only represent a minority interest
slashdot chorus of "let us hack away at our bodies, and use all the mind altering substances we want, the enemy here is just narrow-minded busy bodies"
there is a subtle philosophical issue at play here, and the issue is self-perception. for example: you win a chess match, or ace an exam, or win the nobel prize, while under the influence of a concentration enhancing drug, or with some sort of technological mind alteration
the question is: did YOU achieve something, or did your modification achieve something?
what happens is we develop a poverty of self-perception. you begin to think: without various crutches, i cannot achieve what i achieved. such that you have no confidence, and you have no real self-regard. you begin to think of yourself as just a piece of meat channeling some sort of technology or drug. that you yourself are not the key to your own performance
meanwhile, to achieve something without any hackery or artificial boost is to replenish self-regard and confidence
in other words, the issue is not what other people think of you, or what shrill narrow minds think of you. the issue is the damage you do to what you think of yourself with these deep modifications
emphasis: deep modifications. no, sorry, we are most certainly talking about modifications to your performance nothing at all like a good meal or a good night's sleep. some will say radical modifications are no different philosophically from simple sustenance in terms of contributing to performance. but hydrating before an exam is absolutely nothing like taking a cognition enhancer in terms of contributing something to your performance, really
if you really have to ask why, it has to do with what goes on in the mind, with the self, with your core competency, not simple rote material contribution on the periphery of what it takes to pass an exam. for example: you can't complete an exam without a pencil, and you also can't complete an exam without your mind. to think of them as equivalent contributions to your self-regard and your performance is not a valid or logically coherent argument
if you yourself don't even think any of your accomplishments are due to your own innate abilities, then you eventually have no drive in life, you become empty and self-loathing. quality of life and happiness is not defined by pure accomplishment. quality of life is derived from self-regard. it is possible to win at everything, and hate yourself, and be an unhappy person. it is also possible to try hard, do mediocre, but still have high self-consideration
when you achieve something, and you don't even believe it is because of your own abilities, you have developed a hollow, rotten chasm in your ability to enjoy your own life
in this way, a lot of you really need to pause and reconsider cognition enhancers, technological tweaks on mental abilities, and the like. no: it is not no big deal. it is a deeply serious deal, and it has absolutel ynothing to do with judgmental busy bodies, but simply because of subtle philosophical alterations on the idea of "self" that can lead to terrible consequences for your own happiness
hobbyist computers: couple hundred bucks hobbyist biochemistry: millions of dollars
penalty for screwing up a computer project: reboot penalty for screwing up a biochemistry project: chemical pneumonia, sterility, cancer, death, homeland security minions tossing teargas canisters into your window and barking orders
once upon a time, you needed a studio system to make a movie. now a teenager can make a feature length HD movie with his friends. nothing remains too difficult and too expensive forever, and someday, teenagers will be able to hack biochemistry in their basement. but the technological burdens are a little high right now
hey, did you know they beam radio and television signals out in the air for free?
and its an profitable venture
twitter, as a new kind of media, is simply in the stages of establishing itself
google also was heavily used and made no revenue for a long time
once a media's userbase is large and stable enough, advertising can be injected, and lots of cash can be made
the media business is not like manufacturing, like making and selling cupcakes, where you spend a little money and immediately get a little money back
its more like mining gold: you have a huge upfront investment in infrastructure, but then, over time, the initial investment begins to pay off, in dribs and drabs at first, but then to an increasingly louder roar, for a very long time
but i know some troll on a message board who says it can be unlocked, by installing an unsupported os for a different phone model (oh no wait, sorry, same phone model, he says, even though its fucking NOT) from a competing cell company
he guarantees its kosher and painless
i think this is an iq test that i'm going to pass with flying colors, by passing on your glowing back alley offer
Slashdot Mirror
"What people want laws for is so that private institutions (banks, especially) can be punished for letting customers' private information out."
if someone else, anyone else, has information about you, it isn't private information anymore, is it?
you've moved the goalpost, redefined the term
what you've described above isn't the notion of privacy at all
not that i think there should be no laws. just that people should understand those laws provide you no real protection, in regard to what you actually consider to be your PRIVATE information, as opposed to your CONFIDENTIAL information with another party
what you decide is private, and what isn't, is completely decided by you, no bank or government organzation decides that
and when you put it out there, you've just relinquished your privacy
simple as that
The first one says, "General, we've designed a new gun! It's better than the ones before it, and best of all, it only misfires-- thus killing the gunner-- one out of every 100 shots!"
The second engineer says, "General, our new gun is even better! It only misfires-- thus killing the gunner-- one out of every {x} shots! Where {x} is a number we do not know, because it hasn't been tested in battle enough"
Honestly, now, which gun do you pick?
The devil you know? Or the devil you don't?
firefox hasn't been tested to the extreme microsoft has been in exposure to hackerdom, simply because it doesn't warrant as much attention, simply because it has a fraction of the market compared to ie
insecurity is a natural aspect of human psychology. it is not taught. it requires no prerequisite except normal social development. everyone is insecure to some extent or another, in every culture, who has ever lived (except for the pathological, which again, is organic, and is not cultural)
there is tension between naturally laziness and the exertion required to keep data relatively private. such that people are always screwing up and letting things slip. such that you wind up accepting that you cannot have absolute privacy, because you yourself are not willing to exert oneself enough to have that
within those realizations, you figure that all external factors on the issue of your privacy and how you manage your privacy are completely beyond the scope of any valid discussion of the topic: the entirety of the topic is put forth and resolved within the realm of the self. it has nothing to do with government snooping. it has to do entirely with: how much effort are you willing to exert to keep things private? if you want, the government will never see anything about you. but no one is willing to go through that effort, because essentially, not much of your life is that vital to be so private
and besides, there is this entirely absurd notion that people somehow expect a GOVERNMENT POLICY to maintian their privacy. huh? the only entity in this world that guarantee your privacy is YOU. shoving that job out to the government is so logically contradictory to describe it as absurd is mild. a more accurate description of expecting the government to maintain your privacy is: its stupid. yet here you find a bunch of chattering buffoons expecting exactly that: "the government should have laws protecting my privacy"
wtf?!
"i will trust to that which can only destroy my privacy the job of maintaining my privacy"
my head asplode. does not compute
there are researchers talking about snooping on and decoding supposedly foolproof communications
anything that can be made a man, can be broken by a man. don't forget that. your hubris is outstanding
+5 insightful ;-)
you lose the war: firefox is exploitable, regardless of the technicality you use differentiate how it is exploitable from how ie is exploitable
the hypocrisy of the sellout is admitted by all except the sellout himself
dude, you're so subversive
hey, wanna go hang out behind the school and listen to beebop music and elvis? that stuff is the work of the devil!
lars, you are truly hardcore, you are so metal"
seriously, this guy's attitude? compare it to the general attitude of gee, i dunno, maybe the general attitude of the fans of HEAVY METAL SUBCULTURE?
what next?
a fixture of outlaw biker culture complaining about loud noise?
an icon of surfer dude culture complaining about sun exposure?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/05/1328244
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Web_browser_usage_share.svg
if/ when the bulk of that piechart is firefox, rather than ie, revisit what you just said
you think microsoft doesn't patch bugs it finds first? really?
more ie bugs are found in the wild, simply because the rewards for finding such bugs are much larger
i'm sick of mac and firefox fanboys claiming their browser/ os is somehow more secure. its not more secure, its just less attacked, because less people use it
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/06/1717242
if this strikes many of you as too low tech, recall that most of western liberal notions such as freedom of the press and freedom of expression were established BEFORE the internet. obviously! but we in the west have become so addicted and enamored of the permanence and instantaneousness of the internet, we almost can't imagine life before it, or a struggle for freedom without this aid. but the struggle for basic human dignity can and will happen, even without the net
life without a free net retards progress, but doesn't stop it. progress on basic human rights WILL come to china eventually. the grumpy old men in beijing can't hold on forever. they are human, they make mistakes. the best they can do is make the rightful fight for basic human rights in china a painful one for their fellow chinese
to any "faithful" chinese reading this message: i didn't know being a proud chinese meant being a dumb chinese. but if you defend the policies of the grumpy old technocrats to keep the average chinese's media strictly controlled, that's what exactly what you do. the only way to a strong china is a free china. if you think just an authoritarian ultracapitalist china is a strong china, whoa boy, watch what happens as the world economy continues to shrink. china is not immune to the inevitable lessons of history about economic recessions and draconian governemnts. enjoy your defensive posture
"Microsoft is resolving eight critical vulnerabilities found in the current version of IE -- a move sure to garner applause from devoted IE users."
slashdot users laugh at the propaganda
but when a firefox shill says
"Mozilla is resolving eight critical vulnerabilities found in the current version of Firefox -- a move sure to garner applause from devoted Firefox users."
slashdot puts it in the story summary reverently
propaganda is propaganda is propaganda. no matter the source, even if you love the source. just say "firefox fixed some bugs." and leave the sleazy ad copy out of it please
what next?
"the exploit found in firefox is a feature, not a bug" maybe?
why people talk about privacy in relation to anything that happens on the internet
i'm not talking about government policy, i'm talking philosophical reality
if you put something on a wire, beyond your control, its no longer private. beginning and ending of discussion
but since most of what gets put on the net is willingly understood by most people as not private, since it just is detritus of their lives, not vital life-altering information, this is not a big deal
if you want privacy, take an airplane, and take a walk on a beach with the other person so the crashing surf drowns out the conversation beyond 2 meters
anything else, especially on the internet, can be spied on, and not just by the government. if you bound the government to draconian privacy laws in 72 bold font written in the blood of a virgin, they would still spy if they thought it important enough, and we aren't even beginning to examine other culprits: IT personnel, hackers, cable/ phone infrastructure employees, competing business interests, random busybodies, etc
and guess what? this arrangement is perfectly fine for all non paranoid schizophrenics, since most of what is put on the internet can be easily compromised without compromising your life
that's the real issue with privacy on the internet: give it up when you hit click
once you put it on a wire, its beyond your control, and beyond the philosphical realm of privacy
why does the concept of privacy even figure in with that arrangement in some people's minds?
you are communicating, across the wires of a corporate interest, across international boundaries often, with governments keen to mine data, usually involving destinations who want to sell you advertising via profiling, which you found with a search engine which keeps tabs on you...
abnd you want to talk about even the possibility of privacy in this realm?
really?
why isn't it just understood that privacy is forfeit on the internet?
and this is FINE. if its really important to you, KEEP IT OFF THE NET. there: a surefire personal privacy policy
they give you a little red dongle, and everytime you log in, you have to enter a 6 digit number you read from the dongle's screen after pushing its button
its annoying because i'm always misplacing the dongle
but every time i hear a story like this one, i begin to appreciate the extra effort
and that's really why you don't see more widespread adoption of things like this dongle: people favor convenience over security. i can see plenty of people whining about the dongle and banks worrying about losing customers
of course, one of these days we're going to have an armageddeon-level type identity theft event, and then we'll all be using 3 factor authentication. humanity is lazy and shortsighted until its too late
i don't see why they couldn't make the second factor elective rather than mandatory though, for security minded folks like yourself. it would be a customer relations boon for a small subsection of banking customers. its just a shame that you really only represent a minority interest
"the one who is making all of the feverish accusations usually is the culprit"
<sunglasses/>
YEAAAAAAHHHHHHH
you nailed the whole "socially under-developed" bit, since you just responded with great seriousness to a throwaway joke
you just described the entire slashdot demographic
i already addressed your point
#1: that i'm a shrill busy body trying to dictate what other people do with their own bodies
#2: that mind alterating technologies is essentially like drinking coffee, or having proper nutrition
these are both points of view that i completely addressed in the post you are responding to
so what i suggest for you is that the next time that you respond to someone's post, you actually fucking read what they fucking said first
i know, i'm kind of a wacky guy that way
because you are a clueless moron
you can also ask a completely logically valid question about the implications of a given technology
for you to confuse the two motivations makes you just as big as a fool as the busy body morons you detest
really
slashdot chorus of "let us hack away at our bodies, and use all the mind altering substances we want, the enemy here is just narrow-minded busy bodies"
there is a subtle philosophical issue at play here, and the issue is self-perception. for example: you win a chess match, or ace an exam, or win the nobel prize, while under the influence of a concentration enhancing drug, or with some sort of technological mind alteration
the question is: did YOU achieve something, or did your modification achieve something?
what happens is we develop a poverty of self-perception. you begin to think: without various crutches, i cannot achieve what i achieved. such that you have no confidence, and you have no real self-regard. you begin to think of yourself as just a piece of meat channeling some sort of technology or drug. that you yourself are not the key to your own performance
meanwhile, to achieve something without any hackery or artificial boost is to replenish self-regard and confidence
in other words, the issue is not what other people think of you, or what shrill narrow minds think of you. the issue is the damage you do to what you think of yourself with these deep modifications
emphasis: deep modifications. no, sorry, we are most certainly talking about modifications to your performance nothing at all like a good meal or a good night's sleep. some will say radical modifications are no different philosophically from simple sustenance in terms of contributing to performance. but hydrating before an exam is absolutely nothing like taking a cognition enhancer in terms of contributing something to your performance, really
if you really have to ask why, it has to do with what goes on in the mind, with the self, with your core competency, not simple rote material contribution on the periphery of what it takes to pass an exam. for example: you can't complete an exam without a pencil, and you also can't complete an exam without your mind. to think of them as equivalent contributions to your self-regard and your performance is not a valid or logically coherent argument
if you yourself don't even think any of your accomplishments are due to your own innate abilities, then you eventually have no drive in life, you become empty and self-loathing. quality of life and happiness is not defined by pure accomplishment. quality of life is derived from self-regard. it is possible to win at everything, and hate yourself, and be an unhappy person. it is also possible to try hard, do mediocre, but still have high self-consideration
when you achieve something, and you don't even believe it is because of your own abilities, you have developed a hollow, rotten chasm in your ability to enjoy your own life
in this way, a lot of you really need to pause and reconsider cognition enhancers, technological tweaks on mental abilities, and the like. no: it is not no big deal. it is a deeply serious deal, and it has absolutel ynothing to do with judgmental busy bodies, but simply because of subtle philosophical alterations on the idea of "self" that can lead to terrible consequences for your own happiness
hobbyist computers: couple hundred bucks
hobbyist biochemistry: millions of dollars
penalty for screwing up a computer project: reboot
penalty for screwing up a biochemistry project: chemical pneumonia, sterility, cancer, death, homeland security minions tossing teargas canisters into your window and barking orders
once upon a time, you needed a studio system to make a movie. now a teenager can make a feature length HD movie with his friends. nothing remains too difficult and too expensive forever, and someday, teenagers will be able to hack biochemistry in their basement. but the technological burdens are a little high right now
hey, did you know they beam radio and television signals out in the air for free?
and its an profitable venture
twitter, as a new kind of media, is simply in the stages of establishing itself
google also was heavily used and made no revenue for a long time
once a media's userbase is large and stable enough, advertising can be injected, and lots of cash can be made
the media business is not like manufacturing, like making and selling cupcakes, where you spend a little money and immediately get a little money back
its more like mining gold: you have a huge upfront investment in infrastructure, but then, over time, the initial investment begins to pay off, in dribs and drabs at first, but then to an increasingly louder roar, for a very long time
it is locked
and has been locked
by verizon
for over a year
but i know some troll on a message board who says it can be unlocked, by installing an unsupported os for a different phone model (oh no wait, sorry, same phone model, he says, even though its fucking NOT) from a competing cell company
he guarantees its kosher and painless
i think this is an iq test that i'm going to pass with flying colors, by passing on your glowing back alley offer
how's that rub you?