What's even more ironic is that all the tree-hugging hippies I have known over the years, even those from Green Peace, have been Apple users!
That's what immediately struck me about this fiasco as well, but given their tactics it seems to make some degree of sense. Groups like Greenpeace often want to set themselves apart from other movements/environmentalists/leftists in general, and this is a good way in which they can do that. Of course, I think it's pretty stupid, but this seems to be how they operate...
Beyond that, I think the publicity that they get from attacking Apple was too high of a motivator for this to dissuade them. Visibility seems to be their main tactic to spread their message, and while it may not get them practical results in each instance (especially in your previous encounter!), they hope that it will send a ripple through the rest of the industry and possibly change some policies. Personally, I think this is a stupid method (take a look through some of the other comments to see how many seething trolls they've spawned), but one that has been none-the-less effective at the corporate level, as suprising as that may sound. Companies are likely to make changes if they feel it will earn them some good PR, so Greenpeace tries to motivate them to do so, seemingly by any means necessary.
yeah, first they selectively target companies to protest for using dangerous chemicals based on the publicity it will get them, then they.... kill people?
*disclaimer for the countless trolls reading this thread and posting such intelligent things as "hippie ass-whoopin" etc...* I'm a leftist, sharing many of the ideals of groups like Greenpeace, PETA, etc.. *and* I do not agree that the tactics of groups like PETA, Greenpeace, etc.. are the most rightous or effective means of furthering their goals. *end disclaimer*
but seriously... how exactly is it hypocritical? PETA, Greenpeace, etc.. all make very clear that they are motivated to attract attention to their cause by going after high-profile targets. They've been pulling ridiculous publicity stunts for years and years. It would be hypocritical of them if they said they *did not* engage in such behavoir. It doesn't mean they have a lack of concern for their cause in general, it's just that this is their method of supporting it.
That said, if anyone can show me exactly where Greenpeace stated or even implied that they would not selectively target companies for maximum publicity, I will retract my previous statement.
I agree that this seems to come up from time to time, but I think you, yourself, are overgeneralizing the Bush administration (George Bush is an idiot but his appointees are not always), as others have pointed out. You're also overgeneralizing the source of discussion, in that all the users of slashdot + all the programs of air america are not one person and are naturally very likely to have differing opinions that are very likely to be contradictory. It's another thing if one person is contradicting themselves, but I imagine the majority of these types are 9/11 truthers and such, and certainly shouldn't account for all (or even most) of the conversation here.
You mean Nixon as in the guy who thought that as president he was above the law and had similar status to a monarch? (His actual argument in the high court as to why he shouldn't have to hand over tapes recorded in the white house)
Yep, that one. I feel that, in this respect, Bush is about as bad, but is much worse in many others.
At least with Nixon his attitude caused a severe backlash that ensured more oversight for years to come - something that doesn't seem like it will happen with Bush.
I very much agree with that statement. In fact, I feel that this is one of the ways in which he's *worse* (that is, more damaging). I think it's the "keep smiling; everyone loves an idiot" idea, but it really amazes me that people will still follow him (30% of the country, in fact) at this point. I really have no clue what it would take to change their minds, if nothing hasn't so far. I guess Nixon was just a much less likeable guy. That, and I still think Bush rides this hillbilly hero status that he somehow got after 9/11.
A lot of people like to make this comparison because Nixon often came off as a unilateral dick, he was in many ways. However, he at least was a functional president. Hell, he was more than a functional president; he even had several net positives like repairing relations with China. If I had the chance to go back and magically make it so we had Nixon as president for the last 7 years, I think I would literally jump for joy.
Now Office computers will trust that said administrator is using MSoffice2008/Professional Ultimate Experience Edition and not OO.
This one can't happen. No one is policing *your* computer, the worst that could theoretically happen is someone *else* will deny service to you if you're not running the right software. If you have the word file, no one can stop you from reading it.
This is wholly another issue from security, and not one that I was talking about. Anyway, I wouldn't put a lot of stock in your above scenarios. First off, they're very illegal. This isn't an issue of software compatibility keeping a competitor out; it's now, literally, keeping a competitor out. Microsoft has already been sanctioned for the prior, the latter would undeniably be trustbuster time (unless Ron Paul gets elected).
Secondly, regardless of whether or not microsoft would do such a thing, even if they require someone to be running a TPM to view a webpage, they've already blasted the hell out of any sembalence of a web standard. And before you assume that I'm not aware of their current attempts at destorying web standards, don't; I am, and they're nothing close to what you're predicting, but this would basically mean w3 is dissolved.
Besides all of this, trusted computing, as it currently stands, can't do anything close to this. What you're able to certify is that a computer has a certain set of software loaded, not whether IE is accepting your http request or not. A server would have to deny access based on the fact that firefox is running on your computer somewhere, which is pretty silly. Besides, if people wanted to, they could be making steps towards this now. A site could simply deny access based on the fact that someones browser identifies as firefox. Of course, this doesn't neccesarily keep people out, but the fact that hardly anyone does something this stupid is why your scenario is fairly unlikely.
Lastly, you're already fucked anyway. TC is coming whether you like it or not. You can't stop a technology. Your best bet is to prepare. That is, if you're truly afraid of this scenario happening, vote for politicians that are willing to regulate monopolies. You can't stop people from researching this stuff.
The authority is there for the same purposes certificate authorities are there on the itnernet right now: as an independent trusted 3rd party to validate keys. That's it. If a computer with a TPM wishes to prove to someone that it is running the software it says it is, you can trust it because the authority says the key it's using is valid. How does this limit what an administrator can do? If anything, it increases what an administrator can do. Now people will trust that said administrator is running a TPM and isn't lying about the software running on the computer.
I save my own stuff in odf. I save to.doc if I need to send someone in my department (computer science... yes, even here) something they need to edit, and otherwise I send people a pdf.
A person who equates 9/11 truthers with liberals is obviously in need of some perspective:
It's not worth wrecking our economy over
...
Conservatives are people who step back and observe the situation before they announce "NO, I'm not going to sacrifice all the gains of the 20th century just because someone who needs a bath and some life experience says the ice is melting."
Bill Clinton carried many of these ideas you think are pretty silly and left with a budget surplus. George Bush, on the other hand, destroyed that surplus. So much for conservatives stepping back and observing the situation before they dive in. At least we didn't destroy our economy for nothing, though, right?
There's not an infinite number of paths if you exclude those paths which contain cycles (which you really should do, since they're pointless). The board is finite, thus there are a finite number of possible configurations of the board. Therefore, you do not need to consider an infinite number of paths, only the best move in each of a finite number of states (which is still an incomprehensably large assload). Remember a few months ago when checkers was solved? Technically, there are an infinite number of paths in checkers, too, since you can just move your kings around in circles.
This is all analogous to a turing machine with a finite tape. If you wanted to, your turing machine could run for ever just rewriting a bunch of symbols in the tape, but the set of all configurations of the tape is, in this case, finite, making cycles detectable and the halting problem solvable. Very, very different from the halting problem with your typical infinite tape turing machine.
(And of course -- and I didn't look at this at first -- because there is editorializing about how the "MSM" doesn't mention privacy implications, I'm not surprised to see it's posted by kdawson.)
He also posted all the other stories since 2pm. That's not to say this is or is not partially his fault, but I thought it might shed a little perspective in a kdawson bashing world:)
It's a shame that the defendant of this first RIAA jury trial turned out to be a liar with a bogus defense.
I agree that it's unfortunate, but I don't blame her at all. How do you think her punishment compares to that of other crimes? $220k for sharing 24 songs? christ... I guess she should have settled.
How is "While the muslims do the same but actually set you on fire. In the street. Right now." supposed to be interpreted? Was he supposed to interpret that as 2 or 3 muslims every other year? Any reasonable person would read that assume you're implying that burning people in the street is a standard practice in the muslim world. If this isn't your message, personally, I have no idea what you're trying to say.
How the hell are you encouraging an "intelligent discussion" with this crap? In case you were wondering, intelligent discussions often involve clear, unambiguous statements that are clear of generalizations and often coupled with references to independant sources.
The Home Office has steadfastly proclaimed that the law is aimed at catching terrorists, pedophiles, and hardened criminals--all parties which the UK government contends are rather adept at using encryption to cover up their activities
That's right, I seem to recall that Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman wrote about providing protection for pedophiles and terrorists in the motivation section of their paper on RSA.
Scientists don't "just-accept" anything, which is what makes them different from the followers of the 2000 year-old sheep herders... but rational statements like this probably mean nothing to someone who implies that physicists are as dumb as creationists and call them "luck-worshiping". I'm sure you're just as smart and have studied and critiqued these theories just as much as your average professor, right?
By the way, what is so strange about the whole luck theory anyway? You have to take into account the likelyhood that you would be observing life on any planet other than the one that happened to support it. The chances of that are zero, so if any of the potentially infinite expanse of the universe may be some luck of the draw produce life, that's the one you'll be on. Now the odds are not "what are the chances of life spontaneously forming on earth", but rather "what are the chances of life spontaneously forming somewhere in the universe. Of course, the theory gets more complicated and beyond anything I've learned from there and I have no idea how plausible this might be, but it's a lot more plausible than your "whoops, what do you know" characterization.
Better yet, if you can rigorously show that you have a better idea, the scientific community will adopt that instead. However, that's a "whoops, what do you know" proposition that I wouldn't bet on.
Actually, I changed that to illustrate that time is the only thing that separates us from that ball of cells.
Ah, right, the fact that adult humans are the same thing as a ball of cells + time. Pretty much nothing else of interest is thrown in there, I imagine.
Annnd....you do realize that there's a pretty big difference between gametes and zygotes, right?
My conversations with either never seem to go very well. Very one-sided. Honestly, I don't even think babies are all that human until at least a few months of development. There's little that seperates us from animals for quite some time after we're born.
Secondly, I'm pretty sure someone who never existed in any form doesn't qualify as alive.;)
Yeah, they never even made it that far. Such a tragedy. Anyway, you're only furthering my point. If you're going to oversimply the growth of a fertilized egg to an adult human being to "adding time", you can very easily extend that to your parents + time. That is to say, the fact that any stage of an unborn child can be considered "life" is irrelevant. "Life", as such, is obviously not important to the meat-eating masses of pro-lifers, which was my original point. To me, both are somewhat important, but not anywhere near as important as the developed "life" (as in 'get a life') of an adult human.
It doesn't make sense to you because you're not pro-choice.
WAKE UP PEOPLE in what alternate reality do you base laws on what people "are going to do anyway"? I mean by that logic we should get rid of all of the laws against normal murder, because hey, since we can't just walk people into a "deathspital" and have them killed, we have to go and do it in an alley. That's a slippery slope if I've ever seen one. I'd agree with you, if I thought aborting a fetus was in some way equivalent to murdering an adult human being *AND* that anyone must be *forced* to care and nuture another human being inside their body for 9 months, whether that person was put there wilfully or not... but I don't, so I don't see it as a slippery slope. I can, however, see how you would, given the premises that you take.
The people who make these arguments typically believe neither of the previous premises, therefore it is not a slippery slope for them. If *anyone* argued *solely* that abortions should be illegal because of the 'back-ally abortion' reason, that would be pretty crazy. The reason people bring this argument up is because it is a consequence of what they see as an unneccesary and unjust law, which means we should *not* have the law. I mean, if banning abortions didn't hurt anyone, then pro-choicers would just be ambivalent about it, right? They need more than a reason why it doesn't matter, they also a reason why it hurts society. The 'back-alley' argument is one way in which it 'hurts'.
did I ever say I wasn't a vegan?:) (I'm not, in fact, but I am a vegetarian and only eat icecream / cheese from humane farms)
so, anyway, I copied the original too fast: it's days, not years, and you know what I meant....and having never been concious is VERY different from being asleep. At least, if you refuse to believe this, you'd better be a nihilist. Lots of people have never been concious. The baby I didn't concieve last night due to birth control was never concious. The millions of babies most slashdotters splatter over kleenexes were never concious. That woman that passed by you yesterday that you didn't rape doesn't have your baby in her (assuming you're male; otherwise, if you're not slutting it up every night, you're still a murderer). That baby will never be concious. Are you saying that not raping a woman is pretty much the same as murder? You are, if lack of concousness is all you're going off of. In all of these scenarios, actions could be taken to set in motion the creation of a fully concious, develpoed, human being with wants, needs, and aspirations. As it was, none of these people ever had a chance... just like that blob of cells someone just yanked out of someone's uterus.
I assume you're a vegan then, if you're so concerned with beating hearts. A dog is more human than the disgusting glob of cells that is an embryo at 22 days.
It is censorship. You're confusing censorship with illegal censorship. Censorship does not imply illegality, and legality does not imply that selectively deleting messages is not censorship. As with many things, this instance of censorship is both legal and morally problematic.
Slashdot Mirror
That's what immediately struck me about this fiasco as well, but given their tactics it seems to make some degree of sense. Groups like Greenpeace often want to set themselves apart from other movements/environmentalists/leftists in general, and this is a good way in which they can do that. Of course, I think it's pretty stupid, but this seems to be how they operate...
Beyond that, I think the publicity that they get from attacking Apple was too high of a motivator for this to dissuade them. Visibility seems to be their main tactic to spread their message, and while it may not get them practical results in each instance (especially in your previous encounter!), they hope that it will send a ripple through the rest of the industry and possibly change some policies. Personally, I think this is a stupid method (take a look through some of the other comments to see how many seething trolls they've spawned), but one that has been none-the-less effective at the corporate level, as suprising as that may sound. Companies are likely to make changes if they feel it will earn them some good PR, so Greenpeace tries to motivate them to do so, seemingly by any means necessary.
yeah, first they selectively target companies to protest for using dangerous chemicals based on the publicity it will get them, then they.... kill people?
*disclaimer for the countless trolls reading this thread and posting such intelligent things as "hippie ass-whoopin" etc...*
I'm a leftist, sharing many of the ideals of groups like Greenpeace, PETA, etc.. *and* I do not agree that the tactics of groups like PETA, Greenpeace, etc.. are the most rightous or effective means of furthering their goals.
*end disclaimer*
but seriously... how exactly is it hypocritical? PETA, Greenpeace, etc.. all make very clear that they are motivated to attract attention to their cause by going after high-profile targets. They've been pulling ridiculous publicity stunts for years and years. It would be hypocritical of them if they said they *did not* engage in such behavoir. It doesn't mean they have a lack of concern for their cause in general, it's just that this is their method of supporting it.
That said, if anyone can show me exactly where Greenpeace stated or even implied that they would not selectively target companies for maximum publicity, I will retract my previous statement.
I agree that this seems to come up from time to time, but I think you, yourself, are overgeneralizing the Bush administration (George Bush is an idiot but his appointees are not always), as others have pointed out. You're also overgeneralizing the source of discussion, in that all the users of slashdot + all the programs of air america are not one person and are naturally very likely to have differing opinions that are very likely to be contradictory. It's another thing if one person is contradicting themselves, but I imagine the majority of these types are 9/11 truthers and such, and certainly shouldn't account for all (or even most) of the conversation here.
Yep, that one. I feel that, in this respect, Bush is about as bad, but is much worse in many others.
I very much agree with that statement. In fact, I feel that this is one of the ways in which he's *worse* (that is, more damaging). I think it's the "keep smiling; everyone loves an idiot" idea, but it really amazes me that people will still follow him (30% of the country, in fact) at this point. I really have no clue what it would take to change their minds, if nothing hasn't so far. I guess Nixon was just a much less likeable guy. That, and I still think Bush rides this hillbilly hero status that he somehow got after 9/11.
A lot of people like to make this comparison because Nixon often came off as a unilateral dick, he was in many ways. However, he at least was a functional president. Hell, he was more than a functional president; he even had several net positives like repairing relations with China. If I had the chance to go back and magically make it so we had Nixon as president for the last 7 years, I think I would literally jump for joy.
This one can't happen. No one is policing *your* computer, the worst that could theoretically happen is someone *else* will deny service to you if you're not running the right software. If you have the word file, no one can stop you from reading it.
This is wholly another issue from security, and not one that I was talking about. Anyway, I wouldn't put a lot of stock in your above scenarios. First off, they're very illegal. This isn't an issue of software compatibility keeping a competitor out; it's now, literally, keeping a competitor out. Microsoft has already been sanctioned for the prior, the latter would undeniably be trustbuster time (unless Ron Paul gets elected).
Secondly, regardless of whether or not microsoft would do such a thing, even if they require someone to be running a TPM to view a webpage, they've already blasted the hell out of any sembalence of a web standard. And before you assume that I'm not aware of their current attempts at destorying web standards, don't; I am, and they're nothing close to what you're predicting, but this would basically mean w3 is dissolved.
Besides all of this, trusted computing, as it currently stands, can't do anything close to this. What you're able to certify is that a computer has a certain set of software loaded, not whether IE is accepting your http request or not. A server would have to deny access based on the fact that firefox is running on your computer somewhere, which is pretty silly. Besides, if people wanted to, they could be making steps towards this now. A site could simply deny access based on the fact that someones browser identifies as firefox. Of course, this doesn't neccesarily keep people out, but the fact that hardly anyone does something this stupid is why your scenario is fairly unlikely.
Lastly, you're already fucked anyway. TC is coming whether you like it or not. You can't stop a technology. Your best bet is to prepare. That is, if you're truly afraid of this scenario happening, vote for politicians that are willing to regulate monopolies. You can't stop people from researching this stuff.
The authority is there for the same purposes certificate authorities are there on the itnernet right now: as an independent trusted 3rd party to validate keys. That's it. If a computer with a TPM wishes to prove to someone that it is running the software it says it is, you can trust it because the authority says the key it's using is valid. How does this limit what an administrator can do? If anything, it increases what an administrator can do. Now people will trust that said administrator is running a TPM and isn't lying about the software running on the computer.
I save my own stuff in odf. I save to .doc if I need to send someone in my department (computer science... yes, even here) something they need to edit, and otherwise I send people a pdf.
oh, you mean the people who put Bush in power + 2 people he put there?
beyond that, I wonder what the long term plans of a company whose mission is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" when it comes to this data... Perhaps initially some mining applications?
Bill Clinton carried many of these ideas you think are pretty silly and left with a budget surplus. George Bush, on the other hand, destroyed that surplus. So much for conservatives stepping back and observing the situation before they dive in. At least we didn't destroy our economy for nothing, though, right?
There's not an infinite number of paths if you exclude those paths which contain cycles (which you really should do, since they're pointless). The board is finite, thus there are a finite number of possible configurations of the board. Therefore, you do not need to consider an infinite number of paths, only the best move in each of a finite number of states (which is still an incomprehensably large assload). Remember a few months ago when checkers was solved? Technically, there are an infinite number of paths in checkers, too, since you can just move your kings around in circles.
This is all analogous to a turing machine with a finite tape. If you wanted to, your turing machine could run for ever just rewriting a bunch of symbols in the tape, but the set of all configurations of the tape is, in this case, finite, making cycles detectable and the halting problem solvable. Very, very different from the halting problem with your typical infinite tape turing machine.
He also posted all the other stories since 2pm. That's not to say this is or is not partially his fault, but I thought it might shed a little perspective in a kdawson bashing world
I agree that it's unfortunate, but I don't blame her at all. How do you think her punishment compares to that of other crimes? $220k for sharing 24 songs? christ... I guess she should have settled.
How is "While the muslims do the same but actually set you on fire. In the street. Right now." supposed to be interpreted? Was he supposed to interpret that as 2 or 3 muslims every other year? Any reasonable person would read that assume you're implying that burning people in the street is a standard practice in the muslim world. If this isn't your message, personally, I have no idea what you're trying to say.
How the hell are you encouraging an "intelligent discussion" with this crap? In case you were wondering, intelligent discussions often involve clear, unambiguous statements that are clear of generalizations and often coupled with references to independant sources.
That's right, I seem to recall that Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman wrote about providing protection for pedophiles and terrorists in the motivation section of their paper on RSA.
Scientists don't "just-accept" anything, which is what makes them different from the followers of the 2000 year-old sheep herders... but rational statements like this probably mean nothing to someone who implies that physicists are as dumb as creationists and call them "luck-worshiping". I'm sure you're just as smart and have studied and critiqued these theories just as much as your average professor, right?
By the way, what is so strange about the whole luck theory anyway? You have to take into account the likelyhood that you would be observing life on any planet other than the one that happened to support it. The chances of that are zero, so if any of the potentially infinite expanse of the universe may be some luck of the draw produce life, that's the one you'll be on. Now the odds are not "what are the chances of life spontaneously forming on earth", but rather "what are the chances of life spontaneously forming somewhere in the universe. Of course, the theory gets more complicated and beyond anything I've learned from there and I have no idea how plausible this might be, but it's a lot more plausible than your "whoops, what do you know" characterization.
Better yet, if you can rigorously show that you have a better idea, the scientific community will adopt that instead. However, that's a "whoops, what do you know" proposition that I wouldn't bet on.
Ah, right, the fact that adult humans are the same thing as a ball of cells + time. Pretty much nothing else of interest is thrown in there, I imagine.
My conversations with either never seem to go very well. Very one-sided. Honestly, I don't even think babies are all that human until at least a few months of development. There's little that seperates us from animals for quite some time after we're born.
Yeah, they never even made it that far. Such a tragedy. Anyway, you're only furthering my point. If you're going to oversimply the growth of a fertilized egg to an adult human being to "adding time", you can very easily extend that to your parents + time. That is to say, the fact that any stage of an unborn child can be considered "life" is irrelevant. "Life", as such, is obviously not important to the meat-eating masses of pro-lifers, which was my original point. To me, both are somewhat important, but not anywhere near as important as the developed "life" (as in 'get a life') of an adult human.
It doesn't make sense to you because you're not pro-choice.
WAKE UP PEOPLE in what alternate reality do you base laws on what people "are going to do anyway"? I mean by that logic we should get rid of all of the laws against normal murder, because hey, since we can't just walk people into a "deathspital" and have them killed, we have to go and do it in an alley. That's a slippery slope if I've ever seen one.
I'd agree with you, if I thought aborting a fetus was in some way equivalent to murdering an adult human being *AND* that anyone must be *forced* to care and nuture another human being inside their body for 9 months, whether that person was put there wilfully or not... but I don't, so I don't see it as a slippery slope. I can, however, see how you would, given the premises that you take.
The people who make these arguments typically believe neither of the previous premises, therefore it is not a slippery slope for them. If *anyone* argued *solely* that abortions should be illegal because of the 'back-ally abortion' reason, that would be pretty crazy. The reason people bring this argument up is because it is a consequence of what they see as an unneccesary and unjust law, which means we should *not* have the law. I mean, if banning abortions didn't hurt anyone, then pro-choicers would just be ambivalent about it, right? They need more than a reason why it doesn't matter, they also a reason why it hurts society. The 'back-alley' argument is one way in which it 'hurts'.
did I ever say I wasn't a vegan? :) (I'm not, in fact, but I am a vegetarian and only eat icecream / cheese from humane farms)
...and having never been concious is VERY different from being asleep. At least, if you refuse to believe this, you'd better be a nihilist. Lots of people have never been concious. The baby I didn't concieve last night due to birth control was never concious. The millions of babies most slashdotters splatter over kleenexes were never concious. That woman that passed by you yesterday that you didn't rape doesn't have your baby in her (assuming you're male; otherwise, if you're not slutting it up every night, you're still a murderer). That baby will never be concious. Are you saying that not raping a woman is pretty much the same as murder? You are, if lack of concousness is all you're going off of. In all of these scenarios, actions could be taken to set in motion the creation of a fully concious, develpoed, human being with wants, needs, and aspirations. As it was, none of these people ever had a chance... just like that blob of cells someone just yanked out of someone's uterus.
so, anyway, I copied the original too fast: it's days, not years, and you know what I meant.
I assume you're a vegan then, if you're so concerned with beating hearts. A dog is more human than the disgusting glob of cells that is an embryo at 22 days.
It is censorship. You're confusing censorship with illegal censorship. Censorship does not imply illegality, and legality does not imply that selectively deleting messages is not censorship. As with many things, this instance of censorship is both legal and morally problematic.
No, they're talking about caveman hackers. You don't see a lot of them, because apparently "not going to jail" isn't quite as easy.