Yeah sure. Never mind that petitions that get passed around for just about any cause generally use the same text, with an option to add some text of your own, along with your name. If that's the standard being used then I suppose it's easy enough to just toss any petition (or set of comments) into the bin and say "LOL, those are all fake!". Apparently we're now living in the era of 'Fake everything'; fake public comments, fake news, fake POTUS..
I suppose it's possible that someone is trying to invalidate any legitimate responses from the public on this subject by doing this.
I also suppose it's possible that some well-meaning idiot is doing it thinking they're helping the cause of Net Neutrality.
Either way they need to knock it the hell off. Stop attempting to subvert the will of the people.
'People liking what someone is doing' and 'what someone is doing being overall good' are not the same thing.
At the rate things are going it's possible that none of it will matter before the year is out.
Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a post on Twitter that Mr. Comey “should be immediately called to testify in an open hearing about the status of Russia/Trump investigation at the time he was fired.”
It'd be pretty cheeky even for Trump to try to float an appointment to head up the FBI who doesn't have a law enforcement background.
I actually feel a little pity for the GOP right now. They backed Trump because in their eyes any other choice was worse, and I'm sure they thought they could control him adequately via being his 'advisers', since he's new to politics, but what they got instead is like a demented self-driving clown car with the throttle jammed wide open and a full tank of gas: can't control it, can't really stop it without completely destroying it, and guaranteed to end up in the ER for their trouble.
I don't think you understand our Fearless Leaders' Grand Plan: The swamp is being drained to make way for the new cesspool. Rumor has it that he expects Mexico to pay for it.
the Senate is wearing the same team jersey as Trump
No, Trump grabbed a T-shirt the same color as the GOP's jersey, spray painted '00' on the back, then snuck into the Team party, and when asked who invited him, pointed to the guy that just left the room to use the can, then scurried away to talk to someone else before anyone could question him. By the end of the night everyone thought everyone else invited him. By the next morning he was already POTUS and everyone wondered what the hell happened.
It has nothing to do with being old, it has to do with having a brain that actually works properly, can think critically about things, and not needing everything to be SHINY and toy-like. You buy and use things that serve a useful purpose, and you don't need your hand held every single waking moment because you're perfectly capable of doing things yourself; you can spend the whole extra 5 seconds it takes to sit down at the keyboard to seach for something, you don't need a device of dubious purpose listening to you 24/7/365. Walking over to the thermostat to adjust it is not a hassle for you, you don't need a cloud-connected internet-of-things thermostat that lets you be supremely indolent and send a command to nudge it up by 1 degree over 10,000 miles of cabling. Your TV is just a TV, because there's no real reason for it to be anything other than a TV, it doesn't need to be some hackneyed substitute for a real computer. You may not even have a smartphone (and I applaud you, sir, if that's true) not because you don't 'understand' it, and you know very well how to use a smartphone, but you just don't see the need for something that large, that expensive to purchase, and that expensive to operate every month, when all you really want or need is just a phone that's good at being a phone. You'd probably also rather have your legs cut off than ever set foot into a 'self driving car', because not only do you not trust the technology with your personal safety (which is being rushed to market, what could possibly go wrong?) but you're a good driver, having been taught properly back in the day, so why do you need some half-assed machine to do it for you, while you sit there terrified it's going to get you killed?. These sensibilities are completely lost on the 2 current generations because they've been spoon-fed the idea that they're supposed to need these things, but for some reason they don't stop to think why they need these things -- and there is no real reason, they're just SHINY -- and they make money for corporations that serve little other purpose than to make money.
I'm no Luddite (I work for tech companies, for effs' sake), neither are you, we're just from a time when you were more practical about your choices, and when people actually valued knowledge and skills, instead of expecting machines to do everything for you, while there's a growing vacuum between your ears because there's not much of anything you do to fill that vacuum. Honestly, I fear for the next generation, that they're not going to really learn or retain much of anything, because there will be more and more SHINY things around to do everything for them (and do them half-assed, more than likely, compared to a skilled human being) so why should they learn anything at all?
I have a better idea for you, friend: Count on working for a living the rest of your life, because that's the way things are going to be. There isn't going to be any 'Unversal Basic Income'. I'm real sorry your life is so horrible that you must retreat into a fantasy world where everything is free, but all the wishing in the world isn't going to make a bad idea a good idea. Enjoy your job. Enjoy the fact that you live in a first-world country, where you can get meaningful work, and earn enough money to buy decent food, and to live somewhere where your life is not in danger every single day. Be thankful for these things, and stop complaining about how you don't get to live for free. Why do think so many people in the world hate us here in the U.S. and other first-world countries? We have a standard of living that is orders of magnitude better than many shithole countries do, and when people whine and complain about 'how expensive everything is' we just make them hate us all the more. Then you want to live for free? LOL, no wonder there are people in the world willing to blow themselves up to kill as many of us as possible, look how ungrateful and spoiled you are! Stop complaining about not getting a free ride through life, be thankful for what you have, and stop living in a fantasy world, okay? End of discussion.
Correct.
Also remember that offshoring is a real thing, and it's been done for a long time now by corporations. They'd just bring the practice to a new level in response to more taxation. The richest people also hide their money in offshore banks that cater specifically to them, in order to evade taxation. They'd also step that practice up. Add to those the fact that the rich and corporations have legislators in their pocket, and you have all the loopholes they need to avoid paying for any of this. Now remember that pretty much any government operates at a deficit to start with. Proponents of so-called 'UBI' claim that defunding a whole slew of federal aid programs would create enough cash to pay the trillions per year that it would cost to give a 5-digit handout to every citizen annually. I maintain that they are all bad at basic math and the only 'handout' they should receive is a four-banger calculator from the local Dollar Store, so they can work the simple equation themselves and see that it's just not feasible; it would bankrupt the U.S. almost immediately. What's even more sadly humorous is some of them have actually said "just print more money".:-(
I second the motion. If they were 'infinitely fast' it wouldn't matter; you could write everything in interpreted BASIC and it wouldn't matter. This 'question' sounds like an 8 year old is asking it.
Friend..
The rich and corporations will weasel out of paying, and the people it's intended to help will end up footing the bill. So-called 'UBI' would FAIL.
A four-banger calculator from the Dollar Store, a shred of common sense, and a swift kick in the ass to get your lazy ass moving would go a long ways towards your seeing that you're NEVER getting off the hook from having a job and supporting yourself. TANSTAAFL: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Deal with it.
Since you're not an AC I'll actually respond to that.
Do you have the complete source code for the device available to you? That, after carefully analyzing it, can compile it, and compare to the binary that's in the device? If the answer is 'no' then you can't be sure there isn't code in there that can collect all audio and upload it back to Amazon. Just because it's not obviously doing it 24/7/365 doesn't mean it isn't capable of doing so when told to by it's C&C server.
Oh, and by the way: Even verifying the code running on it is okay doesn't mean that future updates to the code can't contain surveillance capability. In fact, if I was designing a covert surveillance system that is ostensibly a 'helpful' home appliance like this, that's what I'd do: The normal code would be a mere appliance. An 'update' would contain the surveillance code. Then another 'update' later goes back to it being an appliance. That way there's no fingerprints left for anyone clever enough to actually dig into the thing to find out if it's been used for spying.
Then there's the issue of hacking. Is the device secure enough that it can't be hacked to be used for 24/7/365 surveillance?
Then there's the possibility that it's just waiting for specific keywords before it starts listening continuously. That goes back to the sourcecode question.
I believe you when you say you've looked at the output with Wireshark and saw nothing out of the ordinary. But as you can see above what I am saying is that doesn't prove the negative. Unless it can be verified, the only safe option is to either turn the device off when you're not actively using it, or not have the device in the first place. Otherwise there is too great a potential for abuse.
If you or anyone else really doesn't give a damn, then that's your choice, but if I'm right then you don't get to complain too much when it's discovered.
Let me point out a few other things nobody else thought was surveilling them: Smartphones. Smart TV. Xbox Kinect. These are documented.
What would happen is the super-rich, and corporations, would find a way to weasel out of paying anything at all, perhaps by moving their wealth out of the country, perhaps by moving their entire corporation out of the country, to avoid paying the excessively high taxes necessary to make this insane idea work. By the way the rich and corporations already do this; it's called 'offshoring', and rich people store their money in overseas banks to avoid taxes. They'd all double-down on what they're doing and be untouchable. The end result would be a totally bankrupt government, totally in disarray, and a country full of people living in abject poverty (even worse than they already are, in some cases). It would be a disaster. But the myopic supporters of this nonsense idea can't see that far ahead, all they see is 'FREE MONEY!' in 72-point flashing font with chaser lights around it. idiotic.
I'm not going to play the 'socialism' card, because that, quite franky, cheapens the value of the discussion of this entire topic -- a topic which keeps reappearing like cockroaches.
This is not a subject you can ask people to vote on! Why? Because, plain and simple, of course everyone wants free money! The average person is terrible at math, can't see much past the end of their own nose, and thinks that governments have unlimited funds. They do not! Most governments are operating at a deficit.
Simply doing the math will show you that so-caled 'UBI' is not feasible on a large scale and therefore is a non-starter.
Considering the current socio-political climate in Western and Eastern Europe right now, I wouldn't at all be surprised if Russia is also working to covertly influence opinion on this subject, as well as elections. So-called 'UBI' would totally destabilize and bankrupt any country that adopts it, and their productivity would drop to near zero. Additionally, and more importantly to this particular point I'm trying to make, countries that adopted this nonsense would not have funding for their own military -- which would make Putin very, very happy. Easier to invade and occupy a country that can't defend itself, as well as a country that has a populace that is indolent.
Really, honestly, seriously: All you 'UBI' supporters need a reality check, and to remember how to do some basic math, as well as trying to remember how to think critically about things. UBI will not work. Please, get over it.
Or State-backed Russian hackers are operating openly while Moscow claims "..oh, those are criminal organizations, we have nothing to do with them". Who's naive now?
Exactly. Look at all the crap Putin took for Ukraine. If Western Europe was in disarray and NATO was weak, maybe nobody would have even noticed.
Personally I think Putin would like to bring back a version of the Soviet Union. NATO and a strong West are the line in the sand. Erase those, and he can build his empire. That's what I think he's thinking. Sabotaging U.S. and other elections is part of the process of dismantling the organization that stands in his way. Either willingly or unwittingly I believe Trump was 'chosen' to be POTUS by Russian hacking influences because he's a destabilizing force. We'll (unfortunately) have to wait and see if Trump is a willing partner in this or if he's really just the buffoon he appears to be.
If the FCC takes any action against Stephen Colbert for speaking out against Trump, then that's a clear violation of his 1st Amendment right to Freedom of Speech, plain and simple.
Is THIS the country we're living in now? Where you can't criticize POTUS without being OFFICIALLY censured? If so then we're one step closer to living in a dictatorship. Is this the United States of America, or is it somewhere like Syria, or Turkey, or Malaysia?
I fail to see why you need to wonder why this thing is, when your subject line covers it in two words. It's more surveillance in your home. YOU are the product, and Amazon, like so many other companies these days, considers you not only the product, but a useful idiot, because people are lining up to pay for the surveillance device they'll have operating in their homes 24/7/365, that now will not only listen, but watch everything in it's field of view. Years ago I used to taunt people who saw no problem with the burgeoning number of cameras out in public places, asking them if they'd like having cameras that strangers would be watching inside their homes; I was scoffed at for posing wild unrealistic scenarios that would never happen in the real world. Yet here were are, with cameras and microphones being installed in people's homes in devices purpose-designed to watch and listen continually. You're right to not want this, you're right to scoff at those who do, and you're right to discourage people from having such things in their homes; keep it up, we might yet uproot this evil trend.
Slashdot Mirror
Hear, hear!
Yeah sure. Never mind that petitions that get passed around for just about any cause generally use the same text, with an option to add some text of your own, along with your name. If that's the standard being used then I suppose it's easy enough to just toss any petition (or set of comments) into the bin and say "LOL, those are all fake!". Apparently we're now living in the era of 'Fake everything'; fake public comments, fake news, fake POTUS..
I suppose it's possible that someone is trying to invalidate any legitimate responses from the public on this subject by doing this.
I also suppose it's possible that some well-meaning idiot is doing it thinking they're helping the cause of Net Neutrality.
Either way they need to knock it the hell off. Stop attempting to subvert the will of the people.
'People liking what someone is doing' and 'what someone is doing being overall good' are not the same thing.
At the rate things are going it's possible that none of it will matter before the year is out.
Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a post on Twitter that Mr. Comey “should be immediately called to testify in an open hearing about the status of Russia/Trump investigation at the time he was fired.”
It'd be pretty cheeky even for Trump to try to float an appointment to head up the FBI who doesn't have a law enforcement background.
I actually feel a little pity for the GOP right now. They backed Trump because in their eyes any other choice was worse, and I'm sure they thought they could control him adequately via being his 'advisers', since he's new to politics, but what they got instead is like a demented self-driving clown car with the throttle jammed wide open and a full tank of gas: can't control it, can't really stop it without completely destroying it, and guaranteed to end up in the ER for their trouble.
I don't think you understand our Fearless Leaders' Grand Plan: The swamp is being drained to make way for the new cesspool. Rumor has it that he expects Mexico to pay for it.
the Senate is wearing the same team jersey as Trump
No, Trump grabbed a T-shirt the same color as the GOP's jersey, spray painted '00' on the back, then snuck into the Team party, and when asked who invited him, pointed to the guy that just left the room to use the can, then scurried away to talk to someone else before anyone could question him. By the end of the night everyone thought everyone else invited him. By the next morning he was already POTUS and everyone wondered what the hell happened.
It has nothing to do with being old, it has to do with having a brain that actually works properly, can think critically about things, and not needing everything to be SHINY and toy-like. You buy and use things that serve a useful purpose, and you don't need your hand held every single waking moment because you're perfectly capable of doing things yourself; you can spend the whole extra 5 seconds it takes to sit down at the keyboard to seach for something, you don't need a device of dubious purpose listening to you 24/7/365. Walking over to the thermostat to adjust it is not a hassle for you, you don't need a cloud-connected internet-of-things thermostat that lets you be supremely indolent and send a command to nudge it up by 1 degree over 10,000 miles of cabling. Your TV is just a TV, because there's no real reason for it to be anything other than a TV, it doesn't need to be some hackneyed substitute for a real computer. You may not even have a smartphone (and I applaud you, sir, if that's true) not because you don't 'understand' it, and you know very well how to use a smartphone, but you just don't see the need for something that large, that expensive to purchase, and that expensive to operate every month, when all you really want or need is just a phone that's good at being a phone. You'd probably also rather have your legs cut off than ever set foot into a 'self driving car', because not only do you not trust the technology with your personal safety (which is being rushed to market, what could possibly go wrong?) but you're a good driver, having been taught properly back in the day, so why do you need some half-assed machine to do it for you, while you sit there terrified it's going to get you killed?. These sensibilities are completely lost on the 2 current generations because they've been spoon-fed the idea that they're supposed to need these things, but for some reason they don't stop to think why they need these things -- and there is no real reason, they're just SHINY -- and they make money for corporations that serve little other purpose than to make money.
I'm no Luddite (I work for tech companies, for effs' sake), neither are you, we're just from a time when you were more practical about your choices, and when people actually valued knowledge and skills, instead of expecting machines to do everything for you, while there's a growing vacuum between your ears because there's not much of anything you do to fill that vacuum. Honestly, I fear for the next generation, that they're not going to really learn or retain much of anything, because there will be more and more SHINY things around to do everything for them (and do them half-assed, more than likely, compared to a skilled human being) so why should they learn anything at all?
I have a better idea for you, friend: Count on working for a living the rest of your life, because that's the way things are going to be. There isn't going to be any 'Unversal Basic Income'. I'm real sorry your life is so horrible that you must retreat into a fantasy world where everything is free, but all the wishing in the world isn't going to make a bad idea a good idea. Enjoy your job. Enjoy the fact that you live in a first-world country, where you can get meaningful work, and earn enough money to buy decent food, and to live somewhere where your life is not in danger every single day. Be thankful for these things, and stop complaining about how you don't get to live for free. Why do think so many people in the world hate us here in the U.S. and other first-world countries? We have a standard of living that is orders of magnitude better than many shithole countries do, and when people whine and complain about 'how expensive everything is' we just make them hate us all the more. Then you want to live for free? LOL, no wonder there are people in the world willing to blow themselves up to kill as many of us as possible, look how ungrateful and spoiled you are! Stop complaining about not getting a free ride through life, be thankful for what you have, and stop living in a fantasy world, okay? End of discussion.
This is just more hype, ignore it.
What's funny is that you provided a meaningful answer to a question that you had already identified as stupid.
Gee, I guess I should have used the </sarcasm> tag on it so people with no sense of humor would know I was kidding.
As I propose it the UBI fund would only pay out if there are funds to pay out.
Then it's not 'Universal' anymore, now is it? If people can't count on it then what would be the point? You're living in a fantasy world.
Correct. :-(
Also remember that offshoring is a real thing, and it's been done for a long time now by corporations. They'd just bring the practice to a new level in response to more taxation. The richest people also hide their money in offshore banks that cater specifically to them, in order to evade taxation. They'd also step that practice up. Add to those the fact that the rich and corporations have legislators in their pocket, and you have all the loopholes they need to avoid paying for any of this. Now remember that pretty much any government operates at a deficit to start with. Proponents of so-called 'UBI' claim that defunding a whole slew of federal aid programs would create enough cash to pay the trillions per year that it would cost to give a 5-digit handout to every citizen annually. I maintain that they are all bad at basic math and the only 'handout' they should receive is a four-banger calculator from the local Dollar Store, so they can work the simple equation themselves and see that it's just not feasible; it would bankrupt the U.S. almost immediately. What's even more sadly humorous is some of them have actually said "just print more money".
This is stupid
I second the motion. If they were 'infinitely fast' it wouldn't matter; you could write everything in interpreted BASIC and it wouldn't matter. This 'question' sounds like an 8 year old is asking it.
Friend..
The rich and corporations will weasel out of paying, and the people it's intended to help will end up footing the bill. So-called 'UBI' would FAIL.
A four-banger calculator from the Dollar Store, a shred of common sense, and a swift kick in the ass to get your lazy ass moving would go a long ways towards your seeing that you're NEVER getting off the hook from having a job and supporting yourself. TANSTAAFL: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Deal with it.
Since you're not an AC I'll actually respond to that.
Do you have the complete source code for the device available to you? That, after carefully analyzing it, can compile it, and compare to the binary that's in the device? If the answer is 'no' then you can't be sure there isn't code in there that can collect all audio and upload it back to Amazon. Just because it's not obviously doing it 24/7/365 doesn't mean it isn't capable of doing so when told to by it's C&C server.
Oh, and by the way: Even verifying the code running on it is okay doesn't mean that future updates to the code can't contain surveillance capability. In fact, if I was designing a covert surveillance system that is ostensibly a 'helpful' home appliance like this, that's what I'd do: The normal code would be a mere appliance. An 'update' would contain the surveillance code. Then another 'update' later goes back to it being an appliance. That way there's no fingerprints left for anyone clever enough to actually dig into the thing to find out if it's been used for spying.
Then there's the issue of hacking. Is the device secure enough that it can't be hacked to be used for 24/7/365 surveillance?
Then there's the possibility that it's just waiting for specific keywords before it starts listening continuously. That goes back to the sourcecode question.
I believe you when you say you've looked at the output with Wireshark and saw nothing out of the ordinary. But as you can see above what I am saying is that doesn't prove the negative. Unless it can be verified, the only safe option is to either turn the device off when you're not actively using it, or not have the device in the first place. Otherwise there is too great a potential for abuse.
If you or anyone else really doesn't give a damn, then that's your choice, but if I'm right then you don't get to complain too much when it's discovered.
Let me point out a few other things nobody else thought was surveilling them: Smartphones. Smart TV. Xbox Kinect. These are documented.
What would happen is the super-rich, and corporations, would find a way to weasel out of paying anything at all, perhaps by moving their wealth out of the country, perhaps by moving their entire corporation out of the country, to avoid paying the excessively high taxes necessary to make this insane idea work. By the way the rich and corporations already do this; it's called 'offshoring', and rich people store their money in overseas banks to avoid taxes. They'd all double-down on what they're doing and be untouchable. The end result would be a totally bankrupt government, totally in disarray, and a country full of people living in abject poverty (even worse than they already are, in some cases). It would be a disaster. But the myopic supporters of this nonsense idea can't see that far ahead, all they see is 'FREE MONEY!' in 72-point flashing font with chaser lights around it. idiotic.
I'm not going to play the 'socialism' card, because that, quite franky, cheapens the value of the discussion of this entire topic -- a topic which keeps reappearing like cockroaches.
This is not a subject you can ask people to vote on! Why? Because, plain and simple, of course everyone wants free money! The average person is terrible at math, can't see much past the end of their own nose, and thinks that governments have unlimited funds. They do not! Most governments are operating at a deficit.
Simply doing the math will show you that so-caled 'UBI' is not feasible on a large scale and therefore is a non-starter.
Considering the current socio-political climate in Western and Eastern Europe right now, I wouldn't at all be surprised if Russia is also working to covertly influence opinion on this subject, as well as elections. So-called 'UBI' would totally destabilize and bankrupt any country that adopts it, and their productivity would drop to near zero. Additionally, and more importantly to this particular point I'm trying to make, countries that adopted this nonsense would not have funding for their own military -- which would make Putin very, very happy. Easier to invade and occupy a country that can't defend itself, as well as a country that has a populace that is indolent.
Really, honestly, seriously: All you 'UBI' supporters need a reality check, and to remember how to do some basic math, as well as trying to remember how to think critically about things. UBI will not work. Please, get over it.
Nope. You're either not a U.S. citizen or you don't understand the First Amendment.
Or State-backed Russian hackers are operating openly while Moscow claims "..oh, those are criminal organizations, we have nothing to do with them". Who's naive now?
Exactly. Look at all the crap Putin took for Ukraine. If Western Europe was in disarray and NATO was weak, maybe nobody would have even noticed.
Personally I think Putin would like to bring back a version of the Soviet Union. NATO and a strong West are the line in the sand. Erase those, and he can build his empire. That's what I think he's thinking. Sabotaging U.S. and other elections is part of the process of dismantling the organization that stands in his way. Either willingly or unwittingly I believe Trump was 'chosen' to be POTUS by Russian hacking influences because he's a destabilizing force. We'll (unfortunately) have to wait and see if Trump is a willing partner in this or if he's really just the buffoon he appears to be.
If the FCC takes any action against Stephen Colbert for speaking out against Trump, then that's a clear violation of his 1st Amendment right to Freedom of Speech, plain and simple.
Is THIS the country we're living in now? Where you can't criticize POTUS without being OFFICIALLY censured? If so then we're one step closer to living in a dictatorship. Is this the United States of America, or is it somewhere like Syria, or Turkey, or Malaysia?
I fail to see why you need to wonder why this thing is, when your subject line covers it in two words. It's more surveillance in your home. YOU are the product, and Amazon, like so many other companies these days, considers you not only the product, but a useful idiot, because people are lining up to pay for the surveillance device they'll have operating in their homes 24/7/365, that now will not only listen, but watch everything in it's field of view. Years ago I used to taunt people who saw no problem with the burgeoning number of cameras out in public places, asking them if they'd like having cameras that strangers would be watching inside their homes; I was scoffed at for posing wild unrealistic scenarios that would never happen in the real world. Yet here were are, with cameras and microphones being installed in people's homes in devices purpose-designed to watch and listen continually. You're right to not want this, you're right to scoff at those who do, and you're right to discourage people from having such things in their homes; keep it up, we might yet uproot this evil trend.