The illegal ones. Saying "drugs" to refer to those illicit substances and "medication" to refer to the other kind of drugs is pretty much mainstream.
I mean, it's pretty damned unscientific to just lump every potentially psychoactive substance into one overarching category of "drugs", and assume that the long-term effects of each compound are the same.
I wasn't assuming. You're just picking on semantics.
I might add, that really is the source of the War on Drugs: some people just don't think we should smoke pot, and have gained a lot of money and power in the attempt.
Actually, a lot of people simply considers that the widespread use of those specific drugs (the ones that are illegal at the current moment) is prejudicial to society as a whole. It's not related to "I want to stop people from doing XYZ just because I want to", but to "if people do XYZ, other people will be affected, so this must be stopped".
The widespread and legal use of drugs is not good for society, because lots of people are succeptible to the desire of "not being under control of itself" while also being unable to escape from such situations. It's even worse when you consider that teenagers tend to imitate adult behaviours. If your local Liquor Store starts to legally sell things like Cocaine or Heroin, they will also sell it for underage people (just like they do it now for alcohol), not only for "recreational" yuppies in their 30's.
You're all discussing like I'm some kind of hardcore anti-drugs activist. I'm not. In fact, I would love if everyone else just went alcoholic, because that would make competition much easier. In 5 to 6 years I would be able to outperform all other business in my area. Having 90% marketshare because everyone else is too busy getting high would be terrific. It would be also awesome to have most people dying after before cashing out their retirement checks, and alcohol/drugs is a pretty good tool to achieve that objective.
My point is pretty simple, it's not pro or anti drugs: don't pretend that the "informed and controlled use of drugs" is an achievable objective. Don't play with coke/heroin/pot, because the drug will always win. Lots of people like to fool themselves by saying "oh, I use for 10 years but it's all under control, it's only recreational". Yeah, right.
If that were the case, why don't more alcoholics end up as heroin addicts?
Two reasons: 1. People are lazy, so they'll stick to what's sold at the supermarket. Going to the 'hoods to purchase fun is also risky. 2. Because those drugs are illegal, meaning that the entire universe related to them is seen in bad light and considered as some kind of sin. It's cultural: getting drunk is fun while snorting coke is something that desperate and out-of-control rich people do at clubs.
Now, you talk about "scientific studies" yet cite none.
Oh, damn! I mean I won't be getting my PhD based in this discussion... Oh, bummer!
What made rum-running extraordinarily lucrative and helped build criminal syndicates during Prohibition? The fact that alcohol was illegal. You can blame demand ("recreational use") all you want, but that's just pissing into the wind. The blame should be squarely set on the legislature and every single person who supports the law as it stands.
The blame should be squarely set on the fact that lots of "recreational users" are rich and/or connected to politicians / important people from the police. That's why those kinds of illegal business are thriving: because we are not arresting everyone who is buying drugs. It's hard to tell cops and judges to put all those users in jail when your family is part of the user base.
Society as a whole, using the current decision-making system, decided that those drugs can't be produced or sold. That's how the western society works and that's how things are decided. I don't agree with lots of things related to the current system, but that's how it works.
Legislation can't be blamed for the appearance of illegal commerce and laws must not changed because criminals are bypassing it or profiting from it. That's like saying that anti-prostitution laws should be blamed for increasing rape occurrences. People are being raped because the law isn't being enforced and people aren't being properly protected by police action / city planning and maintenance.
We should not bend over to criminals and change laws to avoid driving people into crime. That's part of having a legal system.
Expecting otherwise is foolish
That's funny. I bet you scream bloody murder when people like GWB consistently ignore laws or the constitution. Yet, you're trying to tell me that some crimes are "inevitable" and, judging by your general tone, "understandable".
So I guess that, considering that you are a consistent person, having GWB ignoring the constitution is just like having yuppies buying their special cigs from the nearest mugger-murderer-dealer: pretty much justifiable. I mean, "expecting otherwise is foolish".
And no, this is not a straw-man. I'm simply pointing out that you're just another idiot who think it's ok to pick only the laws you consider to be "necessary". Just like GWB, except that he has a thing for power while you probably have a thing for coke/pot.
I had to stop reading your comment after this, since the absolute ignorance displayed in it so dumbfounded me. You and people like you are the reason for the War on Drugs and failures far worse than ever happened during Prohibition. You are the reason criminal enterprises make vast sums of money from black market substances.
The reason why criminal enterprises are making a lot of money is this whole "recreational use" bullshit. All these selfish "recreational" yuppies don't give a rat's ass about all the lives destroyed in Mexico just so they can get their drugs. To them, it's all about being "trendy", and "modern", while in fact is just the old attempt of escaping from a very sad life. Most of them have goob jobs and attended good universities, yet can't manage to find something (other than drugs) to fill their void. That's why people dying in Mexico is a non-issue: those "recreational" idiots are also trying to survive.
A recreational drug user is the same thing as a social drinker. Someone who occasionally consumes alcohol, but rarely if ever drinks enough to go over the legal limit, let alone get hammered. There are lots of nice folks leading happy, productive lives who are social drinkers, just as there are lots of nice folks leading happy, productive lives who occasionally use marijuana (typically what people mean when referring to recreational use). Your proclamation that such people don't exist doesn't make it true, it just makes you look like a fool to all the people who know otherwise.
Alcohol is also a destructive substance, with lots of issues related to it. But, it lacks most of the extremely powerful chemically-addictive characteristics of modified Marijuana, which is filled with additives to make its use more interesting. I don't actually care if people use this kind of thing, if they don't try to convince me that they're super-smart people "just having fun".
Given your ludicrous statement coupled with the fact that alcohol is a drug the same as any other legal or illegal drug, you must also believe that there is nobody who drinks alcohol who also leads a happy, productive life without letting their use of alcohol interfere. Itching for a return to Prohibition as well?
I don't give a crap about adult people being able to use alcohol, marijuana, cocaine or even nasty things like LSD. In fact, I would love if the common man started to use such things in excess: it's a pretty good business opportunity and it would make competition much easier in terms of achieving better job positions or outperforming other companies.
You can bash me for taking a "please, think of the children" approach, but I'm not currently a fan of this "recreational use" bullshit mostly because it creates a culture (and also a market) that allows teenagers to inherit this kind of behaviour. The other reason is that drugs ARE illegal and the only way of purchasing them involves financing criminals. I will never, I repeat, never, agree with somewhone who finances murder and destruction of lives just because they want to have some fun.
Build a system that actually forbids people under (put any age here) to buy alcohol and I will happilly defend your right to stay all night on the street, shaking from your nice dose of drugs. In fact, if drug legalization happens one day, I would be more than glad to SELL them to you.
Completely and totally wrong. Proof? I'm one of those you claim don't exist. And I know plenty more.
You're just defending yourself instead of proving something.
Oh noes! Commerce is pervasive! Besides, I balance it out by funding terrorists and repressive regimes every time I fill up my car or buy some propane for the BBQ.
You don't feel guilty when you buy drugs? Not a little bit? It's has nothing to do with the "oil equals terrorism" bullshit. The whole chain of drug production and distribution has blood stains all over it. And you make yourself a part of it just because of your "recreational use".
as sometimes these people are not respectful towards their neighbours and act like obnoxious little pricks.
Correlation does not equate causation. What is this, kindergarten day on Slashdot?
Well, I enjoyed your highly scientific analysis. Let's have a beer sometimes. Oops, maybe not, we might get addicted!
If you actually cared about scientific studies, you would not be using drugs, as every single study concerning the psychological effects of drugs would tell you to simply stop it.
You're just a "trendy" person trying to escape life. Who cares about you? I don't.
Disclaimer: I'm not discussing this specific topic (100 miles of random-search zone) and not disagreeing that these checkpoints can be, in fact, extremely abusive. I'm just discussing a few specific points on your speech.
is now full-blown random drug searches which targer mostly recreational users.
There is no such thing as a "recreational drug-user" as that implies that somehow there is a group of people with the extreme ability of withstanding the powerful (and hidden) addictive aspects of drugs. This term makes it sound like those people are just nice folks using drugs and having a happy and productive life, without allowing their drug use to cause interference in their own life or in the life of others.
It's even worse: everytime someone buys drugs, they're directly financing other kinds of criminal activities. And even if they're just growing pot at their basement, without buying tools and knowledge from criminals, they're not just "nice people having fun", as sometimes these people are not respectful towards their neighbours and act like obnoxious little pricks.
Even more absurd is a checkpoint I have to pass through to go South towards the border!
If you do really need checkpoints (I don't believe that - I think that a properly secured border is much more effective and respectful towards law-abiding citizens), the fact thay you're moving towards the border is no excuse for not doing searches. You can be running away from the USA after doing a drug-related murder, you can be trafficking money, etc.
Again: I don't agree with the checkpoints at all. But considering how their system works, it makes a lot of sense to also check out while trying to get out of the country. While the checks itself are absurd, the fact that you're moving towards the border changes nothing.
In my firm, which is a Fortune 50 company, we're actively abandoning MS Office for our own modification of Open Office.
Sorry, but... No.
Of all "I work at a Fortune XYZ company" B/S histories that people spout around here, yours is the worst one. Never, I repeat, NEVER, any company in the universe would depend on a customized product for an interop-heavy application such as word/spreadsheet processing.
Even if the modifications are just related to UI and other elements, this kind of initiative would not be accepted by the mindset of a company who values its assets. If the four or five employees who can ACTUALLY modify this kind of source code leave the company, what is your IT dept going to do? Abandon the project? Pay for expensive consulting?
Unless you work for a software company (doubt it, this kind of initiative would have hit the news), this is also not possible because most companies would not depend on technology-heavy initiatives that fall outside their core business. Now they must also excel at software development, not only at their core business, otherwise their billions of dollars worth of annual salaries (it's a fortune 50 company!) will suffer from lost productivity.
So being weird and unique, Balmer, we don't care. Soon MS Office will be just another legacy format we keep around for archival purposes like Lotus Wordpro, 123, AmiPro and the like. Good luck with that, Steve.
Sorry, but this is just basement-dweller wishful thinking. Microsoft Office still holds more than 90% of the market. Sure, YOU might not care, but the rest of the planet actually DOES.
Other Office packs must compete on quality and compatibility to surpass MS Office. Price isn't just that interesting, considering that a US$ 200 volume-licensed office license will determine the productivity of a US$ 80 000 - US$ 120 000 (this is not the salary, it inclused the full cost) employee. The price factor diminishes if you consider that the said license is used for 2 to 4 years.
This problem is linear complexity O(N). And if I know my future co-workers at Google at all, it will be an interview question before the week is out to demonstrate why it's O(N).
If those are the questions asked during an interview, then I'm sorry for you. Not for having to endure this kind of process, but for wanting to work at such place.
Real engineering isn't about impromptu "mad skillz" at solving puzzles or problems with a single solution (as in "the interviewer thinks he is really smart so any solution better than his - considering other priorities - is wrong"). Most nerds I know, who do great at silly puzzles, suck at solving real world problems. And real problems are the ones that need more than a few minutes of smart-ass thinkering.
In fact, most people who are truly smart (and not just wannabe-geniuses- the kind who thinks he is really smart and focus on subjects considered "hard" but that are, in fact, just niches with simple, and sometimes incomplete, math formulation) feel offended by such kinds of "challenges".
But then, Google has one of the most improductive R&D departments of the planet, if you consider all other US$ 100 billion companies. It makes sense that the place is filled with quantum-physics types. Those are the ones who ruined academia, spending less than 10% of the time thinkering with math equations (and doing only that and nothing else - this kind of people never really thinks about the issues they're dealing with, they just want some factory-like work to fill their times) and 90% of the time writing their final report and acting as the lab's intern, ending up with the same title (PhD) as other people from the past. People who actually achieved something.
I blame Einstein's fame for all of this, actually. All those "omg, please tag me as genius" types are doing PhDs and working at particle accelerator projects mostly because Einstein helped to bring a good light into the act of doing academic work. The funny thing is: Einstein never focused on factory-work-like math formulations. His focus was much harder and less glamorous (considering today's values of academia) than that: he focused on thinking about how things worked. He focused on THINKING.
The US is screwed, actually: while most people hate science, the small part of society that focus on science are actually failing really hard at it. They think they're doing great, as their life is about patting each other on the back, but they're actually failing.
In that case don't display a damned lock when there is an unsigned certificate. Really how much of an idiot do you have to be to not be able to see that simple solution?
If know-all idiot geeks like you hadn't "educated" users about how "https means safe, so look for it", this wouldn't be necessary. It's all part of the past now, the users are already "damaged", so you're going to have to deal with it.
Firefox isn't helping the lack of SSL on the web by throwing a ridiculous warning when using self signed certs. Browsers should treat self signed certs as 'unsigned with the added bonus that communications can't be eavesdropped' instead of freaking out that you might not know who you are talking too.
self signed certs aren't appropriate for processing credit cards... but not every site that has forms needs that... and simply removing eavesdroppers would be a step in the right direction.
Firefox is right about this. Most people rely on the little lock icon to "make sure this is really the bank's website". If you think about it, it's probably the only way to be really really sure that the website you're visiting actually belongs to "Bank ABC". Warning the user about self-signed certificates prevents people from making keys such as "Citibank - NY" while looking legitimate.
Public certificates aren't expensive. If your site is not worth a few bucks, then those warnings are ok.
So, the FBI is in charge of homeland security, and they're busting up people who want to protest and disrupt an RNC convention? Is that how dire the war on terrorism is? One one hand, we have to spend billions of dollars per week to fight these scheming madmen, and on the other hand, we have time enough to make sure that friends of powerful politicians aren't bothered on their way to their parties.
The FBI is so fucking backwards that as recently as 2006, about thirty out of twelve thousand of them had any proficiency in Arabic. That should be some clue as to who the FBI is afraid of, and as with every totalitarian government, it's any part of the population that opposes them.
Sorry, but I don't give a shit to your rant about the FBI. They had a case, with valid suspicions, informers and also an official request from other government agencies. What do you want them to do? Avoid the case, just because you're pissed off because too many agents know Arabic?
Did you just hear yourself? Do you still believe there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? At what point are you going to realize that whatever these goons say is a goddamn lie? How many more times do they have to be 100% wrong?
Under those circumstances, why not just have a raiding lottery? You could just pick a blue county, roll the dice, and see if you can find anything incriminating about anyone. Oddly enough, even the US Government does not know how many laws there are anymore. This is so they can throw the book at anyone - including you.
What does Iraq has to do with anything related to this context? NOTHING.
It's just you, again, saying that cops shouldn't proceed with investigations because you're pissed off at them. Wake up, bitch: the government doesn't work that way. Agents can't go and say "Oh man, just let it go. I know it's illegal but, man... Iraq! Do you see? That Iraq thing we did was fsckep up! Let the people protest!". They follow those cases because of THE LAW, you idiot.
Is sodomy a crime? Is fornication a crime? Is adultery a crime? Is it a crime to be to buy a beer on Sunday in much of the south? There is no sanctity in law. The law belongs to the people of a country, not to it's enforcers. If policing authorities had their way, it would be illegal for you to do anything they didn't like, and it's virtually like that now.
If you like uninhibited police states, there are plenty of places in southeast asia that would love to have you, who are already handing out lengthy prison sentences for daring to oppose the establishment.
If something you want to do is a crime and you think that it shouldn't be, you should fight for it. Not expect 300 million people to bend over to you just because you want something and want it now.
So they should either have AK47s in their hands or stay home? The responsible thing to do is to ramp up your public protest. First you sue, then you demonstrate, then you protest, then you riot, and then sometimes, under huge public pressure, the establishment will change their tune. At your direction, the civil rights movement would still be begging to have the right to equal education.
"Establishment"... What a bunch of crap. Go back to the 70's, you fucking craptard.
You are a complete moron, you realize that, right? Yes, people could rent buildings with fake names, but the problem is that people who rent buildings that have been inspected by fire marshals and determined to be within code should not be responsible at all if the building is not, in fact, within code.
Should or shouldn't doesn't really matter. The law is very clear: every time you get involved (rent/buy/build) with a building, you MUST check if all permits and inspections are up-to-date. Stop whining.
The only time they can barge in like this and remove people (let's not even talk about the arrest, just simply removing people), is when a building has become dangerous due to being overcapacity. Which this one was not.
The building was so old, damaged and CROWDED that PEOPLE WERE PISSING INSIDE BUCKETS. You can't be THAT dishonest to pretent that it was a nice and cool building with only a few people inside it. It is PRETTY OBVIOUS that things aren't ok in a place where people have to PISS INSIDE BUCKETS.
I like how you're talking about 'official activity', like this is some corporation and the people arrested were all officers. This was not a corporation, this was an organization with some volunteers.
Oh!! Praise the small man!! Allow him to do anything he wants!! He is so cute and weak! Let's allow him to do anything at all!
It doesn't matter if it's just an organization with volunteers. If you are officially involved at some activities, you're also responsible for them. And joining a protest reunion on a death-trap building IS a case of "getting officially involved". You don't need to be the group manager to be responsible.
Hey, moron. They didn't violate the building codes. They rented a building that the cops claim is in violation of the fire code, which mysteriously means they can arrest everyone in the building.
If no person responsible is found or produced, they can arrest everyone. The law includes that possibility to avoid several ways of people not being responsible for their actions. Otherwise, thugs like those could just rent the building using cash and a fake name and just go home with impunity after being questioned by the cops.
You can't be an accomplice to a wrongdoing and expect not to pay for your acts.
I can't even imagine how that works. Maybe I can see some misapplication of the law that lets them arrest the people who rented the building, but being physically located in it? How are you supposed to check for fire code violations without entering the building?
You ARE supposed to check for gross fire violations before using ANY building for any kind of official activity. It's not just a matter of "passing by" but a matter of commiting yourself to actually USE for any kind of activity.
You've just argued that it's illegal to be in a specific place that it is impossible to know beforehand. That is, for example, illegal to shop in Walmart because Walmart has, in a back area that is offlimits to shoppers, paint stored next to gasoline.
These people weren't just shoppers. They were USING the building for THEIR purposes. So violations are also their responsibility.
Oh, and the cops also broke down the front door to a private residence, arrested everyone in it, and then attempted to have the building condemned that same day because it didn't have a front door. Probably because no one had repaired it because they were all in jail.
If the law says that a building without a door must be condemned, it doesn't matter where the owners are and who put them there.
And, about the the fire violation arrest: if you don't want to get arrested for fire violations, don't violate the building codes. It's pretty easy. If the cops invade a room (with a warrant) to search for counterfeit money but only get a room filled with countefeit checks, do you expect the cops to say "Ohh damn, we came here just for the money, not checks! Let's go home!"? A crime is a crime.
First: according to several of the sources, the police did not produce warrants at some of the sites raided, and at other sites ignored several requests to produce a warrant, but did do so eventually.
Cops are human too. And people can be disorganized, arrogant and abusive. Those behaviours are even more pronouced when people think they're doing the right thing and fighting thugs who are trying to destroy society.
That only means that the cops were not acting right on a lot of stuff. Still doesn't mean that they were working "for the man". To me, it looks just like normal (unfortunately) cop behaviour.
Second: when you have a search warrant, and you use it to search a private apartment, you can't just arrest a person for everything wrong in the place.
A cop can arrest or move anyone at any time for commiting crimes or violations that justify arrest or forced evacuation. There is no "magic table" crossing warrant context and crimes that can motivate arrests.
Large groups of people gathering at small and unsafe places can and will justify arrest against the responsible, and if none is found, everyone. After all, if the cop walks away and the whole place burns down a few hours later, I can assure you that not a single judge in the entire US of A would let the cop go free because "he respected those cool protester dudes and avoided arresting them for small reasons".
And places with lots of nutjobs smoking and driking DO burn into flames FREQUENTLY.
The fact that the cops couldn't even pull out charges of "resisting arrest" or "interfering with an officer in the course of his duty" shows how much the protesters went out of their way to avoid doing anything wrong. When fire-code violations are all that get applied, it's very clear to see that the cops over-reacted.
You can be sure they acted like idiots. The cops are just... people. As I said: if you don't want to get arrested for fire violations, don't violate building codes.
This issue is not just a matter of "cops oppressing people because the man told them to do so".
The FBI had a full case going on, including informers and other kinds of information sources. They had info on what the group was planning to DO, but not much info about HOW they were going to do it. They asked for a warrant so they could search the place and get important (and official) information about who is participating, how, when, and where. And also, if lucky, arrest everyone for having bombs, smoke canisters, molotov cocktails and other kinds of "riot-starting tools". Unfortunately (I think that because I'm not sympathetic with fools who invest their times at those activities) the FBI only managed to get a room full of people and no illegal tools at all.
But it's still a victory. If the members of said group act nasty at the RNC and get arrested, it will be pretty easy to form a pretty good criminal case against the said persons. And this time it will not be only a slap in the wrist but a full-blown criminal case that can get them 5 to 10 years in jail.
And, about the the fire violation arrest: if you don't want to get arrested for fire violations, don't violate the building codes. It's pretty easy. If the cops invade a room (with a warrant) to search for counterfeit money but only get a room filled with countefeit checks, do you expect the cops to say "Ohh damn, we came here just for the money, not checks! Let's go home!"? A crime is a crime.
PEOPLE, opposing people and institutions that do wrong stuff is A CIVIC DUTY. But unless you're willing to use a lot of violent force (for a pretty good reason) to remove the said government and take control of the entire country, using violence is just... stupid and wrong. These people aren't doind anyone a favor by investing their entire lives to creating trouble at public streets.
If you're pissed off at [insert group/plan/law/anything here], there are much better ways to achieve your goal of making things better. I can assure you that rioting is not one of them. And breaking the law is stupid, as you're asking society a favor and spitting at its face at the same time. If you want to raise awareness to your favorite issue, do yourself a favour and don't act like a freaking thug.
I suppose nothing will beat Prolog with constraint logic programming to concisely solve Sudoku.
Sorry, but this is not actually "the best way of solving Sudoku". It's more like "mapping sudoku to a set theory library/tool/language syntax and then calling it to solve the problem". Unless your metric is "the least amount of lines containing clear syntax", your solution is one of the worst ones I have ever seen.
A real, nice way of solving Sudoku must include your own algorithms. Even better: custom tailored ones, instead of just copy-pasting solutions of classic problems.
Sure, mapping is nice and stuff (and some people will like the fact that you used only a few criptic lines to do that), but it's just... mapping. The real fun and optimization resides on doing the algorithm yourself.
When everyone can accurately 3d-print objects, does getting the design for, say, a type of chair then 3d-printing it without paying, count as theft?
I'm not sure about the copyright part, but if you try to actually USE the chair, you'll end up right down at the floor.
Most people who comment about 3D printers don't understand product manufacturing at all. These printers will never be useful for anything except dimensional prototypes. Unless the printers can (and for a good price they won't - not in a million years) create metal parts with extreme precision and with the same strenght as forged parts, at least this one gap will keep them from building simple things such as wall clocks or cell phone parts.
Sure, you can build pretty toys, such as the latest batman action figure. But even that might be limited, as most toys these days are filled with mechanisms that can't be replicated by polymer deposits.
There are also other kinds of weird stuff at freenet, like lots of indexes maintained by muslims, with pictures and descriptions of women, jews, christians or soldiers being tortured or killed.
Way to be racist.
It is simply a description. It's a series of files, containing islam-related hate speech about women, jews, christians and other "infidels".
It's pretty freaking obvious that files containing violence against non-muslims, with expressions such as "kafir" and "Insha'Allah" is an "index maintained by muslims". And to make things worse about your comment: Islam is not a race. It is a religion. Even if you can consider (you can't) my comment as islamophobic, it has nothing to do with "racism".
Wow, labelling millions of people as criminals or insane to justify destroying their network...
If they are infact insane or criminals, no problem. Except from the inviable use of freenet by chinese dissidents (because they can be - and that actually happens - arrested just for using freenet), nobody managed to explain why a non-criminal, non-crazy person would use Freenet.
Maybe to 3rd world governments, not in retail.. M$ Office 2007 Professional goes for R$1599.00 in retail stores in Brazil, thats a little over 1k US dollars!
That's because nobody who needs Office Profession buys retail copies. The Home Version of Office costs R$ 200, which is US$ 130. Very cheap, if you consider that most brazillians spend from R$ 1200 to R$ 2000 on their computers.
Companies buy Office at bulk prices, which range from R$ 700 to R$ 200. Considering that the employee using the software costs (for an underpaid person) at least R$ 36000, it's a very small price to get work done.
The point is that this doesn't matter. I don't Freenet for anything, but thanks for the allegation.
The point that Freenet itself doesn't hurt anyone and doesn't commit any crimes - it's the people that use it. As such, trying to forbid a technology just because it COULD be used to commit a crime is wrong.
You can read both of my messages again and you will not find me asking for the technology to be outlawed. It's perfectly possible to outlaw an implementation without interfering with the technology: The police can invade a house used for drug trafficking and arrest everyone connected to that place, without the need to outlaw house construction or forbid people from using bricks, concrete and wood to build a shelter.
Freenet (the implementation), at the current moment, is like a house full of drug dealers. There are lots of crimes being commited there and by joining its resource pool you are actively financing such activities. Freenet is not just a set of technologies being applied to a network. It's also a "place", where things can be found and where activities can be "sponsored" by lending a node to the network.
Being caught at drug house, while knowing that that such activities take place there, will get you arrested and get you even more time at jail when the cops prove that you also paid the rent bill. It doesn't matter that you were there just to read Shakespeare or study Quantum Physics.
By warning the general public about the activities taking place at Freenet, the FBI can easily stop any stupid attempt to dodge the responsability by saying "I don't know anything about that". Anyone found cooperating (with a node) with the crimes being commited at Freenet will then be arrested. And just like with a crack house, the place itself will not be torn apart, just the people connected to the illegal activities. The house can be later bought by a regular family and Freenet (or any successor) can be later used by people who will not sponsor crimes.
It's also a crime to cooperate with criminals and the internet is immune to that.
If you want your nanny state where everything is controlled - fine. This is what a democracy is about: freedom - even the freedom to give up that freedom and change your democracy into a totalitarian nanny state without any child molesters (well, at least not in the lower ranks).
Democracy is not about complete freedom. In fact, the sole purpose of democracy is to negotiate the restriction of our freedom, in order to achieve other benefits such as safety, common infrastructure and general progress. Things like laws, law enforcement, the military and other mechanisms or institutions exist for the sole purpose of limiting our freedoms.
Without the restriction of freedoms provided by democracy, the actual outcome is, shockingly, even less freedom. Without such a system, anyone powerful enough can take all of your freedoms away. Anyway, I don't believe that it is actually necessary to explain the benefits of collective assembly to someone who is past 15 years old.
There is one thing you're missing, though: is to explain why sponsoring criminais is just a "side-effect of something necessary", on what relates to Freenet. Sure, there is a price, which is sponsoring criminals. But what, exactly, is the benefit? I'm talking about real life here, not about abstract clichés such as "true freedom for the individual".
Let's say that it is actually important to keep freenet alive and legal, because it's so freaking important to our society. Important for what, exactly? What is the outcome of such mechanism?
To be honest, I haven't spotted any CP on freenet so far, but then, I wasn't looking too hard. What I did spot was a few pages and areas of freenet dedicated to finding and "outing" people looking for CP on freenet. So generally, if I was a pedo, freenet isn't necessarily where I'd start digging.
Freenet has a lot of indexes. It's not a place to find this stuff, but to freely share stuff once you know where to get it.
There are also other kinds of weird stuff at freenet, like lots of indexes maintained by muslims, with pictures and descriptions of women, jews, christians or soldiers being tortured or killed. They also openly share their desires of killing anyone who disagrees with them. Most of them live at Europe and share pretty specific details about their non-muslim enemies, such as full names, addresses and places where these persons can be found at a specific time of the day. Things like "this fscking-kafir looked at my sister at the bus" followed by pictures of the said person, after being killed.
Pretty ironic if you consider that they're using the so-called "freedom network". It's more like "freedom to screw everyone else".
You have a lot of people with a lot of knowledge about the net against you who are determined to keep their free space "clean" so it won't be shut down.
Ohhh, that's great! Vigilante justice coming down from random nutjobs who are either law-breakers or batshit insane people who think the man is out to get them! That's pretty sweet, man!
People with a determination can be a powerful force.
I'd rather rely on the force of the law, instead on the desires of a few self-appointed vigilantes. Sure, they can be all cute and justice-seeking now that they're feeling threatened, but that doesn't mean their judgement is a good substitute for the system that currently represents our collective interests.
And why do you want total freedom for? I mean, wanting to keep your phone conversations private and stopping the government from installing cameras and keeping a database of your movements is one thing, but doing 100% anonymous file sharing is a whole different thing. Outside totalitarian regimes like China and Iran, why would you want to do that if not to break the law?
Seriously, why does this "price" needs to be paid? So you can rant about Bush/Obama? Complain about religions? Even if someone cared, you could just get a public blog, under a pseudonym, to do that kind of thing. There is no need to sponsor criminals, by improving their infrastructure, just to whine and moan about your political interests.
Why are you better than others? Why do you want to dodge the law? If you don't want to be accountable for your actions, because you're above the law, then you'd better go back to the jungle. We (the civilized ones, who are not willing to sponsor criminal activity just to rant about [put your favorite subject here]) are not willing to allow you to enjoy all the good parts (the infrastructure, the safety, the democratic system) without the bad parts (OBEYING THE LAW) that made it all possible.
What's next? If the law forbids you from dropping paper all around the city, will you pay the mob/drug dealers to distribute your extremely-important pamphlets about GWB? Is your cause THAT important? Will it also be just "a price to pay for the great freedom to be allowed by my extremely important cause"?
You don't care about "the children" because it's not something that affects you. It's not like walking to a bad neighborhood and negotiate a deal with shady guys with guns and knives. All you need to do is run an application. "As long as I can rant about GWB, you can share all the pictures with children you want to share".
You know that as soon as some really unbreakable OSS project takes the place of skype, someone will jump up and claim that OSS is promoting terrorism since it keeps the feds from snooping at you?
It depends. Is it unbreakable to allow safe voice calls or as a safe place to swap child porn (oh, and the occasional chinese dissident) and terrorism information? Will its development be centered on the needs of normal people or will it be focused on weird features that are only needed by the not-so-friendly types of people?
Will it actually be a Skype competitor or will be the similarities with skype used only as an attempt to hide the real objective of such tool?
What's scary is that a lot of people will nod their head and agree...
Well, I consider myself to be aware of censorship and privacy issues. That doesn't mean I agree with things like Freenet or the other "the man is out to get me" networks, that are mostly filled with criminal sociopaths. I'm all for sending e-mail or voice in a way that stops the government from monitoring our lives. But there is a limit to privacy: and that limit is the law.
Sure, encrypt all your e-mails and voice messages. But don't do it anonymously and, more important, don't collaborate with random criminals across the globe in order to achieve your "safety". Sure, some countries are really screwed up and you can get killed for the things you say. But it is not the case for the hundreds of americans and europeans that use freenet for the sole purpose of breaking the law.
- Chinese dissidents sharing a 100% anonymous darknet (without sharing infrastructure with western child molesters), to allow their cause of justice and freedom to advance? That's ok.
- A spoiled westerner helping (by participating with a node) a network filled with criminals just so he can chat freely about religion and politics? He's an accomplice, not a "free citizen".
Encript your e-mails and your voice conversations. And do it in a way that prevents any kind of abuse, coming from illegal situations such as criminal government officials. But you're no better than me. If you break the law, I'm all for jailing you until we retrieve all important information about your criminal acts.
So, so sum it all up: I'm all for outlawing things like Freenet. But against shielding oneself from possible and legitimate decisions of the law system. Until a judge asks for your data and your keys, your privacy is extremely important, so encript all your communication. But not in a criminal way: as I said, you're no better than me and the western world is not perfect but not living a fscked up dictatorship situation. Dodging the law is not a nice thing to do.
And more: I believe that agencies such as the FBI should join Freenet and make a report of all content found inside it, making the public aware of what's happening there. Once that public warning is spread, anyone using the network should be jailed for collaborating to the infrastructure of a criminal organization. You can't get away by lending things to drug dealers, even if you don't know what they are going to do (but you know who they are) with your stuff. You shouldn't get away with helping the people from freenet to distribute child porn.
There are so many wrong things with what you just said. The Brazilian government offers many services to the middle-class. For instance, the federal universities are the best ones.
That's an extremely short duration service and also extremely cheap. Even at Brazil's best university (USP) a single student costs no more than R$ 1500 a month. Their parents (who make, summing husband and wife, 8 to 12k a month) pay almost twice as that only for a social security system where they get almost nothing in return.
Even worse: not everybody can attend those universities. It's not available to everyone.
And besides, one of the reasons people pay taxes is to transfer the wealth from the richer sections of society to poorer sections.
I would rewrite that as "people pay taxes to allow a strong government that can unite efforts (money) to alow the society to move forward". Except that it is not the ONLY reason why people pay taxes. They also pay taxes because some services need some kind of central institution to apply rules and make purchases that represent large amounts of people. In fact, I consider "moving free cash to the poor" to be one at the bottom of the priority list for a perfect government.
Transfer of wealth is nonsense. Sane societies need merit, not a system of benefits that makes people work even less.
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The illegal ones. Saying "drugs" to refer to those illicit substances and "medication" to refer to the other kind of drugs is pretty much mainstream.
I wasn't assuming. You're just picking on semantics.
Actually, a lot of people simply considers that the widespread use of those specific drugs (the ones that are illegal at the current moment) is prejudicial to society as a whole. It's not related to "I want to stop people from doing XYZ just because I want to", but to "if people do XYZ, other people will be affected, so this must be stopped".
The widespread and legal use of drugs is not good for society, because lots of people are succeptible to the desire of "not being under control of itself" while also being unable to escape from such situations. It's even worse when you consider that teenagers tend to imitate adult behaviours. If your local Liquor Store starts to legally sell things like Cocaine or Heroin, they will also sell it for underage people (just like they do it now for alcohol), not only for "recreational" yuppies in their 30's.
You're all discussing like I'm some kind of hardcore anti-drugs activist. I'm not. In fact, I would love if everyone else just went alcoholic, because that would make competition much easier. In 5 to 6 years I would be able to outperform all other business in my area. Having 90% marketshare because everyone else is too busy getting high would be terrific. It would be also awesome to have most people dying after before cashing out their retirement checks, and alcohol/drugs is a pretty good tool to achieve that objective.
My point is pretty simple, it's not pro or anti drugs: don't pretend that the "informed and controlled use of drugs" is an achievable objective. Don't play with coke/heroin/pot, because the drug will always win. Lots of people like to fool themselves by saying "oh, I use for 10 years but it's all under control, it's only recreational". Yeah, right.
Two reasons: 1. People are lazy, so they'll stick to what's sold at the supermarket. Going to the 'hoods to purchase fun is also risky. 2. Because those drugs are illegal, meaning that the entire universe related to them is seen in bad light and considered as some kind of sin. It's cultural: getting drunk is fun while snorting coke is something that desperate and out-of-control rich people do at clubs.
Oh, damn! I mean I won't be getting my PhD based in this discussion... Oh, bummer!
The blame should be squarely set on the fact that lots of "recreational users" are rich and/or connected to politicians / important people from the police. That's why those kinds of illegal business are thriving: because we are not arresting everyone who is buying drugs. It's hard to tell cops and judges to put all those users in jail when your family is part of the user base.
Society as a whole, using the current decision-making system, decided that those drugs can't be produced or sold. That's how the western society works and that's how things are decided. I don't agree with lots of things related to the current system, but that's how it works.
Legislation can't be blamed for the appearance of illegal commerce and laws must not changed because criminals are bypassing it or profiting from it. That's like saying that anti-prostitution laws should be blamed for increasing rape occurrences. People are being raped because the law isn't being enforced and people aren't being properly protected by police action / city planning and maintenance.
We should not bend over to criminals and change laws to avoid driving people into crime. That's part of having a legal system.
That's funny. I bet you scream bloody murder when people like GWB consistently ignore laws or the constitution. Yet, you're trying to tell me that some crimes are "inevitable" and, judging by your general tone, "understandable".
So I guess that, considering that you are a consistent person, having GWB ignoring the constitution is just like having yuppies buying their special cigs from the nearest mugger-murderer-dealer: pretty much justifiable. I mean, "expecting otherwise is foolish".
And no, this is not a straw-man. I'm simply pointing out that you're just another idiot who think it's ok to pick only the laws you consider to be "necessary". Just like GWB, except that he has a thing for power while you probably have a thing for coke/pot.
The reason why criminal enterprises are making a lot of money is this whole "recreational use" bullshit. All these selfish "recreational" yuppies don't give a rat's ass about all the lives destroyed in Mexico just so they can get their drugs. To them, it's all about being "trendy", and "modern", while in fact is just the old attempt of escaping from a very sad life. Most of them have goob jobs and attended good universities, yet can't manage to find something (other than drugs) to fill their void. That's why people dying in Mexico is a non-issue: those "recreational" idiots are also trying to survive.
Alcohol is also a destructive substance, with lots of issues related to it. But, it lacks most of the extremely powerful chemically-addictive characteristics of modified Marijuana, which is filled with additives to make its use more interesting. I don't actually care if people use this kind of thing, if they don't try to convince me that they're super-smart people "just having fun".
I don't give a crap about adult people being able to use alcohol, marijuana, cocaine or even nasty things like LSD. In fact, I would love if the common man started to use such things in excess: it's a pretty good business opportunity and it would make competition much easier in terms of achieving better job positions or outperforming other companies.
You can bash me for taking a "please, think of the children" approach, but I'm not currently a fan of this "recreational use" bullshit mostly because it creates a culture (and also a market) that allows teenagers to inherit this kind of behaviour. The other reason is that drugs ARE illegal and the only way of purchasing them involves financing criminals. I will never, I repeat, never, agree with somewhone who finances murder and destruction of lives just because they want to have some fun.
Build a system that actually forbids people under (put any age here) to buy alcohol and I will happilly defend your right to stay all night on the street, shaking from your nice dose of drugs. In fact, if drug legalization happens one day, I would be more than glad to SELL them to you.
You're just defending yourself instead of proving something.
You don't feel guilty when you buy drugs? Not a little bit? It's has nothing to do with the "oil equals terrorism" bullshit. The whole chain of drug production and distribution has blood stains all over it. And you make yourself a part of it just because of your "recreational use".
If you actually cared about scientific studies, you would not be using drugs, as every single study concerning the psychological effects of drugs would tell you to simply stop it.
You're just a "trendy" person trying to escape life. Who cares about you? I don't.
There is no such thing as a "recreational drug-user" as that implies that somehow there is a group of people with the extreme ability of withstanding the powerful (and hidden) addictive aspects of drugs. This term makes it sound like those people are just nice folks using drugs and having a happy and productive life, without allowing their drug use to cause interference in their own life or in the life of others.
It's even worse: everytime someone buys drugs, they're directly financing other kinds of criminal activities. And even if they're just growing pot at their basement, without buying tools and knowledge from criminals, they're not just "nice people having fun", as sometimes these people are not respectful towards their neighbours and act like obnoxious little pricks.
If you do really need checkpoints (I don't believe that - I think that a properly secured border is much more effective and respectful towards law-abiding citizens), the fact thay you're moving towards the border is no excuse for not doing searches. You can be running away from the USA after doing a drug-related murder, you can be trafficking money, etc.
Again: I don't agree with the checkpoints at all. But considering how their system works, it makes a lot of sense to also check out while trying to get out of the country. While the checks itself are absurd, the fact that you're moving towards the border changes nothing.
Sorry, but... No.
Of all "I work at a Fortune XYZ company" B/S histories that people spout around here, yours is the worst one. Never, I repeat, NEVER, any company in the universe would depend on a customized product for an interop-heavy application such as word/spreadsheet processing.
Even if the modifications are just related to UI and other elements, this kind of initiative would not be accepted by the mindset of a company who values its assets. If the four or five employees who can ACTUALLY modify this kind of source code leave the company, what is your IT dept going to do? Abandon the project? Pay for expensive consulting?
Unless you work for a software company (doubt it, this kind of initiative would have hit the news), this is also not possible because most companies would not depend on technology-heavy initiatives that fall outside their core business. Now they must also excel at software development, not only at their core business, otherwise their billions of dollars worth of annual salaries (it's a fortune 50 company!) will suffer from lost productivity.
Sorry, but this is just basement-dweller wishful thinking. Microsoft Office still holds more than 90% of the market. Sure, YOU might not care, but the rest of the planet actually DOES.
Other Office packs must compete on quality and compatibility to surpass MS Office. Price isn't just that interesting, considering that a US$ 200 volume-licensed office license will determine the productivity of a US$ 80 000 - US$ 120 000 (this is not the salary, it inclused the full cost) employee. The price factor diminishes if you consider that the said license is used for 2 to 4 years.
If those are the questions asked during an interview, then I'm sorry for you. Not for having to endure this kind of process, but for wanting to work at such place.
Real engineering isn't about impromptu "mad skillz" at solving puzzles or problems with a single solution (as in "the interviewer thinks he is really smart so any solution better than his - considering other priorities - is wrong"). Most nerds I know, who do great at silly puzzles, suck at solving real world problems. And real problems are the ones that need more than a few minutes of smart-ass thinkering.
In fact, most people who are truly smart (and not just wannabe-geniuses- the kind who thinks he is really smart and focus on subjects considered "hard" but that are, in fact, just niches with simple, and sometimes incomplete, math formulation) feel offended by such kinds of "challenges".
But then, Google has one of the most improductive R&D departments of the planet, if you consider all other US$ 100 billion companies. It makes sense that the place is filled with quantum-physics types. Those are the ones who ruined academia, spending less than 10% of the time thinkering with math equations (and doing only that and nothing else - this kind of people never really thinks about the issues they're dealing with, they just want some factory-like work to fill their times) and 90% of the time writing their final report and acting as the lab's intern, ending up with the same title (PhD) as other people from the past. People who actually achieved something.
I blame Einstein's fame for all of this, actually. All those "omg, please tag me as genius" types are doing PhDs and working at particle accelerator projects mostly because Einstein helped to bring a good light into the act of doing academic work. The funny thing is: Einstein never focused on factory-work-like math formulations. His focus was much harder and less glamorous (considering today's values of academia) than that: he focused on thinking about how things worked. He focused on THINKING.
The US is screwed, actually: while most people hate science, the small part of society that focus on science are actually failing really hard at it. They think they're doing great, as their life is about patting each other on the back, but they're actually failing.
If know-all idiot geeks like you hadn't "educated" users about how "https means safe, so look for it", this wouldn't be necessary. It's all part of the past now, the users are already "damaged", so you're going to have to deal with it.
Firefox is right about this. Most people rely on the little lock icon to "make sure this is really the bank's website". If you think about it, it's probably the only way to be really really sure that the website you're visiting actually belongs to "Bank ABC". Warning the user about self-signed certificates prevents people from making keys such as "Citibank - NY" while looking legitimate.
Public certificates aren't expensive. If your site is not worth a few bucks, then those warnings are ok.
Sorry, but I don't give a shit to your rant about the FBI. They had a case, with valid suspicions, informers and also an official request from other government agencies. What do you want them to do? Avoid the case, just because you're pissed off because too many agents know Arabic?
What does Iraq has to do with anything related to this context? NOTHING.
It's just you, again, saying that cops shouldn't proceed with investigations because you're pissed off at them. Wake up, bitch: the government doesn't work that way. Agents can't go and say "Oh man, just let it go. I know it's illegal but, man... Iraq! Do you see? That Iraq thing we did was fsckep up! Let the people protest!". They follow those cases because of THE LAW, you idiot.
If something you want to do is a crime and you think that it shouldn't be, you should fight for it. Not expect 300 million people to bend over to you just because you want something and want it now.
"Establishment"... What a bunch of crap. Go back to the 70's, you fucking craptard.
Should or shouldn't doesn't really matter. The law is very clear: every time you get involved (rent/buy/build) with a building, you MUST check if all permits and inspections are up-to-date. Stop whining.
The building was so old, damaged and CROWDED that PEOPLE WERE PISSING INSIDE BUCKETS. You can't be THAT dishonest to pretent that it was a nice and cool building with only a few people inside it. It is PRETTY OBVIOUS that things aren't ok in a place where people have to PISS INSIDE BUCKETS.
Oh!! Praise the small man!! Allow him to do anything he wants!! He is so cute and weak! Let's allow him to do anything at all!
It doesn't matter if it's just an organization with volunteers. If you are officially involved at some activities, you're also responsible for them. And joining a protest reunion on a death-trap building IS a case of "getting officially involved". You don't need to be the group manager to be responsible.
Sure it is. As I said, those people are now recorded on their database and if they get in trouble, they might face jail time.
If no person responsible is found or produced, they can arrest everyone. The law includes that possibility to avoid several ways of people not being responsible for their actions. Otherwise, thugs like those could just rent the building using cash and a fake name and just go home with impunity after being questioned by the cops.
You can't be an accomplice to a wrongdoing and expect not to pay for your acts.
You ARE supposed to check for gross fire violations before using ANY building for any kind of official activity. It's not just a matter of "passing by" but a matter of commiting yourself to actually USE for any kind of activity.
These people weren't just shoppers. They were USING the building for THEIR purposes. So violations are also their responsibility.
If the law says that a building without a door must be condemned, it doesn't matter where the owners are and who put them there.
Cops are human too. And people can be disorganized, arrogant and abusive. Those behaviours are even more pronouced when people think they're doing the right thing and fighting thugs who are trying to destroy society.
That only means that the cops were not acting right on a lot of stuff. Still doesn't mean that they were working "for the man". To me, it looks just like normal (unfortunately) cop behaviour.
A cop can arrest or move anyone at any time for commiting crimes or violations that justify arrest or forced evacuation. There is no "magic table" crossing warrant context and crimes that can motivate arrests.
Large groups of people gathering at small and unsafe places can and will justify arrest against the responsible, and if none is found, everyone. After all, if the cop walks away and the whole place burns down a few hours later, I can assure you that not a single judge in the entire US of A would let the cop go free because "he respected those cool protester dudes and avoided arresting them for small reasons". And places with lots of nutjobs smoking and driking DO burn into flames FREQUENTLY.
You can be sure they acted like idiots. The cops are just... people. As I said: if you don't want to get arrested for fire violations, don't violate building codes.
This issue is not just a matter of "cops oppressing people because the man told them to do so".
The FBI had a full case going on, including informers and other kinds of information sources. They had info on what the group was planning to DO, but not much info about HOW they were going to do it. They asked for a warrant so they could search the place and get important (and official) information about who is participating, how, when, and where. And also, if lucky, arrest everyone for having bombs, smoke canisters, molotov cocktails and other kinds of "riot-starting tools". Unfortunately (I think that because I'm not sympathetic with fools who invest their times at those activities) the FBI only managed to get a room full of people and no illegal tools at all.
But it's still a victory. If the members of said group act nasty at the RNC and get arrested, it will be pretty easy to form a pretty good criminal case against the said persons. And this time it will not be only a slap in the wrist but a full-blown criminal case that can get them 5 to 10 years in jail.
And, about the the fire violation arrest: if you don't want to get arrested for fire violations, don't violate the building codes. It's pretty easy. If the cops invade a room (with a warrant) to search for counterfeit money but only get a room filled with countefeit checks, do you expect the cops to say "Ohh damn, we came here just for the money, not checks! Let's go home!"? A crime is a crime.
PEOPLE, opposing people and institutions that do wrong stuff is A CIVIC DUTY. But unless you're willing to use a lot of violent force (for a pretty good reason) to remove the said government and take control of the entire country, using violence is just... stupid and wrong. These people aren't doind anyone a favor by investing their entire lives to creating trouble at public streets.
If you're pissed off at [insert group/plan/law/anything here], there are much better ways to achieve your goal of making things better. I can assure you that rioting is not one of them. And breaking the law is stupid, as you're asking society a favor and spitting at its face at the same time. If you want to raise awareness to your favorite issue, do yourself a favour and don't act like a freaking thug.
Sorry, but this is not actually "the best way of solving Sudoku". It's more like "mapping sudoku to a set theory library/tool/language syntax and then calling it to solve the problem". Unless your metric is "the least amount of lines containing clear syntax", your solution is one of the worst ones I have ever seen.
A real, nice way of solving Sudoku must include your own algorithms. Even better: custom tailored ones, instead of just copy-pasting solutions of classic problems.
Sure, mapping is nice and stuff (and some people will like the fact that you used only a few criptic lines to do that), but it's just... mapping. The real fun and optimization resides on doing the algorithm yourself.
I'm not sure about the copyright part, but if you try to actually USE the chair, you'll end up right down at the floor.
Most people who comment about 3D printers don't understand product manufacturing at all. These printers will never be useful for anything except dimensional prototypes. Unless the printers can (and for a good price they won't - not in a million years) create metal parts with extreme precision and with the same strenght as forged parts, at least this one gap will keep them from building simple things such as wall clocks or cell phone parts.
Sure, you can build pretty toys, such as the latest batman action figure. But even that might be limited, as most toys these days are filled with mechanisms that can't be replicated by polymer deposits.
It is simply a description. It's a series of files, containing islam-related hate speech about women, jews, christians and other "infidels".
It's pretty freaking obvious that files containing violence against non-muslims, with expressions such as "kafir" and "Insha'Allah" is an "index maintained by muslims". And to make things worse about your comment: Islam is not a race. It is a religion. Even if you can consider (you can't) my comment as islamophobic, it has nothing to do with "racism".
If they are infact insane or criminals, no problem. Except from the inviable use of freenet by chinese dissidents (because they can be - and that actually happens - arrested just for using freenet), nobody managed to explain why a non-criminal, non-crazy person would use Freenet.
That's because nobody who needs Office Profession buys retail copies. The Home Version of Office costs R$ 200, which is US$ 130. Very cheap, if you consider that most brazillians spend from R$ 1200 to R$ 2000 on their computers.
Companies buy Office at bulk prices, which range from R$ 700 to R$ 200. Considering that the employee using the software costs (for an underpaid person) at least R$ 36000, it's a very small price to get work done.
Ooops. The internet is NOT immune to that.
You can read both of my messages again and you will not find me asking for the technology to be outlawed. It's perfectly possible to outlaw an implementation without interfering with the technology: The police can invade a house used for drug trafficking and arrest everyone connected to that place, without the need to outlaw house construction or forbid people from using bricks, concrete and wood to build a shelter.
Freenet (the implementation), at the current moment, is like a house full of drug dealers. There are lots of crimes being commited there and by joining its resource pool you are actively financing such activities. Freenet is not just a set of technologies being applied to a network. It's also a "place", where things can be found and where activities can be "sponsored" by lending a node to the network.
Being caught at drug house, while knowing that that such activities take place there, will get you arrested and get you even more time at jail when the cops prove that you also paid the rent bill. It doesn't matter that you were there just to read Shakespeare or study Quantum Physics.
By warning the general public about the activities taking place at Freenet, the FBI can easily stop any stupid attempt to dodge the responsability by saying "I don't know anything about that". Anyone found cooperating (with a node) with the crimes being commited at Freenet will then be arrested. And just like with a crack house, the place itself will not be torn apart, just the people connected to the illegal activities. The house can be later bought by a regular family and Freenet (or any successor) can be later used by people who will not sponsor crimes.
It's also a crime to cooperate with criminals and the internet is immune to that.
Democracy is not about complete freedom. In fact, the sole purpose of democracy is to negotiate the restriction of our freedom, in order to achieve other benefits such as safety, common infrastructure and general progress. Things like laws, law enforcement, the military and other mechanisms or institutions exist for the sole purpose of limiting our freedoms.
Without the restriction of freedoms provided by democracy, the actual outcome is, shockingly, even less freedom. Without such a system, anyone powerful enough can take all of your freedoms away. Anyway, I don't believe that it is actually necessary to explain the benefits of collective assembly to someone who is past 15 years old.
There is one thing you're missing, though: is to explain why sponsoring criminais is just a "side-effect of something necessary", on what relates to Freenet. Sure, there is a price, which is sponsoring criminals. But what, exactly, is the benefit? I'm talking about real life here, not about abstract clichés such as "true freedom for the individual".
Let's say that it is actually important to keep freenet alive and legal, because it's so freaking important to our society. Important for what, exactly? What is the outcome of such mechanism?
Freenet has a lot of indexes. It's not a place to find this stuff, but to freely share stuff once you know where to get it.
There are also other kinds of weird stuff at freenet, like lots of indexes maintained by muslims, with pictures and descriptions of women, jews, christians or soldiers being tortured or killed. They also openly share their desires of killing anyone who disagrees with them. Most of them live at Europe and share pretty specific details about their non-muslim enemies, such as full names, addresses and places where these persons can be found at a specific time of the day. Things like "this fscking-kafir looked at my sister at the bus" followed by pictures of the said person, after being killed.
Pretty ironic if you consider that they're using the so-called "freedom network". It's more like "freedom to screw everyone else".
Ohhh, that's great! Vigilante justice coming down from random nutjobs who are either law-breakers or batshit insane people who think the man is out to get them! That's pretty sweet, man!
I'd rather rely on the force of the law, instead on the desires of a few self-appointed vigilantes. Sure, they can be all cute and justice-seeking now that they're feeling threatened, but that doesn't mean their judgement is a good substitute for the system that currently represents our collective interests.
You misspelled anarchy.
And why do you want total freedom for? I mean, wanting to keep your phone conversations private and stopping the government from installing cameras and keeping a database of your movements is one thing, but doing 100% anonymous file sharing is a whole different thing. Outside totalitarian regimes like China and Iran, why would you want to do that if not to break the law?
Seriously, why does this "price" needs to be paid? So you can rant about Bush/Obama? Complain about religions? Even if someone cared, you could just get a public blog, under a pseudonym, to do that kind of thing. There is no need to sponsor criminals, by improving their infrastructure, just to whine and moan about your political interests.
Why are you better than others? Why do you want to dodge the law? If you don't want to be accountable for your actions, because you're above the law, then you'd better go back to the jungle. We (the civilized ones, who are not willing to sponsor criminal activity just to rant about [put your favorite subject here]) are not willing to allow you to enjoy all the good parts (the infrastructure, the safety, the democratic system) without the bad parts (OBEYING THE LAW) that made it all possible.
What's next? If the law forbids you from dropping paper all around the city, will you pay the mob/drug dealers to distribute your extremely-important pamphlets about GWB? Is your cause THAT important? Will it also be just "a price to pay for the great freedom to be allowed by my extremely important cause"?
You don't care about "the children" because it's not something that affects you. It's not like walking to a bad neighborhood and negotiate a deal with shady guys with guns and knives. All you need to do is run an application. "As long as I can rant about GWB, you can share all the pictures with children you want to share".
It depends. Is it unbreakable to allow safe voice calls or as a safe place to swap child porn (oh, and the occasional chinese dissident) and terrorism information? Will its development be centered on the needs of normal people or will it be focused on weird features that are only needed by the not-so-friendly types of people?
Will it actually be a Skype competitor or will be the similarities with skype used only as an attempt to hide the real objective of such tool?
Well, I consider myself to be aware of censorship and privacy issues. That doesn't mean I agree with things like Freenet or the other "the man is out to get me" networks, that are mostly filled with criminal sociopaths. I'm all for sending e-mail or voice in a way that stops the government from monitoring our lives. But there is a limit to privacy: and that limit is the law.
Sure, encrypt all your e-mails and voice messages. But don't do it anonymously and, more important, don't collaborate with random criminals across the globe in order to achieve your "safety". Sure, some countries are really screwed up and you can get killed for the things you say. But it is not the case for the hundreds of americans and europeans that use freenet for the sole purpose of breaking the law.
- Chinese dissidents sharing a 100% anonymous darknet (without sharing infrastructure with western child molesters), to allow their cause of justice and freedom to advance? That's ok.
- A spoiled westerner helping (by participating with a node) a network filled with criminals just so he can chat freely about religion and politics? He's an accomplice, not a "free citizen".
Encript your e-mails and your voice conversations. And do it in a way that prevents any kind of abuse, coming from illegal situations such as criminal government officials. But you're no better than me. If you break the law, I'm all for jailing you until we retrieve all important information about your criminal acts.
So, so sum it all up: I'm all for outlawing things like Freenet. But against shielding oneself from possible and legitimate decisions of the law system. Until a judge asks for your data and your keys, your privacy is extremely important, so encript all your communication. But not in a criminal way: as I said, you're no better than me and the western world is not perfect but not living a fscked up dictatorship situation. Dodging the law is not a nice thing to do.
And more: I believe that agencies such as the FBI should join Freenet and make a report of all content found inside it, making the public aware of what's happening there. Once that public warning is spread, anyone using the network should be jailed for collaborating to the infrastructure of a criminal organization. You can't get away by lending things to drug dealers, even if you don't know what they are going to do (but you know who they are) with your stuff. You shouldn't get away with helping the people from freenet to distribute child porn.
Even worse: not everybody can attend those universities. It's not available to everyone.
I would rewrite that as "people pay taxes to allow a strong government that can unite efforts (money) to alow the society to move forward". Except that it is not the ONLY reason why people pay taxes. They also pay taxes because some services need some kind of central institution to apply rules and make purchases that represent large amounts of people. In fact, I consider "moving free cash to the poor" to be one at the bottom of the priority list for a perfect government.
Transfer of wealth is nonsense. Sane societies need merit, not a system of benefits that makes people work even less.