NOBODY on the planet can have a legitimate beef against SPEWS
Wow!
Spoken like a true believer - which doesn't help your case at all.
SPEWS is like an organization that compiles a list of people that "need to be killed" complete with home addresses, photos, gun and ammo. Hey, it's up to whomever picks up the list and the gun to decide what to do with them...
They do nothing but create a list. It's up to everyone else to decide what, if anything, they want to use from that list.
Yeah right.
That's like saying: he didn't do nothing but left a loaded gun and a list of abortion doctors on the street. It's up to everyone else to decide what, if anything, they want to do with that list and the gun.
Name one thing the Government (any government) does well?
My country is clean, safe and provides free health care (no, I don't have to queue for months for an operation), inexpensive public transportation and schooling for everybody. My MP is in the government and I frequently engage in e-mail correspondence with her on topics that are important to me. Yes, I like my government. Too bad you don't like yours.
As For SPEWS and others, their actions are based on actual monitored events (spam) and not the whim of some dictator or someone doing a favor for a bribe.
I don't see how I can affect decisions of a vigilante anti-spam group. In contrast, I can vote for people I'd like to see in the government. It works. You should try it too.
They will when the alternatives are 1) having to change one's e-mail address every week because your ISP just got on SPEWS blacklist and 2) drown in spam.
(x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
No it doesn't. Passports work. I don't see why this would be any different.
Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
Have worms on your Windows box: your ID is revoked.
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(x) Technically illiterate politicians
Again, passports work. This should work too.
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been
shown practical
No-one has even tried because the ideas got shot down by professional hand-wringers.
(x) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
Says who? Of course they should be.
(x) Sending email should be free
I disagree. E-mail "stamps" would be a good idea.
(x) I don't want the government reading my email
Then encrypt your mail. Only your headers containing the ID should be transparent.
Banning (sub)nets will not fix the problem. It will only excarbate the problems in the flow of information on the net.
What we need is an international infrastructure supporting unique, traceable and hard-to-forge proofs of user identity on the net. Think of it as a passport or a driver's license. We have real life IDs that are difficult to forge and even if you can forge them, you'd get hit by hefty penalties for doing it. Yes. It could be abused but what can't? At least the system would government controlled and thus a lesser evil than the tyranny of vigilante groups like SPEWS. No ID? your data packets will go to/dev/null. Sent spam? You'll be tracked down by the ID in each packet you sent.
already have to show this card with every credit card/ cheque purchase in shops to prevent fraud.
Surely you mean that you have to show the ID card for every major (>50 GBPs or so) credit card/cheque purchase?
I don't see the problem. My credit card has been stolen twice and if shopkeepers would always ask for an ID, I would have felt much more comfortable. Yes, I revoked the card ASAP but for some time it was unclear if I made it in time.
Have you actually tried travelling without a passport within EU?
I guess you can get through the customs without a passport just as the EU regulations specify. The airlines, however, seem to be more strict these days. Every flight (intra EU) I've taken recently has involved an extra ID-check upon boarding.
scheme will pave the way for compulsory identity cards for everyone within the next decade.
Does this mean that if a cop stops you on the street you must either be able to produce a valid ID card or take a trip to the police station so that your identity can be confirmed?
Where I live a government issue ID (or at least a valid social security number) is practically required if you wish to drive a car legally, open a bank account, get insured, get a job, benefit from the public healthcare and so on. Yet, we do not have a legal obligation to carry an ID and show it to any cop on the street. Sounds rather draconian to me.
"What has anybody to worry about having their true identity known?" he said.
Ah. Yet another version of "If you have done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear".
Ah. A mistake by a non-native English speaker. I didn't mean to use a definite article to such an effect.
I simply meant that all the ISPs I've been a customer to have carried all text newsgroups, some vanilla alt.binaries.* groups but no groups containing massive video/audio files.
Commendable goals, but still I don't think that it's up to the Hollywood to try to achieve them. Instead, we should have a public education system that leaves the students with at least some concepts of modern science.
Movies can, however, play an important role in getting the public interested in science in general. Witness the interest in dinosaurs sparked by the scientifically-very-unkosher Jurassic Park movies.
People go to the movies to be entertained not educated. It would be fantastic if you could combine those two but I don't think you can.
Kubrick's 2001 was a good try, but do you think it did appeal to the general population back then? No. How do you think the current generation would react to the slow docking imagery, moon landing and unfolding of the events on the Discovery (not to mention the 40+ min ape sequence in the beginning)?
I believe it's misplaced to lay the blame for public's ignorance on movies or fiction. As far as I can see, the problem is simple: a crumbling public education system. Teaching as a profession is underrated both financially (thanks to the "what are you? a communist? don't you waste my tax-money on public programs!"-crowd) and as a career. The cure is also simple. Hike the tax-rate or redirect funds into basic education.
Is it so hard to reinforce correct physics in people's minds, instead of this hogwash?
And why should we want to? As a physicist I am more annoyed by the people who insist on having correct physics in movies (or books) than the incorrect physics itself.
Hello? It's a movie! Not a documentary or part of a curriculum. At least to me hard sci-fi like R.L. Forward's Dragon's Egg is immensely boring.
Slashdot Mirror
SMTP must die and robust authentication must be implemented.
If I run xwin on cygwin on my Windows computer, I cannot copy-paste from Windows to a window in X. Just doesn't work.
No he/she doesn't.
He/she should not have to change ISP every damn week because of SPEWS.
Wow!
Spoken like a true believer - which doesn't help your case at all.
SPEWS is like an organization that compiles a list of people that "need to be killed" complete with home addresses, photos, gun and ammo. Hey, it's up to whomever picks up the list and the gun to decide what to do with them...
Yeah, right. Whatever. Unless you live in China or North Korea I don't see how you're qualified to make such a statement.
Are you talking about the upper or the lower horn?
Yeah right.
That's like saying: he didn't do nothing but left a loaded gun and a list of abortion doctors on the street. It's up to everyone else to decide what, if anything, they want to do with that list and the gun.
My country is clean, safe and provides free health care (no, I don't have to queue for months for an operation), inexpensive public transportation and schooling for everybody. My MP is in the government and I frequently engage in e-mail correspondence with her on topics that are important to me. Yes, I like my government. Too bad you don't like yours.
As For SPEWS and others, their actions are based on actual monitored events (spam) and not the whim of some dictator or someone doing a favor for a bribe.
I don't see how I can affect decisions of a vigilante anti-spam group. In contrast, I can vote for people I'd like to see in the government. It works. You should try it too.
They will when the alternatives are 1) having to change one's e-mail address every week because your ISP just got on SPEWS blacklist and 2) drown in spam.
(x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
No it doesn't. Passports work. I don't see why this would be any different.
Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
Have worms on your Windows box: your ID is revoked.
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(x) Technically illiterate politicians
Again, passports work. This should work too.
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
No-one has even tried because the ideas got shot down by professional hand-wringers.
(x) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
Says who? Of course they should be.
(x) Sending email should be free
I disagree. E-mail "stamps" would be a good idea.
(x) I don't want the government reading my email
Then encrypt your mail. Only your headers containing the ID should be transparent.
It's still better to have it under organized control than have a group of crazed vigilantes blocking entire countries.
Banning (sub)nets will not fix the problem. It will only excarbate the problems in the flow of information on the net.
What we need is an international infrastructure supporting unique, traceable and hard-to-forge proofs of user identity on the net. Think of it as a passport or a driver's license. We have real life IDs that are difficult to forge and even if you can forge them, you'd get hit by hefty penalties for doing it. Yes. It could be abused but what can't? At least the system would government controlled and thus a lesser evil than the tyranny of vigilante groups like SPEWS. No ID? your data packets will go to /dev/null. Sent spam? You'll be tracked down by the ID in each packet you sent.
Surely you mean that you have to show the ID card for every major (>50 GBPs or so) credit card/cheque purchase?
I don't see the problem. My credit card has been stolen twice and if shopkeepers would always ask for an ID, I would have felt much more comfortable. Yes, I revoked the card ASAP but for some time it was unclear if I made it in time.
I guess you can get through the customs without a passport just as the EU regulations specify. The airlines, however, seem to be more strict these days. Every flight (intra EU) I've taken recently has involved an extra ID-check upon boarding.
Does this mean that if a cop stops you on the street you must either be able to produce a valid ID card or take a trip to the police station so that your identity can be confirmed?
Where I live a government issue ID (or at least a valid social security number) is practically required if you wish to drive a car legally, open a bank account, get insured, get a job, benefit from the public healthcare and so on. Yet, we do not have a legal obligation to carry an ID and show it to any cop on the street. Sounds rather draconian to me.
"What has anybody to worry about having their true identity known?" he said.
Ah. Yet another version of "If you have done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear".
But competition at the cost of standardization hurts everybody.
"Hand over that friggin' money".
Zed: Bring out the Gimp.
Maynard: But the Gimp's sleeping.
Zed: Well, I guess you better go and wake him up then.
Ah. A mistake by a non-native English speaker. I didn't mean to use a definite article to such an effect.
I simply meant that all the ISPs I've been a customer to have carried all text newsgroups, some vanilla alt.binaries.* groups but no groups containing massive video/audio files.
Newsgroups are not carried by the ISP because of "illegal content".
Oh well.
Commendable goals, but still I don't think that it's up to the Hollywood to try to achieve them. Instead, we should have a public education system that leaves the students with at least some concepts of modern science.
Movies can, however, play an important role in getting the public interested in science in general. Witness the interest in dinosaurs sparked by the scientifically-very-unkosher Jurassic Park movies.
Why are they involving Microsoft and Novell in this?
How can you download entire movies from usenet?
Are there actually ISPs that would keep newsgroups that post gigabytes worth of media every day?
Why would it be illegal to use it?
Kubrick's 2001 was a good try, but do you think it did appeal to the general population back then? No. How do you think the current generation would react to the slow docking imagery, moon landing and unfolding of the events on the Discovery (not to mention the 40+ min ape sequence in the beginning)?
I believe it's misplaced to lay the blame for public's ignorance on movies or fiction. As far as I can see, the problem is simple: a crumbling public education system. Teaching as a profession is underrated both financially (thanks to the "what are you? a communist? don't you waste my tax-money on public programs!"-crowd) and as a career. The cure is also simple. Hike the tax-rate or redirect funds into basic education.
And why should we want to? As a physicist I am more annoyed by the people who insist on having correct physics in movies (or books) than the incorrect physics itself.
Hello? It's a movie! Not a documentary or part of a curriculum. At least to me hard sci-fi like R.L. Forward's Dragon's Egg is immensely boring.