What absurdity? The possession of the Anarchist's Cookbook was only part of the reason he was charged. Both the charges appear to refer to a collection of items discovered and activity the guy was engaging in. Although judgments should be left till after the court case, it seems obvious that this guy was making threats and even plans to bomb a political party's members/headquarters AND playing around with making bombs.
Imagine the criticism the police would have got if they didn't confiscate his Anarchist's Cookbook, among the other items. Police don't confiscate kitchen knifes, but if you are spotted spending all day practicing your stabbing technique on mannequins and saying to people "I'm going to stab you" then the police definitely should do something.
This isn't absurd at all, but simply common sense. Leaving a tool capable of being used to commit murder in the hands of someone who has expressed intent to commit such an act would be absurd!
"1) They violate your rights against self incrimination. Per the US constitution, I cannot be compelled to testify or offer evidence against myself. What this law says is that I MUST testify against myself, in the form of giving up *knowledge* that I have for the state to use against me."
What about the contents of your house? A direct comparison can be made between the contents of your computer and those of your house. A court ordered warrant to search your house will have the police demanding you hand over the keys or they'll knock your door down. If you try to stop them entering you will be done under various laws which are the off-line equivalents of this RIPA law.
The same situation applies for your point number 2. If they search your home for items they say you burgled and they find a Crystal Meth factory, then it is up to the law whether they can arrest you for that also (everywhere I know of they can). To me, this law basicaly makes your computer like your house, this I think is quite a good way for the issue to be handled.
Because this sort of thing is documented quite clearly in reports and statistics. Maybe their government illegally fails to report the use of the law, but then why bother making the law in the first place?
"There are still people who think that freedom is too precious to be given to the people they are protecting it for. Damn."
The problem is "Freedom" is a very abstract concept that can be easily twisted to mean both opposites. Speeches by infamous dictators like Hitler and Pol Pot often feature words like 'Freedom'. Most of the time it's not that people wish to deny Freedom, but that they disagree on what freedom is.
i.e. Freedom to buy addictive drugs or Freedom from addictive drugs?
Because the law wasn't designed to work like that. The police can't demand "hand over all your passwords so we can route around for anything illegal", it has to be a specific key to a specific piece of suspected evidence (e.g. Database or file). If you had hidden volumes on an encrypted disk they would have no way to know there was potential evidence there and therefore could not demand you hand over the password.
This aspect of the law is routinely ignored on Slashdot to try and enhance the "evil" reputation of the law.
This laws was implemented years ago. The article author seems to know very little about the law in this respect, especially as it has barely changed since introduction in its 2000/20001. Thankfully, it appears it has yet to be used in a non-terrorism related case.
"impressive economic expansion in the history of the world"
That is an extremely subjective statement if ever I saw one!
How can you say it is more impressive than say the Roman Empire's utter transformation of Europe and Asia Minor, or the British Empire's transformation of world trade. After all, it was their empire which combined with the industrial revolution is what started this whole globalization thing - which is what you appear to be referring to (otherwise the dollar's valuation is meaningless).
In reality the different ages are completely incomparable, it simply makes absolutely no sense comparing them.
Germany already have an amazing train system. I remember traveling on their ICE railroad network when I was in the country a couple of years ago.
I've never traveled in more style!
If only our big infrastructure projects weren't all corruptly given to the local Governor / Senator's campaign financiers then we could have such an amazing system. Oh well.
Umm, I take it by that statement you never actually studied much history. In reality the Vatican city is what's left of the "Papal States" which covered most of central Italy until the country's unification in the 1860's.
Last time I was in there (about a year ago) I saw an extremely prosperous country with public facilities rivaling our own. I'm sure it still has its bad towns (especially in Siberia) but we have plenty of them here in the USA also!
I think the crux of the problem is that there is actually no country (that I know of) that is a true democracy (apart from Switzerland to some extent). All modern democratic countries are actually representative democracies and the choosing of those representatives therefore has to be subject to rules and hence conjecture that the system is somehow unfair. Even in the best western representative democracies, arguments still fly over which precise electoral system should be used (i.e. first-past-the-post, preferential / single transferable vote, instant runoff voting etc.).
While I agree Iran is no model democracy by Western standards and apologize if my original post implied that, but Freedom House is hardly unbiased either. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_House:
"As noted in the section on organization above, Freedom House receives most of its funding from the US government, and prominent US government officials reside on its board, most notably neo-conservatives."
Given that if some of those same neo-conservatives that "hold sway" over Freedom House had their way we would probably be fighting a war in Iran right now, I think Freedom House can be referred to as propaganda to some extent; although it's neo-conservative propaganda rather than US propaganda. Most other sources do not give quite the same "the country is in desperate need of a regime change" assessment.
I do not claim to be an academic expert on Iran but I know a little about the country and although I agree it is most certainly repressive, it is incorrect to claim that the government does not represent the will of the people. Certainly, their president has far more public support than ours currently and his main detractors tend to argue that his government is not repressive enough rather than being too repressive!
3) Do people in those countries actually desire uncensored internet?
Although I personally hate the idea of censorship, the one thing I hate even more (or maybe equaly, but the two are closely related anyway) is others pushing their ethics and morales on me (e.g. Religious spam which is some of the most irritating around).
In the case of Iran in particular, there is no doubt that the current government was democratically elected by a large majority, despite the clear implication that the internet would be censored. Is there evidence that the average lay person (i.e. spam recipients) in these countries desire uncensored internet access?
If we start spamming them saying how they should all use methods to bypass censorship because we consider censorship immoral than we have to expect and support Iranians sending us spam saying how we should use censorship proxies (along with a plethora of "change your immoral, infidel culture" crap).
London has a similar 8 station, automated miniature subway built in the early 1900's by the Royal Mail to haul mail around the city. Mail shoots deliver the sacks to the small, driver-less trains which haul the mail along the 20 mile track till it reaches the desired post office where it slides into mail-sack elevators and gets returned to the surface. Despite having been used for almost a century to deliver most of London's domestic mail though, hardly anyone even knows it exists.
Performing the impossible is...impossible. Appearing to perform the impossible (particularly when multi-million dollar federal contracts are in the air) is far easier.
There is simply no way Infra Red can be picked up after traveling through air, then through even few inches of concrete/bricks/wood/tiles then through air again, especially as a typical building has several insulating layers (e.g. ceiling, thermal insulation, cavity space, roof tiles). The signal is going to be simply non-existent.
Large static sources of heat like "grow rooms" may show up if on the top floor of a "thin"-roofed building, although they would appear pretty identical to many utility/boiler rooms.
"cloud cover, forest canopies and even concrete to create images or gather data."
I find it pretty darn impossible to believe spy satellites can penetrate concrete, or even dense forest cover in the way that's implied as it simply makes no scientific sense. Nothing except neutrinos and a few gamma rays are going to penetrate a standard building (especially if it is multiple stories), but both of these would be impossible for surveillance.
Also, how exactly can something penetrate concrete, then reflect of skin & clothes before re-penetrating concrete again? It makes no sense.
Particularly as the problem isn't that major anyway. When other companies are only now recalling children's toys that for months were known to be coated with lead paint, I think Nokia must be commended for offering to replace batteries quickly for such a lesser problem.
Companies should be heavily criticized for being bad, but also praised for being good.
It's not good to blame the audience for problems. Much better to blame someone else, in this case Video Games, but it could just as well be anything from usual list of bogeymen: Drugs, Rap Music, Paedophiles, Terrorists, Communists, etc.
The items on the list have one thing in common: mass-media's main audience (middle-aged, middle-income parents of middle-sized families) don't tend to like or identify with any of these so they act as good objects of blame as there is minimal likelihood of alienating viewers. We live in a "Someone must be to blame for everything" culture but nobody wants to hear that it's them who are to blame for anything.
"I know that, if I've spent an entire weekend playing Halo and you stick me behind a crowd of slow-moving tourists, there's a split second when I wish I had my pistol "
Personally, I find after a weekend that features gaming heavily that when I'm waiting at the bus stop on Monday morning I sometimes find myself trying to press my brain's "z" button to toggle telescopic zoom, hoping I'll spot the bus coming down the long, straight road.
I'm not just daydreaming, for a split second I really think that some sort of inbuilt binoculars will activate and its actually a real disappointment when I realise I don't have such capabilities.
I guess it's a good thing I'm not usually holding an M-16 when waiting at the bus stop!
Good point, although those same ISPs (as with any limited business) are already forced to pay numerous expenses which have no direct business benefit. E.g.: their accounts must be certified by licensed accounts, they have to pay their staff holiday & sick pay, have to contribute to employee pension funds, have to provide toilets within x meters of office, etc. etc.
Such details create headaches for business administrators but are hardly news-worthy. Compared to the other business costs (particularly the employee related ones) I doubt the cost of implementation of this scheme will be that big a deal to them, especially as the government has said they will compensate the ISPs.
Shush, don't tell them that. Some people take pleasure believing there is a big government conspiracy against them. It's just like how many people take pleasure believing in God or Gods etc.
Whether the beliefs are true or not is beside the point.
In fact Government conspiracies are a lot like religion (or any work of fiction for that matter), you can never definitively prove their falsity no matter how absurd they are.
Slashdot Mirror
What absurdity?
The possession of the Anarchist's Cookbook was only part of the reason he was charged. Both the charges appear to refer to a collection of items discovered and activity the guy was engaging in. Although judgments should be left till after the court case, it seems obvious that this guy was making threats and even plans to bomb a political party's members/headquarters AND playing around with making bombs.
Imagine the criticism the police would have got if they didn't confiscate his Anarchist's Cookbook, among the other items. Police don't confiscate kitchen knifes, but if you are spotted spending all day practicing your stabbing technique on mannequins and saying to people "I'm going to stab you" then the police definitely should do something.
This isn't absurd at all, but simply common sense. Leaving a tool capable of being used to commit murder in the hands of someone who has expressed intent to commit such an act would be absurd!
I think comparison with your house is more apt than comparison with your brain.
"1) They violate your rights against self incrimination. Per the US constitution, I cannot be compelled to testify or offer evidence against myself. What this law says is that I MUST testify against myself, in the form of giving up *knowledge* that I have for the state to use against me."
What about the contents of your house? A direct comparison can be made between the contents of your computer and those of your house. A court ordered warrant to search your house will have the police demanding you hand over the keys or they'll knock your door down. If you try to stop them entering you will be done under various laws which are the off-line equivalents of this RIPA law.
The same situation applies for your point number 2. If they search your home for items they say you burgled and they find a Crystal Meth factory, then it is up to the law whether they can arrest you for that also (everywhere I know of they can). To me, this law basicaly makes your computer like your house, this I think is quite a good way for the issue to be handled.
Because this sort of thing is documented quite clearly in reports and statistics. Maybe their government illegally fails to report the use of the law, but then why bother making the law in the first place?
"There are still people who think that freedom is too precious to be given to the people they are protecting it for. Damn."
The problem is "Freedom" is a very abstract concept that can be easily twisted to mean both opposites. Speeches by infamous dictators like Hitler and Pol Pot often feature words like 'Freedom'. Most of the time it's not that people wish to deny Freedom, but that they disagree on what freedom is.
i.e. Freedom to buy addictive drugs or Freedom from addictive drugs?
Because the law wasn't designed to work like that. The police can't demand "hand over all your passwords so we can route around for anything illegal", it has to be a specific key to a specific piece of suspected evidence (e.g. Database or file). If you had hidden volumes on an encrypted disk they would have no way to know there was potential evidence there and therefore could not demand you hand over the password.
This aspect of the law is routinely ignored on Slashdot to try and enhance the "evil" reputation of the law.
This laws was implemented years ago. The article author seems to know very little about the law in this respect, especially as it has barely changed since introduction in its 2000/20001. Thankfully, it appears it has yet to be used in a non-terrorism related case.
"impressive economic expansion in the history of the world"
That is an extremely subjective statement if ever I saw one!
How can you say it is more impressive than say the Roman Empire's utter transformation of Europe and Asia Minor, or the British Empire's transformation of world trade. After all, it was their empire which combined with the industrial revolution is what started this whole globalization thing - which is what you appear to be referring to (otherwise the dollar's valuation is meaningless).
In reality the different ages are completely incomparable, it simply makes absolutely no sense comparing them.
Germany already have an amazing train system. I remember traveling on their ICE railroad network when I was in the country a couple of years ago.
I've never traveled in more style!
If only our big infrastructure projects weren't all corruptly given to the local Governor / Senator's campaign financiers then we could have such an amazing system. Oh well.
"Our propellers are more advanced than the other guy's.
They are."
The one photographed can't be much more advanced. It's identical to ones used since the 80's.
The design can't really be improved upon without sacrificing either power or stealth anyway.
Umm, I take it by that statement you never actually studied much history. In reality the Vatican city is what's left of the "Papal States" which covered most of central Italy until the country's unification in the 1860's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_States - Provides a good (although brief) overview of the history of land owned by the Catholic church in Italy.
You obviously know nothing about the country!
Last time I was in there (about a year ago) I saw an extremely prosperous country with public facilities rivaling our own. I'm sure it still has its bad towns (especially in Siberia) but we have plenty of them here in the USA also!
I think the crux of the problem is that there is actually no country (that I know of) that is a true democracy (apart from Switzerland to some extent). All modern democratic countries are actually representative democracies and the choosing of those representatives therefore has to be subject to rules and hence conjecture that the system is somehow unfair. Even in the best western representative democracies, arguments still fly over which precise electoral system should be used (i.e. first-past-the-post, preferential / single transferable vote, instant runoff voting etc.).
While I agree Iran is no model democracy by Western standards and apologize if my original post implied that, but Freedom House is hardly unbiased either. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_House:
"As noted in the section on organization above, Freedom House receives most of its funding from the US government, and prominent US government officials reside on its board, most notably neo-conservatives."
Given that if some of those same neo-conservatives that "hold sway" over Freedom House had their way we would probably be fighting a war in Iran right now, I think Freedom House can be referred to as propaganda to some extent; although it's neo-conservative propaganda rather than US propaganda. Most other sources do not give quite the same "the country is in desperate need of a regime change" assessment.
I do not claim to be an academic expert on Iran but I know a little about the country and although I agree it is most certainly repressive, it is incorrect to claim that the government does not represent the will of the people. Certainly, their president has far more public support than ours currently and his main detractors tend to argue that his government is not repressive enough rather than being too repressive!
3) Do people in those countries actually desire uncensored internet?
Although I personally hate the idea of censorship, the one thing I hate even more (or maybe equaly, but the two are closely related anyway) is others pushing their ethics and morales on me (e.g. Religious spam which is some of the most irritating around).
In the case of Iran in particular, there is no doubt that the current government was democratically elected by a large majority, despite the clear implication that the internet would be censored. Is there evidence that the average lay person (i.e. spam recipients) in these countries desire uncensored internet access?
If we start spamming them saying how they should all use methods to bypass censorship because we consider censorship immoral than we have to expect and support Iranians sending us spam saying how we should use censorship proxies (along with a plethora of "change your immoral, infidel culture" crap).
London has a similar 8 station, automated miniature subway built in the early 1900's by the Royal Mail to haul mail around the city. Mail shoots deliver the sacks to the small, driver-less trains which haul the mail along the 20 mile track till it reaches the desired post office where it slides into mail-sack elevators and gets returned to the surface. Despite having been used for almost a century to deliver most of London's domestic mail though, hardly anyone even knows it exists.
Some nice pictures and info here: http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r023.html
Performing the impossible is ...impossible. Appearing to perform the impossible (particularly when multi-million dollar federal contracts are in the air) is far easier.
Thermal Energy = infra Red.
There is simply no way Infra Red can be picked up after traveling through air, then through even few inches of concrete/bricks/wood/tiles then through air again, especially as a typical building has several insulating layers (e.g. ceiling, thermal insulation, cavity space, roof tiles). The signal is going to be simply non-existent.
Large static sources of heat like "grow rooms" may show up if on the top floor of a "thin"-roofed building, although they would appear pretty identical to many utility/boiler rooms.
"cloud cover, forest canopies and even concrete to create images or gather data."
I find it pretty darn impossible to believe spy satellites can penetrate concrete, or even dense forest cover in the way that's implied as it simply makes no scientific sense. Nothing except neutrinos and a few gamma rays are going to penetrate a standard building (especially if it is multiple stories), but both of these would be impossible for surveillance.
Also, how exactly can something penetrate concrete, then reflect of skin & clothes before re-penetrating concrete again? It makes no sense.
Particularly as the problem isn't that major anyway. When other companies are only now recalling children's toys that for months were known to be coated with lead paint, I think Nokia must be commended for offering to replace batteries quickly for such a lesser problem.
Companies should be heavily criticized for being bad, but also praised for being good.
It's not good to blame the audience for problems. Much better to blame someone else, in this case Video Games, but it could just as well be anything from usual list of bogeymen: Drugs, Rap Music, Paedophiles, Terrorists, Communists, etc.
The items on the list have one thing in common: mass-media's main audience (middle-aged, middle-income parents of middle-sized families) don't tend to like or identify with any of these so they act as good objects of blame as there is minimal likelihood of alienating viewers. We live in a "Someone must be to blame for everything" culture but nobody wants to hear that it's them who are to blame for anything.
"I know that, if I've spent an entire weekend playing Halo and you stick me behind a crowd of slow-moving tourists, there's a split second when I wish I had my pistol "
Personally, I find after a weekend that features gaming heavily that when I'm waiting at the bus stop on Monday morning I sometimes find myself trying to press my brain's "z" button to toggle telescopic zoom, hoping I'll spot the bus coming down the long, straight road.
I'm not just daydreaming, for a split second I really think that some sort of inbuilt binoculars will activate and its actually a real disappointment when I realise I don't have such capabilities.
I guess it's a good thing I'm not usually holding an M-16 when waiting at the bus stop!
Good point, although those same ISPs (as with any limited business) are already forced to pay numerous expenses which have no direct business benefit. E.g.: their accounts must be certified by licensed accounts, they have to pay their staff holiday & sick pay, have to contribute to employee pension funds, have to provide toilets within x meters of office, etc. etc.
Such details create headaches for business administrators but are hardly news-worthy. Compared to the other business costs (particularly the employee related ones) I doubt the cost of implementation of this scheme will be that big a deal to them, especially as the government has said they will compensate the ISPs.
The last line of my post reads:
"No paranoid delusions please."
And yes, Orwell's 1984 was a work of fiction. Why would a government who wants to "control those people" embrace the globalized free market?
You logic makes no sense what-so-ever and seems completely based in irrational fear, which is why it is a paranoid delusion.
Shush, don't tell them that. Some people take pleasure believing there is a big government conspiracy against them. It's just like how many people take pleasure believing in God or Gods etc.
Whether the beliefs are true or not is beside the point.
In fact Government conspiracies are a lot like religion (or any work of fiction for that matter), you can never definitively prove their falsity no matter how absurd they are.