"No-one can deny that the Internet has opened a can of worms that the people who wrote the constitution could have never imagined would exist when they put it together. Our Bill of Rights and many other pieces of legislature were designed before the global information network became available to any 6th grade dropout with an AOL account and perhaps we need to look at updating it with this in mind."
They that call for revision of the Constitution to reflect "modern times" understand nothing of what the Constitution is. The US Constitution embodies the ideals, hopes, and dreams of great men. It looks beyond all boundaries and is specific only when absolutely essential. Its greatest feat is its flexibility. Neither fire, nor plague, nor a global information network should change the idealism one strives for. We remain committed to our Constitution in order to better ourselves. The US Constitution is what begs us to try, generation after generation, to attain the unattainable; the perfect society. Our new technologies exist within an old theme. Anonymous free speech, free expression - old themes. The method of transmission differs, yet the ideas remain the same.
Our Constitution is, in a word: timeless. Whenever there is any dispute of a specific issue, the Constitution includes a method by which it may be modified. The Bill of Rights, in my opinion, should never be modified, except perhaps to make yet clearer the freedoms it was designed to protect.
As I have stated previously, you sir, are a coward, and completely ignorant of concepts such as freedom, liberty, and safety. What you fail to grasp is that so long as we remain free, we will always be secure. Our freedom is our greatest defense in the war on terror. Secure the freedom of myself, my children, and their children and I will never fear death at the hands of a madman. Life is meaningless without the freedom to live it.
"I can live with less "rights" provided I'm safe and secure."
Coward.
If you have neither the courage nor the resolve to live in a free society, then leave; you have that freedom here. Move to China, or to North Korea.
Thinking like this revolves around the idea that the government is a nice warm cuddly blanket of security that will protect you from all those meanies out there. Real world? Government security blankets choke off your air supply until you're barely breathing - just enough to keep you alive. The government is either a tool of the people, or it is the Master of the people. Your choice of the latter is disturbing. The job of a free government is not to protect people, but to organize people to protect themselves.
Yes, I do. In a moment, you, and anyone else reading this will too.
"The NSA is charged with breaking other people's coded message."
Well, no, not really. That's just oh so simplistic. You make it sound as though someone slaps a coded message on the NSA's desk and they sit there with a room full of really nerdy guys trying to figure out what it means. That's simply ridiculous.
Now let's talk about what the NSA really does. The NSA operates, with the help of a select few other nations, a worldwide communications survillance and recovery network designed to capture, decode, sort, and record any and all internet, satellite, radio, telephone, cellular, fax, or any other communications which travel from one location to another via technology while prioritising data in need of further review. With installations in the US, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and numerous other places, the NSA monitors and oversees this massive woldwide network. All messages are automatically compiled and sorted by the system for analysis, at which point any and all irrelevant data is purged. Coded or encrypted information is recorded and decoded on a priority-based system. Keywords are no longer used, as they were 20 years ago or so. Context-sensitive AI systems work through messages to understand a wide range of contextual and syntatic items, setting aside possible intelligence leads, threat information, uninterpretable data, and other information of interest (information which could be useful for or against certain coporations, for instance) for more detailed analysis; or in the case of items deemed high priority, immediate human analysis.
The NSA's missions also include, as you state, cryptography-breaking, but also cryptography-making. They are responsible for creating and maintaining the encryption systems of intelligence and military institutions at the higher levels. In addition to this, they are also responsible for ensuring that new systems developed by anyone, friend or foe, are quickly cyphered so no information remains hidden from us. Much of the mathematics done at the NSA is for the study of cryptography, both practical and theoretical.
The NSA also designs and manufactures survillence devices for audio, visual, and GPS-based tracking. GPS-based systems are developed at a number of NSA sites, and new technologies are first tested and implemented in NSA-controlled satellites in geo-sync orbit for use in tracking and survillance. Part of the NSA's mission has been expanded to include corporate espionage for large US-based mega-corps. NSA surveillance devices have also been used to gain an edge in diplomatic situations, such as in the UN. While the CIA is mostly human to human interactions and manpower-based intelligence, the NSA is nearly entirely technology-based.
"In other words, it is basically the MOST defensive, MOST safe secret service we have."
The NSA is the most likely candidate for the first agency to be used to try to turn the US into a totalitarian state. Its massive surveillance capabilities make a 1984-style society seem so attainable. In the information age, information is power. In the information age, the NSA is the information source. In a world where everything is electronic, the NSA has eyes and ears everywhere, and has developed the technology (with the help of a massive, secretive budget) to ensure that whoever is in control gets the information they need when they need it.
"The worst it does is invade privacy."
Invasion of privacy is 90% of what makes 1984 possible. If you have privacy, you don't have 1984; a dark corner is all it takes.
"And it is very unlikely to invade YOUR privacy, as most people do not use the kind of High end cryptology that they coutner. "
Completely wrong. The NSA does not only monitor highly-encrypted data; that's absurd. The NSA monitors all telecommunications. If it's on the i
" Clarke clearly does not care about illegal use of his system due to an obvious religious zeal for free and anonymous speech (which, as an American it's hard to disagree with)."
Actually, he displays a subtle anger towards those who (ab)use Freenet strictly for copyright infringement. What he goes on to say is that if copyright infringement is the necessary evil to the ends of providing a voice for a person in China, then so be it. I completely agree with this sentiment. A few people making copies of songs they would not have paid for anyway simply doesn't hold a candle to the good that's done when free exchange of thoughts without consequence can be secured in a totalitarian nation. Ian is talking about people who endanger their lives when they speak out publicly, yet have found a safe voice on Freenet, while Oppenheim is talking about people tossing files back and forth.
" Oppenheim, on the other hand, completelely (and obviously willfully) ignores the idea that the debate is about anything other than the protection of IP rights;"
Oppenheim is paid to keep the issues on grounds where the RIAA has a chance to fight. Talking about free speech, fair use, and the benefits of P2P does absolutely nothing for the RIAA. You have to understand, chances are, Oppenheim doesn't believe a word out of his own mouth. You don't get to where he is by being stupid, and he knows full well that much of the RIAA's line is BS. I finally realized this during an interview that Wired did with Hilary Rosen. I thought she was this horrible monster who just wanted to gobble up as much money as she possibly could. Suddenly, while reading this interview, I see she's just another person doing her job the best she can. Her job was to represent and bring benefit to the RIAA and its member companies. The best way for her and Oppenheim to do so in the P2P debate is to dehumanize P2P users and paint them as a ravaging horde hell bent on pillaging the last penny from the pockets of the poor, starving artists who wish only to bring joy to the world. Please, these people aren't trying to teach us the true meaning of Christmas, they're trying to do their jobs.
That being said, I think Oppenheim is much less creative than Rosen, and I think his responses seem too cookie-cutter, if you will. Rosen could sit at a debate and move things in her direction. She could at least make things interesting and give them the appearance of sanity. Ian, I think, expressed things in a bit too flowery a position as well. I think Freenet's most redeeming aspects are those involving people whose exercise of free speech would mean their lives, and I think Ian and the bunch need to present that in very real terms. Citing Freesites and messages which would easily get a person jailed or worse is a start. Finding someone who can honestly stand up and say, "without Freenet, I'd be dead right now" would be a Godsend.
"why do we think it is important to have the nation aware of blue dresses and activities between consenting adults in private, but not important to be able to look for patterns in the behaviour of large numbers of people to find the 1 in a million dangerous types?"
Because "dangerous" can mean a lot of different things. Would George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others have been considered "dangerous" to Brittain in, say, 1770? Dangerous can mean a lot of things. Dangerous can mean someone with a revolutionary idea that could wipe out a major industry. Dangerous can be someone with information that would destroy a major political figure. What a person or group in power considers dangerous often has nothing at all to do with physical injury. George Bush considers the idea of gay marriage to be "dangerous", which is why he's considering pushing for a Constitutional amendment banning it.
The other problem is with this "patterns in the behavior" approach. What you're suggesting is that once we identify something that many terrorists have done, anyone who does those things (even if they're perfectly legal) is probably a terrorist. What this logic fails to take into account is that patterns of behavior are easily changed by those wishing to conceal who and what they are. The moment you lock onto certain habits and such, those trying to conceal themselves begin altering how they do things. You may catch a few real terrorists, but most simply fade away once again. Caught up in the middle of all this are dozens or hundreds of people who have done nothing wrong, but yet are still sitting in a holding cell being interrogated by MPs for days on end. Or maybe the MPs decide that the ones who aren't telling them all about their terrorist buddies were simply trained in how to defeat interrogation techniques, so they simply declare them "enemy combatants" and lock them away for life. Looking for a pattern of behavior assumes guilt by those fitting it. When you look down a long checklist of things to look for and you're sitting there going, "check, check, check, yep check, does that too, check..." and on and on, the only thing on your mind is, "we've got to get this terrorist bastard now."
The other problem with looking at patterns of behavior is that people will begin to figure out what government is looking for, and avoid doing those things, even if they're perfectly legal. What you end up with is a chilling effect on a number of different things, like the freedom to simply live your life the way you want to, so long as you're within the law. To have unwritten and secretive laws, which is what you're basically advocating, sounds the death knell in any Democracy. Democracy assumes an informed public, and in turn assumes a public capable of informing itself. What you, and others, are asking for is that we remove as much information as possible from the public sight, making the public less and less informed, while telling them that everything will be ok because it's being done for their own protection. From a government that has berided governments on almost every continent about not being open and transparent, to begin to close things off here simply goes to show that we're moving in the wrong direction.
"It will be very hard to do properly, but it is just plain dumb not to try."
It's impossible to do, without simply annihilating the Constitutionally-guaranteed rights of so many people that you end up giving up the very thing you're fighting to protect. Pearl Harbor, September 11th, none of it makes me feel any differently about the ideas and the ideals of our Constitution. It wasn't ever written to be something that's easy to follow. It's hard because it's right. It's hard to look at someone you just know did some horrible crime and not simply beat him to death. It's hard to not want to have the police come and arrest the guy who's on the street corner saying thing to you that go against every single thing you hold dear. It's hard to respect the right of
So are the programs that many of these people are pushing for. TIPS, TIA, Magic Lantern, roving wiretaps, constant surveillance, and more and more and more. If these people want to do it to us, why is it you have a problem with the people of this country doing it right back to them?
"Will it include the same information they collect? "
I think individuals pushing for massive data collection should be the most heavily looked-at people on there. People like John Poindexter, John Ashcroft, and any Congresscritter who shows support for anything like the TIA needs to be followed, reported on, have their every purchase logged, their every movement cataloged, their every affair made public, and have every habit at the fingertips of the world. Let's show these people just what it is we don't like about programs like the TIA. Let's show them what it's like to have strangers turning your life into a database entry. Something like GIA could very easily turn into a platform for opposing programs like the TIA with actions instead of words. I'm not saying we should be in-you-face harassing these people; I'm saying we should simply find out every bit of possible information about them on a continuing basis until they drop support for 1984-inspired programs. If anyone who lives near these people would like to help out, then all the better.
"There are almost 2 timelines to worry about here"
One possibility when you consider time travel, is that changes in the past spawn new timelines. Think of time as a process. The timeline is the primary thread running. When you change the past, the original thread must remain to allow for the change to take place. Thus, a new thread is spawned, while the original thread remains intact with your alteration having never happened in it. If this is the premise which the Terminator series works on, then things start to make a whole lot more sense.
What's really interesting is the fact that you have a causality loop occuring in the first movie. John Conner, commander of the rebels, sends who is to become his father back in time to save his mother. He fathers John and convinces Sarah to prepare for the coming war by training herself and John. Thus John Conner is the only one prepared for the war and ends up commanding the rebels. When he sends his father back in time, the causality loop is complete.
Now, this is where the Terminator series timeline gets interesting. We've got a single timeline to start with. Due to the above-described causality loop, we have a future commander, John Conner, who helps lead humanity on to win the war against the machines. So, in the 1980s, a Terminator and a rebel appear, having come from the future. The rebel saves Sarah's life, destroys (for the most part) the Terminator, and fathers John Conner. We've initiated our causality loop, thus ensuring that the future is what we expect it to be, with the war and such. Skynet fails to destroy Sarah, thereby ensuring that John can lead to its destruction.
Now, in the second movie, a company called Cyberdyne Systems has possession of an arm and a microprocessor from a Terminator. By reverse-engineering the chip, they make radical advances in computing, thus allowing for the creation of what will eventually become Skynet. The arm and attached hand give new insights into body construction of robotic units, thus again leading to terminators. This is, again, the result of the causality loop we witnessed in the first movie. What's interesting to note is that without the destruction of the first Terminator, Skynet never would have been built. The first movie gave us a picture of the future and a threat to man's only hope. The second movie tied up the loose ends regarding how we got from where we are today to the post-apocalyptic hell of tomorrow.
So what's supposed to happen is that Cyberdyne uses the information gathered from reverse-engineering the chip and the arm to put together a massive defense system. The DoD convinces Congress to fund the project and all military systems are upgraded. Finally, a fully-integrated system, Skynet, is completed and sent online. Learning at a geometric rate, the system realizes that the greatest threat to its existence is mankind. Skynet's handlers try to shut it down, which leads to the nuclear holocaust we've all been waiting to see on the big screen.
Now, when the second Terminator was sent back to kill John Conner, a new timeline thread was spawned, in which Cyberdyne was destroyed, John was saved, etc. In the original thread though, the rebel threat must exist for Skynet to send anyone back, ergo John Conner must exist. In the thread spawned, all work related to Skynet has been destroyed. Therefore, Skynet should probably never exist in that thread, at least not in the same form as it was described in the second movie. In the original timeline, the war happens, the rebels fight back, and Skynet is destroyed.
All of this comes from having only seen the first two movies. Of what I've heard of the third movie, I don't like what it's done to the timeline either. Without hearing the whole story (which I don't want to hear until I see it), I can't make a sound judgement, but things don't look very good. As for why they didn't send the advanced Terminator back originally, they simply didn't have it. If you recall, the T-1000 in the second movie was an "advanced p
"companies who heavily use telemarketing are planning to counterattack consumers with a barrage of spam and junk mail"
Not a problem, as I'm reasonably certain that such tactics will lead them to the promised land of lawsuits, Chapter 11, and finally, Cellblock 6A, which houses Bubba's Fudge-Packing Factory. Spam on dear telemarketers. Spam your way to an 8x10 cell where you can push your wares on a 300lbs man who hasn't seen a woman in 15 years.
"If there were upgrades for PPP available then users did not apply them."
Users failing to apply freely-available updates is a problem which may only be attributed to the users. This would be like a FreeBSD user complaining about poor hardware support while using FreeBSD 2.x.
In terms of PPP support, I've had the best luck with Windows 98SE. Windows XP is very picky about drivers, whereas 98 will usually just work. Windows 2000 is also reasonably good with modems, but it can be more of a hassle to find drivers for it online.
"95B usb support was bad. I wound up reinstalling Windows twice after trying to get usb devices working. I pretty much gave up on USB until Win98 came out."
The Windows 95B support for USB was certainly nowhere near perfect. For the time and place, however, USB support at all was a leap forward. USB was in its infancy during this time, and has only really begun to emerge as something usable with 2.0. When the USB supplement was released for Windows 95B and up, there were so few USB devices on the market that it really didn't make much sense at the time for Microsoft to push 95's USB support very far at all. When the supplement was released in '96, they were expecting to have a new version of Windows available the following year. Why would they invest time and resources in making old technology work with technology so new, almost no one was using it? Hindsight is 20/20, and had they known that the next version of Windows would be released a year later than they expected, they probably would have worked a little harder on the 95B USB support.
I'm by no means a Microsoft apologist, nor do I support their anti-competitive, illegal business practices. I also don't think very highly of their software, considering the amount of resources they could bring to bear for development. But I do call 'em like I see 'em, and I just don't feel that these are the right criticisms of Windows 95. There were a number of serious problems and promised-but-missing features with 95. The above don't seem to belong in that list.:)
That's a dangerous premise under which to operate. Using this logic, your credit card information also belongs to eBay, and can be sold/handed-over to anyone eBay sees fit. Taking this a step further, it also means that your medical information belongs to the hospital, and can therefore be sold, broadcast, or otherwise disseminated. I think eBay's mistake in this case is not making it abundantly clear that your personal information can and will be handed over to anyone who is or appears to be law enforcement. Hiding such a policy within a legalize-ridden privacy policy which changes almost constantly just isn't the way to secure the trust of your customers. Make no mistake, eBay's sellers and buyers are eBay's customers. I guard my customers' information, and it aggrivates me when another company does not.
Following a terrifying post on the technology news site, Slashdot, France formally surrendered to the United States. French President Jaques Chirac went on French state television just seconds after the post appeared, looking quite pale and worn, telling the people of France,
"We have no choice but to surrender in the face of this new and disturbing news. Our only deterrent to being once again conquered by force is apparently of no use to us! We will investigate this situation immediately, unless we are told not to by the United States."
US Secretary of State Colon Powell responded to the news of France's surrender with utter astonishment.
"We didn't ask France to surrender, we didn't threaten them unless they surrendered, we haven't even talked to the French in over a month. I honestly don't have the slightest idea what's happened here, but I assure you and the American people that we will find out why it is that France has surrendered to us."
(Editors note: Mr Powell was heard bursting into uncontrollable laughter following this interview)
He's referring to purchase price in the first quote, and total cost of ownership in the second. Microsoft has, for quite a while now, attempted to show that it costs more to operate/support Linux than it does Windows. Funny thing is, I thought Ballmer admitted that even this was wrong a few months ago.
Supported as of Win950B. Not perfect, but is anything ever perfect when it comes to software?:)
"DirectX 8+"
Win95 supports DirectX 8.0. Versions past this point are, however, not supported in Windows 95.
"vastly improved PPP"
There are numerous updates to Windows 95's PPP support. Regardless of how good you get the software, however, you're still never going to break through your modem's inherent speed barriers.
Gee, I dunno; how about the right of the company to do business with whomever they please? If this were an American company, Microsoft would be nailed to the wall for something like this. Promotional offers loosely tied to non-competes are difficult to push on companies here, and outright non-competes when it comes to selling products are simply not legal. This is why I can walk into a supermarket and purchase either Pepsi or Coke. Neither Pepsi nor Coke can force the supermarket to not carry the other's product.
If I own a business and a company comes in and tries to tell me who I can and can't do business with, my instinct is to tell them to go to hell. For this company, however, it's totally understandable for them to feel the need to bend over and take it from Microsoft. You can't expect them to toss away a lucrative contract for a small, one-time sale.
This isn't a story about Microsoft being evil, (although you could infer that they are from the content of the story), so much as it is a story about Microsoft once again abusing its corporate power to squeeze out competitors. It's about Microsoft using tactics which are illegal in some countries, and are such for good reason. It's in YRO because there's no YRG (Your Rights in General).
"When I was a kid you actually had to commit a crime before arrest, trial and conviction."
These days, it doesn't matter whether you've committed a crime or not. A one page paper signed by the President and you're behind bars for the rest of your life without a trial, a conviction, or any hope for appeal.
"NT4 includes version 2 of IE. IE2 is so old it dosn't support http1.1 and can't access virtual hosted sites cutting it off from a lot of the web."
Oddly enough, you can install Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 on Windows NT Workstation 4.0. It doesn't appear to slow down anything at all.
"I want a new version of NT4 with updated drivers and USB support "
Yeah, that's called Windows 2000.
"Microsoft plans to maximise revenue direct otherwise."
By your logic, if I can't purchase an Intel 4004 with integrated 802.11a/b and SSE-II, it's because Intel "plans to maximise revenue direct otherwise." That doesn't sound a little silly to you? Come on, this was a product created back in 1995/96. Do you expect them to give you free support and updates in the year 2025? Even Microsoft couldn't afford to do that; they'd have groups of people paid only to support a product that hasn't been produced (read: hasn't made them any money) in more than 20 years. At some point, you must either upgrade to a newer version, or accept that you simply will not have support for things that weren't around when the technology you're using was created.
"Any operating system can be made stable if you know what you're doing."
Alright, I'll bite - WINDOWS ME!:P
Christ Almighty couldn't make WinME stable with the help of a dozen M$ software engineers and Gates himself. A stable WinME box? Heh. If such an animal existed, up would be down, black would be white, and I'd be able to get a tan.
And what niche would that be? People whose lives are so devoid of substance that they spend hours each day reading about the life of someone more concerned with documenting their life than living it?
I was looking for the standard IANAL disclaimer, but having read your entire post, I now understand how completely unnecessary that disclaimer is. You go ahead and sue SCO. I'll give you 20:1 odds that they get further in their suit against IBM than you get in your suit against SCO.
Couple simple points from someone who isn't a lawyer, but who at least has a fundamental understanding of law which you seem to lack:
1) A claim of libel must show that the written statement(s) were directed towards you, personally.
2) A claim of libel must also show that the written statement(s) would be believed by a reasonable person.
By your (incorrect) definition of libel, me writing "all white people are dumb" on a piece of paper would open me up to lawsuits from every white person on Earth. Now just how silly do you think law is that you could actually bring such a suit without being laughed out of the courtroom?
Slashdot Mirror
"No-one can deny that the Internet has opened a can of worms that the people who wrote the constitution could have never imagined would exist when they put it together. Our Bill of Rights and many other pieces of legislature were designed before the global information network became available to any 6th grade dropout with an AOL account and perhaps we need to look at updating it with this in mind."
They that call for revision of the Constitution to reflect "modern times" understand nothing of what the Constitution is. The US Constitution embodies the ideals, hopes, and dreams of great men. It looks beyond all boundaries and is specific only when absolutely essential. Its greatest feat is its flexibility. Neither fire, nor plague, nor a global information network should change the idealism one strives for. We remain committed to our Constitution in order to better ourselves. The US Constitution is what begs us to try, generation after generation, to attain the unattainable; the perfect society. Our new technologies exist within an old theme. Anonymous free speech, free expression - old themes. The method of transmission differs, yet the ideas remain the same.
Our Constitution is, in a word: timeless. Whenever there is any dispute of a specific issue, the Constitution includes a method by which it may be modified. The Bill of Rights, in my opinion, should never be modified, except perhaps to make yet clearer the freedoms it was designed to protect.
As I have stated previously, you sir, are a coward, and completely ignorant of concepts such as freedom, liberty, and safety. What you fail to grasp is that so long as we remain free, we will always be secure. Our freedom is our greatest defense in the war on terror. Secure the freedom of myself, my children, and their children and I will never fear death at the hands of a madman. Life is meaningless without the freedom to live it.
Liberty > Life
"I can live with less "rights" provided I'm safe and secure."
Coward.
If you have neither the courage nor the resolve to live in a free society, then leave; you have that freedom here. Move to China, or to North Korea.
Thinking like this revolves around the idea that the government is a nice warm cuddly blanket of security that will protect you from all those meanies out there. Real world? Government security blankets choke off your air supply until you're barely breathing - just enough to keep you alive. The government is either a tool of the people, or it is the Master of the people. Your choice of the latter is disturbing. The job of a free government is not to protect people, but to organize people to protect themselves.
" Do you know who/what the NSA are? "
Yes, I do. In a moment, you, and anyone else reading this will too.
"The NSA is charged with breaking other people's coded message."
Well, no, not really. That's just oh so simplistic. You make it sound as though someone slaps a coded message on the NSA's desk and they sit there with a room full of really nerdy guys trying to figure out what it means. That's simply ridiculous.
Now let's talk about what the NSA really does. The NSA operates, with the help of a select few other nations, a worldwide communications survillance and recovery network designed to capture, decode, sort, and record any and all internet, satellite, radio, telephone, cellular, fax, or any other communications which travel from one location to another via technology while prioritising data in need of further review. With installations in the US, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and numerous other places, the NSA monitors and oversees this massive woldwide network. All messages are automatically compiled and sorted by the system for analysis, at which point any and all irrelevant data is purged. Coded or encrypted information is recorded and decoded on a priority-based system. Keywords are no longer used, as they were 20 years ago or so. Context-sensitive AI systems work through messages to understand a wide range of contextual and syntatic items, setting aside possible intelligence leads, threat information, uninterpretable data, and other information of interest (information which could be useful for or against certain coporations, for instance) for more detailed analysis; or in the case of items deemed high priority, immediate human analysis.
The NSA's missions also include, as you state, cryptography-breaking, but also cryptography-making. They are responsible for creating and maintaining the encryption systems of intelligence and military institutions at the higher levels. In addition to this, they are also responsible for ensuring that new systems developed by anyone, friend or foe, are quickly cyphered so no information remains hidden from us. Much of the mathematics done at the NSA is for the study of cryptography, both practical and theoretical.
The NSA also designs and manufactures survillence devices for audio, visual, and GPS-based tracking. GPS-based systems are developed at a number of NSA sites, and new technologies are first tested and implemented in NSA-controlled satellites in geo-sync orbit for use in tracking and survillance. Part of the NSA's mission has been expanded to include corporate espionage for large US-based mega-corps. NSA surveillance devices have also been used to gain an edge in diplomatic situations, such as in the UN. While the CIA is mostly human to human interactions and manpower-based intelligence, the NSA is nearly entirely technology-based.
"In other words, it is basically the MOST defensive, MOST safe secret service we have."
The NSA is the most likely candidate for the first agency to be used to try to turn the US into a totalitarian state. Its massive surveillance capabilities make a 1984-style society seem so attainable. In the information age, information is power. In the information age, the NSA is the information source. In a world where everything is electronic, the NSA has eyes and ears everywhere, and has developed the technology (with the help of a massive, secretive budget) to ensure that whoever is in control gets the information they need when they need it.
"The worst it does is invade privacy."
Invasion of privacy is 90% of what makes 1984 possible. If you have privacy, you don't have 1984; a dark corner is all it takes.
"And it is very unlikely to invade YOUR privacy, as most people do not use the kind of High end cryptology that they coutner. "
Completely wrong. The NSA does not only monitor highly-encrypted data; that's absurd. The NSA monitors all telecommunications. If it's on the i
" Clarke clearly does not care about illegal use of his system due to an obvious religious zeal for free and anonymous speech (which, as an American it's hard to disagree with)."
Actually, he displays a subtle anger towards those who (ab)use Freenet strictly for copyright infringement. What he goes on to say is that if copyright infringement is the necessary evil to the ends of providing a voice for a person in China, then so be it. I completely agree with this sentiment. A few people making copies of songs they would not have paid for anyway simply doesn't hold a candle to the good that's done when free exchange of thoughts without consequence can be secured in a totalitarian nation. Ian is talking about people who endanger their lives when they speak out publicly, yet have found a safe voice on Freenet, while Oppenheim is talking about people tossing files back and forth.
" Oppenheim, on the other hand, completelely (and obviously willfully) ignores the idea that the debate is about anything other than the protection of IP rights;"
Oppenheim is paid to keep the issues on grounds where the RIAA has a chance to fight. Talking about free speech, fair use, and the benefits of P2P does absolutely nothing for the RIAA. You have to understand, chances are, Oppenheim doesn't believe a word out of his own mouth. You don't get to where he is by being stupid, and he knows full well that much of the RIAA's line is BS. I finally realized this during an interview that Wired did with Hilary Rosen. I thought she was this horrible monster who just wanted to gobble up as much money as she possibly could. Suddenly, while reading this interview, I see she's just another person doing her job the best she can. Her job was to represent and bring benefit to the RIAA and its member companies. The best way for her and Oppenheim to do so in the P2P debate is to dehumanize P2P users and paint them as a ravaging horde hell bent on pillaging the last penny from the pockets of the poor, starving artists who wish only to bring joy to the world. Please, these people aren't trying to teach us the true meaning of Christmas, they're trying to do their jobs.
That being said, I think Oppenheim is much less creative than Rosen, and I think his responses seem too cookie-cutter, if you will. Rosen could sit at a debate and move things in her direction. She could at least make things interesting and give them the appearance of sanity. Ian, I think, expressed things in a bit too flowery a position as well. I think Freenet's most redeeming aspects are those involving people whose exercise of free speech would mean their lives, and I think Ian and the bunch need to present that in very real terms. Citing Freesites and messages which would easily get a person jailed or worse is a start. Finding someone who can honestly stand up and say, "without Freenet, I'd be dead right now" would be a Godsend.
"Doesn't the words Anti-Patriot scare the shit out of you?"
In this case, PATRIOT is simply an acronym for the name of a law. Besides, what's patriotic about a law that runs the Constitution through a shredder?
"why do we think it is important to have the nation aware of blue dresses and activities between consenting adults in private, but not important to be able to look for patterns in the behaviour of large numbers of people to find the 1 in a million dangerous types?"
Because "dangerous" can mean a lot of different things. Would George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others have been considered "dangerous" to Brittain in, say, 1770? Dangerous can mean a lot of things. Dangerous can mean someone with a revolutionary idea that could wipe out a major industry. Dangerous can be someone with information that would destroy a major political figure. What a person or group in power considers dangerous often has nothing at all to do with physical injury. George Bush considers the idea of gay marriage to be "dangerous", which is why he's considering pushing for a Constitutional amendment banning it.
The other problem is with this "patterns in the behavior" approach. What you're suggesting is that once we identify something that many terrorists have done, anyone who does those things (even if they're perfectly legal) is probably a terrorist. What this logic fails to take into account is that patterns of behavior are easily changed by those wishing to conceal who and what they are. The moment you lock onto certain habits and such, those trying to conceal themselves begin altering how they do things. You may catch a few real terrorists, but most simply fade away once again. Caught up in the middle of all this are dozens or hundreds of people who have done nothing wrong, but yet are still sitting in a holding cell being interrogated by MPs for days on end. Or maybe the MPs decide that the ones who aren't telling them all about their terrorist buddies were simply trained in how to defeat interrogation techniques, so they simply declare them "enemy combatants" and lock them away for life. Looking for a pattern of behavior assumes guilt by those fitting it. When you look down a long checklist of things to look for and you're sitting there going, "check, check, check, yep check, does that too, check..." and on and on, the only thing on your mind is, "we've got to get this terrorist bastard now."
The other problem with looking at patterns of behavior is that people will begin to figure out what government is looking for, and avoid doing those things, even if they're perfectly legal. What you end up with is a chilling effect on a number of different things, like the freedom to simply live your life the way you want to, so long as you're within the law. To have unwritten and secretive laws, which is what you're basically advocating, sounds the death knell in any Democracy. Democracy assumes an informed public, and in turn assumes a public capable of informing itself. What you, and others, are asking for is that we remove as much information as possible from the public sight, making the public less and less informed, while telling them that everything will be ok because it's being done for their own protection. From a government that has berided governments on almost every continent about not being open and transparent, to begin to close things off here simply goes to show that we're moving in the wrong direction.
"It will be very hard to do properly, but it is just plain dumb not to try."
It's impossible to do, without simply annihilating the Constitutionally-guaranteed rights of so many people that you end up giving up the very thing you're fighting to protect. Pearl Harbor, September 11th, none of it makes me feel any differently about the ideas and the ideals of our Constitution. It wasn't ever written to be something that's easy to follow. It's hard because it's right. It's hard to look at someone you just know did some horrible crime and not simply beat him to death. It's hard to not want to have the police come and arrest the guy who's on the street corner saying thing to you that go against every single thing you hold dear. It's hard to respect the right of
"But if it was serious, it was just plain scary."
So are the programs that many of these people are pushing for. TIPS, TIA, Magic Lantern, roving wiretaps, constant surveillance, and more and more and more. If these people want to do it to us, why is it you have a problem with the people of this country doing it right back to them?
"Will it include the same information they collect? "
I think individuals pushing for massive data collection should be the most heavily looked-at people on there. People like John Poindexter, John Ashcroft, and any Congresscritter who shows support for anything like the TIA needs to be followed, reported on, have their every purchase logged, their every movement cataloged, their every affair made public, and have every habit at the fingertips of the world. Let's show these people just what it is we don't like about programs like the TIA. Let's show them what it's like to have strangers turning your life into a database entry. Something like GIA could very easily turn into a platform for opposing programs like the TIA with actions instead of words. I'm not saying we should be in-you-face harassing these people; I'm saying we should simply find out every bit of possible information about them on a continuing basis until they drop support for 1984-inspired programs. If anyone who lives near these people would like to help out, then all the better.
"There are almost 2 timelines to worry about here"
One possibility when you consider time travel, is that changes in the past spawn new timelines. Think of time as a process. The timeline is the primary thread running. When you change the past, the original thread must remain to allow for the change to take place. Thus, a new thread is spawned, while the original thread remains intact with your alteration having never happened in it. If this is the premise which the Terminator series works on, then things start to make a whole lot more sense.
What's really interesting is the fact that you have a causality loop occuring in the first movie. John Conner, commander of the rebels, sends who is to become his father back in time to save his mother. He fathers John and convinces Sarah to prepare for the coming war by training herself and John. Thus John Conner is the only one prepared for the war and ends up commanding the rebels. When he sends his father back in time, the causality loop is complete.
Now, this is where the Terminator series timeline gets interesting. We've got a single timeline to start with. Due to the above-described causality loop, we have a future commander, John Conner, who helps lead humanity on to win the war against the machines. So, in the 1980s, a Terminator and a rebel appear, having come from the future. The rebel saves Sarah's life, destroys (for the most part) the Terminator, and fathers John Conner. We've initiated our causality loop, thus ensuring that the future is what we expect it to be, with the war and such. Skynet fails to destroy Sarah, thereby ensuring that John can lead to its destruction.
Now, in the second movie, a company called Cyberdyne Systems has possession of an arm and a microprocessor from a Terminator. By reverse-engineering the chip, they make radical advances in computing, thus allowing for the creation of what will eventually become Skynet. The arm and attached hand give new insights into body construction of robotic units, thus again leading to terminators. This is, again, the result of the causality loop we witnessed in the first movie. What's interesting to note is that without the destruction of the first Terminator, Skynet never would have been built. The first movie gave us a picture of the future and a threat to man's only hope. The second movie tied up the loose ends regarding how we got from where we are today to the post-apocalyptic hell of tomorrow.
So what's supposed to happen is that Cyberdyne uses the information gathered from reverse-engineering the chip and the arm to put together a massive defense system. The DoD convinces Congress to fund the project and all military systems are upgraded. Finally, a fully-integrated system, Skynet, is completed and sent online. Learning at a geometric rate, the system realizes that the greatest threat to its existence is mankind. Skynet's handlers try to shut it down, which leads to the nuclear holocaust we've all been waiting to see on the big screen.
Now, when the second Terminator was sent back to kill John Conner, a new timeline thread was spawned, in which Cyberdyne was destroyed, John was saved, etc. In the original thread though, the rebel threat must exist for Skynet to send anyone back, ergo John Conner must exist. In the thread spawned, all work related to Skynet has been destroyed. Therefore, Skynet should probably never exist in that thread, at least not in the same form as it was described in the second movie. In the original timeline, the war happens, the rebels fight back, and Skynet is destroyed.
All of this comes from having only seen the first two movies. Of what I've heard of the third movie, I don't like what it's done to the timeline either. Without hearing the whole story (which I don't want to hear until I see it), I can't make a sound judgement, but things don't look very good. As for why they didn't send the advanced Terminator back originally, they simply didn't have it. If you recall, the T-1000 in the second movie was an "advanced p
" sounds tempting, is Bubba cute?"
You won't be seeing much of his face.
"companies who heavily use telemarketing are planning to counterattack consumers with a barrage of spam and junk mail"
Not a problem, as I'm reasonably certain that such tactics will lead them to the promised land of lawsuits, Chapter 11, and finally, Cellblock 6A, which houses Bubba's Fudge-Packing Factory. Spam on dear telemarketers. Spam your way to an 8x10 cell where you can push your wares on a 300lbs man who hasn't seen a woman in 15 years.
"If there were upgrades for PPP available then users did not apply them."
:)
Users failing to apply freely-available updates is a problem which may only be attributed to the users. This would be like a FreeBSD user complaining about poor hardware support while using FreeBSD 2.x.
In terms of PPP support, I've had the best luck with Windows 98SE. Windows XP is very picky about drivers, whereas 98 will usually just work. Windows 2000 is also reasonably good with modems, but it can be more of a hassle to find drivers for it online.
"95B usb support was bad. I wound up reinstalling Windows twice after trying to get usb devices working. I pretty much gave up on USB until Win98 came out."
The Windows 95B support for USB was certainly nowhere near perfect. For the time and place, however, USB support at all was a leap forward. USB was in its infancy during this time, and has only really begun to emerge as something usable with 2.0. When the USB supplement was released for Windows 95B and up, there were so few USB devices on the market that it really didn't make much sense at the time for Microsoft to push 95's USB support very far at all. When the supplement was released in '96, they were expecting to have a new version of Windows available the following year. Why would they invest time and resources in making old technology work with technology so new, almost no one was using it? Hindsight is 20/20, and had they known that the next version of Windows would be released a year later than they expected, they probably would have worked a little harder on the 95B USB support.
I'm by no means a Microsoft apologist, nor do I support their anti-competitive, illegal business practices. I also don't think very highly of their software, considering the amount of resources they could bring to bear for development. But I do call 'em like I see 'em, and I just don't feel that these are the right criticisms of Windows 95. There were a number of serious problems and promised-but-missing features with 95. The above don't seem to belong in that list.
"It's not YOUR info, it's EBAY'S info ABOUT you."
That's a dangerous premise under which to operate. Using this logic, your credit card information also belongs to eBay, and can be sold/handed-over to anyone eBay sees fit. Taking this a step further, it also means that your medical information belongs to the hospital, and can therefore be sold, broadcast, or otherwise disseminated. I think eBay's mistake in this case is not making it abundantly clear that your personal information can and will be handed over to anyone who is or appears to be law enforcement. Hiding such a policy within a legalize-ridden privacy policy which changes almost constantly just isn't the way to secure the trust of your customers. Make no mistake, eBay's sellers and buyers are eBay's customers. I guard my customers' information, and it aggrivates me when another company does not.
France surrenders following Slashdot posting
Following a terrifying post on the technology news site, Slashdot, France formally surrendered to the United States. French President Jaques Chirac went on French state television just seconds after the post appeared, looking quite pale and worn, telling the people of France,
"We have no choice but to surrender in the face of this new and disturbing news. Our only deterrent to being once again conquered by force is apparently of no use to us! We will investigate this situation immediately, unless we are told not to by the United States."
US Secretary of State Colon Powell responded to the news of France's surrender with utter astonishment.
"We didn't ask France to surrender, we didn't threaten them unless they surrendered, we haven't even talked to the French in over a month. I honestly don't have the slightest idea what's happened here, but I assure you and the American people that we will find out why it is that France has surrendered to us."
(Editors note: Mr Powell was heard bursting into uncontrollable laughter following this interview)
"North Korea? no they have some A bombs."
2 - 4 with inaccurate launch vehicles. We can bomb them.
"Iran? no they have some A bombs."
You know something that the UN, the US, and the IAEA don't know? We can bomb them.
"France? no they have hundreds of H bombs."
Small country. We can disable their silos with a first-strike. We can bomb them.
Next?
He's referring to purchase price in the first quote, and total cost of ownership in the second. Microsoft has, for quite a while now, attempted to show that it costs more to operate/support Linux than it does Windows. Funny thing is, I thought Ballmer admitted that even this was wrong a few months ago.
"USB"
:)
Supported as of Win950B. Not perfect, but is anything ever perfect when it comes to software?
"DirectX 8+"
Win95 supports DirectX 8.0. Versions past this point are, however, not supported in Windows 95.
"vastly improved PPP"
There are numerous updates to Windows 95's PPP support. Regardless of how good you get the software, however, you're still never going to break through your modem's inherent speed barriers.
"whose rights are being violated here?"
Gee, I dunno; how about the right of the company to do business with whomever they please? If this were an American company, Microsoft would be nailed to the wall for something like this. Promotional offers loosely tied to non-competes are difficult to push on companies here, and outright non-competes when it comes to selling products are simply not legal. This is why I can walk into a supermarket and purchase either Pepsi or Coke. Neither Pepsi nor Coke can force the supermarket to not carry the other's product.
If I own a business and a company comes in and tries to tell me who I can and can't do business with, my instinct is to tell them to go to hell. For this company, however, it's totally understandable for them to feel the need to bend over and take it from Microsoft. You can't expect them to toss away a lucrative contract for a small, one-time sale.
This isn't a story about Microsoft being evil, (although you could infer that they are from the content of the story), so much as it is a story about Microsoft once again abusing its corporate power to squeeze out competitors. It's about Microsoft using tactics which are illegal in some countries, and are such for good reason. It's in YRO because there's no YRG (Your Rights in General).
"When I was a kid you actually had to commit a crime before arrest, trial and conviction."
These days, it doesn't matter whether you've committed a crime or not. A one page paper signed by the President and you're behind bars for the rest of your life without a trial, a conviction, or any hope for appeal.
"NT4 includes version 2 of IE. IE2 is so old it dosn't support http1.1 and can't access virtual hosted sites cutting it off from a lot of the web."
Oddly enough, you can install Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 on Windows NT Workstation 4.0. It doesn't appear to slow down anything at all.
"I want a new version of NT4 with updated drivers and USB support "
Yeah, that's called Windows 2000.
"Microsoft plans to maximise revenue direct otherwise."
By your logic, if I can't purchase an Intel 4004 with integrated 802.11a/b and SSE-II, it's because Intel "plans to maximise revenue direct otherwise." That doesn't sound a little silly to you? Come on, this was a product created back in 1995/96. Do you expect them to give you free support and updates in the year 2025? Even Microsoft couldn't afford to do that; they'd have groups of people paid only to support a product that hasn't been produced (read: hasn't made them any money) in more than 20 years. At some point, you must either upgrade to a newer version, or accept that you simply will not have support for things that weren't around when the technology you're using was created.
"Any operating system can be made stable if you know what you're doing."
:P
Alright, I'll bite - WINDOWS ME!
Christ Almighty couldn't make WinME stable with the help of a dozen M$ software engineers and Gates himself. A stable WinME box? Heh. If such an animal existed, up would be down, black would be white, and I'd be able to get a tan.
"KaZaA Wants to Be An Official Content Distributor"
And I want to be an Astronaut.
I think I like my chances better.
"Island... beach... free internet...
Where do I sign up?"
Are you kidding me? I'd sell my soul to the Devil for what these people have.
"Up your's, God... I'm already in Heaven!"
"But within their niche they dominate.'"
And what niche would that be? People whose lives are so devoid of substance that they spend hours each day reading about the life of someone more concerned with documenting their life than living it?
Weblogs... bleh.
I was looking for the standard IANAL disclaimer, but having read your entire post, I now understand how completely unnecessary that disclaimer is. You go ahead and sue SCO. I'll give you 20:1 odds that they get further in their suit against IBM than you get in your suit against SCO.
Couple simple points from someone who isn't a lawyer, but who at least has a fundamental understanding of law which you seem to lack:
1) A claim of libel must show that the written statement(s) were directed towards you, personally.
2) A claim of libel must also show that the written statement(s) would be believed by a reasonable person.
By your (incorrect) definition of libel, me writing "all white people are dumb" on a piece of paper would open me up to lawsuits from every white person on Earth. Now just how silly do you think law is that you could actually bring such a suit without being laughed out of the courtroom?