That goes to show how little you know about civil disobedience. If you are truely engaged in civil disobedience, one of the requirements is that you be willing to accept the consequences of your action.
Remember the protests in Seattle a year or two ago over China's membership in... uh... whatever it was? (The WTO perhaps?) The people who sat in a line across the street and didn't make a fuss about being arrested?
Remember the photos and videos from the Civil Rights demonstrations, with the people who put up little resistance to being arrested?
>>What If I stream a channel to an offshore site, can they then distribute it (basically an offshore co-location, um, without the co.) If I run a shoutcast server from my DSL line in the states, will they come and sue me?
Yes, because you are distributing pirated material. Now, if you were to take you CD collection and computer and go overseas, you'd be in the clear. You could even go over, set up a playlist, start it, and come back to the US.
But thanks for sharing, that makes a lot of sense now. (A lot more sense than the (repealed) Indiana law that sets the value of pi to 4. Or is there an expanation for that one too?)
I've built...one...computer (about to do another) and didn't have any problems. Although I do have a really (over 10 years) old power supply that there is a big charred area on the inside of. And I get the satisfaction of saying I saw sparks fly out of the back of it when I was trying to log onto AOL. (See? See? AOL's bad for your computer!) Don't worry, I don't have AOL any more.
Of course, the OS is only an issue if you actually buy Windows. If you pirate Windows or (like I will in a couple months) get it free from the college you go to, or if you go Linux only (I'll be doing dual boot w/ WinXP Pro and some flavor of Linux, probably Red Hat since I'm a newbie) you don't have to worry.
Will you get the same selection of parts? No. (I'm either going to build one now or at the end of summer. If now, the motherboard's going to hte the GA-7VXRP, with dual-redundant BIOS, 5 PCI slots, and *4* IDE channels, two of which support RAID 0 and 1. Do you get any of thsoe with your dell?)
Will you get the satisfaction of pointing to your computer and saying "I built that", and have fun in the process? No.
And it's not just travel time, it's the launch windows: you could only make the trip when Earth and Mars are somewhat close together. Making the journey when Earth and Mars are on opposite sides of the sun is not very appealing.
A Physics class at UCSD has an online handout that describes a trip you can make without burning your engines all the way there. In other words, you break from Earth's gravity and get in an orbit that will land you and Mars in the same place sometime in the future.
Problem is, the travel time is nine months. (One way.) And you can only leave earth for this journey once every 26 months, or you wont be in the right place.
Actually, that's fine by me. Like another poster siad, I'd rather not know that I was going to either die or witness destruction on an epic scale in advance of the event. If they're going to discover it, let it be either afterwords or long enough before that we can do something... (like the other reply said)
That would only be a valid assessment if there were no such thing as gravity. The gravitational field of Earth - obviously much bigger than the planet proper - is capable of pulling things into itself. Granted, the probability of a hit is still somewhat small, but very worthy of note.
Problem with that is the moon doesn't have day and night like most of the world. I'm almost positive it has day and night more like... Alaska. Within the course of an orbit (28.something days) you'd have sun for 14 continuous days then no sun for 14 continuous days. You'd need a big buffer.
If you have problems, and it turns out you are having problems extracting water/whatever, you're a LOT further (let's see: 20 light-minutes vs. 250,000 mi, so 15 times) away. So it takes a months and a half instead of three days for the supply ship to get there... not good if you're running low.
There's worry about "energy pollution" with this plan. i.e., we're sending Earth more energy than it would normally recieve, hence it heats up. Now, I don't know how much of this is a valid concern or not. It would at least be somewhat offset by the reduced amount of coal/oil that's burned...
>>Encrypting the mail is a flag that the Gov't will have to investigate. IF everybody does it, then the Gov't gets no help from us, just noise. "Hmm, odd, there's an internet cafe in Miami where somebody keeps sending encrypted messages."
First, I suspect there are already enough people who use encryption to keep business, etc. documents under cover that the government couldn't investigate all.
Second, what are they going to do if they find someone using encryption? Sure, in the case of an internet cafe, they might be able to nab some evidence from a keyboard tap or something (with the permission of the cafe owner), but if the suspect is doing it in his house, they're somewhat out of luck. Tapping the keyboard or looking over his shoulder becomes illegal without his permission or a warrant (wouldn't be able to get one on such flimsy "evidence"), so the investigators are left to look into phone records, background, etc. Then we're back with there's already enough encrypted info floating around this would be a daunting task. Granted, they might spot that the person is using an invalid visa or whatever, but that just means the terrorists would have to be more careful.
>>Encryption can always be broken.
Yes, it can. (Well, except one-time pads, which is another story, and quantum encryption, which doesn't exist except in theory.) However, "Encryption can always be broken" and "Encryption can always be broken in under a few millenia" are two different ststements. Try cracking a 4096-bit RSA key while the information it encodes is still useful.
>>Why don't you just use your phone?
Because the government is snoopong it. (Eschelon)
>>Why don't you go meet the person face to face if your information is oh so valuable.
What if that person is spending a year in Germany (I'm in the US) and you carry on regular conversations? Becomes a bit impractical now.
Actually, there have been several instances. Here are three:
1. In the 1790s, the US passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, IMO the most unconstitutional laws in US history. Basically, they made it illegal to criticize the government. At the time we were in an undeclared war with France, so that was the rationalization used (but actually it was almost certainly to keep the followers of Alexander Hamilton in power at the expense of the followers of Tom. Jefferson). Now, these were repealed, I believe under Jefferson.
2. The infamous quartering of the Asian population in internment camps during WWII. They were released, and the epsiode is seen as among the darkest of the many dark spots in US history.
3. The Sedition Act and Espionage Act were passed in 1918. The Sedition Act again made it illegal to speak out against the government of constitution. These were upheld in the Supreme Court because of the war. The ruling includes the "clear and present danger" and the "fire" in a crowded theatre statements. Again, these were repealed following the end of WWI (though a little belatedly; they were still used through 1920) and I believe those convicted under them were pardoned by Wilson.
>> The Gov't already knows my social security #, my date of birth, mother's maiden name, every city I've ever lived, every car I've ever owned, all of my phone #'s, my family history, where I was born, my physical description, and my bank account and CC #'s. They aren't going to gain any more information about me that I find sensitive. If you are an agent for the Gov't and already have access to that info, then you may bug my phone. That right disappears when you attempt to steal my identity. >>
So your attitude is "they already know too much about me, so it can't get any worse if they know who I e-mail, who I get e-mail from, what web sites I visit, who I call, who calls me, as well as the content of those e-mails and calls? Personally, I see a big difference between knowing where someone is born and the information that would be legal for them to order under this law.
>> The only benefit to that is you'll thwart the US's abilities to collect info to prevent Sept 11th Part II from happning. As I said, the Gov't has nothing to gain but your personal safety. It's not like MS is calling for this. >>
...and even more complete control over what we see or who we talk to. In the meantime, why don't we tag everyone in the country with an electronic transmitter that constantly sends our location to the FBI headquarters. Then it would be an easy task of finding out who was present at the scene of a crime, etc. And if we have video cameras constantly coverning every square inch of the country, then we have the evidence that the criminal was there. Finally, since it's of course making everyone safer (*phew!*), the fact that it goes against "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" doesn't really matter.
>> I realize I didn't make that point rather clear, but be serious. What I meant: By thwarting the US's ability to keep tabs on everybody's email, you're making it futile for the Gov't to look for hints that we're going to be attacked again. >>
So all the government has to do if no normal person encrypts their e-mail is to look for encrypted messages? Then what? Decrypt them? See you in a few years at least - if the military's entire computer network is put to work; if a just a few desktops are set on the task, see you in a few million or billion years. Go arrest the person? On what charge (the "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial...and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation" that the people in Padilla's case are overlooking)? What if I send a random string of characters through the mail system? Will I be flagged as a terrorist because one of my messages "looks" encrypted?
>> So what you are saying to the Gov't is 'Fuck you! I want to look at porn in private! I don't care if it means you can't sniff for early warnings of an attack!" >>
And what happens when the US discovers an encrypted message? Even if they know it's from a terrorist to another terrorist, without decrypting it, they have nothing. What would the US do if bin Ladin said "TERRORIST ATTACK TOMORROW!!!"? Well, we gotta close down airports. And bus lines. It would be a good idea to keep people off the road too. So the country entirely shuts down for a day. The attack may or may not happen. If not, will it happen as soon as you start the country up? Probably, and then you're worse off than you were before.
>> I care about privacy too! >>
Which is exactly why you wouldn't care if I listened to all your phone conversations??? C'mon, some consistancy here... at least within a single post if not between them...
>> But there are certain things I will not do to pay for them. I will not let my privacy be exploited as a weakness. >>
You haven't addressed my statement that this is useless. As I've spread throughout this post so you'd be SURE to see it, as well as making it perfectly clear in a reply to anohter of your posts, the TERRORISTS WILL BE USING ENCRYPTION. They know that the US has had the capability to spy on them this entire time, this law won't change things except to allow them to keep records, and legal up the spying that the government is doing. So they encrypt. So the rest of us sending plain text messages don't give the government any more information.
>> If you were to replace the DOJ with Time Warner, I wouldn't be having this convo now. I'd say "Warner sucks!" and get modded up for it. >>
Oh? Given that the DOJ wouldn't be able to increase national security for it (see above), why does it make a difference if the DOJ or Warner does it.
>> Yep. And when the US Gov't says "We can't sniff the e-mail because too much of it is encyrpted" then Bin Laden will be able to use AOL to communicate with his brainwashed cronies. At least with carnivore, they have to be extremely careful and always on their toes. >>
Which means they alread encrypt it.
>> If your mail's not encrypted now, I don't know why you think you should start all of the sudden. >>
It's not any particular thing about the climate now; it's just that I've (we've; we == the other people supporting this envelope) *always* felt that e-mail should be encrypted.
>> Some bored tech support guy at your ISP who's only making $10 an hour could get bored and watch what you're doing. >>
Seems like you're arguing for encryption there. If you encrypt your stuff, that $10/hr tech guy can't do anything.
Oh, not to mention it would clearly be in violation of the freedom of speech. Hence why there were only export regulations on crypto in the 80s and early 90s.
Slashdot Mirror
Where's that group that hit Bill Gates?
That goes to show how little you know about civil disobedience. If you are truely engaged in civil disobedience, one of the requirements is that you be willing to accept the consequences of your action.
Remember the protests in Seattle a year or two ago over China's membership in... uh... whatever it was? (The WTO perhaps?) The people who sat in a line across the street and didn't make a fuss about being arrested?
Remember the photos and videos from the Civil Rights demonstrations, with the people who put up little resistance to being arrested?
THAT's Civil Disobedience.
>>What If I stream a channel to an offshore site, can they then distribute it (basically an offshore co-location, um, without the co.) If I run a shoutcast server from my DSL line in the states, will they come and sue me?
Yes, because you are distributing pirated material. Now, if you were to take you CD collection and computer and go overseas, you'd be in the clear. You could even go over, set up a playlist, start it, and come back to the US.
Ah. Well, with the government, you never know...
But thanks for sharing, that makes a lot of sense now. (A lot more sense than the (repealed) Indiana law that sets the value of pi to 4. Or is there an expanation for that one too?)
I've built...one...computer (about to do another) and didn't have any problems. Although I do have a really (over 10 years) old power supply that there is a big charred area on the inside of. And I get the satisfaction of saying I saw sparks fly out of the back of it when I was trying to log onto AOL. (See? See? AOL's bad for your computer!) Don't worry, I don't have AOL any more.
What do you have against K-Mart clothes?
Just a question: if the Pricewatch ventor has name brand memory, is that OK? And is Samsung a good brand?
Of course, the OS is only an issue if you actually buy Windows. If you pirate Windows or (like I will in a couple months) get it free from the college you go to, or if you go Linux only (I'll be doing dual boot w/ WinXP Pro and some flavor of Linux, probably Red Hat since I'm a newbie) you don't have to worry.
Will you get the same selection of parts? No. (I'm either going to build one now or at the end of summer. If now, the motherboard's going to hte the GA-7VXRP, with dual-redundant BIOS, 5 PCI slots, and *4* IDE channels, two of which support RAID 0 and 1. Do you get any of thsoe with your dell?)
Will you get the satisfaction of pointing to your computer and saying "I built that", and have fun in the process? No.
etc.
Price isn't everything.
And it's not just travel time, it's the launch windows: you could only make the trip when Earth and Mars are somewhat close together. Making the journey when Earth and Mars are on opposite sides of the sun is not very appealing.
A Physics class at UCSD has an online handout that describes a trip you can make without burning your engines all the way there. In other words, you break from Earth's gravity and get in an orbit that will land you and Mars in the same place sometime in the future. Problem is, the travel time is nine months. (One way.) And you can only leave earth for this journey once every 26 months, or you wont be in the right place.
Just like the law that Arkansas passed setting a maximum flood height for the Arkansas River.
Actually, that's fine by me. Like another poster siad, I'd rather not know that I was going to either die or witness destruction on an epic scale in advance of the event. If they're going to discover it, let it be either afterwords or long enough before that we can do something... (like the other reply said)
Wow, I missed the math problem. Try "twenty times"
Let's see the probability neglecting gravity:
6300 km radius => target area of 124689707 km^2
120,000 km radius => area of 45238896000 km^2
Probability: 0.276%. Still WAY too high for me considering the potential destruction.
>>I am not saying the US is right their choice, just that they aren't the only nation with a space program, not doing anything about this.
:)
You're right. The US isn't the only country with a space program that's doing nothing about the problem.
That would only be a valid assessment if there were no such thing as gravity. The gravitational field of Earth - obviously much bigger than the planet proper - is capable of pulling things into itself. Granted, the probability of a hit is still somewhat small, but very worthy of note.
Or, just like we compare most things to, Hiroshima Bombs. (What ever happened to the "Nagasaki Bomb" unit? Why it it always the "Hiroshima Bomb"?)
Problem with that is the moon doesn't have day and night like most of the world. I'm almost positive it has day and night more like... Alaska. Within the course of an orbit (28.something days) you'd have sun for 14 continuous days then no sun for 14 continuous days. You'd need a big buffer.
If you have problems, and it turns out you are having problems extracting water/whatever, you're a LOT further (let's see: 20 light-minutes vs. 250,000 mi, so 15 times) away. So it takes a months and a half instead of three days for the supply ship to get there... not good if you're running low.
Do I get frequent flier miles for my trips to and from the moon?
There's worry about "energy pollution" with this plan. i.e., we're sending Earth more energy than it would normally recieve, hence it heats up. Now, I don't know how much of this is a valid concern or not. It would at least be somewhat offset by the reduced amount of coal/oil that's burned...
>>Encrypting the mail is a flag that the Gov't will have to investigate. IF everybody does it, then the Gov't gets no help from us, just noise. "Hmm, odd, there's an internet cafe in Miami where somebody keeps sending encrypted messages."
First, I suspect there are already enough people who use encryption to keep business, etc. documents under cover that the government couldn't investigate all.
Second, what are they going to do if they find someone using encryption? Sure, in the case of an internet cafe, they might be able to nab some evidence from a keyboard tap or something (with the permission of the cafe owner), but if the suspect is doing it in his house, they're somewhat out of luck. Tapping the keyboard or looking over his shoulder becomes illegal without his permission or a warrant (wouldn't be able to get one on such flimsy "evidence"), so the investigators are left to look into phone records, background, etc. Then we're back with there's already enough encrypted info floating around this would be a daunting task. Granted, they might spot that the person is using an invalid visa or whatever, but that just means the terrorists would have to be more careful.
>>Encryption can always be broken.
Yes, it can. (Well, except one-time pads, which is another story, and quantum encryption, which doesn't exist except in theory.) However, "Encryption can always be broken" and "Encryption can always be broken in under a few millenia" are two different ststements. Try cracking a 4096-bit RSA key while the information it encodes is still useful.
>>Why don't you just use your phone?
Because the government is snoopong it. (Eschelon)
>>Why don't you go meet the person face to face if your information is oh so valuable.
What if that person is spending a year in Germany (I'm in the US) and you carry on regular conversations? Becomes a bit impractical now.
Actually, there have been several instances. Here are three:
1. In the 1790s, the US passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, IMO the most unconstitutional laws in US history. Basically, they made it illegal to criticize the government. At the time we were in an undeclared war with France, so that was the rationalization used (but actually it was almost certainly to keep the followers of Alexander Hamilton in power at the expense of the followers of Tom. Jefferson). Now, these were repealed, I believe under Jefferson.
2. The infamous quartering of the Asian population in internment camps during WWII. They were released, and the epsiode is seen as among the darkest of the many dark spots in US history.
3. The Sedition Act and Espionage Act were passed in 1918. The Sedition Act again made it illegal to speak out against the government of constitution. These were upheld in the Supreme Court because of the war. The ruling includes the "clear and present danger" and the "fire" in a crowded theatre statements. Again, these were repealed following the end of WWI (though a little belatedly; they were still used through 1920) and I believe those convicted under them were pardoned by Wilson.
So there is some hope.
>>
The Gov't already knows my social security #, my date of birth, mother's maiden name, every city I've ever lived, every car I've ever owned, all of my phone #'s, my family history, where I was born, my physical description, and my bank account and CC #'s. They aren't going to gain any more information about me that I find sensitive. If you are an agent for the Gov't and already have access to that info, then you may bug my phone. That right disappears when you attempt to steal my identity.
>>
So your attitude is "they already know too much about me, so it can't get any worse if they know who I e-mail, who I get e-mail from, what web sites I visit, who I call, who calls me, as well as the content of those e-mails and calls? Personally, I see a big difference between knowing where someone is born and the information that would be legal for them to order under this law.
>>
The only benefit to that is you'll thwart the US's abilities to collect info to prevent Sept 11th Part II from happning. As I said, the Gov't has nothing to gain but your personal safety. It's not like MS is calling for this.
>>
...and even more complete control over what we see or who we talk to. In the meantime, why don't we tag everyone in the country with an electronic transmitter that constantly sends our location to the FBI headquarters. Then it would be an easy task of finding out who was present at the scene of a crime, etc. And if we have video cameras constantly coverning every square inch of the country, then we have the evidence that the criminal was there. Finally, since it's of course making everyone safer (*phew!*), the fact that it goes against "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" doesn't really matter.
>>
I realize I didn't make that point rather clear, but be serious. What I meant: By thwarting the US's ability to keep tabs on everybody's email, you're making it futile for the Gov't to look for hints that we're going to be attacked again.
>>
So all the government has to do if no normal person encrypts their e-mail is to look for encrypted messages? Then what? Decrypt them? See you in a few years at least - if the military's entire computer network is put to work; if a just a few desktops are set on the task, see you in a few million or billion years. Go arrest the person? On what charge (the "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial...and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation" that the people in Padilla's case are overlooking)? What if I send a random string of characters through the mail system? Will I be flagged as a terrorist because one of my messages "looks" encrypted?
>>
So what you are saying to the Gov't is 'Fuck you! I want to look at porn in private! I don't care if it means you can't sniff for early warnings of an attack!"
>>
And what happens when the US discovers an encrypted message? Even if they know it's from a terrorist to another terrorist, without decrypting it, they have nothing. What would the US do if bin Ladin said "TERRORIST ATTACK TOMORROW!!!"? Well, we gotta close down airports. And bus lines. It would be a good idea to keep people off the road too. So the country entirely shuts down for a day. The attack may or may not happen. If not, will it happen as soon as you start the country up? Probably, and then you're worse off than you were before.
>>
I care about privacy too!
>>
Which is exactly why you wouldn't care if I listened to all your phone conversations??? C'mon, some consistancy here... at least within a single post if not between them...
>>
But there are certain things I will not do to pay for them. I will not let my privacy be exploited as a weakness.
>>
You haven't addressed my statement that this is useless. As I've spread throughout this post so you'd be SURE to see it, as well as making it perfectly clear in a reply to anohter of your posts, the TERRORISTS WILL BE USING ENCRYPTION. They know that the US has had the capability to spy on them this entire time, this law won't change things except to allow them to keep records, and legal up the spying that the government is doing. So they encrypt. So the rest of us sending plain text messages don't give the government any more information.
>>
If you were to replace the DOJ with Time Warner, I wouldn't be having this convo now. I'd say "Warner sucks!" and get modded up for it.
>>
Oh? Given that the DOJ wouldn't be able to increase national security for it (see above), why does it make a difference if the DOJ or Warner does it.
>>
Yep. And when the US Gov't says "We can't sniff the e-mail because too much of it is encyrpted" then Bin Laden will be able to use AOL to communicate with his brainwashed cronies. At least with carnivore, they have to be extremely careful and always on their toes.
>>
Which means they alread encrypt it.
>>
If your mail's not encrypted now, I don't know why you think you should start all of the sudden.
>>
It's not any particular thing about the climate now; it's just that I've (we've; we == the other people supporting this envelope) *always* felt that e-mail should be encrypted.
>>
Some bored tech support guy at your ISP who's only making $10 an hour could get bored and watch what you're doing.
>>
Seems like you're arguing for encryption there. If you encrypt your stuff, that $10/hr tech guy can't do anything.
Oh, not to mention it would clearly be in violation of the freedom of speech. Hence why there were only export regulations on crypto in the 80s and early 90s.
Then it'll be "the day when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" only more so.
Banning encryption won't help. I think they know that.