I don't understand why this simple troll gets so many angry, indignant responses, yelling that the lyrics are wrong. First of all, I like "cosmonaut" better. It's subtle and completely absurd, turning a commercial jingle into a nonsensical, absurdist masterpiece. Second, how the fuck do you know the lyrics to this song? Seriously. Are you actually dedicating space in your head to 80s TV sitcom themes? Why would you do that? Third, it's probably fucking obvious that this is a troll, and I can't understand what possessed you to respond to it. Now, of course, you'll accuse me of having no room to complain, since I've replied, as well, but you're wrong. I'm vibrating at a completely different frequency.
The strange thing is that he's got a userid number around mine, which says that he's been here at least ten years. How can you go use a website for over ten years, without picking up that the moderation system is capricious, random, and certainly grounded in groupthink -- but corrupt? "Corrupt" is one of the few negative terms I wouldn't use to describe Slashdot's moderation system. One of the few actual advantages that it does have is that it's not corrupt. Even if Apple or Microsoft started paying people to mod up comments that praised them, there'd be outraged people downmodding those comments just as quickly.
I think people attach too much significance to karma and moderation, anyways. It's pathetically easy to game the system (just pander to whatever the prevailing groupthink is on a subject... or brazenly challenge the prevailing groupthink and say, "I'll probably get modded down for this, but..."). When I first started on Slashdot, I was an unrepentant karma whore, just to see how high I could get my karma. Then they hid the number, which killed that game. I've never had a (Score 5: Troll) comment, though, and I've always wanted one of those. Maybe some day... a boy can dream.
Slashdot has a long history of shrilling crying out doom and gloom, and it's been wrong on every occasion that I can remember. I don't blame the other guy for thinking that some paranoid rant on slashdot is total bunk. When RFID chips were first discussed on Slashdot, people worked themselves into a paranoid frenzy, suggesting that you microwave any clothes that you buy from a retail store, so that you destroy any errant RFID chips. I laughed then, and I'm laughing now, as I recall it. Slashdot has always had a loud paranoid wing, and most of us have learned to tune them out. Their first reaction is always to predict a wildly unlikely worst case scenario, then rant and scream about how we're headed toward some fascist police state, because their Pentium III has a serial number (that can be disabled in the BIOS). I've heard it all before, I wasn't impressed by it back in the late 90s, and I'm still not impressed with it. The Pentium III serial number, RFID, Vista's DRM, Trusted Computing... these have all been complete non-issues. I agree that there's deeply troubling potential, but let's face it:
1) People generally want authoritarianism. It makes them feel safe and secure, regardless of the reality. Ranting about how walled gardens are evil is just going to make all the Apple fanboys tune you out, rather than convincing them to ditch their iProduct. 2) Security, by design, reduces functionality and ease-of-use. People hate that. Thus, security is generally minimized, unless it's authoritarian in nature. In that case, refer back to the first point. 3) Most -- not all, but most -- authoritarian controls can be disabled. Occasionally, it requires some action that voids your warranty.
Once I realized these things, I stopped caring so much. When I heard XP was going to require activation, I thought it was going to change everything. When I heard that Vista was going to have all kinds of evil DRM, I thought that would finally kill off everything that I loved about PCs and turn them into locked-down consoles. When I heard that Windows 8 was going to have secure boot, I'd shrugged my shoulders and said, "So fucking what? Slashdot has been wrong about everything they've ever panicked about, and I'm not falling into that trap again."
Maybe the Windows 8 secure boot will turn out to be a huge issue, and Linux will be locked out of 90% of all new brand name PCs, but I seriously doubt it. Every other time that Slashdot has panicked over DRM, trusted computing, or other initiatives, it's turned out to be a huge non-issue. If this does turn out to be a legitimate threat to Linux, open source, or the PC architecture, I'll deal with it then, rather than panicking about it now, like some slashbot version of Chicken Little.
I suppose that I'd agree. Back in the early 90s, I inherited from a friend a fear of rebooting, turning off, or performing maintenance on a computer. Half the time he opened the case, the computer would become unbootable or never turn back on. Luckily, as a talented engineer, he could usually fix whatever the problem was, but it was a huge pain in the ass. Of course, back then, commodity computer hardware was hugely unreliable, with vast gaps in quality between price ranges, and we were working with pretty cheap stuff. Still, to this day, I dread the thought of turning off a computer that has been working reliably. You never know when some piece of crap component is nearing the end of its life, and the stress of a power cycle could what pushes it over the edge into oblivion (or highly unreliably behavior). I used to be fond of constantly messing with everything, fixing it until it broke, but his influence moderated that impulse in me, to the point where I usually freak out when anyone suggests unnecessarily rebooting a computer. Surely, there's something to say for preventative maintenance, and I'd rather be caught with an unbootable PC during regularly scheduled maintenance than suddenly experiencing catastrophic failure randomly, but there's something to be said for just leaving the shit alone and not messing with it. Every time you touch that computer, there's a slight chance that you'll accidentally delete a critical file directory, pull out a cable, or knock loose a power connector. The fewer the times you come into contact with the thing, the better. If I could build a force field around every PC, I probably would.
Just because someone never had issues with something that you dislike doesn't mean that they're a shill. This is something that bothers me a lot about modern discourse on the internet. You can't say anything without being accused of being a shill, troll, or fanboy. On the other hand, people credulously read outrageously biased review sites that give every single product they review 4/5 or 5/5. The absolute worst are tech and gaming sites. I forget which site it was (I think it was AnandTech), but a few years ago, one of the writers did a bit of investigative journalism and put out feelers to see how open hardware review sites were to the idea of paying for positive reviews. A small number of them (they refused to divulge who, unfortunately) openly agreed to it.
The internet is full of trolls, fanboys, and shills, to be sure, but they're not hiding under every rock. Sometimes, it's just a normal person who's trying to express a legitimate opinion. Simply saying that you didn't have any problems with a product is not enough for any accusations, or else you risk labeling every single satisfied customer a shill (and, believe it or not, there a whole lot of easily satisfied people out there, and they simply won't be annoyed by the things that drive you fucking crazy).
Sorry; someone else started talking about new releases, rather than new products. Looking over the bestbuy.com prices, it turns out that you can actually buy quite a few Blu Ray discs for $7 to $15. Unfortunately, there are still quite a few movies that are $20+, despite being several years (and, in some cases, several decades) old.
So, yes, you're right -- there are $10 Blu Ray movies at Best Buy, but $10 is not their standard price for a movie. What you bought was probably a loss leader. They're hoping that you'll buy one or two cheap movies, then move on to looking at Avatar, The Goonies, or Nightmare Before Christmas, all of which are $20+.
Generally, though, I agree with you. Music prices are fucking crazy. Going used is your best bet. Or move in with a roommate who obsessively collects CDs. Saves you a lot of money.
Not really... in most cases, the industry groups are more concerned with uploaders, rather than downloaders. It just so happens that most file sharing is synchronous. If you leeched all those files from an ftp site, they probably wouldn't care all that much about you, unless you ran into a particularly vindictive group of lawyers. Instead, they'd go after the guy who uploaded the files.
When some dumb teenager pirates an MP3, he doesn't get charged with thousands of dollars in fines. It's only when they upload the file, allowing hundreds (or thousands) of other people to download it, that you see people getting those kinds of fines. It makes more sense when you realize that uploading is the big problem that they're trying to stamp out. Kids (and stupid people) don't understand how the technology works, and they don't realize that they're uploading the files at the same time that they're downloading. Some people have tried to argue this in court ("I didn't know the program was sharing the files!"), but it didn't work out too well for them. Ignorance and stupidity don't usually work too well as a defense, unfortunately.
It's entirely possible that the rights holders will go after you for downloading a pirated movie from Megaupload, but it's really not worth their time. They'd rather go after the person who uploaded it and sue him for millions of dollars. Even if they did sue you, like you said, the amount of money they could claim to have lost is miniscule, since you haven't shared the file with anyone else.
I predict a strong showing of reactionary "what's wrong with people today?" comments. I have to wonder if getting an ultrasound was originally greeted with as much crankiness as I often see from articles like this.
Myself, I'm a relentless progressive. So much so, I thought Gattaca looked kind of nifty.
Of course, sometimes I say that just see the horrified expressions on people's faces.
There are (controversial) photographers who have made a career out of publishing naked pictures of children and teens. Some of them are highly respected, and some of them are, well, a bit less highly respected.
Check out Larry Clark for an example of possibly the most controversial photographer/director of our time. He's influential and talented, but some people call his work borderline child pornography. Despite it, he's been busy since the 60s, and -- to my knowledge -- never been charged with breaking any obscenity laws. He prefers to document the world as it truly is, not as it "should be". Thus, children are depicting engaging in anti-social, self-destructive, and/or sexual activities. Some people find it fascinating, some people find it disturbing, some people find it obscene, and some people find it a turn-on.
Also, see Virgin Killer for an arguably even more controversial photograph. The article might be censored in your country, however.
Really, "identity theft" isn't all that bad. It's a big pain in the ass, and I hope that it doesn't happen to me again, but my life was definitely not screwed over. I had an annoying back and forth argument with Wal-Mart, over the fraudulent use of my debit card, culminating in me being forced to file a police report. I didn't consider a $50 charge on my debit card to be worth filing a police report, and the police didn't seem particularly happy to be burdened with the pointless paperwork, but I guess Wal-Mart wanted me to risk something (filing a false report), if I were going to try to weasel out of paying my bills. Beyond that, it was just a matter of cancelling everything and getting new cards sent. By federal law (USA), you're only liable for the first $50. The banks have to eat up any further losses. This is why they're all rolling out such advanced fraud protection programs, though they like to pretend they do it out of the love they feel for their customers.
Of course, I agree with you on copyright infringement. It's just hypothetical sales that have been lost. However, what annoys me is the hypocrisy of the linguistic distinction. Pirates will howl with rage if you categorize them as thieves, but they think nothing of calling credit card fraud by the same hated term? Either they're both thieves, or neither is a thief.
Of course, I could post it in a less trollish manner, but what would be the fun of doing that?
Oh, please. It's still just as paranoid as ever. I suppose you'll say that the trusted computing, the DMCA, and this new secure boot initiative have made that come true, but that would be a huge stretch. For one thing, free kernels and debuggers are not illegal and never will be illegal. If you don't want a computer with secure boot, don't buy a computer with secure boot. Or disable it in the BIOS, just like you can do with everything else Slashdot's paranoid wing goes crazy about (such as the Pentium III serial number, which could be disabled in the BIOS). Or you could just build your own PC. Problem solved. Dystopia avoided.
Because, as everyone knows, change is bad. Slashdot has a long, long history of going into over-the-top hysterics over inconsequential things. Remember all those stories about RFID? Same thing. Paranoid ranting by the alarmist wing of Slashdot. In defense of their ranting, however, I would point out that sometimes even a crazy person is right. Also, it's hard to say whether the paranoids were in a tizzy over nothing or, through protesting, they managed to mitigate something that could have been very bad.
All in all, I'd suggest ignoring the prophecies of doom that crop up on Slashdot, but -- just to be on the safe side -- I don't discourage the paranoids from protesting against every little thing that sets them off. It makes for amusing reading, and, if they're ever right some day about the government using RFID to control our brain waves and violate our privacy, they might accomplish some good.
It's a lot easier than you think. Every once in a while, a multinational task force will take down a child porn, warez, or credit card fraud group that is renowned for their paranoia and skill, just to remind people that they can do it. In many cases, encryption and tunneling don't actually increase the difficulty of the investigation but end up merely creating more paperwork, as the necessary court orders are acquired. You're a fool if you think that the VPN, anonymous proxy, or TOR node won't turn over their log files when the government comes knocking, with a warrant. What if they don't keep any logs? Yeah, that's a possibility, which does make everything quite a bit more difficult, but that's outright illegal in some jurisdictions, and even in libertarian utopias, the authorities take a very dim view of that. If I were the government, I'd even set up a few honeypots like that (which is probably how they catch some of the more paranoid types). Even if you know that you can trust the founder, can you trust every single employee who has physical access to the hardware? It's 2011 -- I wouldn't be surprised if the government had some moles in such places, though maybe I'm the one who's on the paranoid side now.
No matter how secure or anonymous you think you are, it's only a matter of time before you're hacked or tracked. I think history has proven this. The best you can do is make use of best practices and hope that your opponents are incompetent. In most cases, people are incompetent, on both sides of the law.
And... please. While an IP address doesn't resolve to a person, it's pretty damning evidence that your hardware was used for the crime. I know about the cases where someone hacks into a wireless AP and leeches child porn, but the people who are hacked generally are not leet haxors with the skill to engage in online crime. Running a completely open AP (or TOR exit node), in order to give yourself plausible deniability, is not generally accepted as a defense in court. Jurors don't respond well to arrogant, obvious plans like that, even if you truly are a saint who runs a free and open wireless AP (hint: don't do that, unless you're a fine, upstanding corporation who contributes to the community).
I'm not saying whether the government should have the power to track people so easily, but, in most cases, they do. It's not like the government has no clue about TOR, anonymous proxies, VPNs, etc. This isn't 1990, when the cops didn't have a single computer in their station, and there was one person at the FBI who had an AOL account. Really, they know about this stuff, and it's a part of their investigation. Thinking that you're the one mastermind criminal who's never going to be caught, despite his daring string of crimes, is a bit of a cliche...
It seems to me that Canonical and Mozilla are off in their own little worlds. There's still hope for both of them, but they're so arrogant and far removed from their users that it seems like the slow slide into irrelevancy is almost assured. It's too bad, because both projects come up with decent enough ideas; the management and implementation leave me cold.
I prefer they just went to a rolling release. Why are there even versions, anyway? It amazes me that so few Linux distributions actually use rolling releases. Maybe rolling releases are seen as too "cutting edge" for mainstream, conservative distributions like Ubuntu and Debian. I guess I'm just a ricer at heart.
There's always going to be a "who cares?" post in every story, regardless of the content. At this point, however, I think Slashdot is just trolling us by putting up dozens of articles on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc.
That's a bit unfair, really. He's got a point about the restricted code execution, even if it's a technicality that most (99%?) people don't care about. I agree that it comes dangerously close to "I don't own a TV", but, really, he's not a hipster. He's just some guy who cares about things that nobody else does. And isn't that punishment enough, without ridiculing him?
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand why this simple troll gets so many angry, indignant responses, yelling that the lyrics are wrong. First of all, I like "cosmonaut" better. It's subtle and completely absurd, turning a commercial jingle into a nonsensical, absurdist masterpiece. Second, how the fuck do you know the lyrics to this song? Seriously. Are you actually dedicating space in your head to 80s TV sitcom themes? Why would you do that? Third, it's probably fucking obvious that this is a troll, and I can't understand what possessed you to respond to it. Now, of course, you'll accuse me of having no room to complain, since I've replied, as well, but you're wrong. I'm vibrating at a completely different frequency.
The strange thing is that he's got a userid number around mine, which says that he's been here at least ten years. How can you go use a website for over ten years, without picking up that the moderation system is capricious, random, and certainly grounded in groupthink -- but corrupt? "Corrupt" is one of the few negative terms I wouldn't use to describe Slashdot's moderation system. One of the few actual advantages that it does have is that it's not corrupt. Even if Apple or Microsoft started paying people to mod up comments that praised them, there'd be outraged people downmodding those comments just as quickly.
I think people attach too much significance to karma and moderation, anyways. It's pathetically easy to game the system (just pander to whatever the prevailing groupthink is on a subject... or brazenly challenge the prevailing groupthink and say, "I'll probably get modded down for this, but..."). When I first started on Slashdot, I was an unrepentant karma whore, just to see how high I could get my karma. Then they hid the number, which killed that game. I've never had a (Score 5: Troll) comment, though, and I've always wanted one of those. Maybe some day... a boy can dream.
Slashdot has a long history of shrilling crying out doom and gloom, and it's been wrong on every occasion that I can remember. I don't blame the other guy for thinking that some paranoid rant on slashdot is total bunk. When RFID chips were first discussed on Slashdot, people worked themselves into a paranoid frenzy, suggesting that you microwave any clothes that you buy from a retail store, so that you destroy any errant RFID chips. I laughed then, and I'm laughing now, as I recall it. Slashdot has always had a loud paranoid wing, and most of us have learned to tune them out. Their first reaction is always to predict a wildly unlikely worst case scenario, then rant and scream about how we're headed toward some fascist police state, because their Pentium III has a serial number (that can be disabled in the BIOS). I've heard it all before, I wasn't impressed by it back in the late 90s, and I'm still not impressed with it. The Pentium III serial number, RFID, Vista's DRM, Trusted Computing... these have all been complete non-issues. I agree that there's deeply troubling potential, but let's face it:
1) People generally want authoritarianism. It makes them feel safe and secure, regardless of the reality. Ranting about how walled gardens are evil is just going to make all the Apple fanboys tune you out, rather than convincing them to ditch their iProduct.
2) Security, by design, reduces functionality and ease-of-use. People hate that. Thus, security is generally minimized, unless it's authoritarian in nature. In that case, refer back to the first point.
3) Most -- not all, but most -- authoritarian controls can be disabled. Occasionally, it requires some action that voids your warranty.
Once I realized these things, I stopped caring so much. When I heard XP was going to require activation, I thought it was going to change everything. When I heard that Vista was going to have all kinds of evil DRM, I thought that would finally kill off everything that I loved about PCs and turn them into locked-down consoles. When I heard that Windows 8 was going to have secure boot, I'd shrugged my shoulders and said, "So fucking what? Slashdot has been wrong about everything they've ever panicked about, and I'm not falling into that trap again."
Maybe the Windows 8 secure boot will turn out to be a huge issue, and Linux will be locked out of 90% of all new brand name PCs, but I seriously doubt it. Every other time that Slashdot has panicked over DRM, trusted computing, or other initiatives, it's turned out to be a huge non-issue. If this does turn out to be a legitimate threat to Linux, open source, or the PC architecture, I'll deal with it then, rather than panicking about it now, like some slashbot version of Chicken Little.
I suppose that I'd agree. Back in the early 90s, I inherited from a friend a fear of rebooting, turning off, or performing maintenance on a computer. Half the time he opened the case, the computer would become unbootable or never turn back on. Luckily, as a talented engineer, he could usually fix whatever the problem was, but it was a huge pain in the ass. Of course, back then, commodity computer hardware was hugely unreliable, with vast gaps in quality between price ranges, and we were working with pretty cheap stuff. Still, to this day, I dread the thought of turning off a computer that has been working reliably. You never know when some piece of crap component is nearing the end of its life, and the stress of a power cycle could what pushes it over the edge into oblivion (or highly unreliably behavior). I used to be fond of constantly messing with everything, fixing it until it broke, but his influence moderated that impulse in me, to the point where I usually freak out when anyone suggests unnecessarily rebooting a computer. Surely, there's something to say for preventative maintenance, and I'd rather be caught with an unbootable PC during regularly scheduled maintenance than suddenly experiencing catastrophic failure randomly, but there's something to be said for just leaving the shit alone and not messing with it. Every time you touch that computer, there's a slight chance that you'll accidentally delete a critical file directory, pull out a cable, or knock loose a power connector. The fewer the times you come into contact with the thing, the better. If I could build a force field around every PC, I probably would.
Just because someone never had issues with something that you dislike doesn't mean that they're a shill. This is something that bothers me a lot about modern discourse on the internet. You can't say anything without being accused of being a shill, troll, or fanboy. On the other hand, people credulously read outrageously biased review sites that give every single product they review 4/5 or 5/5. The absolute worst are tech and gaming sites. I forget which site it was (I think it was AnandTech), but a few years ago, one of the writers did a bit of investigative journalism and put out feelers to see how open hardware review sites were to the idea of paying for positive reviews. A small number of them (they refused to divulge who, unfortunately) openly agreed to it.
The internet is full of trolls, fanboys, and shills, to be sure, but they're not hiding under every rock. Sometimes, it's just a normal person who's trying to express a legitimate opinion. Simply saying that you didn't have any problems with a product is not enough for any accusations, or else you risk labeling every single satisfied customer a shill (and, believe it or not, there a whole lot of easily satisfied people out there, and they simply won't be annoyed by the things that drive you fucking crazy).
Sorry; someone else started talking about new releases, rather than new products. Looking over the bestbuy.com prices, it turns out that you can actually buy quite a few Blu Ray discs for $7 to $15. Unfortunately, there are still quite a few movies that are $20+, despite being several years (and, in some cases, several decades) old.
So, yes, you're right -- there are $10 Blu Ray movies at Best Buy, but $10 is not their standard price for a movie. What you bought was probably a loss leader. They're hoping that you'll buy one or two cheap movies, then move on to looking at Avatar, The Goonies, or Nightmare Before Christmas, all of which are $20+.
Generally, though, I agree with you. Music prices are fucking crazy. Going used is your best bet. Or move in with a roommate who obsessively collects CDs. Saves you a lot of money.
Not really... in most cases, the industry groups are more concerned with uploaders, rather than downloaders. It just so happens that most file sharing is synchronous. If you leeched all those files from an ftp site, they probably wouldn't care all that much about you, unless you ran into a particularly vindictive group of lawyers. Instead, they'd go after the guy who uploaded the files.
When some dumb teenager pirates an MP3, he doesn't get charged with thousands of dollars in fines. It's only when they upload the file, allowing hundreds (or thousands) of other people to download it, that you see people getting those kinds of fines. It makes more sense when you realize that uploading is the big problem that they're trying to stamp out. Kids (and stupid people) don't understand how the technology works, and they don't realize that they're uploading the files at the same time that they're downloading. Some people have tried to argue this in court ("I didn't know the program was sharing the files!"), but it didn't work out too well for them. Ignorance and stupidity don't usually work too well as a defense, unfortunately.
It's entirely possible that the rights holders will go after you for downloading a pirated movie from Megaupload, but it's really not worth their time. They'd rather go after the person who uploaded it and sue him for millions of dollars. Even if they did sue you, like you said, the amount of money they could claim to have lost is miniscule, since you haven't shared the file with anyone else.
Bullshit. Maybe in Chinatown, but that's the only place where you're getting new releases for $5.
I predict a strong showing of reactionary "what's wrong with people today?" comments. I have to wonder if getting an ultrasound was originally greeted with as much crankiness as I often see from articles like this.
Myself, I'm a relentless progressive. So much so, I thought Gattaca looked kind of nifty.
Of course, sometimes I say that just see the horrified expressions on people's faces.
Naked photographs are not obscene.
There are (controversial) photographers who have made a career out of publishing naked pictures of children and teens. Some of them are highly respected, and some of them are, well, a bit less highly respected.
Check out Larry Clark for an example of possibly the most controversial photographer/director of our time. He's influential and talented, but some people call his work borderline child pornography. Despite it, he's been busy since the 60s, and -- to my knowledge -- never been charged with breaking any obscenity laws. He prefers to document the world as it truly is, not as it "should be". Thus, children are depicting engaging in anti-social, self-destructive, and/or sexual activities. Some people find it fascinating, some people find it disturbing, some people find it obscene, and some people find it a turn-on.
Also, see Virgin Killer for an arguably even more controversial photograph. The article might be censored in your country, however.
It's very nearly almost four million dollars, though.
Really, "identity theft" isn't all that bad. It's a big pain in the ass, and I hope that it doesn't happen to me again, but my life was definitely not screwed over. I had an annoying back and forth argument with Wal-Mart, over the fraudulent use of my debit card, culminating in me being forced to file a police report. I didn't consider a $50 charge on my debit card to be worth filing a police report, and the police didn't seem particularly happy to be burdened with the pointless paperwork, but I guess Wal-Mart wanted me to risk something (filing a false report), if I were going to try to weasel out of paying my bills. Beyond that, it was just a matter of cancelling everything and getting new cards sent. By federal law (USA), you're only liable for the first $50. The banks have to eat up any further losses. This is why they're all rolling out such advanced fraud protection programs, though they like to pretend they do it out of the love they feel for their customers.
Of course, I agree with you on copyright infringement. It's just hypothetical sales that have been lost. However, what annoys me is the hypocrisy of the linguistic distinction. Pirates will howl with rage if you categorize them as thieves, but they think nothing of calling credit card fraud by the same hated term? Either they're both thieves, or neither is a thief.
Of course, I could post it in a less trollish manner, but what would be the fun of doing that?
It's not theft, if you still have the ability to use the identity. I just made a copy.
What, why are so mad at me?
That "NO CARRIER" thing hasn't been funny in 20 years.
Did you seriously just link to the unfunniest webcomic in the history of webcomics?
You really like that shit?
Oh, please. It's still just as paranoid as ever. I suppose you'll say that the trusted computing, the DMCA, and this new secure boot initiative have made that come true, but that would be a huge stretch. For one thing, free kernels and debuggers are not illegal and never will be illegal. If you don't want a computer with secure boot, don't buy a computer with secure boot. Or disable it in the BIOS, just like you can do with everything else Slashdot's paranoid wing goes crazy about (such as the Pentium III serial number, which could be disabled in the BIOS). Or you could just build your own PC. Problem solved. Dystopia avoided.
Because, as everyone knows, change is bad. Slashdot has a long, long history of going into over-the-top hysterics over inconsequential things. Remember all those stories about RFID? Same thing. Paranoid ranting by the alarmist wing of Slashdot. In defense of their ranting, however, I would point out that sometimes even a crazy person is right. Also, it's hard to say whether the paranoids were in a tizzy over nothing or, through protesting, they managed to mitigate something that could have been very bad.
All in all, I'd suggest ignoring the prophecies of doom that crop up on Slashdot, but -- just to be on the safe side -- I don't discourage the paranoids from protesting against every little thing that sets them off. It makes for amusing reading, and, if they're ever right some day about the government using RFID to control our brain waves and violate our privacy, they might accomplish some good.
It's a lot easier than you think. Every once in a while, a multinational task force will take down a child porn, warez, or credit card fraud group that is renowned for their paranoia and skill, just to remind people that they can do it. In many cases, encryption and tunneling don't actually increase the difficulty of the investigation but end up merely creating more paperwork, as the necessary court orders are acquired. You're a fool if you think that the VPN, anonymous proxy, or TOR node won't turn over their log files when the government comes knocking, with a warrant. What if they don't keep any logs? Yeah, that's a possibility, which does make everything quite a bit more difficult, but that's outright illegal in some jurisdictions, and even in libertarian utopias, the authorities take a very dim view of that. If I were the government, I'd even set up a few honeypots like that (which is probably how they catch some of the more paranoid types). Even if you know that you can trust the founder, can you trust every single employee who has physical access to the hardware? It's 2011 -- I wouldn't be surprised if the government had some moles in such places, though maybe I'm the one who's on the paranoid side now.
No matter how secure or anonymous you think you are, it's only a matter of time before you're hacked or tracked. I think history has proven this. The best you can do is make use of best practices and hope that your opponents are incompetent. In most cases, people are incompetent, on both sides of the law.
And... please. While an IP address doesn't resolve to a person, it's pretty damning evidence that your hardware was used for the crime. I know about the cases where someone hacks into a wireless AP and leeches child porn, but the people who are hacked generally are not leet haxors with the skill to engage in online crime. Running a completely open AP (or TOR exit node), in order to give yourself plausible deniability, is not generally accepted as a defense in court. Jurors don't respond well to arrogant, obvious plans like that, even if you truly are a saint who runs a free and open wireless AP (hint: don't do that, unless you're a fine, upstanding corporation who contributes to the community).
I'm not saying whether the government should have the power to track people so easily, but, in most cases, they do. It's not like the government has no clue about TOR, anonymous proxies, VPNs, etc. This isn't 1990, when the cops didn't have a single computer in their station, and there was one person at the FBI who had an AOL account. Really, they know about this stuff, and it's a part of their investigation. Thinking that you're the one mastermind criminal who's never going to be caught, despite his daring string of crimes, is a bit of a cliche...
Do you ever post anything other than instructions on how to mod other posts?
Yeah, that was my first thought, too.
It seems to me that Canonical and Mozilla are off in their own little worlds. There's still hope for both of them, but they're so arrogant and far removed from their users that it seems like the slow slide into irrelevancy is almost assured. It's too bad, because both projects come up with decent enough ideas; the management and implementation leave me cold.
I prefer they just went to a rolling release. Why are there even versions, anyway? It amazes me that so few Linux distributions actually use rolling releases. Maybe rolling releases are seen as too "cutting edge" for mainstream, conservative distributions like Ubuntu and Debian. I guess I'm just a ricer at heart.
There's always going to be a "who cares?" post in every story, regardless of the content. At this point, however, I think Slashdot is just trolling us by putting up dozens of articles on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc.
That's a bit unfair, really. He's got a point about the restricted code execution, even if it's a technicality that most (99%?) people don't care about. I agree that it comes dangerously close to "I don't own a TV", but, really, he's not a hipster. He's just some guy who cares about things that nobody else does. And isn't that punishment enough, without ridiculing him?
We must dissent!
That second link was hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.
That was possibly the whiniest rant I've ever read in my life.