"OK, our team of scientists in Antarctica has been requesting some broadband Internet access for sometime now. We can't ignore them any more, so what should we do?"
Use long lengths of cable to hook 'em up
Shoot up new satellites into space
Shoot up little satellites to move the big ones back in place
Use ESP
Er...
...that's it.
Golly, which of those options do you think they'd pick?
"Why do people continue to believe that the internet is free and always will be free?"
It's not that people expect the 'Net to be free. It's just that people want to be able to look at a web page without being irritated by garish flashing pictures that appear at random.
"Why do people continue to believe that the internet is free and always will be free?"
People don't believe that the Internet is free and always will be. What they believe is that they should be able to pay a reasonable price to an ISP for access to a worldwide network.
Privoxy - more options than you can shake a stick at, since it even allows you to add custom rules for blocking and permission. It's OSS, available from Sourceforge, too. I'm using it right now, and it's blocked all pop-ups and banner ads with just a default installation.
Seriously, why all the big hoo-haa about the removal of popups when it's easy to install some unobtrusive trustworthy software which destroys them without you even noticing?
I just invented this great spam filter! It counts the number of people in the cc: field! Then I multiply it by 10, and that's the percentage chance it gets chucked! Only 14% as much spam gets through, with NO false positives!
It's called homeostasis. Any changes to the environment cause the spam filter to compensate, whereas many pre-installed solutions are somewhat rigid and inflexible. Since this thing can actually change itself to best fit your particular variety of spam, this can be more effective AND with less effort.
Has everyone already forgotten Alvin Toffler's prediction that new types of futuristic jobs would be established in the future, in areas we never expected?
"As for running your entire OS in a ramdisk...yea...sure...that's...great. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell wouldn't pass any mileage that simply wanted to put 3GB of ram in every public computer. All so that the entire OS can run in a RAM disk so that we can have a false sense of anonymity on those machines."
You can run an entire OS from RAM. Miniature Linux installations are available for free download on the WWW. They require under 50Mb of HD space, so what makes you think that it wouldn't fit in RAM? You don't need a power installation - just a GUI, a database, and a network connection to ghost the machine.
"If the FBI wants to see where a computer has been, they will find out. Yes, if they turn off the machine, everything is lost. But this will only get them once or twice. They aren't fucking idiots."
Whether you're an idiot or not, you can't just magically extract all the data from some RAM after it's been turned off. It's physical law. It's math. It's not an issue of IQ points.
"They will catch on, and start going to the library's isp instead and plugging a nifty little black box between the library and the internet."
Libraries do not need an Internet connection to look up databases for books. This can be done across an intranet, with no access to an ISP or the outside world whatsoever. To break into that and run a packet sniffer, the FBI agent would have to be sitting on the premises, where they could easily be seen.
"Whatever you do, make sure a LOT of people learn about it, and learn the truth."
If you've got past the problem of keeping it hidden for x years, but can't figure out how to transmit it to lots of people at once, here's how:
Encrypt your discovery with a 1,000,000-bit key which self-decrypts after x years
Put the encrypted file on a website
Put up a script which automatically submits your site to Slashdot after x years
After x years, the decrypted file will be accessible to the 70,000 geeks which frequent Slashdot
The law of averages states that with that many open-source-inclined geeks knowing about your idea, one of them's gonna make a GPL'd implementation of it.
"If you don't like a legislation find out who supports such legislation and put up a website to try and convince people not to vote for that person come reelection."
Problem. If all parties who have a reasonable chance of winning are willing to invade our privacy, then no matter who you vote for, you're going to wind up in the shit. This is especially true if you have a system which effectively consists of 2 parties.
Download a at Z-Code interpreter and you'll be able to download neat little interactive fiction games written in Inform. Those things can be absorbing for hours.
August 2002: US Government says, "It's OK to hack as long as you tell the target how you did it."
Next day: US Government 'Net connections taken down in massive DDoS attack. The hackers say, "We did it by sending zillions of 65,000 byte packets at you per second in a distributed denial of service attack. Now you can't touch us! Take that, fuckers!"
And exactly *how* will the military enforce itself in this way?
Military dude A: Hey, hadn't I better send you those top secret plans? Military dude B: Uh, I guess so. Military dude A: OK, I'm sending it now. Military dude B: Are you doing it securely? Military dude A: Nah, takes too long. Military dude B: Oh, OK.
Meanwhile, outside...
Cracker: This is so cool! I've just managed to snag the plans for a top-secret quantum computer!
So the military and police forces have a hard time coping with these people? Well, they do have strategies to counter it. Someone's already suggested sending false messages, but why not just intercept the calls people make so that you can see where the crowd is heading? Even though the whole gathering is like a small P2P network, since everyone will be sending similar messages (due to the snowball effect when the ringleader makes an announcement) all you have to do is listen to a couple of people and you can see what they're going to do. If you're desparate, then you could just jam the cellphone frequencies and they'll be split into a massive collection of isolated agents rather than a cohesive swarm.
At which point you can move in with the water cannons.
"Don't they have something better to do during the summer than hack our site?" asked the RIAA representative, who asked not to be identified. "Perhaps it at least took 10 minutes away from stealing music."
OF COURSE! That's their plan!
Ask the government to give them permission to DoS P2P users
Sit back and let everyone DoS them in revenge
This distracts everyone away from their evil task of...STEALING MUSIC!
"Mathematician Hendrik Lenstra was struck by the blank spot in M. C. Escher's Print Gallery . Why is the spot blank there, he wondered, and what should go in it?"
Mathematicians and engineers see a problem and solve it. That's what they do.
Slashdot Mirror
Golly, which of those options do you think they'd pick?
It's not that people expect the 'Net to be free. It's just that people want to be able to look at a web page without being irritated by garish flashing pictures that appear at random.
"Why do people continue to believe that the internet is free and always will be free?"
People don't believe that the Internet is free and always will be. What they believe is that they should be able to pay a reasonable price to an ISP for access to a worldwide network.
Seriously, why all the big hoo-haa about the removal of popups when it's easy to install some unobtrusive trustworthy software which destroys them without you even noticing?
"In c) we used the model to extrapolate. The reliability of the model for a prediction so far ahead is questionable..."
What do you think your average gamer would do given those two choices?
I just invented this great spam filter! It counts the number of people in the cc: field! Then I multiply it by 10, and that's the percentage chance it gets chucked! Only 14% as much spam gets through, with NO false positives!
It's called homeostasis. Any changes to the environment cause the spam filter to compensate, whereas many pre-installed solutions are somewhat rigid and inflexible. Since this thing can actually change itself to best fit your particular variety of spam, this can be more effective AND with less effort.
Just out of curiosity, how would a wireless 3D mouse work? Wouldn't that just be a ball you held and moved around in the air with your hand?
They can't, but no doubt if you do something which violates the licence they'll be able to take you to court anyway.
Has everyone already forgotten Alvin Toffler's prediction that new types of futuristic jobs would be established in the future, in areas we never expected?
You can run an entire OS from RAM. Miniature Linux installations are available for free download on the WWW. They require under 50Mb of HD space, so what makes you think that it wouldn't fit in RAM? You don't need a power installation - just a GUI, a database, and a network connection to ghost the machine.
"If the FBI wants to see where a computer has been, they will find out. Yes, if they turn off the machine, everything is lost. But this will only get them once or twice. They aren't fucking idiots."
Whether you're an idiot or not, you can't just magically extract all the data from some RAM after it's been turned off. It's physical law. It's math. It's not an issue of IQ points.
"They will catch on, and start going to the library's isp instead and plugging a nifty little black box between the library and the internet."
Libraries do not need an Internet connection to look up databases for books. This can be done across an intranet, with no access to an ISP or the outside world whatsoever. To break into that and run a packet sniffer, the FBI agent would have to be sitting on the premises, where they could easily be seen.
If you've got past the problem of keeping it hidden for x years, but can't figure out how to transmit it to lots of people at once, here's how:
Problem. If all parties who have a reasonable chance of winning are willing to invade our privacy, then no matter who you vote for, you're going to wind up in the shit. This is especially true if you have a system which effectively consists of 2 parties.
News flash. The Internet already is a big force in American democracy.
NewScientist covered it about three or four years back, too.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but sometimes they cancel each other out.
Download a at Z-Code interpreter and you'll be able to download neat little interactive fiction games written in Inform. Those things can be absorbing for hours.
US Government says, "It's OK to hack as long as you tell the target how you did it."
Next day:
US Government 'Net connections taken down in massive DDoS attack. The hackers say, "We did it by sending zillions of 65,000 byte packets at you per second in a distributed denial of service attack. Now you can't touch us! Take that, fuckers!"
Military dude A: Hey, hadn't I better send you those top secret plans?
Military dude B: Uh, I guess so.
Military dude A: OK, I'm sending it now.
Military dude B: Are you doing it securely?
Military dude A: Nah, takes too long.
Military dude B: Oh, OK.
Meanwhile, outside...
Cracker: This is so cool! I've just managed to snag the plans for a top-secret quantum computer!
At which point you can move in with the water cannons.
Don't worry. Exponential has just become on of those words with an informal meaning and a mathematical meaning.
Wouldn't a 3D GUI take up a good deal more RAM and hard disk space than an old-style 2D one?
If so, someone please tell Microsoft. If I wanted a frickin' 3D GUI, I'd be using Doom, the tool for system administration.
OF COURSE! That's their plan!
Makes sense when you look at it like that.
Mathematicians and engineers see a problem and solve it. That's what they do.