The optimal position of solar panels depends on several factors:
Season of year. The sun is lower in the sky during winter, so the slope should be greater. The significance of this factor varies with latitude, as does the slope itself.
Value during day. Although demand may be greater at some times rather than others, the payment to you may not be, so what is best for you may not be what is best for the grid.
Tracking mechanisms work, but they are mechanical and can fail, and they cost money. It may be cheaper to add panels than to add trackers. For seasonal adjustment, some mounting hardware allows relatively easy manual adjustment of the slope.You don't have to change this but a few times a year.
I have been off the grid at home for ten years, depending mostly on solar but with a little wind. Our panels are pointed in three directions: Southeast to get power in the early morning when the batteries are lowest, south for use during peak sun, and southwest to end the daylight hours with fully charged batteries. We have home-made mounting, and it was cheaper to add a few extra panels than to add tracking hardware.
I would agree almost all the time. An error in doping, not being selective, would likely be obvious, because it would affect the other components on the same layer.
However, there is a small amount of boutique production which is done almost by hand, and more subject to errors. The chips are usually less complex, and given the right kind of circuit (such as the RNG from the paper) errors are more likely to slip through, especially if the circuit were to be confined, by itself, to layers not used in the interface electronics.This kind of specialty chip is sometimes used in obscure military and security devices. These are not chips you will find in mass-produced electronics.
The term, by hand, may be misleading. In fact, custom chip making is so well automated that a foundry can spit out dissimilar batches one after another, given instructions in electronic form. I've seen students design and make small batches of their own chips using commercial services. Here's the rub: all of the testing for a boutique chip must be defined for that chip, and if the designer/customer fails to specify the design or test correctly, a bad batch might emerge.
I've seen so many mistakes in my career, almost nothing surprises me now, although I'm sometimes amazed how long it takes to find them.
In semiconductor manufacturing, doping is the introduction of slight amounts of impurities into a semiconducting material, to create a condition of surplus or deficit electrons. Donors such as arsenic and phosphorus add electrons, creating n-type semiconductors, while acceptors such as boron and aluminum cause a deficit of electrons, making a p-type semiconductor. The terms surplus and deficit are relative to a state where all of the atomic orbitals are filled and the semiconductor has almost no conductivity. Thus, doping makes semiconductors into conductors.
Doping is commonly done by exposing the wafer of semiconducting material at high temperatures to a gas containing the dopant. The dopant diffuses into the surface of the wafer. A mask covers the wafer so that the diffusion only takes place where the wafer is uncovered. Note that the mask has microscopic detail, the quantities of dopants employed are low, and the chemicals used are nasty.
The circuit is created by the arrangement of the doped materials. For example, a p-type region adjacent to an n-type region makes a diode, while three adjacent regions in series make a bipolar transistor. The circuit is wired together using layers of metal (such as aluminum) deposited onto the surface and etched away in a pattern, done similarly to the way printed circuit boards are made.
Given Hanlon's razor, an accidental, rather than malicious, error in doping would be even more likely. If the chip were inadvertently doped incorrectly, it would pass visual inspections and even software tests without awareness of the defect. How many defective dice, not merely with RNGs but also with other circuits, are already in service due to inspection failures?
Although this paper shows how insidious a threat from a well-funded adversary might be, even more it shows the need for more comprehensive inspection mechanisms to discover misdoping which might go undetected by existing standard procedures.
BTW, the paper includes a well written and readable introduction to the context of the problem. Good job.
If we do not acknowledge whales and some other primates, in our own backyard, as sentient, intelligent beings, then how can we expect to recognize more exotic forms of intelligent life?
Without consideration of the problem at the time all of the system hardware is designed, there is no secure solution. This is in fact a very complex problem.
For instance, most CPUs and complex driver chips include undocumented registers, which can be used to hide code or data from analysis. Some of these register areas can be quite large. The common solutions almost invariably rely on security through obscurity, since the internal design of chips is not widely available. How can one clear or verify memory if the total amount of memory is unknown? An attacker need merely relocate himself dynamically to avoid detection.
The two most common attempts at better security involve two approaches: additional hardware which requires special keys for access (such as is used in some DRM systems), and secondary or even tertiary computers to monitor the primary system. There are even systems with back-to-back PCI bridges, where the second PCI bridge on a completely separate computer audits the behaviour of the first PCI bridge. All software is considered "hostile" in systems which are serious about security.
Even the available security features often are not enabled or used, because of poor design. For example, some video decoding chips have read only register to store keys for DRM purposes, but many STBs don't use them because the designs are flawed, or because the use of the features incurs unacceptable manufacturing and deployment costs. Similarly, JTAG access often is not locked, because the manufacturers prefer the ability to field diagnosis easily, and assume that most attackers won't be able to figure out how to break into the unlocked systems. Even worse, these advanced features are not used because the most egregious holes are even easier to exploit, so why bother to harden the front door when the windows and back door remain open?
Unfortunately, most of the "secure" systems are lame, done without adequate design review. Much common hardware from cable boxes to military equipment is full of holes. The failures remain latent only because of NDAs, government security classification, and other factors impeding review.
No, you can't build a secure system without secure hadware, and you can't verify the contents of memory without special hardware support.
Not so simple (was: Re:Um, as a consumer...)
on
CableCARD In-Depth
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Not so simple.
OCAP defines a set of APIs, but it is not dependent on CableCard or on
DCAS. There is some independence from the underlying security
implementation.
CableCard is technically difficult, which has led to delays. However,
the main reason DCAS will supplant CableCard is that it's cheaper, and
it probably will be more secure. Cheaper is better for everyone.
Like most other DRM security schemes, DCAS is being designed in secret
without open peer review. Some of those other schemes are known to be
broken, some are incorrectly assumed not to be broken, and some are
ludicrously close to being broken. The soft DCAS model may stay ahead
of crackers only because it can change mechanisms in the field, not
because it is inherently more secure. It will remain a cat and mouse
game.
The MSOs (cable companies) make their money by selling premium content
and services. They don't make much from basic TV. For years, they have
been at the mercy of the hardware oligopoly selling cable boxes and
headend equipment. Even within the product line of a single vendor,
there are severe incompatibilities. This equipment is expected to last
decades in the field (the low price customers get the old equipment),
and it must be supported. This leaves MSOs at the mercy of only a few
vendors selling incompatible equipment, depreciating as innovation
accelerates. To sell the premium content and services, they need new
equipment, but don't like being locked in to the hardware oligopoly.
The idea behind OCAP is a platform to enable portable applications on a
variety of platforms, which will enable the MSOs to sell more content
and services. This would break the hardware oligopoly. Also, it would
allow the cable companies to get out of the hardware business, because
the customers will be able to buy equipment at retail, and the MSOs
won't be stuck with an inventory of aging STBs.
Historically, this grew out of an idea from the late 1980s, to make STBs
like telephones: you can plug any telephone into any phone jack, and it
works. You buy your phones at retail. STBs should be the same way: you
should be able to buy your STB at a store, and it should work with any
cable equipment.
This is both good and bad for the hadware oligopoly. On the one hand, it
breaks their lock on their customer base. On the other hand, it allows
them to encroach on the customer base of the few competitors they have.
The result is that STB vendors want to keep a lock on the existing
customers so they offer premium features that aren't portable (don't run
under OCAP) while offering OCAP to satisfy minimal requirements. Being
typical firms, they are risk averse, since the legal and economic
structure penalizes genuine competition, so the focus is mostly on
preserving existing standards while taking baby steps toward meeting
new ones. While at each vendor they talk about existing competitors,
though, the real threat is from foreign electronics companies: when the
standards become open, then which companies dominate the consumer
markets?
Everyone is being dragged kicking and screaming into the new regime:
content providers are terrified of having their product stolen, the
oligopoly sees new competitors just over the hill, the politicians are
anxious not to lose some of their biggest bribe givers (a.k.a.
contributors and supporters), and consumers are losing their fair use
rights in the bargains begin made.
Cable boxes aren't rocket science, but they aren't as simple as cell
phones, either. There is a lot happening in a state of the art STB.
However, one of the reasons they are as difficult to get right as they
are, is that they are based on the secret, internal, proprietary
standards of the oligopoly. You can build a missile or computer or a
nuclear bomb or a lot of other complicated things from information
lying around in books or on the internet, but you can't interoperate
with the oligopoly's equipment except through license agreements and
NDAs. You can't just hire an average real time systems engineer
We have done this sort of thing for several years, and never found an acceptable broad license and contract provision to cover it. The only things that has worked well is to base the agreements on specifications, saying "implementations of interfaces marked A are ours, implementations of interfaces marked B are yours". Of course, the specification always changes (evolves, matures), so there is a constant review and negotiation process. So you end up saying (in the agreement) something like "the parties will from time to time meet and confer to extend the specification, and set the licensing for new or modified interfaces in the same manner as has been done already in Exhibit 1".
It is a good idea to specify the general principles by which the code will be covered by this license or that, but the explicit division with a list of interfaces (or modules or components) should override the general principles. You can always amend the agreement later. If the relationship has broken down to the extent that you can't amend the agreement, then there is probably no point anyway to amending it. Then, at least what you have done up to that point is covered by the explicit decisions already made. Just don't go too long without a review and decision process. (It's good engineering anyway to review the specifications and agreements periodically, so that the customer gets what he wants and you have a consistent, considered design.)
In the end, if you don't have a good relationship, all the contract language in the world won't necessarily save you from grief.
Keep the code bases separate. There should never be any doubt what you claim belongs in one category or the other. Put a clause in the agreement that has the customer waive rights to protest the decision if he hasn't done so within some specific period of time from having become aware of the way you have classified things. Of course, during the review period you can't release any of the code to the public (or GPL or whatever), in case it turns out your decision was inappropriate, else you will have released your customer's proprietary code which might be a breach of contract or trade secret law.
Various previous posts on this question have included comments about the usefulness of statistics, econometric models, and so on. I don't believe it's true that "you can make statistics prove anything" or "econometric models are useless" or other such things. However, I believe that those tools can be misused -- just as can guns.
(Check out a book by John Allen Paulos, "Once Upon a Number: The Hidden Mathematical Logic of Stories". It's not a math book, but it says a lot about how navigate among anecdotes and numbers. Some of the lessons are real eye-openers.)
Several posters have referred to Lott's studies. His basic methodology was to compare availability of guns (as defined by how easy it is to get a concealed carry permit) with crime rates. Of course, there is a negative correlation, and it is highly logical: here in the wide open spaces, we have a lot of guns, and we have lower crime rates. The first question is, why? Statistics can only go so far: they can correlate wide open spaces with a rural culture, which in turn is associated with conservative values, which in turn are associated with lower crime -- or does the lower crime reflect the effects of popular gun ownership caused by conservative values? In sum, the statistics can show relationships, but the relationships don't always reflect causality. (Incomes of preachers can correlate to increased liquor consumption, but the only connection may be the general level of economic well-being.)
A researcher will attempt to determine the impact of related factors on the numbers. For example, gun ownership is more common in rural areas, and crime is lower there. Lott, for example, did comparisons of violent crime rates in adjacent counties, which are more likely to have similar demographics, in an attempt to separate the causative factors. For example, a rural county in Nevada (with permissive carry laws) might be compared to a neighboring rural county in California (with restrictive gun laws). In general, it is true that high gun ownership is negatively correlated with violent crime rates in the United States. (In other words, more guns are associated with less crime, other factors being as equal as can be determined.) Where the debate starts (if you leave the zealots out) is more about the causes. After all, a lot of obviously significant variables, such as cultural ethics, simply aren't easily quantified, and can't be factored out. All we have are "indirect" indicators such as race or income.
It is of little value to compare Switzerland with the United States, or rural areas with city areas, because there are too many different factors to isolate, when those other factors are far more significant than gun ownership. Culture, religion, education, income levels, drug use, and other variables (including different mechanisms for the acquisition of crime statistics) together overshadow the measurable impact of gun ownership.
One conclusion is that gun ownership, per se, is not as highly related to violent crime as are other factors. In other words, it doesn't matter nearly so much as religion or education or race. Taking this one step further, since a preponderance of the statistics assign a negative correlation to guns and violent crime, an appropriate policy requires that we must either (a) allow more guns in an attempt to reduce crime, or (b) find some factor X which justifies ignoring the first decision.
Here is where the debate mostly breaks down, because any attempt to find this factor X is based on logic, and it is logic which is more elusive (if that were possible) than sound research.
I believe the solution lies in looking for deeper factors. My own conclusion is that deep, personal characteristics are ultimately the cause of social problems. The various parts of a person's life cannot be separated from one another without disfunction, and the public and community life cannot be separated from the inner life. Whether on a personal level or a community level, fear breeds that which is feared. Fear of crime breeds crime, fear of terrorism breeds terrorism, etc. (It could be argued that crime breeds fear of crime, and so on, but my personal belief is that the mind drives reality, not the other way around.)
There is a difference between saying, "the first SOB who comes into my house is going to take a bullet", and knowing that there is a.45 by my monitor to be used if it's needed, and a shotgun by the door. The first statement is grounded in fear, the second is just doing what almost everyone else around here does. (I'm not sure I know anyone that doesn't have a gun. Among my friends and neighbors, guns outnumber people. When I think about it at all, I know I'm safer that way. A friend a mile away tells me he'll take out someone who needs it, from his house, if we call. He's a good shot. His bullet will make it before the sheriff will. Those who aren't comfortable living like this, with low crime, can go back to the cities, with high crime, and take their chances.)
So in the end, the statistics are just that. The book I mentioned at the beginning contrasts statistics against stories. Stories are about single incidents, about the particular, while statistics are about large numbers, about generalizations. I'm a human being. I'm not interested in being a statistic.
The push for standardization and interoperability started at least ten years ago. In the early '90s, one FCC official described a goal that the cable system might be as interoperable as the phone system. Specifically,
(1) a customer should be able to own his/her cable box (just as you own your telephone); of course, boxes would be sold at the same places other consumer electronic equipment is sold
(2) you should be able to take your cable box with you when you move, and plug it in anywhere in the U.S., and it should work (just as you can do with telephones)
(3) subscribing to content should follow the same model as subscribing to long distance telephone service: getting local service from a cable provider shouldn't require you to buy premium channels only from that same provider
The third idea was obviously terrifying to entrenched interests. It was easy to imagine some national enterprises bundling premium channels at prices that would deprive the cable companies (or phone companies) of much added revenue. In response to other threats and this, lobbyists and PACs spent long and hard. One result was the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996, which not only protected against real competition but also served to reinforce the telecoms industry as a major political force. (Proving once again that we have the best Congress money can buy...)
Along with the prospect of competitive service markets for content, came the "dangers" of competition for internet service. Now the internet services battle takes front page; it is all that most politicians can grasp. The larger technical and political issues of the greater network are too complex or arcane to make the news.
We should not forget the grander vision of competition for all services - not only for content and the internet, but also for connectivity in general.
It is true that the greater network poses problems (technical and otherwise) than those of the phone system. But the problems are tractable. Just as the phone companies once complained that deregulation was an insurmountable difficulty, now the entrenched interests complain of insurmountable technical and business problems blocking the way to real competition. If things are so difficult for them, perhaps they should not be running the show.
Slashdot Mirror
The optimal position of solar panels depends on several factors:
Tracking mechanisms work, but they are mechanical and can fail, and they cost money. It may be cheaper to add panels than to add trackers. For seasonal adjustment, some mounting hardware allows relatively easy manual adjustment of the slope.You don't have to change this but a few times a year.
I have been off the grid at home for ten years, depending mostly on solar but with a little wind. Our panels are pointed in three directions: Southeast to get power in the early morning when the batteries are lowest, south for use during peak sun, and southwest to end the daylight hours with fully charged batteries. We have home-made mounting, and it was cheaper to add a few extra panels than to add tracking hardware.
I would agree almost all the time. An error in doping, not being selective, would likely be obvious, because it would affect the other components on the same layer.
However, there is a small amount of boutique production which is done almost by hand, and more subject to errors. The chips are usually less complex, and given the right kind of circuit (such as the RNG from the paper) errors are more likely to slip through, especially if the circuit were to be confined, by itself, to layers not used in the interface electronics.This kind of specialty chip is sometimes used in obscure military and security devices. These are not chips you will find in mass-produced electronics.
The term, by hand, may be misleading. In fact, custom chip making is so well automated that a foundry can spit out dissimilar batches one after another, given instructions in electronic form. I've seen students design and make small batches of their own chips using commercial services. Here's the rub: all of the testing for a boutique chip must be defined for that chip, and if the designer/customer fails to specify the design or test correctly, a bad batch might emerge.
I've seen so many mistakes in my career, almost nothing surprises me now, although I'm sometimes amazed how long it takes to find them.
In semiconductor manufacturing, doping is the introduction of slight amounts of impurities into a semiconducting material, to create a condition of surplus or deficit electrons. Donors such as arsenic and phosphorus add electrons, creating n-type semiconductors, while acceptors such as boron and aluminum cause a deficit of electrons, making a p-type semiconductor. The terms surplus and deficit are relative to a state where all of the atomic orbitals are filled and the semiconductor has almost no conductivity. Thus, doping makes semiconductors into conductors.
Doping is commonly done by exposing the wafer of semiconducting material at high temperatures to a gas containing the dopant. The dopant diffuses into the surface of the wafer. A mask covers the wafer so that the diffusion only takes place where the wafer is uncovered. Note that the mask has microscopic detail, the quantities of dopants employed are low, and the chemicals used are nasty.
The circuit is created by the arrangement of the doped materials. For example, a p-type region adjacent to an n-type region makes a diode, while three adjacent regions in series make a bipolar transistor. The circuit is wired together using layers of metal (such as aluminum) deposited onto the surface and etched away in a pattern, done similarly to the way printed circuit boards are made.
Given Hanlon's razor, an accidental, rather than malicious, error in doping would be even more likely. If the chip were inadvertently doped incorrectly, it would pass visual inspections and even software tests without awareness of the defect. How many defective dice, not merely with RNGs but also with other circuits, are already in service due to inspection failures?
Although this paper shows how insidious a threat from a well-funded adversary might be, even more it shows the need for more comprehensive inspection mechanisms to discover misdoping which might go undetected by existing standard procedures.
BTW, the paper includes a well written and readable introduction to the context of the problem. Good job.
(1) plant drugs on enemy (2) use parallel construction to bust him (3) trail back to you is practically erased
If we do not acknowledge whales and some other primates, in our own backyard, as sentient, intelligent beings, then how can we expect to recognize more exotic forms of intelligent life?
Without consideration of the problem at the time all of the system hardware is designed, there is no secure solution. This is in fact a very complex problem.
For instance, most CPUs and complex driver chips include undocumented registers, which can be used to hide code or data from analysis. Some of these register areas can be quite large. The common solutions almost invariably rely on security through obscurity, since the internal design of chips is not widely available. How can one clear or verify memory if the total amount of memory is unknown? An attacker need merely relocate himself dynamically to avoid detection.
The two most common attempts at better security involve two approaches: additional hardware which requires special keys for access (such as is used in some DRM systems), and secondary or even tertiary computers to monitor the primary system. There are even systems with back-to-back PCI bridges, where the second PCI bridge on a completely separate computer audits the behaviour of the first PCI bridge. All software is considered "hostile" in systems which are serious about security.
Even the available security features often are not enabled or used, because of poor design. For example, some video decoding chips have read only register to store keys for DRM purposes, but many STBs don't use them because the designs are flawed, or because the use of the features incurs unacceptable manufacturing and deployment costs. Similarly, JTAG access often is not locked, because the manufacturers prefer the ability to field diagnosis easily, and assume that most attackers won't be able to figure out how to break into the unlocked systems. Even worse, these advanced features are not used because the most egregious holes are even easier to exploit, so why bother to harden the front door when the windows and back door remain open?
Unfortunately, most of the "secure" systems are lame, done without adequate design review. Much common hardware from cable boxes to military equipment is full of holes. The failures remain latent only because of NDAs, government security classification, and other factors impeding review.
No, you can't build a secure system without secure hadware, and you can't verify the contents of memory without special hardware support.
Not so simple.
OCAP defines a set of APIs, but it is not dependent on CableCard or on DCAS. There is some independence from the underlying security implementation.
CableCard is technically difficult, which has led to delays. However, the main reason DCAS will supplant CableCard is that it's cheaper, and it probably will be more secure. Cheaper is better for everyone.
Like most other DRM security schemes, DCAS is being designed in secret without open peer review. Some of those other schemes are known to be broken, some are incorrectly assumed not to be broken, and some are ludicrously close to being broken. The soft DCAS model may stay ahead of crackers only because it can change mechanisms in the field, not because it is inherently more secure. It will remain a cat and mouse game.
The MSOs (cable companies) make their money by selling premium content and services. They don't make much from basic TV. For years, they have been at the mercy of the hardware oligopoly selling cable boxes and headend equipment. Even within the product line of a single vendor, there are severe incompatibilities. This equipment is expected to last decades in the field (the low price customers get the old equipment), and it must be supported. This leaves MSOs at the mercy of only a few vendors selling incompatible equipment, depreciating as innovation accelerates. To sell the premium content and services, they need new equipment, but don't like being locked in to the hardware oligopoly.
The idea behind OCAP is a platform to enable portable applications on a variety of platforms, which will enable the MSOs to sell more content and services. This would break the hardware oligopoly. Also, it would allow the cable companies to get out of the hardware business, because the customers will be able to buy equipment at retail, and the MSOs won't be stuck with an inventory of aging STBs.
Historically, this grew out of an idea from the late 1980s, to make STBs like telephones: you can plug any telephone into any phone jack, and it works. You buy your phones at retail. STBs should be the same way: you should be able to buy your STB at a store, and it should work with any cable equipment.
This is both good and bad for the hadware oligopoly. On the one hand, it breaks their lock on their customer base. On the other hand, it allows them to encroach on the customer base of the few competitors they have. The result is that STB vendors want to keep a lock on the existing customers so they offer premium features that aren't portable (don't run under OCAP) while offering OCAP to satisfy minimal requirements. Being typical firms, they are risk averse, since the legal and economic structure penalizes genuine competition, so the focus is mostly on preserving existing standards while taking baby steps toward meeting new ones. While at each vendor they talk about existing competitors, though, the real threat is from foreign electronics companies: when the standards become open, then which companies dominate the consumer markets?
Everyone is being dragged kicking and screaming into the new regime: content providers are terrified of having their product stolen, the oligopoly sees new competitors just over the hill, the politicians are anxious not to lose some of their biggest bribe givers (a.k.a. contributors and supporters), and consumers are losing their fair use rights in the bargains begin made.
Cable boxes aren't rocket science, but they aren't as simple as cell phones, either. There is a lot happening in a state of the art STB. However, one of the reasons they are as difficult to get right as they are, is that they are based on the secret, internal, proprietary standards of the oligopoly. You can build a missile or computer or a nuclear bomb or a lot of other complicated things from information lying around in books or on the internet, but you can't interoperate with the oligopoly's equipment except through license agreements and NDAs. You can't just hire an average real time systems engineer
We have done this sort of thing for several years, and never found an acceptable broad license and contract provision to cover it. The only things that has worked well is to base the agreements on specifications, saying "implementations of interfaces marked A are ours, implementations of interfaces marked B are yours". Of course, the specification always changes (evolves, matures), so there is a constant review and negotiation process. So you end up saying (in the agreement) something like "the parties will from time to time meet and confer to extend the specification, and set the licensing for new or modified interfaces in the same manner as has been done already in Exhibit 1".
It is a good idea to specify the general principles by which the code will be covered by this license or that, but the explicit division with a list of interfaces (or modules or components) should override the general principles. You can always amend the agreement later. If the relationship has broken down to the extent that you can't amend the agreement, then there is probably no point anyway to amending it. Then, at least what you have done up to that point is covered by the explicit decisions already made. Just don't go too long without a review and decision process. (It's good engineering anyway to review the specifications and agreements periodically, so that the customer gets what he wants and you have a consistent, considered design.)
In the end, if you don't have a good relationship, all the contract language in the world won't necessarily save you from grief.
Keep the code bases separate. There should never be any doubt what you claim belongs in one category or the other. Put a clause in the agreement that has the customer waive rights to protest the decision if he hasn't done so within some specific period of time from having become aware of the way you have classified things. Of course, during the review period you can't release any of the code to the public (or GPL or whatever), in case it turns out your decision was inappropriate, else you will have released your customer's proprietary code which might be a breach of contract or trade secret law.
Various previous posts on this question have included comments about the
.45 by
usefulness of statistics, econometric models, and so on. I don't believe
it's true that "you can make statistics prove anything" or "econometric
models are useless" or other such things. However, I believe that those
tools can be misused -- just as can guns.
(Check out a book by John Allen Paulos, "Once Upon a Number: The Hidden
Mathematical Logic of Stories". It's not a math book, but it says a lot
about how navigate among anecdotes and numbers. Some of the lessons are
real eye-openers.)
Several posters have referred to Lott's studies. His basic methodology
was to compare availability of guns (as defined by how easy it is to get
a concealed carry permit) with crime rates. Of course, there is a
negative correlation, and it is highly logical: here in the wide open
spaces, we have a lot of guns, and we have lower crime rates. The first
question is, why? Statistics can only go so far: they can correlate
wide open spaces with a rural culture, which in turn is associated with
conservative values, which in turn are associated with lower crime -- or
does the lower crime reflect the effects of popular gun ownership caused
by conservative values? In sum, the statistics can show relationships,
but the relationships don't always reflect causality. (Incomes of
preachers can correlate to increased liquor consumption, but the only
connection may be the general level of economic well-being.)
A researcher will attempt to determine the impact of related factors on
the numbers. For example, gun ownership is more common in rural areas,
and crime is lower there. Lott, for example, did comparisons of violent
crime rates in adjacent counties, which are more likely to have similar
demographics, in an attempt to separate the causative factors. For
example, a rural county in Nevada (with permissive carry laws) might be
compared to a neighboring rural county in California (with restrictive
gun laws). In general, it is true that high gun ownership is negatively
correlated with violent crime rates in the United States. (In other
words, more guns are associated with less crime, other factors being as
equal as can be determined.) Where the debate starts (if you leave the
zealots out) is more about the causes. After all, a lot of obviously
significant variables, such as cultural ethics, simply aren't easily
quantified, and can't be factored out. All we have are "indirect"
indicators such as race or income.
It is of little value to compare Switzerland with the United States,
or rural areas with city areas, because there are too many different
factors to isolate, when those other factors are far more significant
than gun ownership. Culture, religion, education, income levels, drug
use, and other variables (including different mechanisms for the
acquisition of crime statistics) together overshadow the measurable
impact of gun ownership.
One conclusion is that gun ownership, per se, is not as highly related
to violent crime as are other factors. In other words, it doesn't matter
nearly so much as religion or education or race. Taking this one step
further, since a preponderance of the statistics assign a negative
correlation to guns and violent crime, an appropriate policy requires
that we must either (a) allow more guns in an attempt to reduce crime,
or (b) find some factor X which justifies ignoring the first decision.
Here is where the debate mostly breaks down, because any attempt to
find this factor X is based on logic, and it is logic which is more
elusive (if that were possible) than sound research.
I believe the solution lies in looking for deeper factors. My own
conclusion is that deep, personal characteristics are ultimately the
cause of social problems. The various parts of a person's life cannot
be separated from one another without disfunction, and the public and
community life cannot be separated from the inner life. Whether on a
personal level or a community level, fear breeds that which is feared.
Fear of crime breeds crime, fear of terrorism breeds terrorism, etc.
(It could be argued that crime breeds fear of crime, and so on, but my
personal belief is that the mind drives reality, not the other way
around.)
There is a difference between saying, "the first SOB who comes into my
house is going to take a bullet", and knowing that there is a
my monitor to be used if it's needed, and a shotgun by the door. The
first statement is grounded in fear, the second is just doing what
almost everyone else around here does.
(I'm not sure I know anyone that doesn't have a gun. Among my friends
and neighbors, guns outnumber people. When I think about it at all, I
know I'm safer that way. A friend a mile away tells me he'll take out
someone who needs it, from his house, if we call. He's a good shot. His
bullet will make it before the sheriff will. Those who aren't
comfortable living like this, with low crime, can go back to the cities,
with high crime, and take their chances.)
So in the end, the statistics are just that. The book I mentioned at the
beginning contrasts statistics against stories. Stories are about single
incidents, about the particular, while statistics are about large
numbers, about generalizations. I'm a human being. I'm not interested in
being a statistic.
The push for standardization and interoperability started at least ten years ago. In the early '90s, one FCC official described a goal that the cable system might be as interoperable as the phone system. Specifically,
(1) a customer should be able to own his/her cable box (just as you own your telephone); of course, boxes would be sold at the same places other consumer electronic equipment is sold
(2) you should be able to take your cable box with you when you move, and plug it in anywhere in the U.S., and it should work (just as you can do with telephones)
(3) subscribing to content should follow the same model as subscribing to long distance telephone service: getting local service from a cable provider shouldn't require you to buy premium channels only from that same provider
The third idea was obviously terrifying to entrenched interests. It was easy to imagine some national enterprises bundling premium channels at prices that would deprive the cable companies (or phone companies) of much added revenue. In response to other threats and this, lobbyists and PACs spent long and hard. One result was the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996, which not only protected against real competition but also served to reinforce the telecoms industry as a major political force. (Proving once again that we have the best Congress money can buy...)
Along with the prospect of competitive service markets for content, came the "dangers" of competition for internet service. Now the internet services battle takes front page; it is all that most politicians can grasp. The larger technical and political issues of the greater network are too complex or arcane to make the news.
We should not forget the grander vision of competition for all services - not only for content and the internet, but also for connectivity in general.
It is true that the greater network poses problems (technical and otherwise) than those of the phone system. But the problems are tractable. Just as the phone companies once complained that deregulation was an insurmountable difficulty, now the entrenched interests complain of insurmountable technical and business problems blocking the way to real competition. If things are so difficult for them, perhaps they should not be running the show.