>"You realize your argument is so obviously wrong it's hard to imagine you don't work for a phone company, right?"
Not only is it not wrong, I do not work for a phone company or any ISP, and have no financial interest in them, whatsoever.
>"There's absolutely no excuse whatsoever you can contrive that should allow them to charge you for a 1080p stream, tell you you're getting a 1080p stream, but then only actually give you a 480p stream"
"Charge" you for a 1080p stream? There is no charge for a 1080p stream. There is a flat charge for X GB of data over a period of time (usually per month) on your device. And there is nothing about lying about the quality of the stream. In my example, I am talking about QOS limiting bandwidth when the pipe is full, which is cause the CLIENT application to drop to a lower resolution to continue the stream without stopping. There is nothing wrong with that. If the client app lies, it is broken, and not the fault of the network operator. If they don't impose any type of throttling or limiting, then all non-video traffic will suffer horribly when the bandwidth is saturated. So perhaps we are talking about two separate things.
>"Get fucked, you evil shareholding shill."
Just wow, and real intelligent conversation, there....
>"They need to upgrade their effin network then. Just like they pledged to do."
I agree. But no matter how much bandwidth is upgraded, people can quickly suck it all away. Now 4K video. Now 8K. Now 3D 8K with surround sound. Etc.
There is always a limit to bandwidth, which if hit, will affect other people on the network. It isn't evil to try and manage congestion to keep things working well. It *is* evil to try and manipulate the traffic for other "agendas".
>No harder to fake than a finger print. Just a bit harder to get the raw data...
That is incorrect on both counts. It is much, much, much, much harder to get the raw data or fake for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is that people don't normally have their palms in contact with things as much as fingers, and don't have them facing outwards towards possible collection devices and can't just leave deep vein patterns lying around for people to collect. And the thermal imaging being done needs to be done close-up because of the only slight difference of temperatures needed to gather the data of the veins under the entire epidermis and perhaps other tissue. Faking this, even if you have the data, is also orders of magnitude more difficult. It isn't just an image, it is all thermal. So you would have to present a "fake" thermal image that is not only correct as a pattern, but correct as a difference between surrounding tissue temperatures.
>There is NO biometric method that cannot be faked.
That is, of course, true. Which is why I said "safer and practical", I didn't say "safe" or "perfectly secure." It does appear to be the "best" option, by far, compared to what is currently used and what is practical to possibly use.... and I have seen it in action and used it myself; I was very impressed.
>"Fake Fingerprints Can Imitate Real Ones In Biometric Systems, Research Shows"
Which is one of MANY reasons why fingerprints should not be used for "real" security- it isn't really secure.
Further, using fingerprints (or worse, DNA) and allowing a third-party to have access to that data is unacceptable. Not only because the government and big business should have no need to indiscriminately track what people are doing all the time but because they should not have fingerprint registration data (which will be horribly abused) .
Stand up for your rights (and the rights of your children and future generations). Once you give this data to the government or big business, it will NEVER be erased or restricted, regardless of claims, policies, or laws- it will go into huge databases and shared between agencies and used however they want for as long as they want. Even worse, with every crime investigation, you will be searched without probable cause. It is a genie that can't be put back into the bottle.
Fingerprints are something you leave all over the place all the time. They are easy to lift, copy, and forge. Easy to fake, easy to use to frame people. Time after time they have been shown to be poor for security and yet very effective at tracking people.
DNA is even worse. Like fingerprints, you leave it all over the place all the time. Samples can be lifted and planted and analyzed. DNA is more than a means to ID, it contains very sensitive information about you.
Iris scan is better than DNS or fingerprints- there is no leaving your iris image all over, and it doesn't say that much about you. But your eyes (iris, not retinal) could be scanned without your permission by any high resolution camera pointed at your face, even your own phone.
There is only one safer and practical biometric I know of right now- that is deep vein palm scan. That registration data cannot be readily abused. It can't be latently collected like DNA, fingerprints, and face recognition can. You have to know you are registering/enrolling when it happens. You don't leave evidence of it all over the place. When you go to use it, you know you are using it every time. And on top of all that, it is accurate, fast, reliable, unchanging, live-sensing, and cheap. If you must participate in a biometric, this is the one you should insist on using.
Now, it might not be suitable for phones, but for anything else that requires real security (and privacy as a major bonus), I think deep vein palm scan is a great idea.
>"All online traffic should be treated equally, and Internet service providers should not discriminate against particular content or applications for competitive advantage purposes or otherwise," the senators wrote.
Wrong. When there are cases of limited bandwidth, like there is on mobile networks, throttling of certain types or classes of network traffic makes perfect sense to prevent ALL customers' traffic from coming to a crawl or experiencing issues. Video is a perfect example of that, if it is done across-the-board or impartially. Video can consume a zillion times more bandwidth than anything else. And when we are talking about phones, it is unlikely that more than maybe and handful of users would even notice throttling that forces a 480P stream instead of 1080P on a 5" display held at a normal viewing distance. Another example would be once you go over your cap/plan data allowance- nobody will offer truly "unlimited" data with no throttling on mobile bandwidth, it would be a recipe for a disastrous user experience for most everyone.
What should be wrong is when the network operator does it to gain advantage over other companies, or to extort them or customers to pay something extra or force them to use certain alternative services owned by that company. But those magic words "or otherwise" in the quote, above, makes it sound like there could be no valid reason to throttle or apply quality of service, ever. There are services that also need to be real-time, like VOIP, compared to other traffic, like ftp, Email, or web downloads.
>"If ads get too pervasive and hard to block people could just disable JavaScript completely."
Which breaks 90+% of all websites. This isn't 1990 or even 2000. Sure, you can spend countless hours trying to use something like Noscript to select which domains, and which portions, and which scripts, and where, and update them constantly as things change and every time you encounter a new site, and constantly troubleshoot what is breaking what. But the overwhelming majority of people have neither the technical skills to do that, nor the time or patience.
>"If advertisers really want me to see ads, the simple solution is to stop being assholes"
But the reality is, that will never happen. They will never stop using:
1) Animation of any type (scroll, change, fade, flip, whatever) 2) Video of any type 3) Sound 4) Pop-overs, pop-unders, mouse-overs, and overlays 5) HUGE portions of the screen
The genie is not going back into the bottle. Had they never done the above, I would never have had that much motivation to block them. And that is even before considering the security, cpu, memory, bandwidth, speed, battery, tracking/privacy, and all the many other issues with ads.
>" don't know why ad blockers don't then just implement the obvious: Load the ad. Load the javascript. Just turn all the pixels that you display for those ads to white, and all the sound to zero volume. [...]What are the obvious flaws to this design that I am missing?"
1) Because that still causes the page to load very, very slowly. Try it- the speed difference is almost unbelievable on many sites. Many sites that load and render in 3 seconds suddenly take 6, 10 or even more seconds.
2) Because it doesn't help prevent tracking and spying.
3) Because it doesn't reduce bandwidth/date usage.
4) Because it doesn't reduce memory, CPU, and power/battery usage.
It is bad enough to have a surveillance state. I understand the need for security cameras, general traffic cameras, and even SOME surveillance cameras. But I personally draw the line at *concealed* cameras [and microphones]. I don't think they have any place in a free society... public or private, government or business. Government wants one installed? Get probable cause, get a time-limited warrant, they must be temporary and have a clear, present, and provable objective.
>"As compared to what? Everything you describe, sans the "allow people [...] to download", already happens today. "
As compared to 50 years ago, like I said in my original posting. 50, 100, 150, 200 years ago, we didn't have the types of dangers about "public information" because the tools were not there to abuse them like there are with computers and the internet. There were built-in barriers that limited the availability, usefulness, and impact of the data.
>"Your house and how much you paid for it, and of course, who you are, were public then, and well before too. I think even printed it in newspapers. "
Indeed. But in the example of the paper, it required getting the paper each day, searching it, and copying the information. Then you would have to aggregate it. You couldn't, on a whim, just instantly download every single record for an entire city and relate fields to other databases you might already have. I am not saying some of this information shouldn't be "public", just asking people to think about what barriers might be in place to prevent abuse of the information. In the above example, maybe some of these might apply:
1) Filling out a request form before access. Like a registration. Maybe also requested a reason for the data... and make THAT public, too. 2) Removing any mass download, allowing just individual queries by address or name. 3) Small transaction fees. 4) Artificial delays in information return or at least in registration. 5) Restricting by IP address to prevent automated scraping. 6) Allowing mass downloads but only if key identifiers are masked (like name or account number). 7) Limiting historical data as opposed to just current data. 8) Not allowing (by law) re-distribution or publication of collected mass data. 9) Notifying the subject of the information when it is accessed and by whom/when/stated purpose.
I have posting about things like this for many years now. Back "in the day", "public" information didn't mean posted, in mass, in real-time or short-time, in a machine-readable format, with a zero barrier of entry, online. No such things existed. This type of thing happens all the time now and is a serious erosion of privacy, made possible by increased data collection, data standardization, computers, and the Internet.
Even just 50 years ago, the concept was one of if someone wanted to obtain such information, they would have to really want/need it and commit themselves to it.... they would have to perhaps get in a vehicle, travel to some records place or courthouse, fill out forms, and wait a long time to then retrieve information that would be in non-machine format (paper with no OCR), and often pay some type of processing and location and duplication fees. All this helped to keep a check on abuse.
There are so many ways this can go wrong. Driving is a public activity, for example. Governments are now starting to track license plate data with cameras. (It is bad enough to collect such information in the first place, but that is a different topic). That information might be publicly available.... but what does it mean if all that data were posted on-line, in short-order, like this? Court records are "public" and we see how that is a problem. Housing records, gun registrations or licensing, business licensing, professional licensing, marriage records, political party affiliation, school registrations; the list goes on and on. Now take all these and store them "forever" and make them easy to get, free, and computer-readable and then allow people and businesses to download them en-mass and start linking everything together. Scary.
So while transparency can often be a good thing for society, we might have to re-examine what it means for information to be "publicly available" like this.
* It is unacceptable that these companies can fake their numbers. - Technical capabilities care not for your emotional response.
Technical capabilities can and should change, then.
* It is unacceptable that there aren't criminal penalties for spam calls. Civic penalties are a total waste of time. - What prison term is appropriate for the 8 seconds I was distracted?
It doesn't have to be prison to be criminal. It can be a fine. Say- $500 plus some small amount (like $1) for every call they made. The point is that I, as a person, am not going to "sue" each individual who breaks laws and regulations to call me. If it depends on people suing, nothing will ever change.
* It is unacceptable that there are any exemptions for "charities" and "political use". - Political robocalls are a First Amendment issue in America.
I disagree. I consider unsolicited commercial/poll/spam phone calls (and text messages) to be a high-priority, in-my-face, invasion of privacy, almost paramount to a type of minor trespass. Phone calls and text messages should be afforded additional protections. I *pay* to have my numbers unlisted, I took time to list on do-no-call; my intent is very clear- I do not want unsolicited calls by people I don't know or didn't explicitly give permission to call me (opt-in). They have the US Mail if they want to contact me.
>"I was responding to the above comment about using what tools we have available. Not saying that we do not need intervention to stop the robocalls. "
Sorry, wasn't jumping on you, in particular. But many have suggested that just having it not ring (and going to voicemail) results in a solution and I was trying to point out to those reading that it might help, but leaves a lot to be desired. As you can tell, I am pretty passionate about the issue:)
On my phone, I am using https://play.google.com/store/... "calls blacklist" with some success. I really wish I could have it challenge unknown callers and then deny even voicemail if they failed to prove they are not spammers (with some simple questions). Alas, Android won't "allow" that (thanks, Google).
>"I have my phone configured to send all calls to voicemail unless they are in my personal contacts."
As I have said many times on this topic, almost HALF of my junk and robocalls leave voicemail. So in half the cases, it is even MORE annoying than answering the call and immediately hanging up without even listening. Voicemail means a long delay. Then another notification. Then you have to launch that app. Then delete the voicemail. (Especially when you have repeat reminders so you don't miss important calls/messages).
>"I no longer get 7 calls a day about student loans (not that I've ever had a student loan)"
And many would have 3 or 4 voicemail alerts and the irritation that goes with dealing with those messages, instead. So while it might help some, it isn't a solution. And it does nothing for land lines, which 99% of businesses and a hell of a lot of homes still have and use. And it means you have to remember to add EVERYONE who legitimately might need to reach you to your contacts, or risk missing something important. I run a system just like you, at least on my cell phone. It helps SOME but also has caused me to miss very important calls, a few being urgent ones in which someone I knew called from a borrowed phone because they lost their or theirs was out of service.
I would much rather the industry fix the problem by wiping out spam calling.
>"Bounce the rest (with no rings) to voicemail immediately. I don't think I've ever had a robocall leave a message."
As I have said many times on this topic, almost HALF of my junk and robocalls leave voicemail. So in half the cases, it is even MORE annoying than answering the call and immediately hanging up without even listening. Voicemail means a long delay. Then another notification. Then you have to launch that app. Then delete the voicemail. (Especially when you have repeat reminders so you don't miss important calls/messages).
So while it might help some, it isn't a solution. And it does nothing for land lines, which 99% of businesses and a hell of a lot of homes still have and use.
* It is unacceptable that any robocalls exist at all. * It is unacceptable that these companies can fake their numbers. * It is unacceptable that there aren't criminal penalties for spam calls. Civic penalties are a total waste of time. * It is unacceptable that the do not call list is ignored. * It is unacceptable that there is no easy way to report abusers. * It is unacceptable that there are any exemptions for "charities" and "political use". * It is unacceptable that even what puny laws do exist are not enforced.
>"When the company announced a list of 20 top contenders in January, it included Washington and Montgomery county, Maryland, which is just north of the city."
So when it is just south of Washington DC, it is "Washington DC", but when it is just north of Washington DC, it is "Maryland"? This is the third article/summary I have seen say the same thing, from different sources.
No over-the-top belittling or cursing. But it still unnecessarily long/repetitive, contains multiple bolds/underlines, belittles a user/team, and is impolite. So while it is an improvement, couldn't he have just said something like:
"The BigBen Interactive driver was merged with the driver enabled. We generally do not enable new drivers by default, especially those that are more obscure. Please refrain from enabling new drivers to help keep the kernel more robust and stable. Thanks!"
I am so tired of these "studies" being posted and people jumping to causation conclusions. Whatever causes Parkinson's MIGHT also be something that increases the chances of appendicitis. That doesn't mean that removal of the appendix affects the chances of getting Parkinson's.
Such studies are very interesting, but prove nothing. They just help point the need for further research.
Already been posted but this "survey" really says absolutely nothing. The only thing that really matters is causality and a correlation doesn't mean there is any causality. It just confirms what common sense would tell anyone: health-conscious people eat more organic food. That doesn't mean organic food *causes* (or contributes) someone to be more healthy. Health-conscious people probably also eat less sugar, saturated fat, carbs, and calories. They probably have a more widely varied diet and consume more fresh vegetables. They probably exercise more often and take supplements. They probably smoke less, drink less alcohol, and get better sleep. They probably have higher income and live in less polluted, cleaner areas and are more educated about healthy lifestyles, monitor their health and have access to more and better healthcare. They even might just be more genetically pre-disposed to be healthier.
Show me a long-term, repeatable, double-blind study, with adequate controls. Then it will mean something.
Slashdot Mirror
>"You realize your argument is so obviously wrong it's hard to imagine you don't work for a phone company, right?"
Not only is it not wrong, I do not work for a phone company or any ISP, and have no financial interest in them, whatsoever.
>"There's absolutely no excuse whatsoever you can contrive that should allow them to charge you for a 1080p stream, tell you you're getting a 1080p stream, but then only actually give you a 480p stream"
"Charge" you for a 1080p stream? There is no charge for a 1080p stream. There is a flat charge for X GB of data over a period of time (usually per month) on your device. And there is nothing about lying about the quality of the stream. In my example, I am talking about QOS limiting bandwidth when the pipe is full, which is cause the CLIENT application to drop to a lower resolution to continue the stream without stopping. There is nothing wrong with that. If the client app lies, it is broken, and not the fault of the network operator. If they don't impose any type of throttling or limiting, then all non-video traffic will suffer horribly when the bandwidth is saturated. So perhaps we are talking about two separate things.
>"Get fucked, you evil shareholding shill."
Just wow, and real intelligent conversation, there....
>"They need to upgrade their effin network then. Just like they pledged to do."
I agree. But no matter how much bandwidth is upgraded, people can quickly suck it all away. Now 4K video. Now 8K. Now 3D 8K with surround sound. Etc.
There is always a limit to bandwidth, which if hit, will affect other people on the network. It isn't evil to try and manage congestion to keep things working well. It *is* evil to try and manipulate the traffic for other "agendas".
>"QoS measures are one thing, but when there's no congestion, no slowdown, and no problem, should it be okay for them to impose arbitrary limits?"
On speed? Probably not.
>No harder to fake than a finger print. Just a bit harder to get the raw data...
That is incorrect on both counts. It is much, much, much, much harder to get the raw data or fake for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is that people don't normally have their palms in contact with things as much as fingers, and don't have them facing outwards towards possible collection devices and can't just leave deep vein patterns lying around for people to collect. And the thermal imaging being done needs to be done close-up because of the only slight difference of temperatures needed to gather the data of the veins under the entire epidermis and perhaps other tissue. Faking this, even if you have the data, is also orders of magnitude more difficult. It isn't just an image, it is all thermal. So you would have to present a "fake" thermal image that is not only correct as a pattern, but correct as a difference between surrounding tissue temperatures.
>There is NO biometric method that cannot be faked.
That is, of course, true. Which is why I said "safer and practical", I didn't say "safe" or "perfectly secure." It does appear to be the "best" option, by far, compared to what is currently used and what is practical to possibly use.... and I have seen it in action and used it myself; I was very impressed.
>"Fake Fingerprints Can Imitate Real Ones In Biometric Systems, Research Shows"
Which is one of MANY reasons why fingerprints should not be used for "real" security- it isn't really secure.
Further, using fingerprints (or worse, DNA) and allowing a third-party to have access to that data is unacceptable. Not only because the government and big business should have no need to indiscriminately track what people are doing all the time but because they should not have fingerprint registration data (which will be horribly abused) .
Stand up for your rights (and the rights of your children and future generations). Once you give this data to the government or big business, it will NEVER be erased or restricted, regardless of claims, policies, or laws- it will go into huge databases and shared between agencies and used however they want for as long as they want. Even worse, with every crime investigation, you will be searched without probable cause. It is a genie that can't be put back into the bottle.
Fingerprints are something you leave all over the place all the time. They are easy to lift, copy, and forge. Easy to fake, easy to use to frame people. Time after time they have been shown to be poor for security and yet very effective at tracking people.
DNA is even worse. Like fingerprints, you leave it all over the place all the time. Samples can be lifted and planted and analyzed. DNA is more than a means to ID, it contains very sensitive information about you.
Iris scan is better than DNS or fingerprints- there is no leaving your iris image all over, and it doesn't say that much about you. But your eyes (iris, not retinal) could be scanned without your permission by any high resolution camera pointed at your face, even your own phone.
There is only one safer and practical biometric I know of right now- that is deep vein palm scan. That registration data cannot be readily abused. It can't be latently collected like DNA, fingerprints, and face recognition can. You have
to know you are registering/enrolling when it happens. You don't leave evidence of it all over the place. When you go to use it, you know you are using it every time. And on top of all that, it is accurate, fast, reliable, unchanging, live-sensing, and cheap. If you must participate in a biometric, this is the one you should insist on using.
Example/info: http://www.m2sys.com/palm-vein... https://www.imprivata.com/why-...
Now, it might not be suitable for phones, but for anything else that requires real security (and privacy as a major bonus), I think deep vein palm scan is a great idea.
>"All online traffic should be treated equally, and Internet service providers should not discriminate against particular content or applications for competitive advantage purposes or otherwise," the senators wrote.
Wrong. When there are cases of limited bandwidth, like there is on mobile networks, throttling of certain types or classes of network traffic makes perfect sense to prevent ALL customers' traffic from coming to a crawl or experiencing issues. Video is a perfect example of that, if it is done across-the-board or impartially. Video can consume a zillion times more bandwidth than anything else. And when we are talking about phones, it is unlikely that more than maybe and handful of users would even notice throttling that forces a 480P stream instead of 1080P on a 5" display held at a normal viewing distance. Another example would be once you go over your cap/plan data allowance- nobody will offer truly "unlimited" data with no throttling on mobile bandwidth, it would be a recipe for a disastrous user experience for most everyone.
What should be wrong is when the network operator does it to gain advantage over other companies, or to extort them or customers to pay something extra or force them to use certain alternative services owned by that company. But those magic words "or otherwise" in the quote, above, makes it sound like there could be no valid reason to throttle or apply quality of service, ever. There are services that also need to be real-time, like VOIP, compared to other traffic, like ftp, Email, or web downloads.
>"If ads get too pervasive and hard to block people could just disable JavaScript completely."
Which breaks 90+% of all websites. This isn't 1990 or even 2000. Sure, you can spend countless hours trying to use something like Noscript to select which domains, and which portions, and which scripts, and where, and update them constantly as things change and every time you encounter a new site, and constantly troubleshoot what is breaking what. But the overwhelming majority of people have neither the technical skills to do that, nor the time or patience.
>"If advertisers really want me to see ads, the simple solution is to stop being assholes"
But the reality is, that will never happen. They will never stop using:
1) Animation of any type (scroll, change, fade, flip, whatever)
2) Video of any type
3) Sound
4) Pop-overs, pop-unders, mouse-overs, and overlays
5) HUGE portions of the screen
The genie is not going back into the bottle. Had they never done the above, I would never have had that much motivation to block them. And that is even before considering the security, cpu, memory, bandwidth, speed, battery, tracking/privacy, and all the many other issues with ads.
>" don't know why ad blockers don't then just implement the obvious: Load the ad. Load the javascript. Just turn all the pixels that you display for those ads to white, and all the sound to zero volume. [...]What are the obvious flaws to this design that I am missing?"
1) Because that still causes the page to load very, very slowly. Try it- the speed difference is almost unbelievable on many sites. Many sites that load and render in 3 seconds suddenly take 6, 10 or even more seconds.
2) Because it doesn't help prevent tracking and spying.
3) Because it doesn't reduce bandwidth/date usage.
4) Because it doesn't reduce memory, CPU, and power/battery usage.
It is bad enough to have a surveillance state. I understand the need for security cameras, general traffic cameras, and even SOME surveillance cameras. But I personally draw the line at *concealed* cameras [and microphones]. I don't think they have any place in a free society... public or private, government or business. Government wants one installed? Get probable cause, get a time-limited warrant, they must be temporary and have a clear, present, and provable objective.
>"As compared to what? Everything you describe, sans the "allow people [...] to download", already happens today. "
As compared to 50 years ago, like I said in my original posting. 50, 100, 150, 200 years ago, we didn't have the types of dangers about "public information" because the tools were not there to abuse them like there are with computers and the internet. There were built-in barriers that limited the availability, usefulness, and impact of the data.
>"Your house and how much you paid for it, and of course, who you are, were public then, and well before too. I think even printed it in newspapers. "
Indeed. But in the example of the paper, it required getting the paper each day, searching it, and copying the information. Then you would have to aggregate it. You couldn't, on a whim, just instantly download every single record for an entire city and relate fields to other databases you might already have. I am not saying some of this information shouldn't be "public", just asking people to think about what barriers might be in place to prevent abuse of the information. In the above example, maybe some of these might apply:
1) Filling out a request form before access. Like a registration. Maybe also requested a reason for the data... and make THAT public, too.
2) Removing any mass download, allowing just individual queries by address or name.
3) Small transaction fees.
4) Artificial delays in information return or at least in registration.
5) Restricting by IP address to prevent automated scraping.
6) Allowing mass downloads but only if key identifiers are masked (like name or account number).
7) Limiting historical data as opposed to just current data.
8) Not allowing (by law) re-distribution or publication of collected mass data.
9) Notifying the subject of the information when it is accessed and by whom/when/stated purpose.
I have posting about things like this for many years now. Back "in the day", "public" information didn't mean posted, in mass, in real-time or short-time, in a machine-readable format, with a zero barrier of entry, online. No such things existed. This type of thing happens all the time now and is a serious erosion of privacy, made possible by increased data collection, data standardization, computers, and the Internet.
Even just 50 years ago, the concept was one of if someone wanted to obtain such information, they would have to really want/need it and commit themselves to it.... they would have to perhaps get in a vehicle, travel to some records place or courthouse, fill out forms, and wait a long time to then retrieve information that would be in non-machine format (paper with no OCR), and often pay some type of processing and location and duplication fees. All this helped to keep a check on abuse.
There are so many ways this can go wrong. Driving is a public activity, for example. Governments are now starting to track license plate data with cameras. (It is bad enough to collect such information in the first place, but that is a different topic). That information might be publicly available.... but what does it mean if all that data were posted on-line, in short-order, like this? Court records are "public" and we see how that is a problem. Housing records, gun registrations or licensing, business licensing, professional licensing, marriage records, political party affiliation, school registrations; the list goes on and on. Now take all these and store them "forever" and make them easy to get, free, and computer-readable and then allow people and businesses to download them en-mass and start linking everything together. Scary.
So while transparency can often be a good thing for society, we might have to re-examine what it means for information to be "publicly available" like this.
* It is unacceptable that these companies can fake their numbers.
- Technical capabilities care not for your emotional response.
Technical capabilities can and should change, then.
* It is unacceptable that there aren't criminal penalties for spam calls. Civic penalties are a total waste of time.
- What prison term is appropriate for the 8 seconds I was distracted?
It doesn't have to be prison to be criminal. It can be a fine. Say- $500 plus some small amount (like $1) for every call they made. The point is that I, as a person, am not going to "sue" each individual who breaks laws and regulations to call me. If it depends on people suing, nothing will ever change.
* It is unacceptable that there are any exemptions for "charities" and "political use".
- Political robocalls are a First Amendment issue in America.
I disagree. I consider unsolicited commercial/poll/spam phone calls (and text messages) to be a high-priority, in-my-face, invasion of privacy, almost paramount to a type of minor trespass. Phone calls and text messages should be afforded additional protections. I *pay* to have my numbers unlisted, I took time to list on do-no-call; my intent is very clear- I do not want unsolicited calls by people I don't know or didn't explicitly give permission to call me (opt-in). They have the US Mail if they want to contact me.
>"I was responding to the above comment about using what tools we have available. Not saying that we do not need intervention to stop the robocalls. "
Sorry, wasn't jumping on you, in particular. But many have suggested that just having it not ring (and going to voicemail) results in a solution and I was trying to point out to those reading that it might help, but leaves a lot to be desired. As you can tell, I am pretty passionate about the issue :)
On my phone, I am using https://play.google.com/store/... "calls blacklist" with some success. I really wish I could have it challenge unknown callers and then deny even voicemail if they failed to prove they are not spammers (with some simple questions). Alas, Android won't "allow" that (thanks, Google).
>"I have my phone configured to send all calls to voicemail unless they are in my personal contacts."
As I have said many times on this topic, almost HALF of my junk and robocalls leave voicemail. So in half the cases, it is even MORE annoying than answering the call and immediately hanging up without even listening. Voicemail means a long delay. Then another notification. Then you have to launch that app. Then delete the voicemail. (Especially when you have repeat reminders so you don't miss important calls/messages).
>"I no longer get 7 calls a day about student loans (not that I've ever had a student loan)"
And many would have 3 or 4 voicemail alerts and the irritation that goes with dealing with those messages, instead. So while it might help some, it isn't a solution. And it does nothing for land lines, which 99% of businesses and a hell of a lot of homes still have and use. And it means you have to remember to add EVERYONE who legitimately might need to reach you to your contacts, or risk missing something important. I run a system just like you, at least on my cell phone. It helps SOME but also has caused me to miss very important calls, a few being urgent ones in which someone I knew called from a borrowed phone because they lost their or theirs was out of service.
I would much rather the industry fix the problem by wiping out spam calling.
>"Bounce the rest (with no rings) to voicemail immediately. I don't think I've ever had a robocall leave a message."
As I have said many times on this topic, almost HALF of my junk and robocalls leave voicemail. So in half the cases, it is even MORE annoying than answering the call and immediately hanging up without even listening. Voicemail means a long delay. Then another notification. Then you have to launch that app. Then delete the voicemail. (Especially when you have repeat reminders so you don't miss important calls/messages).
So while it might help some, it isn't a solution. And it does nothing for land lines, which 99% of businesses and a hell of a lot of homes still have and use.
* It is unacceptable that any robocalls exist at all.
* It is unacceptable that these companies can fake their numbers.
* It is unacceptable that there aren't criminal penalties for spam calls. Civic penalties are a total waste of time.
* It is unacceptable that the do not call list is ignored.
* It is unacceptable that there is no easy way to report abusers.
* It is unacceptable that there are any exemptions for "charities" and "political use".
* It is unacceptable that even what puny laws do exist are not enforced.
There are lots of problems.
>"When the company announced a list of 20 top contenders in January, it included Washington and Montgomery county, Maryland, which is just north of the city."
So when it is just south of Washington DC, it is "Washington DC", but when it is just north of Washington DC, it is "Maryland"? This is the third article/summary I have seen say the same thing, from different sources.
And here it is in reverse, listing Virginia, but not listing Maryland:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/1...
No over-the-top belittling or cursing. But it still unnecessarily long/repetitive, contains multiple bolds/underlines, belittles a user/team, and is impolite. So while it is an improvement, couldn't he have just said something like:
"The BigBen Interactive driver was merged with the driver enabled. We generally do not enable new drivers by default, especially those that are more obscure. Please refrain from enabling new drivers to help keep the kernel more robust and stable. Thanks!"
>"I am so tired of these "opinions" being posted where you scream "Correlation is not causation""
Good thing what you think doesn't matter because you are an anonymous coward.
>"What a great way to compile a list of asshats whose reporting you can safely ignore?"
+1 very good point. Almost like meta modding. Of course, this depends on if Twitter really does want to stop bots...
Yep. Wish there were an "edit" button.
>Correlation is not causation...
+1
I am so tired of these "studies" being posted and people jumping to causation conclusions. Whatever causes Parkinson's MIGHT also be something that increases the chances of appendicitis. That doesn't mean that removal of the appendix affects the chances of getting Parkinson's.
Such studies are very interesting, but prove nothing. They just help point the need for further research.
Already been posted but this "survey" really says absolutely nothing. The only thing that really matters is causality and a correlation doesn't mean there is any causality. It just confirms what common sense would tell anyone: health-conscious people eat more organic food. That doesn't mean organic food *causes* (or contributes) someone to be more healthy. Health-conscious people probably also eat less sugar, saturated fat, carbs, and calories. They probably have a more widely varied diet and consume more fresh vegetables. They probably exercise more often and take supplements. They probably smoke less, drink less alcohol, and get better sleep. They probably have higher income and live in less polluted, cleaner areas and are more educated about healthy lifestyles, monitor their health and have access to more and better healthcare. They even might just be more genetically pre-disposed to be healthier.
Show me a long-term, repeatable, double-blind study, with adequate controls. Then it will mean something.
>"CBS All Access has greenlit"...
and thus almost nobody will see it.