I think we have to realize that a surveillance society is an inevitable consequence of surveillance capability. If anything, history should show us that when groups of people are granted powers over other groups, they tend to abuse them (see the "Stanford Prison Experiment" for psychological evidence). Thus, any monitoring, surveillance, or other oppressive capabilities, are likely to be realized. As technology removes the barriers to total surveillance, in terms of both the monitoring itself, as well as information processing, I do not see any option rather than for a total surveillance society to emerge.
Call me paranoid, but I still think that the above is a rational assessment given historical evidence.
That's what happens when the judicial system is an adversarial system - the prosecutor feels that the defendant is his enemy, because his record is dependent on the percent of cases he closes with a conviction. At the same time there is little to no penalty for convictions that are later overturned, unless they happen to be VERY high profile cases. I am not saying that another system is better, but this problem is certainly inherent in the system.
Other than dramatically increasing the responsibility for false convictions and penalties for malicious persecution, I am not sure that I can come up with any changes that would remedy the problem. People are intrinsically prone to corruption when they are going to benefit from it... and the "blue wall of silence" is just one example of what happens in fraternal orders endowed with power over people's lives.
This just gives even more reason to ban advertisements entirely.
The "let's ban it" attitude seems awfully familiar. Are you a member of the US, UK, or EU parliament by any chance?
Like it or not, but advertising generates (directly and indirectly) the revenue that drives the Internet. When advertisement is passive, and does not attempt to hijack your computer, it is theoretically an win-for-all scenario: the advertisers get their clients, the consumers get their products, and the sites that host the advertisement get their costs and expenses covered.
I am not going to go to the obligatory "robotic overlords" reference, except to note that in human society, a determined and united groups of individuals have caused masses of people to perform actions that contradict their instincts, common sense, or any boundaries and taboos set by their parent societies.
One conclusion one can draw from this study, coupled with historical precedent in human societies, is that animals come evolutionary pre-programmed to join groups and be subjugated by the rules of said groups, despite better (or alternate) judgment.
Well at least if we sell our votes directly, the special interests would vie for our attention.
As it stands now, the voters have largely been sidelined, and to pursue their interests companies only have to buy the attention of a few politicians, which makes bribery a prudent and cheap business option. For instance, RIAA campaign donations of $2000-5000 seem to be sufficient to have their way. If they needed to buy the unconditional support of the general population, it wouldn't be nearly as inexpensive.
Another concern is the current ban on re-processing in the U.S.
This leads to an increased amount of medium-half-life waste (not to mention waste of energy), which would be converted to much more radioactive short half-life waste by the re-processing. Such waste is more hazardous, but its disposal is less challenging because the necessary term of safe storage is greatly reduced.
I really don't see the big deal. We're ALREADY a nuclear power, and I sincerely doubt that our energy companies are going to be selling plutonium to the highest bidder.
All of the Call Of Duty games feature a familiar type of gameplay... but the fact is that the creators of the games have gotten this down to a science... and have repeatedly(!) created a very immersive gameplay experience. Because every level and game are slightly different, and have their own perks, COD has not devolved into a mindless rehash, but has rather brought an opportunity to purchase a title that has a good chance of being as enjoyable as the last, with a non-existent learning curve.
Are they being original with every iteration? Certainly not. But they've provided enough of a variety of environments, stories, and settings, that COD is still enjoyable, years after the first one revolutionized the WWII FPS arena.
Given the number of flash-based ads and overlays on this site, it's safe to assume that if Google can come up with a mobile platform that is capable of handling the page with TFA, they're geniuses.
It's pretty funny that they're using this particular excuse to persecute political opposition. So I guess that's what how far they've come in the last 50 years - from malicious prosecution under the guise of national security, to malicious prosecution under the guise of protection against piracy.
Because the legal system no longer supports their efforts to force an old and decayed business model upon their "customers", the RIAA has turned to a much more partial audience - the legislature.
Their recent attempts to buy legislation include:
- Criminalization of unauthorized file sharing - Transferring the costs and burdens of initiating lawsuits to the Justice Department - Denying Federal Financial Aid to the universities and colleges that do not persecute file sharing themselves.
Whether or not these efforts will succeed remains to be seen, but what is clear is that they are getting desperate. Why they do not pursue alternative revenue-generating options and alter their business model to suit the times is a great mystery to me. At this point, it appears as if they are not meeting their corporate charter, which requires that they do what is in the interest of their stockholders.
Like most premature and inappropriate applications of Occam's Razor, this one fails the Thought For Seven Seconds test.
Go up the tree to my original comment which stated precisely the same thing as you just did. I was merely responding to the person who insisted that they're caching ALL the traffic.
Not enough. <br><br> It's a reasonable assumption that Google probably has as much storage as anyone... and even they have trouble caching the [i]static[/i] internet. You'd need orders of magnitude more storage to cache traffic... and I sincerely doubt that the NSA has the technical capability to do that... not to mention money and facilities... not to mention keeping these gigantic data centers secret. <br><br> Just like many other conspiracy theories, this one fails the Occam's Razor test.
While I doubt that they "save" all the traffic, it is entirely possible, that transmitted data is scanned for certain key words and the flagged packets are then investigated further. I think it isn't unreasonable to suspect that the ENTIRE web traffic moving in and out of the computers of some AT&T clients is recorded.
Given this data, it is entirely clear that there is no reason to believe that any non-encrypted data is not going to be monitored, recorded, and traced.
While we must try to abort this particular endeavor through the civil process, it is rather clear to me that it's likely to be a futile effort. The way I see it, as the technological capability for total surveillance draws closer, the government and commercial entities will not be far behind.
It's not about what goes in, but what comes out. And if you grease enough party officials, the Great Firewall of China will turn out to have a lot of trap doors.
Ever since I got my Samsung i607 (Blackjack), I've used Google search through the internet maybe 2-3 times per day minimum. With 3G, or even EDGE, it's reasonably fast... and very helpful in a lot of various circumstances.
If Google can streamline the internet experience, as well as create a Linux-based platform where I could sync my PIM functions with Google services and Thunderbird/Evolution via the internet, with little difficulty, I'd jump on it in a second, and so would thousands of other people. Tens of thousands more would follow because they'd want the latest gadget.
I think that it's even more insidious than what you describe. It's not even being Middle Eastern that attracts the attention of authorities in this matter, but rather what food you purchase.
This isn't even targeted ethnic discrimination, but rather a blatant foray into the realm of persecuting any deviation from the "american norm". To me, this says: "What, you don't purchase apple pies, soda, and hamburger? Instead you buy pita, chickpeas, and lamb? You're not like us... thus you are an enemy"
This is not just ethnic profiling run amock, but rather the beginnings of persecuting any differences from the average. The logical continuation of this policy would be to data mine television watching habits, and blacklist those who do not watch reality TV... or better yet, flag anyone whose TV is turned on for less than 2 hours per day.
There is really no POLITE way of answering beyond what I already said. Once you show me 100 million gun-related crimes, I'll take you seriously. Until then, you're just trolling.
Agreed... I still haven't found an onboard adapter better than my Live 5.1.
You mean like every single board that has audio based on the Via chipset that integrates the Envy24HT chip?
Live 5.1 is sonically one of the worst sound cards ever made. My 8-year-old Vortex2 from Aureal, is MUCH better... and the $20 Chaintech AV-710 absolutely blows it away.
As soon as a science has military application it gets billions poured into it. Even if there are beneficial offshoots to the research that follows the repercussions are usually awful. Think atom bombs and biological weapons.
You have a twisted view of the world, my friend.
I think a far more rational way of interpreting what happens is that the offshoots are awful (atom bombs, biological weapons), while the repercussions are beneficial (infectious disease research, nuclear power). Far more people are living longer, and better lives because of military-driven advancements in science, then the number of people that have been harmed or killed by the inventions that follow.
IANAL, but I don't think you can sue "suspects". You need to identify the person or entity you're suing. If you could sue suspects, the RIAA could just sue every college student.
Slashdot Mirror
I think we have to realize that a surveillance society is an inevitable consequence of surveillance capability. If anything, history should show us that when groups of people are granted powers over other groups, they tend to abuse them (see the "Stanford Prison Experiment" for psychological evidence). Thus, any monitoring, surveillance, or other oppressive capabilities, are likely to be realized. As technology removes the barriers to total surveillance, in terms of both the monitoring itself, as well as information processing, I do not see any option rather than for a total surveillance society to emerge.
Call me paranoid, but I still think that the above is a rational assessment given historical evidence.
That's what happens when the judicial system is an adversarial system - the prosecutor feels that the defendant is his enemy, because his record is dependent on the percent of cases he closes with a conviction. At the same time there is little to no penalty for convictions that are later overturned, unless they happen to be VERY high profile cases. I am not saying that another system is better, but this problem is certainly inherent in the system.
Other than dramatically increasing the responsibility for false convictions and penalties for malicious persecution, I am not sure that I can come up with any changes that would remedy the problem. People are intrinsically prone to corruption when they are going to benefit from it... and the "blue wall of silence" is just one example of what happens in fraternal orders endowed with power over people's lives.
The "let's ban it" attitude seems awfully familiar. Are you a member of the US, UK, or EU parliament by any chance?
Like it or not, but advertising generates (directly and indirectly) the revenue that drives the Internet. When advertisement is passive, and does not attempt to hijack your computer, it is theoretically an win-for-all scenario: the advertisers get their clients, the consumers get their products, and the sites that host the advertisement get their costs and expenses covered.
I am not going to go to the obligatory "robotic overlords" reference, except to note that in human society, a determined and united groups of individuals have caused masses of people to perform actions that contradict their instincts, common sense, or any boundaries and taboos set by their parent societies.
One conclusion one can draw from this study, coupled with historical precedent in human societies, is that animals come evolutionary pre-programmed to join groups and be subjugated by the rules of said groups, despite better (or alternate) judgment.
Well at least if we sell our votes directly, the special interests would vie for our attention.
As it stands now, the voters have largely been sidelined, and to pursue their interests companies only have to buy the attention of a few politicians, which makes bribery a prudent and cheap business option. For instance, RIAA campaign donations of $2000-5000 seem to be sufficient to have their way. If they needed to buy the unconditional support of the general population, it wouldn't be nearly as inexpensive.
Another concern is the current ban on re-processing in the U.S.
This leads to an increased amount of medium-half-life waste (not to mention waste of energy), which would be converted to much more radioactive short half-life waste by the re-processing. Such waste is more hazardous, but its disposal is less challenging because the necessary term of safe storage is greatly reduced.
I really don't see the big deal. We're ALREADY a nuclear power, and I sincerely doubt that our energy companies are going to be selling plutonium to the highest bidder.
Repetition is not ALWAYS a bad thing.
All of the Call Of Duty games feature a familiar type of gameplay... but the fact is that the creators of the games have gotten this down to a science... and have repeatedly(!) created a very immersive gameplay experience. Because every level and game are slightly different, and have their own perks, COD has not devolved into a mindless rehash, but has rather brought an opportunity to purchase a title that has a good chance of being as enjoyable as the last, with a non-existent learning curve.
Are they being original with every iteration? Certainly not. But they've provided enough of a variety of environments, stories, and settings, that COD is still enjoyable, years after the first one revolutionized the WWII FPS arena.
Given the number of flash-based ads and overlays on this site, it's safe to assume that if Google can come up with a mobile platform that is capable of handling the page with TFA, they're geniuses.
It's pretty funny that they're using this particular excuse to persecute political opposition. So I guess that's what how far they've come in the last 50 years - from malicious prosecution under the guise of national security, to malicious prosecution under the guise of protection against piracy.
Well... at least they're not being cliché.
Because the legal system no longer supports their efforts to force an old and decayed business model upon their "customers", the RIAA has turned to a much more partial audience - the legislature.
Their recent attempts to buy legislation include:
- Criminalization of unauthorized file sharing
- Transferring the costs and burdens of initiating lawsuits to the Justice Department
- Denying Federal Financial Aid to the universities and colleges that do not persecute file sharing themselves.
Whether or not these efforts will succeed remains to be seen, but what is clear is that they are getting desperate. Why they do not pursue alternative revenue-generating options and alter their business model to suit the times is a great mystery to me. At this point, it appears as if they are not meeting their corporate charter, which requires that they do what is in the interest of their stockholders.
You forgot the key date:
2008/9 - When it becomes a felony to use any encryption that does not have a back door for the NSA (or RIAA... whichever comes first).
Not enough.
<br><br>
It's a reasonable assumption that Google probably has as much storage as anyone... and even they have trouble caching the [i]static[/i] internet. You'd need orders of magnitude more storage to cache traffic... and I sincerely doubt that the NSA has the technical capability to do that... not to mention money and facilities... not to mention keeping these gigantic data centers secret.
<br><br>
Just like many other conspiracy theories, this one fails the Occam's Razor test.
While I doubt that they "save" all the traffic, it is entirely possible, that transmitted data is scanned for certain key words and the flagged packets are then investigated further. I think it isn't unreasonable to suspect that the ENTIRE web traffic moving in and out of the computers of some AT&T clients is recorded.
Given this data, it is entirely clear that there is no reason to believe that any non-encrypted data is not going to be monitored, recorded, and traced.
While we must try to abort this particular endeavor through the civil process, it is rather clear to me that it's likely to be a futile effort. The way I see it, as the technological capability for total surveillance draws closer, the government and commercial entities will not be far behind.
It's not about what goes in, but what comes out. And if you grease enough party officials, the Great Firewall of China will turn out to have a lot of trap doors.
Ever since I got my Samsung i607 (Blackjack), I've used Google search through the internet maybe 2-3 times per day minimum. With 3G, or even EDGE, it's reasonably fast... and very helpful in a lot of various circumstances.
If Google can streamline the internet experience, as well as create a Linux-based platform where I could sync my PIM functions with Google services and Thunderbird/Evolution via the internet, with little difficulty, I'd jump on it in a second, and so would thousands of other people. Tens of thousands more would follow because they'd want the latest gadget.
I think that it's even more insidious than what you describe. It's not even being Middle Eastern that attracts the attention of authorities in this matter, but rather what food you purchase.
This isn't even targeted ethnic discrimination, but rather a blatant foray into the realm of persecuting any deviation from the "american norm". To me, this says: "What, you don't purchase apple pies, soda, and hamburger? Instead you buy pita, chickpeas, and lamb? You're not like us... thus you are an enemy"
This is not just ethnic profiling run amock, but rather the beginnings of persecuting any differences from the average. The logical continuation of this policy would be to data mine television watching habits, and blacklist those who do not watch reality TV... or better yet, flag anyone whose TV is turned on for less than 2 hours per day.
It's not a bug, it's a feature.
There is really no POLITE way of answering beyond what I already said. Once you show me 100 million gun-related crimes, I'll take you seriously. Until then, you're just trolling.
Really?
There's over 100 million units of firearms in private hands in the USA. If the majority of them were used for crime, there'd be a lot of crime...
You mean like every single board that has audio based on the Via chipset that integrates the Envy24HT chip?
Live 5.1 is sonically one of the worst sound cards ever made. My 8-year-old Vortex2 from Aureal, is MUCH better... and the $20 Chaintech AV-710 absolutely blows it away.
You have a twisted view of the world, my friend.
I think a far more rational way of interpreting what happens is that the offshoots are awful (atom bombs, biological weapons), while the repercussions are beneficial (infectious disease research, nuclear power). Far more people are living longer, and better lives because of military-driven advancements in science, then the number of people that have been harmed or killed by the inventions that follow.
IANAL, but I don't think you can sue "suspects". You need to identify the person or entity you're suing. If you could sue suspects, the RIAA could just sue every college student.
I agree...
I was talking about performance, and price/performance ratios... which is the reason for most of what I said...