It's only as secure as any new encryption method that comes out. WEP was thought to be secure until it was proven not to be. Now, WPA is said to be secure. It may or may not be. You won't know until you're either hacked or someone else is.
Be warned: Turning off SSID broadcasting, enabling MAC filters, or even lowering your AP power levels can result in unexpected behavior.
For instance, my Dlink access point/router has a firmware update that features WPA, but it doesn't work with my Gigabyte w/l card. A few small packets can get through, but large packets are right out of the question. Sometimes there will be windows of a few seconds where I can get traffic through, but they go away in 5 seconds or less.
I switched back to WEP and everything was peachy. I then turned off SSID broadcasting. My w/l cards (all of them) would no longer recognize my active network because they couldn't "see" it. There isn't a way to hard-code or static-set the SSID name, channel, etc into my cards. You'll need to find one with hardware or software that supports connecting to networks that don't have a visible SSID. Basically, one that remembers what channel it was last on.
It's frustrating. Also, if you're paranoid about security, run your traffic through a VPN. It's a pain in the butt to set up, but it should work. Get ready for lots of support calls, too. Calls like "It was working, but I rebooted my machine and now it can't see the network", "the network is slow", "Why does it say the signal quality is low a lot of the time and I'm using the network just fine?"
They don't have any more interference than any other provider. It's the quantity of the "push to talk" requests that come in that are causing a problem. You have to contact the data channel to initiate a call, and you must do the same to initiate a PTT conversation.
With more and more people using it, and more and more "calls" being set up and torn down, the data channels are overloaded, while the bearer channels (established voice channels) are just like any other carrier.
I wonder how many people would retaliate or moderate as troll if someone made a very true comment about the quality of the driving of SUV drivers as compared to their time spent yapping on their cell phones.
No one's retaliating because statements about women driving and yapping about vacuous crap because it happens. There are plenty of women who refuse to talk on their cell phones while they drive, too, which I admire greatly.
I, personally, only answer when it's someone (boss, etc) who wouldn't understand my refusal to use my cell while driving. Even then, I only get the basic information or tell them I'll call them back when I get where I'm going.
Only the usual side effects apply: cancer, tics, siezure, SIDS, chronic headaches, brittle bones, frequent loose bowels.... But my kid will be SMART!!!!!
Some say it creates a market. If people are downloading it off of the internet without paying for it, there's no market being created. Just an audience. The people who produce it do so because a.) they get paid for it, b.) they enjoy it, c.) they're rebelling in the truest sense against opposition.
The prosecution of those who visit child porn websites and pay for the content is a valid response to the market demand driver. That solves point a.
The removal of the product from a freely-traded environment does not remove points b or c. Nothing can aside from brainwashing or a "holocaust" of sorts against people who enjoy child porn.
I agree with you.
I'm against it just as much as the next average Joe, but I know that my being against it and not supporting it monetarily or otherwise will change the minds of those who do enjoy it. I don't desire that kind of control over other people.
How about we include many other options. (c) We keep Tool X legal, but regulate it's uses and take action against individuals who we deem misuse it like we've done with other things in the past. or (d) We keep Tool X legal, but reshape it so it becomes impossible to do illegal things with it while still retaining the benefits of the legal aspects.
--------
In both cases, you're appealing to an audience that thinks it's okay to determine what is right and wrong, and force others to live within the constructs of that value system.
What about the others that don't think your particular set of values is wrong? Do those people get a voice?
I think a lot of times, the people who wish to censor certain things would answer "no" to that question. Essentially, "No, those that disagree with me and my supporters do not get a voice. If they even try to use that voice, we'll suppress it and/or criminalize them and their speech."
It's not that this particular issue is one that's up in the air as far as right and wrong go - children should not be molested or photographed nude, and information about how to make bombs should not be available to angry teenagers with a thirst for revenge.
There's a common ground that has to be reached eventually.
Without these tools, people who want to molest children would continue to do so, and those who want to take pictures of it and distrubute them to others will still do so. The tool doesn't make it happen and it doesn't make it more common. It's only a tool. Same token for bomb-making information. If you remove its presence from one index or tool (freenet, etc), the angry teen will find the information another way, or perhaps attempt to figure it out on their own and create something far more dangerous. Who knows? Who cares.
In society today, too much emphasis is being placed on restricting the freedoms of those who wish to do wrong, instead of removing the motivation for those people to DO wrong.
My proposed solution isn't going to be widely accepted, so I won't bother to post it here unless you're particularly interested in it.
I'm not trying to start a flame war or even a debate with you.
I'm stating, at length, that the problem with censoring content or creating filtering schemes for certain types of information is harmful simply because the people making those decisions are succeptible to corruption or personally-driven goals.
If 150,000 people decide that driving with a cell phone is dangerous and could cause children to be killed, and 250,000 people think that driving with a cell phone is perfectly okay as long as you are careful, you have a simple majority. What happens is that if the panel that makes the decision happens to have 3 people who are against cell phone use while driving (because they were in accidents caused by people who were had cell phones on them) and one person who is for it (whether it be publicly-known or not), you have a PROBLEM. There are almost twice as many people that think cell usage is okay while driving, but now it's illegal because the decision-making body was skewed.
If there were a system where one could completely anonymously "vote" on whether or not certain content should be filtered, that might just work. The problem with certain types of information being subject to such a vote is that, because of societal taboos and prejudgments, the people who would be voting for it to be legal/ok/unrestricted/whatever are afraid to voice their opinion because their identity would be known and they could possibly be persecuted by the "anti" group. There's no way to have your unpopular opinion heard without fearing repercussion.
If you have the ability to control what's on your node, so does someone else. So do a lot of other people. If there are a select few that find a particular idea appealing and want to read about it, but ten times more that find it unappealing, those people that find it unappealing can censor it so that the lesser percentage doesn't have access to it.
Like the previous poster said, child porn and other atrocities will exist with or without freenet. Freenet is about protecting the ability to say something controversial and NOT have it censored by anyone. For that reason, if you can't handle that, you're better off with MUTE. Someone like myself that believes anyone (including crazy Christian fundamentalists) should have the right to say what they want in a public forum, just not to shove it down my throat.
With freenet, the information might be on your node, but it's encoded and encrypted. There's nothing forcing you to go into the data store and decrypt anything to see if it's something you'd like to look at or not; you only find the things you want and look at those.
That being said, I'll repeat that the things that you don't like will exist whether or not you approve and whether or not you have any direct control over it.
This really comes down to the basic debate behind Human rights, censorship, civil liberty, and privacy. The basic debate is whether or not person A, who disagrees with person B, should be allowed to force person B to believe (or at least to not be able to express their own viewpoint) what person A believes.
Christians, right-wing extremists, and certain other groups think yes, you should be able to force everyone to agree with a certain set of values and prosecute or persecute those who fail to comply. Most Democrats, liberals, and logical individuals realize that PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT. Accept it, get over it, move on with your life; name your cliche. If person A disagrees with person B, and person B is on TV talking about their ideas for social reform, person A has every ability to change the channel.
Likewise, on freenet, if person B inserted child porn under a site titled, say "underage sex", and person A pulls up the index and sees that page, the same concept applies.
Person A has four routes to take. First, disagree with the content of the page and attempt to control the thoughts and actions of everyone else by forcing them to make such information unavailable. Second, disagree with the content but simply not look at it and move on to something they DO want to read or see. Third, agree with the rights of people to think freely as they choose, but not look at the content because they find it personally objectionable. Four, agree with the right to make such content available, and look at the content.
Of course there are always those closet cases who see "underage sex" and go to look at the page anyway, then scream bloody murder because they saw a picture of a 16-year-old having sex. YOU OPENED THE PAGE, WHAT ARE YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT?
I digress.
If you are of the opinion that you should have the right to control what others think and see, then go ahead and think that. You won't get much cooperation from individuals with a point of view different from yours.
If you are of the opinion that people should be able to think freely and share their thoughts with like-minded people, then you will be accepted by a greater number of people, because you're not limiting yourself to connections with people only of your particular mindset.
I choose to be open-minded and simply not look at things I find to be offensive.
Instead of taking steps to eliminate the motivations for such attacks (listening to students when they say they're being unfairly persecuted, not invading countries for political or monetary gain, etc) the government and private institutions have chosen the route of "do what we want when we want and ignore all consequences, then make it illegal or difficult for those who suffer to retaliate, and/or make them look like the 'bad guys' when they do."
Really, it's all about who wrongs whom first. This is universal. If you're the first one to wrong someone else, you can make their reaction look unreasonable and sometimes criminal. If you're the one wronged, it's made impossible in this society to right that wrong without going through the proper channels (the proper channels being THROUGH those who decide what is right and wrong [motivated by money and power/greed]; they're never apt to admit they engaged in any wrongdoing). It's impossible to simply state that you did nothing wrong if you're the accused because you weren't the first one to come up with the accusation. If you say you are wrong, you're labelled capitally negligent or hostile. If you state you did nothing wrong, you're labelled "crazy" or untruthful because you're "unwilling to accept the consequences of your actions."
In the case of foreign policy or global issues, no wrongdoing has to occur. All a government must do is insinuate that someone else is doing wrong and everyone (read: those incapable of critical thought) accepts what's said at face-value. Any action or no action at all is viewed as admission of guilt. Attempts by the accused to prevent the inevitable strikes against them are viewed as hostile actions and anyone who questions the motives of the aggressor is immediately labelled an enemy combatant.
Essentially, until we as Humans wise up and realize that we're repeating the same cycles over and over, nothing will change (and things only get progressively worse as the population of the world increases and people become more difficult to classify and organize).
Since it's easier and less work for people to sit back and state that the government is doing its job and taking care of them (or school, etc), nothing will change unless for the worse.
Okay... so they begin doing iris scans. That's great.
Now Mr. John Q. Terrorist gets on the plane and hijacks it, sending 150 people crashing to their death in the sea. HE'S FRIGGIN' DEAD. Who cares what his biometrics are?
Two months later, another terrorist boards a plane and hijacks it. Oh, GOOD. They got his iris scan! The world will be safe!!!
I'm sorry, but I don't know of many suicide terrorists that strike twice.
Oh, and if you want to comment on how this isn't about terrorism and is more about catching known criminals, etc.... again... what does it matter? Their iris scans aren't on file anywhere else... and if they're really a criminal considering travelling overseas or even internationally, I *think* they would have the sense enough to utilize false documents.
I know for a fact that all of the major energy companies outsource most of their engineering and almost all of their information technology project work, yes.
Slashdot Mirror
It's only as secure as any new encryption method that comes out. WEP was thought to be secure until it was proven not to be. Now, WPA is said to be secure. It may or may not be. You won't know until you're either hacked or someone else is.
:)
Be warned: Turning off SSID broadcasting, enabling MAC filters, or even lowering your AP power levels can result in unexpected behavior.
For instance, my Dlink access point/router has a firmware update that features WPA, but it doesn't work with my Gigabyte w/l card. A few small packets can get through, but large packets are right out of the question. Sometimes there will be windows of a few seconds where I can get traffic through, but they go away in 5 seconds or less.
I switched back to WEP and everything was peachy. I then turned off SSID broadcasting. My w/l cards (all of them) would no longer recognize my active network because they couldn't "see" it. There isn't a way to hard-code or static-set the SSID name, channel, etc into my cards. You'll need to find one with hardware or software that supports connecting to networks that don't have a visible SSID. Basically, one that remembers what channel it was last on.
It's frustrating. Also, if you're paranoid about security, run your traffic through a VPN. It's a pain in the butt to set up, but it should work. Get ready for lots of support calls, too. Calls like "It was working, but I rebooted my machine and now it can't see the network", "the network is slow", "Why does it say the signal quality is low a lot of the time and I'm using the network just fine?"
You'll hear lots of that
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Call JS Custom PCs in Cincinnati. Excellent pricing. They'll build or supply parts only (same price either way). Check 'em out.
http://www.jscustompcs.com/
They don't have any more interference than any other provider. It's the quantity of the "push to talk" requests that come in that are causing a problem. You have to contact the data channel to initiate a call, and you must do the same to initiate a PTT conversation.
With more and more people using it, and more and more "calls" being set up and torn down, the data channels are overloaded, while the bearer channels (established voice channels) are just like any other carrier.
I wonder how many people would retaliate or moderate as troll if someone made a very true comment about the quality of the driving of SUV drivers as compared to their time spent yapping on their cell phones.
No one's retaliating because statements about women driving and yapping about vacuous crap because it happens. There are plenty of women who refuse to talk on their cell phones while they drive, too, which I admire greatly.
I, personally, only answer when it's someone (boss, etc) who wouldn't understand my refusal to use my cell while driving. Even then, I only get the basic information or tell them I'll call them back when I get where I'm going.
I'm offtopic now, so I'll end this.
Pshhh.
You KNOW how that always turns out.
I'd be surprised if a hearing would even be agreed to unless a ham ponied up $2.9M.
73
*best Grandpa Simpson voice*
:)
Back when I was a boy........
Let's start giving this to all of our kids!
Only the usual side effects apply: cancer, tics, siezure, SIDS, chronic headaches, brittle bones, frequent loose bowels....
But my kid will be SMART!!!!!
I smell a DMCA lawsuit brewing. *mirrors page really quickly*
I'm sure the poster would say "No, but that's different."
*bangs head on desk*
Some say it creates a market. If people are downloading it off of the internet without paying for it, there's no market being created. Just an audience.
The people who produce it do so because a.) they get paid for it, b.) they enjoy it, c.) they're rebelling in the truest sense against opposition.
The prosecution of those who visit child porn websites and pay for the content is a valid response to the market demand driver. That solves point a.
The removal of the product from a freely-traded environment does not remove points b or c. Nothing can aside from brainwashing or a "holocaust" of sorts against people who enjoy child porn.
I agree with you.
I'm against it just as much as the next average Joe, but I know that my being against it and not supporting it monetarily or otherwise will change the minds of those who do enjoy it. I don't desire that kind of control over other people.
How about we include many other options.
(c) We keep Tool X legal, but regulate it's uses and take action against individuals who we deem misuse it like we've done with other things in the past.
or
(d) We keep Tool X legal, but reshape it so it becomes impossible to do illegal things with it while still retaining the benefits of the legal aspects.
--------
In both cases, you're appealing to an audience that thinks it's okay to determine what is right and wrong, and force others to live within the constructs of that value system.
What about the others that don't think your particular set of values is wrong? Do those people get a voice?
I think a lot of times, the people who wish to censor certain things would answer "no" to that question. Essentially, "No, those that disagree with me and my supporters do not get a voice. If they even try to use that voice, we'll suppress it and/or criminalize them and their speech."
It's not that this particular issue is one that's up in the air as far as right and wrong go - children should not be molested or photographed nude, and information about how to make bombs should not be available to angry teenagers with a thirst for revenge.
There's a common ground that has to be reached eventually.
Without these tools, people who want to molest children would continue to do so, and those who want to take pictures of it and distrubute them to others will still do so. The tool doesn't make it happen and it doesn't make it more common. It's only a tool. Same token for bomb-making information. If you remove its presence from one index or tool (freenet, etc), the angry teen will find the information another way, or perhaps attempt to figure it out on their own and create something far more dangerous. Who knows? Who cares.
In society today, too much emphasis is being placed on restricting the freedoms of those who wish to do wrong, instead of removing the motivation for those people to DO wrong.
My proposed solution isn't going to be widely accepted, so I won't bother to post it here unless you're particularly interested in it.
I'm not trying to start a flame war or even a debate with you.
I'm stating, at length, that the problem with censoring content or creating filtering schemes for certain types of information is harmful simply because the people making those decisions are succeptible to corruption or personally-driven goals.
If 150,000 people decide that driving with a cell phone is dangerous and could cause children to be killed, and 250,000 people think that driving with a cell phone is perfectly okay as long as you are careful, you have a simple majority. What happens is that if the panel that makes the decision happens to have 3 people who are against cell phone use while driving (because they were in accidents caused by people who were had cell phones on them) and one person who is for it (whether it be publicly-known or not), you have a PROBLEM. There are almost twice as many people that think cell usage is okay while driving, but now it's illegal because the decision-making body was skewed.
If there were a system where one could completely anonymously "vote" on whether or not certain content should be filtered, that might just work. The problem with certain types of information being subject to such a vote is that, because of societal taboos and prejudgments, the people who would be voting for it to be legal/ok/unrestricted/whatever are afraid to voice their opinion because their identity would be known and they could possibly be persecuted by the "anti" group. There's no way to have your unpopular opinion heard without fearing repercussion.
That's where freenet comes in.
I couldn't have worded that better if I tried.
Many kudos. I'm in complete and total agreement with you on every single point.
It's good to know I'm not alone/not crazy if nothing else.
You're missing the point AGAIN.
If you have the ability to control what's on your node, so does someone else. So do a lot of other people. If there are a select few that find a particular idea appealing and want to read about it, but ten times more that find it unappealing, those people that find it unappealing can censor it so that the lesser percentage doesn't have access to it.
Like the previous poster said, child porn and other atrocities will exist with or without freenet. Freenet is about protecting the ability to say something controversial and NOT have it censored by anyone. For that reason, if you can't handle that, you're better off with MUTE. Someone like myself that believes anyone (including crazy Christian fundamentalists) should have the right to say what they want in a public forum, just not to shove it down my throat.
With freenet, the information might be on your node, but it's encoded and encrypted. There's nothing forcing you to go into the data store and decrypt anything to see if it's something you'd like to look at or not; you only find the things you want and look at those.
That being said, I'll repeat that the things that you don't like will exist whether or not you approve and whether or not you have any direct control over it.
This really comes down to the basic debate behind Human rights, censorship, civil liberty, and privacy. The basic debate is whether or not person A, who disagrees with person B, should be allowed to force person B to believe (or at least to not be able to express their own viewpoint) what person A believes.
Christians, right-wing extremists, and certain other groups think yes, you should be able to force everyone to agree with a certain set of values and prosecute or persecute those who fail to comply.
Most Democrats, liberals, and logical individuals realize that PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT. Accept it, get over it, move on with your life; name your cliche. If person A disagrees with person B, and person B is on TV talking about their ideas for social reform, person A has every ability to change the channel.
Likewise, on freenet, if person B inserted child porn under a site titled, say "underage sex", and person A pulls up the index and sees that page, the same concept applies.
Person A has four routes to take. First, disagree with the content of the page and attempt to control the thoughts and actions of everyone else by forcing them to make such information unavailable. Second, disagree with the content but simply not look at it and move on to something they DO want to read or see. Third, agree with the rights of people to think freely as they choose, but not look at the content because they find it personally objectionable. Four, agree with the right to make such content available, and look at the content.
Of course there are always those closet cases who see "underage sex" and go to look at the page anyway, then scream bloody murder because they saw a picture of a 16-year-old having sex. YOU OPENED THE PAGE, WHAT ARE YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT?
I digress.
If you are of the opinion that you should have the right to control what others think and see, then go ahead and think that. You won't get much cooperation from individuals with a point of view different from yours.
If you are of the opinion that people should be able to think freely and share their thoughts with like-minded people, then you will be accepted by a greater number of people, because you're not limiting yourself to connections with people only of your particular mindset.
I choose to be open-minded and simply not look at things I find to be offensive.
but couldn't 3-2-1 say.... Open Source X-Copy and then we could all distribute it legally?
Not anymore. That's what the injunction prevents. They can't do crap with it now. They could have a day before the conclusion of the case.
Who would the MPAA have to sue then?
Any entity that distributes it or makes it available. SourceForge, etc.
Instead of taking steps to eliminate the motivations for such attacks (listening to students when they say they're being unfairly persecuted, not invading countries for political or monetary gain, etc) the government and private institutions have chosen the route of "do what we want when we want and ignore all consequences, then make it illegal or difficult for those who suffer to retaliate, and/or make them look like the 'bad guys' when they do."
Really, it's all about who wrongs whom first. This is universal. If you're the first one to wrong someone else, you can make their reaction look unreasonable and sometimes criminal. If you're the one wronged, it's made impossible in this society to right that wrong without going through the proper channels (the proper channels being THROUGH those who decide what is right and wrong [motivated by money and power/greed]; they're never apt to admit they engaged in any wrongdoing). It's impossible to simply state that you did nothing wrong if you're the accused because you weren't the first one to come up with the accusation. If you say you are wrong, you're labelled capitally negligent or hostile. If you state you did nothing wrong, you're labelled "crazy" or untruthful because you're "unwilling to accept the consequences of your actions."
In the case of foreign policy or global issues, no wrongdoing has to occur. All a government must do is insinuate that someone else is doing wrong and everyone (read: those incapable of critical thought) accepts what's said at face-value. Any action or no action at all is viewed as admission of guilt. Attempts by the accused to prevent the inevitable strikes against them are viewed as hostile actions and anyone who questions the motives of the aggressor is immediately labelled an enemy combatant.
Essentially, until we as Humans wise up and realize that we're repeating the same cycles over and over, nothing will change (and things only get progressively worse as the population of the world increases and people become more difficult to classify and organize).
Since it's easier and less work for people to sit back and state that the government is doing its job and taking care of them (or school, etc), nothing will change unless for the worse.
Okay... so they begin doing iris scans. That's great.
Now Mr. John Q. Terrorist gets on the plane and hijacks it, sending 150 people crashing to their death in the sea. HE'S FRIGGIN' DEAD. Who cares what his biometrics are?
Two months later, another terrorist boards a plane and hijacks it. Oh, GOOD. They got his iris scan! The world will be safe!!!
I'm sorry, but I don't know of many suicide terrorists that strike twice.
Oh, and if you want to comment on how this isn't about terrorism and is more about catching known criminals, etc.... again... what does it matter? Their iris scans aren't on file anywhere else... and if they're really a criminal considering travelling overseas or even internationally, I *think* they would have the sense enough to utilize false documents.
There are other ways of travelling.
I fail to see what this will solve or even help.
Nothing like two instances of gmake -j5 to give your memory and CPU a nice workout. :)
I know for a fact that all of the major energy companies outsource most of their engineering and almost all of their information technology project work, yes.
... when you outsource to the lowest bidder?
I've said enough.
Actually, it's a rather tasty beverage. It even has calcium for BIGGER, STRONG BONES.
They will not stop until every last penis has been mightied!!!
I've got something I'd like to put in their mouths.
HA!
Tell that to the recruiter that comes into the computer store I work and and asks for free computers, network drops, and space to run America's Army.
He wants all of this to attract more kids to the Army, and has directly said so. He also says he is 'under orders from above.'
I believe him.
I think that should have been modded insightful... Excellent analogy ;)