One side of the debate will loudly trumpet that it's impractical to stop copying (the universe was made that way!)
Which, sadly for the "other side", is empirically demonstrable, and as such patently true.
The less ardent members of that tribe will admit that there is no practical way to compensate creators without copyright.
Which is of course patently untrue. There was voluminous art long before copyright and the artists got to eat back then as well. There are all sorts of schemes possible, some new, some old updated for modern technology ones that can couple artists with funds. Copyright fundamentalists simply refuse to acknowledge them because most of them cut out the middle men out of the picture or make it impossible for a manufactured "pop star" to rake in millions for cookie-cutter, assembly-line "art".
They are using the same words, but arguing at cross purposes. I have a feeling that it is an argument that will rage on for quite some time.
Actually there is also a "third" side, which simply points out that art and business have nothing to do with each other and that art does not fit the religious framework of "Free Markets Solve All Problems in the Universe" fundamentalist cult. Art was, is and will be created irrespective of financial motivations or other material considerations, because the drive to create art is an intrinsic (and self-rewarding) state of mind that some people have. The very process gives them pleasure. And therefore there is a sound argument possible that people who produce for money instead are not "artists". The term "kitsch-peddlers" comes to mind.
Invoking Israel to bash the US certainly tells me a lot more about you.
Why don't you just come out and use the old canard of "antisemitism" to describe all those who point out that Israel's activities are immoral (and in the long-term self-destructively insane). Sure, the thing is these days severely deflated, having been so overused and overplayed by various bigoted supremacists over the decades that it now barely gets a raise anymore, but I am sure that if you bray at just-the-right-volume, hyperventilate at just-the-right-speed or foam at the snout in just-the-right-amount, there will be some takers who would be willing to turn off their brains and mindlessly do what you tell them. Although it must hurt that the number of such tools is shrinking rapidly in the US. Must be that dreaded "access to information" thing. Maybe you should work on censoring that access some more or fabricating revisionist histories instead...
Also, the fact that you would even attempt implying this nonsense, tells me (and I am sure a lot of other readers) quite a bit about you.
And that I don't want to get any of what you are on me.
That pleases me immensely because the feeling is mutual.
Capitalism has nothing to do with "society-wide" good.
You should go read some Adam Smith. The old "father of Capitalism" might disagree with you a bit on this one.
The justification for Capitalism is that recognition that each individual has a right to exist for their own sake, not sacrificing themselves to others, nor others to themselves. Instead, dealing with one another voluntarily - through trade.
This is some of Zhinovyevna's "objectivist" bullshit, concocted in one of her fevered delusionary trances. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual justifications of "Capitalism". You keep forgetting that unless a good majority of the members of a society is convinced that their economic or political system does them good (i.e. the very definition of "good for society") then they will not suffer that system for long. And so it is no surprise that "self-made", parasitic greed-monkeys are only tolerated if the other members of the group judge their activities beneficial to them. As soon as it becomes apparent that they are not... the torches, pitchforks... and sometimes guillotines... come out. And so the feudal lords of old all had "defence of the realm" or "divine mission to create order" or some such as their "justification". As soon as they failed at this... here come the peasant (and before that vassal) revolt. The same is true of capitalists, who peddle the satisfaction of their personal greed as a trade-off for "high standard of living" and "gainful employment" for everyone else.
Also, even though it is tiresome to continuously deflect Rand's bullshit, the idea that one can exclusively deal "voluntarily" through "trade" with others is one of those ridiculous fantasies right up there with that of Karl Marx. It only takes one individual who simply walks away from his "trade", not upholding his end of a bargain after the other party already did do their part. Without use of force to coerce him to adhere to the deal, or universal global cooperation, he then singlehandedly manages to break the entire loony system. Needless to say that non abiding by one's deal then becomes the "winning" strategy as far as objective game-theory approach is concerned for all individuals, as long as they are the minority. And then the whole thing implodes. Which is of course only one of the myriad of way in which it can.
The only thing that one can "control" about information is its transmission. That is however insufficient to stop its propagation. For example, it is quite conceivable for two people to make the same discovery completely independently as information does have a specific locality, which I already mentioned. Thus it can be independently obtained even if no transmission occurred between its possessors.
It is not the intellectually challenging to understand the philosophical underpinnings of it, but I am not going to try and lecture you
No, you are not trying to "lecture" me because I am capable of providing utterly devastating to your arguments examples, like the one just above. You instead hope to cow me into agreeing with you by hoping that your implied "superior" knowledge will frighten me away from the argument.
I am greedy for intellectual stimulation, family relationships, an organized household, health and long life, and many other things.
Wrong definition of "greed". The one I am using is the traditional, accumulation of material-possessions and wealth related one, not the "expanded" intellectual pursuits and general happiness one. Although arguments can be made that for some people "happiness" is not possible until they own the entire Universe and everyone in it.
Ask yourself if, in each aspect of your life, you can do with less: money, food, entertainment,.. whatever. If so, why the double standard?
Intellectual dishonesty alert! False dichotomy alert! There is a third choice: "enough". We need just enough food to be comfortable, just enough money to be comfortable etc. There is an upper limit of reasonable expectations of wealth, beyond which mental illness lurks, ultimate form of which being the need to keep accumulating more and more, indefinitely.
What you appear to be saying is that it's pointless stopping 95% of attacks because of the few that will still get through?
No, what I am saying is that the whole idea of a "general purpose" Internet connected home PC goes counter to the notion of security, and so you will not succeed in stopping large scale PC infections until some radically new system is put in place. Which I admit I have no idea as to what it could be as even draconian "solutions" such as the TPM are insufficient. Alternatively, and being more practically feasible, is the possibility that the "home PC" is replaced by more specialized, non-volatile memory based systems that are orders of magnitude more resilient, which is already happening to a degree with the decline of PC gaming in favour of consoles.
Of the billions of internet connected devices, how many machines did conficker, the 'super-botnet' infect? Oh yes, a few tens of millions apparently..
First of all, "conficker" is just one of many thousands of bot-nets presently operating, it is just more "famous" at present then the others. Secondly, see above. Many of the Internet-connected devices are non-volatile memory executable based units such as Internet routers and modems, a huge number is also the game consoles which are close second in being hardened against remote exploitation and user idiocy both.
It is very, very difficult to estimate the total rates of malware infections, but some experts claim that they are as high as 80% of home PCs, despite of proliferation of anti-virus software. The pros also operate many different bots each, as huge homogeneous botnets invite large scale cleanups when detected. And so a large number of smaller independent bot-nets is the optimal configuration, large scale ones being an amateurish aberration, not the norm.
And how did conficker spread? Autorun, social engineering and some zero-day stuff - which was more effective? Who knows, but two of those three have a relatively simple solution.
You are basing your entire diatribe on a scientific data set consisting of a sample of... one, just because it happens to be the latest one that the non-technical press is freaking about. "Conficker" is in fact a relatively low grade assault, as far as these things go. I have no idea why this one, out of many hundreds of very busy bot-nets, is attracting so much unwarranted attention amongst amateurs.
If you can stop 95% of problems you will find it much easier to deal with the other 5%..
Actually, no. Your logic is flawed because this problem is not solvable by fiddling around the edges of the fundamental flaws in the nature of PCs. Just one well executed attack is capable of compromising tens of millions of PCs. And no professional, even in their wildest fantasies, expects to reduce the numbers of expert assailants operating at any given time to even single digits. So unless some truly radical counter-measures are put in place, you will solve nothing other then changing the rate of churn of low grade attacks in favour of large-scale expert ones, or to put it another way, you will remove the amateur competitors, leaving the true nasties on the scene, every one of them as effective as hundreds of script-kiddes each.
The only feasible way to stop this is to get rid of the whole concept of a grandma-operated "general purpose" PC or to lock it down with some frightening from the point of view of our personal liberties technologies like the TPM (which still will leave it open to some vectors of attack). And that is a long way off.
Real 'pros' as you call them don't give a damn about grandma, and her 512k broadband and P133, they care about numbers, a bot net of 2 million is good, a bot net of 50 isn't. Using the ninja approach you fear so much isn't wholesale, it's retail..
Yea because you know, logic and science are "hideous logical contortions" akin to those of people denying science and logic... and it is us who are "fundamentalist"?! Look in the mirror, pal. Your boundless greed has eaten your brain and what is left is rotten completely.
There are actually a lot of ways that a person can retain ownership of something while allowing people to have use of it.... For example, there are all sorts of rental and lease arrangements, and a huge assortment of "rights to use" arrangements whereby use of something is granted under very specific arrangements.
All of these things refer to physical objects, control of which is temporarily transferred in accordance with some contract or agreement. Information cannot be so controlled, loaned or in any other way treated as a private property, simply because it lacks the necessary attributes for it to be so. No amount of wishful thinking, draconian laws or mental contortions of the most greedy kind will change this simple, fundamental fact. One cannot "loan" or "lease" information, as one can a physical object, because information does not have a unique location coupled with unique identity, and one completely loses control over it upon transmission. Any receiver, be it sentient, alive or mechanical can then re-transmit the information, with an arbitrary loss of fidelity, or after any number of arbitrary transforms, which may, or may not be reversible, all without affecting the original sequence in the slightest.
Art is only one small example of this
As I pointed out before, your greed is compelling you to beat your head against some fundamental characteristics of the Universe. If I were a betting man, I would venture a tidy amount on a bet that it will be your head that gives out first, and not the Universe.
No, I mean that they are not examples in the good sense, as the citizens of those places despise the aerial cable rat's nest and are actively lobbying to get rid of it.
What the pictures show is in fact a negative outcome, brought on by allowing too many companies to have a go at laying cables using shared utility posts, instead of underground infrastructure. Most cities in Europe and US would not allow this kind of activity, for a good reason.
I simply wasn't sure of your intent in posting these pictures, and so I wanted to clarify.
Yes capitalism and free markets. They are predicated on voluntary exchanges.
Well, that is indeed the unworkable fundamentalist religious theory of some kind of make-believe "capitalism" that never existed and never will. Incidentally, all of the war-mongering societies we are talking about sung the praises of "capitalism" and called (and are still calling) themselves "capitalist".
If force is used there is neither capitalism nor a free market. What you describe is fascism, mercantilism, or something
Your complaints ring disturbingly similar to those of modern day "communists" who insist that the Soviet Block was not really communist and an aberration of the ideology and that if the "pure" uncorrupted "communism" was used then everything would have turned out peachy...
The sad truth is that "capitalism", even in theory, is based on an attempt to subvert a rather ugly base emotion called "greed" into something capable of doing society-wide good. It's a clever idea, but like all simplistic clever ideas it is full of "gotchas" and "loopholes" and what not. And as soon as the rubber meets the road, these flaws become immediately apparent. Amongst them there are the silly assumption that "force" is only physical, another is the idea that one can somehow enforce human adherence to the tenets of "capitalism" without physical force. The first is easily dispelled by pointing out to historical evidence where clever capitalists trapped whole towns full of people in a perpetual indentured servitude out of which they never could escape and into which new generations were already born indebted. Which incidentally is how feudalism worked within the bounds of some lord's domain, where peasants were "free" to leave as long as they completely paid up their impossible to pay, ever mounting "debts" to their "benefactor". The second fallacy is easily demonstrated by asking a simple question: what happens when a group of the economic "losers" (which always comprise a vast majority of "dog-eat-dog" "free market" societies, by definition, as demonstrated in practise and also by statistical models and computer simulations on the subject) decide that they had enough of this "freedom" to be at the bottom of things and go for their torches and pitchforks.
And then there are the erroneous assumptions about monopoly formation, non-governmental barriers to entry, etc etc etc.
Actually the point of art is to recreate a portion of reality according to the artist's style and intentions.
Err, no. That's only one of the many possible goals of art and a sub-set of what I described. Much of art has nothing whatsoever to do with "portions of reality".
The question of what to do with the art is not up to me or you to decide - if an artist wants to disseminate it, fine. If not, fine.
Again, that is not the point. The point is that after the art has been disseminated, the artist no longer controls it. His only choice in "controlling" his art is really to create and disseminate (which is in agreement with the point of art) or not to disseminate, which might as well be coupled with not bothering to create at all, as it has the same effect.
What various greed monkeys would like however is to make something, "sell" (or disseminate) it and then keep ownership (or full control) of the thing after the fact. The classic "have the cake and eat it too" mentality, not surprisingly motivated by sociopathic, all-devouring greed.
An artwork is the artist's intellectual property and you, nor any sized gang, have the right to seize it from him, nor dictate to what end the artist's efforts must be used.
Except, of course, there is no such thing as "intellectual property". Private property can only be physical, for only physical objects have the necessary attributes (i.e. reside in discrete, non-overlapping locations in the space-time-continuum). Information, which is what greed monkeys usually refer to as "intellectual property", lacks these fundamental attributes. Thus it is quite possible for the number "4" (of which there is only one) to be simultaneously present in minds of a million people, on a million pieces of paper, or in computer memory of a million computers and possibly in some abstract multi-verse where all integer numbers come from all at the same time. Not "copies". There is only one number "4" in existence. And since all information can be represented in numeric form, the same applies to all information, and through it to all non-physical objects of art. Its all rather elementary scientific observation. Also note that the same sequence of integers can have infinite number of interpretations (as there is an infinite number of mathematical transforms of one sequence into another), or mappings, into the physical universe, say, one mapping being a "Britney Spears Crappy Song No. 1" and another that of a instruction sequence for starting a computer-controlled barbecue grill.
And for this simple reason, no possibility of "control" of information (and art) exists after it has been disseminated (i.e. the information transmitted) to multiple entities, each capable of processing and re-transmitting the information at negligible cost.
I don't know what you do for a living, but would you like it if everything you produced were seized and distributed by the local gang in power; that you had no say or right to things you produce?
Seized by "the local gang in power"? Unless by the "gang" you mean the basic, fundamental properties of the Universe... but then it would explain why rabid Ayn Rand worshippers are always thinking that the Universe is out to get them....
Resorting to name-calling indicates that you are resorting to ad-hominem and emotional based attacks
No, after years of arguing with idiots my patience for dealing with stupidity is simply not what it used to be.
The government controls the military and the instigation of wars.
No. People, chief amongst them capitalists, are the ones who comprise and control the government. Government is not some entity that exists on its own, independent of everything else. Government is simply another word for "people in power", who incidenatally are usually influenced and controlled by those who are also very greedy: i.e. capitalists. If governments would not exist, they would be promptly invented by the richest capitalists in order to protect their loot from the "rabble" they so detest.
In a Capitalist society, there is a separation between state and economics, just as there is separation between church and state
Again, you have no clue. Capitalism is an economic system, wholly separate from a political system. That is why Fascist countries were also capitalist countries. You can have feudal-capitalist societies, just like you can have democratic-capitalist ones. The same applies to Communism, which being an economic system can in theory be coupled with democratic governance just as it can with a despotic one. That is why capitalists, being driven by personal greed, are just as likely to start wars as any other kind of fanatic, be it religious or political. Your whining will not change that fact. In the absence of political governance, the capitalists simply hire mercenaries to wage their wars for them, be it to conquer foreign sources of wealth, or as in the case of the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age, domestic, in form of their own disobedient workers. And that is history, not mere unsubstantiated musings of some worthless drug addicted pop "philosopher".
If you are interested in rational dialogue, consider reading the works of the late author Ayn Rand, such as Atlas Shrugged.
Oh no, not another moronic acolyte of the High Priestess Of All Encompassing Greed That Devours The Universe Zinovyevna! She, rational! That's a hoot. If her dope induced, vacuous, voluminous ode to teenage angst is your definition of "rationality", why, then I recommend you play the game Bioshock for a counter-point.
The free market of Capitalism is the only system that leaves each individual free to deal with other individuals voluntarily, i.e., it abolishes force from human relationships. That is why Capitalism
is the only moral system.
Spoken like a true zealot... err... fanatic... err... believer. Capitalism abolishing force?! I would list you all the wars that were instigated by, and fought for profit of the military-industrial complex or some other capitalist entity, but that would probably be a waste of my time on you. So just check out the wholly inexcusable Iraq war and its ~ $1 trillion of expenditures...
Also, the "voluntary" Capitalism is famous for fun things like the "company store" and "company scrip", features which allowed you, your family and your offspring to "voluntarily" die slaving for a capitalist, ever getting more in debt generation after generation, or "voluntarily" die starving.
That is not a freemarket. A freemarket is a "free market".
Actually, there is no such thing as a "free market" outside wet dreams of some ideologues. The theoretical construct simply does not translate onto the real world outside some very narrow scope of human activities (but which is another whole topic). In real life there are natural "barriers to entry" for competitors formed by a whole gamut of factors, and in the case of cable companies and telcos the barriers are simply physical. If cities would allow no-holds-bared competition, every city would end up looking as if it were overrun by a herd of rabid gophers. It is simply not feasible to have 20 companies run wires/fibre/what-not all over the place.
A saner idea, which some cities have implemented, is to place a whole network of city-owned conduits (essentially weather-proof empty pipes) which then can be leased for a nominal fee by anyone who wishes to run a fibre or some other wiring through them to a customer. Probably even more efficient would be for a city to run optical fibre to all households and simply lease that fiber to whatever competing businesses the residents wishes to be connected to. But note that sane solutions in this case are the anathema to "free market" which is incapable of solving this problem within the given urban framework.
You should remember that "free market" is an agenda-riddled ideology, no different then, say, Communism. Some of its tenets work, some of the time, given certain conditions, but it is not an All Encompassing Divine Solution To Everything And Anything as some would have it. One only has to glance at history of places which attempted to implement the "free markets" most aggressively to see how that worked out...
... has proven that anonymity can be used to re-enforce prudery, homophobia, racism, sexism, and strong-hating-the-weak (anti geek/anti emo) type of prejudice.
Err.. but doesn't this only work if the victims are not anonymous, so that attackers can physically gang up on them? If both the attackers and victims can be anonymous, in the worst possible case all you end up with is an anonymous electronic avatar being "destroyed' (as in banned and what not). Isn't this a far better outcome then a mob of, say, homophobe thugs with tire-irons and baseball bats paying someone a "visit"?
The people who control a private forum (the administrators) will be the new authoritarians with the power to manipulate culture and ideas.
As long as creation of other forums, both public and private is easily done (and anonymous if need be) this does not wash. There is a difference between being able to speak freely and being able to speak freely at a particular place, particularly of the place is privately owned. Our society, quite rightfully, does not and should not guarantee that second kind of freedom of speech, as it would lead to really nasty consequences, giving the word "nuisance" a whole new meaning.
Also an abused avatar is easily remedied: one can just create a new one (again only if full anonymity is observed).
Authoritarianism will exist on the Internet even in democratic countries because prejudiced people have learned how to make it "fun"... or at least "funny".
Against which anonymity is a perfect defence. Yes, they can make fun of your avatar, but that as far as they are going to get as they cannot reach in you in real life. And thus they will never know if they are hurting you or if you are sitting there laughing your ass off at them.
We were only the villainous party to the people who wanted to retain a dictatorship filled with fear and death around every corner as applied by that dictatorship and its alliances.
No, you were and are considered villains because the repercussions of unprovoked invasions greatly outweigh any possible gain from stopping what was going on in Iraq, even if all of the exaggerated claims by the paid CIA ex-Iraqi stooges were true, even if your meddling had resulted in less bloodshed in the long term, which it multiplied many, many times instead, and even if you did not switch to this "noble sentiment" of "freedom and democracy" only after all the lies and fabrications about WMDs got exposed. So you can stop with all the dishonesty and lies. No one is buying your crap. Incidentally, you can also stop posting as an AC so that you can down-mod the very posts you are replying to. But then again it goes so well with your overall mindset of a whiny spoiled petulant coward who thinks that rules apply to other, "little", people.
Remember how so many of the iraqi soldiers of the 1991 gulf war just surrendered?
They surrendered because they a) knew they (at that time being invaders) were in the wrong, b) they faced an up-to date army with 1950s equipment, particularly no air-force of any kind, which made them into cattle to be slaughtered even if they run, which the US did gleefully.
The term is nearly exclusively used by the establishment to describe viewpoints which are a threat to that establishment, irrespective of what kind of ideology is presently enshrined as "mainstream". Perhaps you should use a more traditional term, with closely related, if not identical meaning, say: "Heretic". Then there are also "Heathen", "Unbeliever" or for the other end of the spectrum "Counterrevolutionary", "Reactionary" or "Subversive"...
The objective truth is that human culture continuously evolves, leading to a situation where what is "mainstream" for one generation, becomes "fringe" for the next. And vice versa.
Democracy doesn't require the sort of anonymity you're promoting.
As someone already pointed out to you, the simplest and most effective way to destroy democracy is to remove an ability of the voters to vote anonymously. Thus anonymity is essential and fundamental to democracy.
No one else in human history has ever enjoyed or needed it for the sake of democracy.
Wholly untrue. The anonymizing technology which the past generations have used is called "the printing press". One would simply produce thousands if leaflets and nail them to lamp posts in the middle of the night, or cast them from tall buildings onto market-squares and what-not. You should note a very profound relationship here: the very first inclusive (as not comprised exclusively of land owners) democratic government did not become feasible until affordable printing presses appeared. That is because they allowed, for the first time, an effective anonymity coupled with wide reach of the anonymous political messages.
You can't have it both ways, but you and other misguided people will no doubt keep trying, for selfish reasons.
Well, the need of the governed to have their government being accountable to them, and not just a tyranny, was always seen by some, like the "nobility", various other would-be usurers, and apparently you, as "selfish". If only the "selfish" peons would realize their place and act like the inferiors they are then their "egalitarian betters" would not have to "teach them lessons" about how the world works.... no?
The net has the potential to be a near indestructible tool for democracy and free exchange of information if, and only if, full anonymity were possible.
And that is why this aspect of the net is seen as the ultimate danger to authoritarians, and so no effort is to be spared to destroy any attempts at fully anonymous net. And so enter the "save the children" crusaders and witch-hunters, who somehow, strangely, rather then focus on abused children seem to focus on thought crimes which, also incidentally, require wholesale removal of anonymity from the net to "stop"...
Combine this with efforts at whipping up frothing-at-the-snout frenzy and moral panic amongst the general population and the author of the article is right: the net will slowly but surely become the tool of power holders.
Of course there are all sorts of other excuses (like libel etc) why the net has to become non-anonymous, all of them bogus in light of what is being lost versus what is being gained. But then again that is the point, as the "cost" to the ruling elites everywhere is frightening.
Art and music are vital parts of culture, the artists should have credit and benefit of sale
Epic. Fail.
Art is not a "business", ergo there are no "sales" in art. True, there have been attempts to pervert art and turn it into a business or even an assembly-line process (like the "music" industry), but that is usually done by scammers (otherwise known as "distributors", auction houses and "collectors") not by artists. The whole point of art is to disseminate an artistic expression as widely as possible, as that fulfils the intrinsic desire of an artist to create and share his/her state of mind with the audience. Attempts at "selling" art (in addition to being a logical fallacy) go counter to this goal.
Note that none of this has anything to do with providing for artists' welfare, which can (and was before the onset of the scam of "copyrights") be accomplished in myriad other ways.
That hare-brained scheme was cooked up at the Accounts Payable side of things, in hopes that the users won't notice... or can be brow-beaten into accepting it. It backfired.
B) and C) So you think your moral oral capable of dispensing judgement on the USA?
Morality is independent from the person who is dispensing it. Just like mathematics is. Mather Theresa and Charles Manson would be both right if they said that "2 and 2 equals 4", the validity of the arithmetic wholly unaffected by their respective life histories.
So even a convicted murderer could be right when he says that the Iraq war was utterly immoral, him being two days away from the gas chamber himself not changing the validity of the statement one bit. And so your pathetic attempt at deflection by trying to somehow attack the messenger instead of addressing the charge only goes to illustrate your moral bankruptcy.
"Leaders of the free world" - who else on the planet deserves such a title?
No one. There is no such thing. There are only different nations, none any more deserving of "leadership" then any other, each with their own achievements and skeletons in their closets.
You don't become a leader by sitting on the side lines while communism takes over the planet. You don't become a leader by sitting on the side lines as terrorists decide our military goals by sitting on the side lines.
Your whole "leader" (incidentally spelled Führer in German - rings some bells, no?) hubris-driven mentality is at the root of the problem. There are no self-appointed "leader" nations in the world. You can only have "inspiring examples".
In my personal opinion you can feel free to call us either "liberators of the oppressed", "leaders of the free world", or "murderers"...there honestly isn't a difference on this planet.
Moral relativism is such a vile thing. "We gotta be the hyenas of the world because there are other hyenas out there and so if we do not eat more rotting carcasses then they do.... ". By this token everyone should aspire to be the bloodiest, most immoral, unscrupulous thug around as by your "logic" it is the only way to "lead". And then you wonder why are you so reviled when you let the mask drop and your true colours show....
If you are sheltered enough to think that the world revolves around high school debate teams where all conflicts are always resolved by a swift few words and punches are met with detention and parents grounding you...look man the world did not grow up like you or I.
You are an idiot. Sure violence is sometimes justified, even deadly violence. But only when some age-old, plain-as-day, objective moral criteria have been satisfied, like for example a determination of who is the aggressor invader and who the defender. The defender then has all the moral justification to use the deadliest of forces in his/her defence. As the French, Poles and others had in WWII against Nazi Germany. As the US had in WWII in the conflict with Japan.... and as Iraq did in 2003 against the US.
Ok, I will. You just made it clear your motives are not have an intelligent discussion about anything. Your motives are to incite anger and a general distaste for anyone and anything American. I'll count the number of years it takes you to pick up a gun...that is after all the end result you are calling for right? Violence as payment for violence? How great you are to show us the way...how great you are to tell me how horrible of a person I am...
Apples and oranges. If a man goes out and robs, rapes and then murders some woman, it is well within the moral bounds of the society to find him, put him on trial and punish him, while at the same time removing such a dangerous criminal from the society. The US has been behaving like that rapist. This has nothing whatsoever with some arbitrary calls for violence, it has to do with morality and justice. What I am talking about is US offi
...I don't think a single nation on the planet doesn't have blood on its hands.
You seem to miss some basic facts. Let me fill you in: a) Slashdot is a global, not an American site, as such the global opinions, not just mindless "cheering for the team, right or wrong" prevail here, b) while true, a lot (if not all) of nations have "blood on their hands" somewhere in history, the list of those who fabricated pretences and then attacked other nations in order to conquer, loot and dominate them is much, much shorter, c) the list of those who have done all those things while painting themselves as be all and end all of human civilization, the "leaders of the free world", the "liberators of the oppressed" and demanded deference, respect and servitude because of that, while being shown to be essentially a band of thieving Neanderthal brigands is shorter yet, it consist of just one entry: USA.
What you are seeing now is simply repercussions of USAs own activities, coming back home to roost, as the detailed information about them is finally starting to achieve critical mass around the world.
I'd rather just admit I'm an evil murderer to get them to shut up already. Who cares in the bigger picture anyway
Once majority of the population of the planet becomes convinced that you are just a bunch of "evil murderers" the long term consequences of all of this will be far greater for you then just "blah, blah, blah". "Evil murderers" are justifiably put down. I would recommend you reconsider your attitude.
That is why proper security updates and a little common sense (don't download random shit) is much more effective than any automated countermeasure.
Which of course only covers known vulnerabilities that have been patched, usually because someone exploited the hell out of them already....
I think we've found your motivation. If end-users were to wise up, there'd be less demand for a highly paid consultancy to clean up their messes.
Yes, and if the users were to wise up, there would be no need for car mechanics...
The truth is of course that the requirement to "wise up" is directly contradictory to the sales pitches and general cultural understanding the users of any kind of modern technology have... that it is "easy" (Hey, just push this button and presto!) to use and that they do not have to wise up. You (and some of the other posters) are having real hard time coming to terms with the fact that the users thus by definition cannot "wise up". They would rather give up the technology in question then do so.
If you had demanded that an average user of a TV-set in 1950s had to undergo a course in (even most rudimentary) electronics and radio signal propagation theory, there would be no TV networks today. More demands you put on the "user" of some technology, instantly less popular it becomes.
And I have a sufficient level of paranoia.
Which puts you in a small minority of Internet users.
There's a tiny fraction which happens from actual, new, unknown vulnerabilities. But if that was the only attack vector, it'd be a better world.
You are missing the point completely. You would cause massive losses in the PC and other industries related to people abandoning the Internet in droves (if you actually somehow managed to enforce your idea on them, which is in itself an impossibility), all so that you could still get infected by (it only takes very few) zero-day attacks and still end up with piles of spam....
The "we destroyed the village in order to save it" motto of US troops in Vietnam comes to mind.
However, I do not open myself up in any significant way that would allow the rootkit to install itself. Since there are currently softer targets, and since most of these attacks are automated, I've just made it incredibly unprofitable to attack me, unless there's some specific reason to care about me. To date, I have nothing that valuable.
Sigh, and so by making all the other soft targets disappear, you would then come into front lines of attacks (along with these now hardened other targets). And yes, you do have something valuable: your PC as a vector of propagation of malware and scams (not to mention attempts to sniff out your banking info).
I suggested choosing what not to download from the Internet, and understanding that iTunes, Second Life, etc, are not part of the Internet.
Back to "educating" users right off the Internet...
The rest of us really should learn to drive.
Except defending yourself against Internet attacks is orders of magnitude more complex then driving... and when one looks at how people (who are forced to pass exams and be licensed, no less) drive.... it pretty much proves my point.
Have the ISP do it, then. They already have an incentive -- they don't want other ISPs, or corporations, or mailservers, to flag them as a botnet cesspool and blackhole their whole domain. The ISP can then either cut off or send a friendly warning to people who are infected.
They can't because in order to do it they would either have to ban most uses of Internet (P2P, VPNs and what not), perform deep packet inspection (goodby
Slashdot Mirror
Which, sadly for the "other side", is empirically demonstrable, and as such patently true.
Which is of course patently untrue. There was voluminous art long before copyright and the artists got to eat back then as well. There are all sorts of schemes possible, some new, some old updated for modern technology ones that can couple artists with funds. Copyright fundamentalists simply refuse to acknowledge them because most of them cut out the middle men out of the picture or make it impossible for a manufactured "pop star" to rake in millions for cookie-cutter, assembly-line "art".
Actually there is also a "third" side, which simply points out that art and business have nothing to do with each other and that art does not fit the religious framework of "Free Markets Solve All Problems in the Universe" fundamentalist cult. Art was, is and will be created irrespective of financial motivations or other material considerations, because the drive to create art is an intrinsic (and self-rewarding) state of mind that some people have. The very process gives them pleasure. And therefore there is a sound argument possible that people who produce for money instead are not "artists". The term "kitsch-peddlers" comes to mind.
Why don't you just come out and use the old canard of "antisemitism" to describe all those who point out that Israel's activities are immoral (and in the long-term self-destructively insane). Sure, the thing is these days severely deflated, having been so overused and overplayed by various bigoted supremacists over the decades that it now barely gets a raise anymore, but I am sure that if you bray at just-the-right-volume, hyperventilate at just-the-right-speed or foam at the snout in just-the-right-amount, there will be some takers who would be willing to turn off their brains and mindlessly do what you tell them. Although it must hurt that the number of such tools is shrinking rapidly in the US. Must be that dreaded "access to information" thing. Maybe you should work on censoring that access some more or fabricating revisionist histories instead ...
Also, the fact that you would even attempt implying this nonsense, tells me (and I am sure a lot of other readers) quite a bit about you.
That pleases me immensely because the feeling is mutual.
You should go read some Adam Smith. The old "father of Capitalism" might disagree with you a bit on this one.
This is some of Zhinovyevna's "objectivist" bullshit, concocted in one of her fevered delusionary trances. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual justifications of "Capitalism". You keep forgetting that unless a good majority of the members of a society is convinced that their economic or political system does them good (i.e. the very definition of "good for society") then they will not suffer that system for long. And so it is no surprise that "self-made", parasitic greed-monkeys are only tolerated if the other members of the group judge their activities beneficial to them. As soon as it becomes apparent that they are not ... the torches, pitchforks ... and sometimes guillotines ... come out. And so the feudal lords of old all had "defence of the realm" or "divine mission to create order" or some such as their "justification". As soon as they failed at this ... here come the peasant (and before that vassal) revolt. The same is true of capitalists, who peddle the satisfaction of their personal greed as a trade-off for "high standard of living" and "gainful employment" for everyone else.
Also, even though it is tiresome to continuously deflect Rand's bullshit, the idea that one can exclusively deal "voluntarily" through "trade" with others is one of those ridiculous fantasies right up there with that of Karl Marx. It only takes one individual who simply walks away from his "trade", not upholding his end of a bargain after the other party already did do their part. Without use of force to coerce him to adhere to the deal, or universal global cooperation, he then singlehandedly manages to break the entire loony system. Needless to say that non abiding by one's deal then becomes the "winning" strategy as far as objective game-theory approach is concerned for all individuals, as long as they are the minority. And then the whole thing implodes. Which is of course only one of the myriad of way in which it can.
The only thing that one can "control" about information is its transmission. That is however insufficient to stop its propagation. For example, it is quite conceivable for two people to make the same discovery completely independently as information does have a specific locality, which I already mentioned. Thus it can be independently obtained even if no transmission occurred between its possessors.
No, you are not trying to "lecture" me because I am capable of providing utterly devastating to your arguments examples, like the one just above. You instead hope to cow me into agreeing with you by hoping that your implied "superior" knowledge will frighten me away from the argument.
Wrong definition of "greed". The one I am using is the traditional, accumulation of material-possessions and wealth related one, not the "expanded" intellectual pursuits and general happiness one. Although arguments can be made that for some people "happiness" is not possible until they own the entire Universe and everyone in it.
Intellectual dishonesty alert! False dichotomy alert! There is a third choice: "enough". We need just enough food to be comfortable, just enough money to be comfortable etc. There is an upper limit of reasonable expectations of wealth, beyond which mental illness lurks, ultimate form of which being the need to keep accumulating more and more, indefinitely.
No, what I am saying is that the whole idea of a "general purpose" Internet connected home PC goes counter to the notion of security, and so you will not succeed in stopping large scale PC infections until some radically new system is put in place. Which I admit I have no idea as to what it could be as even draconian "solutions" such as the TPM are insufficient. Alternatively, and being more practically feasible, is the possibility that the "home PC" is replaced by more specialized, non-volatile memory based systems that are orders of magnitude more resilient, which is already happening to a degree with the decline of PC gaming in favour of consoles.
First of all, "conficker" is just one of many thousands of bot-nets presently operating, it is just more "famous" at present then the others. Secondly, see above. Many of the Internet-connected devices are non-volatile memory executable based units such as Internet routers and modems, a huge number is also the game consoles which are close second in being hardened against remote exploitation and user idiocy both.
It is very, very difficult to estimate the total rates of malware infections, but some experts claim that they are as high as 80% of home PCs, despite of proliferation of anti-virus software. The pros also operate many different bots each, as huge homogeneous botnets invite large scale cleanups when detected. And so a large number of smaller independent bot-nets is the optimal configuration, large scale ones being an amateurish aberration, not the norm.
You are basing your entire diatribe on a scientific data set consisting of a sample of ... one, just because it happens to be the latest one that the non-technical press is freaking about. "Conficker" is in fact a relatively low grade assault, as far as these things go. I have no idea why this one, out of many hundreds of very busy bot-nets, is attracting so much unwarranted attention amongst amateurs.
Actually, no. Your logic is flawed because this problem is not solvable by fiddling around the edges of the fundamental flaws in the nature of PCs. Just one well executed attack is capable of compromising tens of millions of PCs. And no professional, even in their wildest fantasies, expects to reduce the numbers of expert assailants operating at any given time to even single digits. So unless some truly radical counter-measures are put in place, you will solve nothing other then changing the rate of churn of low grade attacks in favour of large-scale expert ones, or to put it another way, you will remove the amateur competitors, leaving the true nasties on the scene, every one of them as effective as hundreds of script-kiddes each.
The only feasible way to stop this is to get rid of the whole concept of a grandma-operated "general purpose" PC or to lock it down with some frightening from the point of view of our personal liberties technologies like the TPM (which still will leave it open to some vectors of attack). And that is a long way off.
Err, there
Yea because you know, logic and science are "hideous logical contortions" akin to those of people denying science and logic ... and it is us who are "fundamentalist"?! Look in the mirror, pal. Your boundless greed has eaten your brain and what is left is rotten completely.
Such as ...
And may the door ... etc.
All of these things refer to physical objects, control of which is temporarily transferred in accordance with some contract or agreement. Information cannot be so controlled, loaned or in any other way treated as a private property, simply because it lacks the necessary attributes for it to be so. No amount of wishful thinking, draconian laws or mental contortions of the most greedy kind will change this simple, fundamental fact. One cannot "loan" or "lease" information, as one can a physical object, because information does not have a unique location coupled with unique identity, and one completely loses control over it upon transmission. Any receiver, be it sentient, alive or mechanical can then re-transmit the information, with an arbitrary loss of fidelity, or after any number of arbitrary transforms, which may, or may not be reversible, all without affecting the original sequence in the slightest.
As I pointed out before, your greed is compelling you to beat your head against some fundamental characteristics of the Universe. If I were a betting man, I would venture a tidy amount on a bet that it will be your head that gives out first, and not the Universe.
No, I mean that they are not examples in the good sense, as the citizens of those places despise the aerial cable rat's nest and are actively lobbying to get rid of it.
What the pictures show is in fact a negative outcome, brought on by allowing too many companies to have a go at laying cables using shared utility posts, instead of underground infrastructure. Most cities in Europe and US would not allow this kind of activity, for a good reason.
I simply wasn't sure of your intent in posting these pictures, and so I wanted to clarify.
Well, that is indeed the unworkable fundamentalist religious theory of some kind of make-believe "capitalism" that never existed and never will. Incidentally, all of the war-mongering societies we are talking about sung the praises of "capitalism" and called (and are still calling) themselves "capitalist".
Your complaints ring disturbingly similar to those of modern day "communists" who insist that the Soviet Block was not really communist and an aberration of the ideology and that if the "pure" uncorrupted "communism" was used then everything would have turned out peachy ...
The sad truth is that "capitalism", even in theory, is based on an attempt to subvert a rather ugly base emotion called "greed" into something capable of doing society-wide good. It's a clever idea, but like all simplistic clever ideas it is full of "gotchas" and "loopholes" and what not. And as soon as the rubber meets the road, these flaws become immediately apparent. Amongst them there are the silly assumption that "force" is only physical, another is the idea that one can somehow enforce human adherence to the tenets of "capitalism" without physical force. The first is easily dispelled by pointing out to historical evidence where clever capitalists trapped whole towns full of people in a perpetual indentured servitude out of which they never could escape and into which new generations were already born indebted. Which incidentally is how feudalism worked within the bounds of some lord's domain, where peasants were "free" to leave as long as they completely paid up their impossible to pay, ever mounting "debts" to their "benefactor". The second fallacy is easily demonstrated by asking a simple question: what happens when a group of the economic "losers" (which always comprise a vast majority of "dog-eat-dog" "free market" societies, by definition, as demonstrated in practise and also by statistical models and computer simulations on the subject) decide that they had enough of this "freedom" to be at the bottom of things and go for their torches and pitchforks.
And then there are the erroneous assumptions about monopoly formation, non-governmental barriers to entry, etc etc etc.
Just so we are on the same page, those are not positive examples, you know...
Err, no. That's only one of the many possible goals of art and a sub-set of what I described. Much of art has nothing whatsoever to do with "portions of reality".
Again, that is not the point. The point is that after the art has been disseminated, the artist no longer controls it. His only choice in "controlling" his art is really to create and disseminate (which is in agreement with the point of art) or not to disseminate, which might as well be coupled with not bothering to create at all, as it has the same effect.
What various greed monkeys would like however is to make something, "sell" (or disseminate) it and then keep ownership (or full control) of the thing after the fact. The classic "have the cake and eat it too" mentality, not surprisingly motivated by sociopathic, all-devouring greed.
Except, of course, there is no such thing as "intellectual property". Private property can only be physical, for only physical objects have the necessary attributes (i.e. reside in discrete, non-overlapping locations in the space-time-continuum). Information, which is what greed monkeys usually refer to as "intellectual property", lacks these fundamental attributes. Thus it is quite possible for the number "4" (of which there is only one) to be simultaneously present in minds of a million people, on a million pieces of paper, or in computer memory of a million computers and possibly in some abstract multi-verse where all integer numbers come from all at the same time. Not "copies". There is only one number "4" in existence. And since all information can be represented in numeric form, the same applies to all information, and through it to all non-physical objects of art. Its all rather elementary scientific observation. Also note that the same sequence of integers can have infinite number of interpretations (as there is an infinite number of mathematical transforms of one sequence into another), or mappings, into the physical universe, say, one mapping being a "Britney Spears Crappy Song No. 1" and another that of a instruction sequence for starting a computer-controlled barbecue grill.
And for this simple reason, no possibility of "control" of information (and art) exists after it has been disseminated (i.e. the information transmitted) to multiple entities, each capable of processing and re-transmitting the information at negligible cost.
Seized by "the local gang in power"? Unless by the "gang" you mean the basic, fundamental properties of the Universe ... but then it would explain why rabid Ayn Rand worshippers are always thinking that the Universe is out to get them ....
No, after years of arguing with idiots my patience for dealing with stupidity is simply not what it used to be.
No. People, chief amongst them capitalists, are the ones who comprise and control the government. Government is not some entity that exists on its own, independent of everything else. Government is simply another word for "people in power", who incidenatally are usually influenced and controlled by those who are also very greedy: i.e. capitalists. If governments would not exist, they would be promptly invented by the richest capitalists in order to protect their loot from the "rabble" they so detest.
Again, you have no clue. Capitalism is an economic system, wholly separate from a political system. That is why Fascist countries were also capitalist countries. You can have feudal-capitalist societies, just like you can have democratic-capitalist ones. The same applies to Communism, which being an economic system can in theory be coupled with democratic governance just as it can with a despotic one. That is why capitalists, being driven by personal greed, are just as likely to start wars as any other kind of fanatic, be it religious or political. Your whining will not change that fact. In the absence of political governance, the capitalists simply hire mercenaries to wage their wars for them, be it to conquer foreign sources of wealth, or as in the case of the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age, domestic, in form of their own disobedient workers. And that is history, not mere unsubstantiated musings of some worthless drug addicted pop "philosopher".
Oh no, not another moronic acolyte of the High Priestess Of All Encompassing Greed That Devours The Universe Zinovyevna! She, rational! That's a hoot. If her dope induced, vacuous, voluminous ode to teenage angst is your definition of "rationality", why, then I recommend you play the game Bioshock for a counter-point.
Spoken like a true zealot ... err ... fanatic ... err ... believer. Capitalism abolishing force?! I would list you all the wars that were instigated by, and fought for profit of the military-industrial complex or some other capitalist entity, but that would probably be a waste of my time on you. So just check out the wholly inexcusable Iraq war and its ~ $1 trillion of expenditures ...
Also, the "voluntary" Capitalism is famous for fun things like the "company store" and "company scrip", features which allowed you, your family and your offspring to "voluntarily" die slaving for a capitalist, ever getting more in debt generation after generation, or "voluntarily" die starving.
Or in other words: you are a dolt.
Actually, there is no such thing as a "free market" outside wet dreams of some ideologues. The theoretical construct simply does not translate onto the real world outside some very narrow scope of human activities (but which is another whole topic). In real life there are natural "barriers to entry" for competitors formed by a whole gamut of factors, and in the case of cable companies and telcos the barriers are simply physical. If cities would allow no-holds-bared competition, every city would end up looking as if it were overrun by a herd of rabid gophers. It is simply not feasible to have 20 companies run wires/fibre/what-not all over the place.
A saner idea, which some cities have implemented, is to place a whole network of city-owned conduits (essentially weather-proof empty pipes) which then can be leased for a nominal fee by anyone who wishes to run a fibre or some other wiring through them to a customer. Probably even more efficient would be for a city to run optical fibre to all households and simply lease that fiber to whatever competing businesses the residents wishes to be connected to. But note that sane solutions in this case are the anathema to "free market" which is incapable of solving this problem within the given urban framework.
You should remember that "free market" is an agenda-riddled ideology, no different then, say, Communism. Some of its tenets work, some of the time, given certain conditions, but it is not an All Encompassing Divine Solution To Everything And Anything as some would have it. One only has to glance at history of places which attempted to implement the "free markets" most aggressively to see how that worked out...
Err .. but doesn't this only work if the victims are not anonymous, so that attackers can physically gang up on them? If both the attackers and victims can be anonymous, in the worst possible case all you end up with is an anonymous electronic avatar being "destroyed' (as in banned and what not). Isn't this a far better outcome then a mob of, say, homophobe thugs with tire-irons and baseball bats paying someone a "visit"?
As long as creation of other forums, both public and private is easily done (and anonymous if need be) this does not wash. There is a difference between being able to speak freely and being able to speak freely at a particular place, particularly of the place is privately owned. Our society, quite rightfully, does not and should not guarantee that second kind of freedom of speech, as it would lead to really nasty consequences, giving the word "nuisance" a whole new meaning.
Also an abused avatar is easily remedied: one can just create a new one (again only if full anonymity is observed).
Against which anonymity is a perfect defence. Yes, they can make fun of your avatar, but that as far as they are going to get as they cannot reach in you in real life. And thus they will never know if they are hurting you or if you are sitting there laughing your ass off at them.
No, you were and are considered villains because the repercussions of unprovoked invasions greatly outweigh any possible gain from stopping what was going on in Iraq, even if all of the exaggerated claims by the paid CIA ex-Iraqi stooges were true, even if your meddling had resulted in less bloodshed in the long term, which it multiplied many, many times instead, and even if you did not switch to this "noble sentiment" of "freedom and democracy" only after all the lies and fabrications about WMDs got exposed. So you can stop with all the dishonesty and lies. No one is buying your crap. Incidentally, you can also stop posting as an AC so that you can down-mod the very posts you are replying to. But then again it goes so well with your overall mindset of a whiny spoiled petulant coward who thinks that rules apply to other, "little", people.
They surrendered because they a) knew they (at that time being invaders) were in the wrong, b) they faced an up-to date army with 1950s equipment, particularly no air-force of any kind, which made them into cattle to be slaughtered even if they run, which the US did gleefully.
Well, define "fringe viewpoint".
The term is nearly exclusively used by the establishment to describe viewpoints which are a threat to that establishment, irrespective of what kind of ideology is presently enshrined as "mainstream". Perhaps you should use a more traditional term, with closely related, if not identical meaning, say: "Heretic". Then there are also "Heathen", "Unbeliever" or for the other end of the spectrum "Counterrevolutionary", "Reactionary" or "Subversive" ...
The objective truth is that human culture continuously evolves, leading to a situation where what is "mainstream" for one generation, becomes "fringe" for the next. And vice versa.
As someone already pointed out to you, the simplest and most effective way to destroy democracy is to remove an ability of the voters to vote anonymously. Thus anonymity is essential and fundamental to democracy.
Wholly untrue. The anonymizing technology which the past generations have used is called "the printing press". One would simply produce thousands if leaflets and nail them to lamp posts in the middle of the night, or cast them from tall buildings onto market-squares and what-not. You should note a very profound relationship here: the very first inclusive (as not comprised exclusively of land owners) democratic government did not become feasible until affordable printing presses appeared. That is because they allowed, for the first time, an effective anonymity coupled with wide reach of the anonymous political messages.
Well, the need of the governed to have their government being accountable to them, and not just a tyranny, was always seen by some, like the "nobility", various other would-be usurers, and apparently you, as "selfish". If only the "selfish" peons would realize their place and act like the inferiors they are then their "egalitarian betters" would not have to "teach them lessons" about how the world works .... no?
The net has the potential to be a near indestructible tool for democracy and free exchange of information if, and only if, full anonymity were possible.
And that is why this aspect of the net is seen as the ultimate danger to authoritarians, and so no effort is to be spared to destroy any attempts at fully anonymous net. And so enter the "save the children" crusaders and witch-hunters, who somehow, strangely, rather then focus on abused children seem to focus on thought crimes which, also incidentally, require wholesale removal of anonymity from the net to "stop" ...
Combine this with efforts at whipping up frothing-at-the-snout frenzy and moral panic amongst the general population and the author of the article is right: the net will slowly but surely become the tool of power holders.
Of course there are all sorts of other excuses (like libel etc) why the net has to become non-anonymous, all of them bogus in light of what is being lost versus what is being gained. But then again that is the point, as the "cost" to the ruling elites everywhere is frightening.
Epic. Fail.
Art is not a "business", ergo there are no "sales" in art. True, there have been attempts to pervert art and turn it into a business or even an assembly-line process (like the "music" industry), but that is usually done by scammers (otherwise known as "distributors", auction houses and "collectors") not by artists. The whole point of art is to disseminate an artistic expression as widely as possible, as that fulfils the intrinsic desire of an artist to create and share his/her state of mind with the audience. Attempts at "selling" art (in addition to being a logical fallacy) go counter to this goal.
Note that none of this has anything to do with providing for artists' welfare, which can (and was before the onset of the scam of "copyrights") be accomplished in myriad other ways.
That hare-brained scheme was cooked up at the Accounts Payable side of things, in hopes that the users won't notice... or can be brow-beaten into accepting it. It backfired.
Morality is independent from the person who is dispensing it. Just like mathematics is. Mather Theresa and Charles Manson would be both right if they said that "2 and 2 equals 4", the validity of the arithmetic wholly unaffected by their respective life histories.
So even a convicted murderer could be right when he says that the Iraq war was utterly immoral, him being two days away from the gas chamber himself not changing the validity of the statement one bit. And so your pathetic attempt at deflection by trying to somehow attack the messenger instead of addressing the charge only goes to illustrate your moral bankruptcy.
No one. There is no such thing. There are only different nations, none any more deserving of "leadership" then any other, each with their own achievements and skeletons in their closets.
Your whole "leader" (incidentally spelled Führer in German - rings some bells, no?) hubris-driven mentality is at the root of the problem. There are no self-appointed "leader" nations in the world. You can only have "inspiring examples".
Moral relativism is such a vile thing. "We gotta be the hyenas of the world because there are other hyenas out there and so if we do not eat more rotting carcasses then they do .... ". By this token everyone should aspire to be the bloodiest, most immoral, unscrupulous thug around as by your "logic" it is the only way to "lead". And then you wonder why are you so reviled when you let the mask drop and your true colours show ....
You are an idiot. Sure violence is sometimes justified, even deadly violence. But only when some age-old, plain-as-day, objective moral criteria have been satisfied, like for example a determination of who is the aggressor invader and who the defender. The defender then has all the moral justification to use the deadliest of forces in his/her defence. As the French, Poles and others had in WWII against Nazi Germany. As the US had in WWII in the conflict with Japan .... and as Iraq did in 2003 against the US.
Apples and oranges. If a man goes out and robs, rapes and then murders some woman, it is well within the moral bounds of the society to find him, put him on trial and punish him, while at the same time removing such a dangerous criminal from the society. The US has been behaving like that rapist. This has nothing whatsoever with some arbitrary calls for violence, it has to do with morality and justice. What I am talking about is US offi
You seem to miss some basic facts. Let me fill you in: a) Slashdot is a global, not an American site, as such the global opinions, not just mindless "cheering for the team, right or wrong" prevail here, b) while true, a lot (if not all) of nations have "blood on their hands" somewhere in history, the list of those who fabricated pretences and then attacked other nations in order to conquer, loot and dominate them is much, much shorter, c) the list of those who have done all those things while painting themselves as be all and end all of human civilization, the "leaders of the free world", the "liberators of the oppressed" and demanded deference, respect and servitude because of that, while being shown to be essentially a band of thieving Neanderthal brigands is shorter yet, it consist of just one entry: USA.
What you are seeing now is simply repercussions of USAs own activities, coming back home to roost, as the detailed information about them is finally starting to achieve critical mass around the world.
Once majority of the population of the planet becomes convinced that you are just a bunch of "evil murderers" the long term consequences of all of this will be far greater for you then just "blah, blah, blah". "Evil murderers" are justifiably put down. I would recommend you reconsider your attitude.
Which of course only covers known vulnerabilities that have been patched, usually because someone exploited the hell out of them already....
Yes, and if the users were to wise up, there would be no need for car mechanics ...
The truth is of course that the requirement to "wise up" is directly contradictory to the sales pitches and general cultural understanding the users of any kind of modern technology have ... that it is "easy" (Hey, just push this button and presto!) to use and that they do not have to wise up. You (and some of the other posters) are having real hard time coming to terms with the fact that the users thus by definition cannot "wise up". They would rather give up the technology in question then do so.
If you had demanded that an average user of a TV-set in 1950s had to undergo a course in (even most rudimentary) electronics and radio signal propagation theory, there would be no TV networks today. More demands you put on the "user" of some technology, instantly less popular it becomes.
Which puts you in a small minority of Internet users.
You are missing the point completely. You would cause massive losses in the PC and other industries related to people abandoning the Internet in droves (if you actually somehow managed to enforce your idea on them, which is in itself an impossibility), all so that you could still get infected by (it only takes very few) zero-day attacks and still end up with piles of spam....
The "we destroyed the village in order to save it" motto of US troops in Vietnam comes to mind.
Sigh, and so by making all the other soft targets disappear, you would then come into front lines of attacks (along with these now hardened other targets). And yes, you do have something valuable: your PC as a vector of propagation of malware and scams (not to mention attempts to sniff out your banking info).
Back to "educating" users right off the Internet...
Except defending yourself against Internet attacks is orders of magnitude more complex then driving ... and when one looks at how people (who are forced to pass exams and be licensed, no less) drive .... it pretty much proves my point.
They can't because in order to do it they would either have to ban most uses of Internet (P2P, VPNs and what not), perform deep packet inspection (goodby