Yup. Encryption algorithms are very efficient; that's why you can stream data through your ssh connection at the full bandwidth of your link. But very efficient isn't the same thing as free, and when the volume of data being encrypted is large, the power consumption starts to add up. Most of the encryption you do for privacy, as long as you aren't watching kiddie porn over TOR, is peanuts compared to the cost of encrypting a video stream.
"The internet" includes the content-delivery networks, which re-encrypt the DRM'd media for each person who consumes it. Also, be aware that 35 watts times a million users is 35 megawatts. For a billion users, that's 35 gigawatts; more than enough to power a flux capacitor to get Marty McFly back to the future...
If you're going to go there, it's probably worth noting that one really big consumer of CPU cycles online is encryption. This isn't a big deal for regular stuff, but when you're encrypting a 4Gbyte video stream, that's a big deal. IOW, DRM is the next new carbon polluter...
Do you actually know anything about Somalia, or are you just making stuff up? Somali was a libertarian paradise until recently, with mixed results. They recently formed a government; is it to this government that you refer? If so, [citation needed]. I'm curious if you have one—I haven't been able to find out if the "reconstruction efforts" are a good thing or a bad thing.
I'm not disagreeing with your basic point—just puzzled by your use of Somalia as an example.
Also, pump storage projects are a great way to turn excess wind and solar power into baseload—you pump water uphill when you have excess, and let it run downhill through your turbines when you have a shortfall.
Exactly. Currently most houses built in the U.S. are built to energy standards that are wildly inefficient, even though building to a standard eight times as efficient would add minimal cost, and that cost would easily be paid for out of the energy savings. There is a huge pile of housing stock that could be retrofitted to be two to four times more efficient than it is now, for a cost that could be amortized over 20 years at less than the cost of the energy saved at current market value.
We are a wildly inefficient culture, despite being much more efficient than we were 30 years ago. There are still many low-hanging fruit when it comes to conservation. Ironically, the work involved in picking those fruit would be great for the economy and would result in people being more comfortable in their homes (I know—I live in a very energy-efficient home, and in addition to being insanely cheap to heat, it's also much warmer than the place I was living before).
There is simply no downside to investing in this sort of efficiency. So when we hear talk about how we can't generate the power we will need in the future from renewable sources, we can be very sure that the person making that claim is ignoring any possible benefit we might get from future increases in efficiency.
If you find an unlocked door and don't enter, you can't (legitimately) be accused of breaking and entering, nor of merely entering/trespassing. If you come back two days later and check to see if the door is unlocked, and still don't enter, then you haven't committed a new crime.
Cyber crime laws tend to be quite draconian compared to real-world laws, so it's quite possible that he could have been charged under Canada's laws; he certainly could have been charged under the same law Aaron Swartz was charged under.
What that article says is that the prosecutor's interpretation of the law was within the law. That may be so, but is not the point being disputed. The point being disputed is whether the prosecutor's reading of the law, and the vigorousness with which the case was pursued even after JSTOR asked that it be dropped, represents malfeasance, misfeasance, or what we actually would like prosecutors to do.
The point of the petition is that the signatories to it believe that the prosecutor acted so overzealously that her behavior can be described as misfeasance. It is not that there was no legal basis whatsoever for bringing the charges she brought.
Britain went through a similar decline after WWI, and then did some pretty amazing things after (e.g., Bletchley Park). There's no need to despair; indeed, by doing so you make the outcome you claim to see as bad more likely. Of course, despairing is fun from a rhetorical perspective, but just remember that you're going to have to live in that 30+ year from now future unless you die first. You can affect the future, particularly if you start now.
He entered the wiring closet. He didn't break in. MIT has a long history of allowing turists access to the campus. When I was 18 or 19, I used to hang out at 7ai all the time, and even brought a machine in and hooked it up to the network in the machine room so that I could download some stuff from the FSF archive on prep. This remains the norm, from what I've been able to glean. MIT's treatment of Aaron was not the norm. Of course, Aaron pissed them off, so that's not surprising. But going from there to "breaking in" is simply not accurate.
Again, you are not understanding how NATs operate. Every time you enable skype on a computer inside your NAT, you are punching holes in the NAT. Every time you establish a TCP connection through a NAT, you punch a hole in the NAT. Every time you send a UDP packet out through the NAT, you've punched a hole in the NAT.
If this were not so, you literally could not access the Internet from inside a NAT.
However, those of us who are statisticians might notice that there is in fact a correlation between income inequality and poverty. The less income inequality, the less poverty. So if there were a classless society, statistically we'd expect that there would be no poor people in that society, absent strong confounding factors to the contrary.
The only reason I wouldn't live in Finland is that my family is in America and I am not an EU citizen, so it would be a pain for me to live there. Adjusted purchasing power is a meaningless comparison if you don't take into account all the things that their taxes pay for, but that ours do not.
Since the "underprivileged" are the majority here in the U.S., it seems to me that if they think something is a problem, they have more votes than you do, so it's a problem, whether you agree it is or not. Keep letting the problem get worse, and eventually you will get to witness what happens when a society stops caring about the common welfare: either you will be living behind a concrete wall topped with broken glass and hiring bodyguards, or you will be wishing you could.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup. Encryption algorithms are very efficient; that's why you can stream data through your ssh connection at the full bandwidth of your link. But very efficient isn't the same thing as free, and when the volume of data being encrypted is large, the power consumption starts to add up. Most of the encryption you do for privacy, as long as you aren't watching kiddie porn over TOR, is peanuts compared to the cost of encrypting a video stream.
"The internet" includes the content-delivery networks, which re-encrypt the DRM'd media for each person who consumes it. Also, be aware that 35 watts times a million users is 35 megawatts. For a billion users, that's 35 gigawatts; more than enough to power a flux capacitor to get Marty McFly back to the future...
If you're going to go there, it's probably worth noting that one really big consumer of CPU cycles online is encryption. This isn't a big deal for regular stuff, but when you're encrypting a 4Gbyte video stream, that's a big deal. IOW, DRM is the next new carbon polluter...
Do you actually know anything about Somalia, or are you just making stuff up? Somali was a libertarian paradise until recently, with mixed results. They recently formed a government; is it to this government that you refer? If so, [citation needed]. I'm curious if you have one—I haven't been able to find out if the "reconstruction efforts" are a good thing or a bad thing.
I'm not disagreeing with your basic point—just puzzled by your use of Somalia as an example.
Iceland.
Also, pump storage projects are a great way to turn excess wind and solar power into baseload—you pump water uphill when you have excess, and let it run downhill through your turbines when you have a shortfall.
Dude, we already know how to burn rocks. What do you think coal is?
Exactly. Currently most houses built in the U.S. are built to energy standards that are wildly inefficient, even though building to a standard eight times as efficient would add minimal cost, and that cost would easily be paid for out of the energy savings. There is a huge pile of housing stock that could be retrofitted to be two to four times more efficient than it is now, for a cost that could be amortized over 20 years at less than the cost of the energy saved at current market value.
We are a wildly inefficient culture, despite being much more efficient than we were 30 years ago. There are still many low-hanging fruit when it comes to conservation. Ironically, the work involved in picking those fruit would be great for the economy and would result in people being more comfortable in their homes (I know—I live in a very energy-efficient home, and in addition to being insanely cheap to heat, it's also much warmer than the place I was living before).
There is simply no downside to investing in this sort of efficiency. So when we hear talk about how we can't generate the power we will need in the future from renewable sources, we can be very sure that the person making that claim is ignoring any possible benefit we might get from future increases in efficiency.
It's good to know that the slashdottir are looking out for us.
Mod parent up. Nail hit on head.
(that is, were he in the U.S. and not in Canada, of course).
If you find an unlocked door and don't enter, you can't (legitimately) be accused of breaking and entering, nor of merely entering/trespassing. If you come back two days later and check to see if the door is unlocked, and still don't enter, then you haven't committed a new crime.
Cyber crime laws tend to be quite draconian compared to real-world laws, so it's quite possible that he could have been charged under Canada's laws; he certainly could have been charged under the same law Aaron Swartz was charged under.
Is this true under Quebec law?
Perfect analogy. Mod parent up please.
I'm having trouble seeing how probing the vulnerability a second time is analogous to going into the value and taking some of the money there.
Again, this is true but does not mean that there is no way to get in through the nat. A port scanner will find the ports Skype opened for you.
What that article says is that the prosecutor's interpretation of the law was within the law. That may be so, but is not the point being disputed. The point being disputed is whether the prosecutor's reading of the law, and the vigorousness with which the case was pursued even after JSTOR asked that it be dropped, represents malfeasance, misfeasance, or what we actually would like prosecutors to do.
The point of the petition is that the signatories to it believe that the prosecutor acted so overzealously that her behavior can be described as misfeasance. It is not that there was no legal basis whatsoever for bringing the charges she brought.
Britain went through a similar decline after WWI, and then did some pretty amazing things after (e.g., Bletchley Park). There's no need to despair; indeed, by doing so you make the outcome you claim to see as bad more likely. Of course, despairing is fun from a rhetorical perspective, but just remember that you're going to have to live in that 30+ year from now future unless you die first. You can affect the future, particularly if you start now.
He. Didn't. Break. In.
He entered the wiring closet. He didn't break in. MIT has a long history of allowing turists access to the campus. When I was 18 or 19, I used to hang out at 7ai all the time, and even brought a machine in and hooked it up to the network in the machine room so that I could download some stuff from the FSF archive on prep. This remains the norm, from what I've been able to glean. MIT's treatment of Aaron was not the norm. Of course, Aaron pissed them off, so that's not surprising. But going from there to "breaking in" is simply not accurate.
Hans Reiser MURDERED HIS WIFE. Aaron Swartz ran wget -R on a web site he was permitted to access. Yup. Practically the same thing. You are so right.
Again, you are not understanding how NATs operate. Every time you enable skype on a computer inside your NAT, you are punching holes in the NAT. Every time you establish a TCP connection through a NAT, you punch a hole in the NAT. Every time you send a UDP packet out through the NAT, you've punched a hole in the NAT.
If this were not so, you literally could not access the Internet from inside a NAT.
Well flamed, sir. Well flamed.
dingdingdingdingding! correct answer.
However, those of us who are statisticians might notice that there is in fact a correlation between income inequality and poverty. The less income inequality, the less poverty. So if there were a classless society, statistically we'd expect that there would be no poor people in that society, absent strong confounding factors to the contrary.
The only reason I wouldn't live in Finland is that my family is in America and I am not an EU citizen, so it would be a pain for me to live there. Adjusted purchasing power is a meaningless comparison if you don't take into account all the things that their taxes pay for, but that ours do not.
Since the "underprivileged" are the majority here in the U.S., it seems to me that if they think something is a problem, they have more votes than you do, so it's a problem, whether you agree it is or not. Keep letting the problem get worse, and eventually you will get to witness what happens when a society stops caring about the common welfare: either you will be living behind a concrete wall topped with broken glass and hiring bodyguards, or you will be wishing you could.