The only reasonable response to mass CCTV is for everyone to wear a balaclava.
Hmmm.... I can make an empty pointless political statement while looking like a tin-foil hat paranoid or I can be attractive to the opposite sex........
I wonder which of those two options the vast majority of the populace is going to opt for?;)
"Professor, I feel it necessary to point out that criminal behavior is as unacceptable in the 24th century as it was in the nineteenth - and very much harder to get away with."
(The Geeks know which fictional character I'm quoting)
Sometimes TSA catches people that forget to leave their guns at home but never have they caught terrorists.
Who forgets where their firearm is? I have a concealed carry license. Multiple ones in fact, the combination is good in 30-35 States. I can tell you at any moment exactly where all of my firearms are and what condition (loaded, unloaded, last time they were oiled, etc.) they're in. I have precious little sympathy for someone that "forgets" where their firearm is. The very least that should happen to them is they lose their concealed carry licenses, because they're clearly too fucking stupid to carry a deadly weapon in the public space. Revoke their drivers licenses too, while we're at it, because I'll bet you $10,000 they're the same idiots who text and drive.
If you are born poor, educated by substandard schools, lack a stable family- your odds of "making poor life choices" is much higher.
Cry me a river. Tons of people grow up poor and don't commit crime. Likewise, tons of rich assholes commit crimes far more heinous than smartphone theft.
The only difference between the two is the rich guy is more likely to beat the rap, because he can afford better lawyers. That's an indictment of the criminal justice system, not an excuse for the poor choices of either the rich or the poor guy.
Please, demonstrate for me a technology that can tell you with reasonable certainty (preponderance of the evidence is the standard in a civil suit) where packets went missing? Now demonstrate that this technology scales to however many streams Netflix has in operation at a given time, and that they're actually using it every time they display this warning. Can't do those things? Guess what? They probably lose a contested lawsuit, irrespective of how much Verizon/Time Warner/Comcast/Mom & Pop ISP/Frontier may suck in the real world.
Don't take my word for it though. They seem to have backed down. Me thinks that some genius at Netflix didn't run this idea past legal before they put it into production.
Surely Verizon can't expect balanced peering when they sell asymmetrical service to their customers.
Settlement free peering has required balanced traffic ratios since the beginning of the internet. If you want to blow up that ecosystem the onus is on you to explain why your purposed replacement is better, from both a technical and economic sense. And not that it really matters (to that historical context), but Verizon sells asymmetrical service because that's how every consumer grade technology is designed. You think it makes more sense to use the limited bandwidth on a twisted pair connection (DSL) for upload that people would rarely use? Same with DOCSIS, though for different technical reasons (multiple modems trying to talk back to a single CMTS, via disparate paths with disparate noise levels/attenuation) than the DSL bandwidth limitation. The disparity still exists with most FTTH solutions (Google GPON and educate yourself), though less pronounced.
Tell me, what does the average consumer do where slow upload speeds are noticeable, besides uploading pictures/video to Facebook? Don't say "cloud backup" either, because nobody gives a shit if the initial sync takes six minutes or six days, it runs in the background and is totally transparent to most people.
And really, if Netflix offered cloud backup service they could probably right a whole lot of that balance while causing even more headaches for isps
Go for it. I don't think it would have as big of an impact as you think it would (including my porn collection I've got less than one terabyte of data, which would only need to be uploaded once, and realistically the data I truly care about totals less than 50GB) but there's nothing stopping Netflix from trying. Except of course the fact that Mr. Hastings doesn't seem to want to do anything besides cash checks. Diversification of the business? That's crazy talk.
Unconscionable? I reserve that word for things like murder, rape, or slavery, not mundane nonsense like slow internet service. Hidden deep in a contract? It's right there in their marketing materials. "Up to X mbit/s" What, you expected dedicated internet access for $30 to $60/mo? Best of luck with that. Connections with SLAs cost hundreds to thousands of dollars (my company pays >$1,100 for a dedicated 30mbit/s pipe) and even they don't promise specific speeds to third party networks.
I don't directly own any Verizon stock. I indirectly own some, via the mutual funds in my 403(b), as do you if you've got any sort of retirement account. They're a Fortune 100 company and component of the DJIA, it's hard not to own them if you've got any investment more serious than a certificate of deposit.
For an "up to" connection. That makes no promises whatsoever regarding speed or reliability. So long as they're making a good faith effort you have no right to complain. If they're pocketing your money and providing you with nothing you've got a right to complain, even with the "up to" language, because that would constitute fruad. They're not doing that though, and not even the biggest shrill for Netflix would suggest that they are.
Here's the relevant snippet from the Verizon Online Customer Agreement. It's worth noting that every ISP on the planet has similar language:
"VERIZON DOES NOT WARRANT THAT ANY OF THE SERVICE, EQUIPMENT, OR OTHER EQUIPMENT AUTHORIZED BY VERIZON FOR USE IN CONNECTION WITH THE SERVICE WILL PERFORM AT A PARTICULAR SPEED, BANDWIDTH OR DATA THROUGHPUT RATE, OR WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, SECURE, OR FREE OF VIRUSES, WORMS, DISABLING CODE OR CONDITIONS, OR THE LIKE"
but it's still by far the most efficient way to deliver the service the customers already paid you to deliver so why quibble?
The quibble is Netflix expecting that someone else absorb the cost of delivering their product. Griping about network neutrality is a red herring. NN has nothing whatsoever to do with the cost of running the data center, and there are very few people not named "Hastings" that would have the chutzpah to suggest it's Verizon's job to provide them with free co-location services.
Great deal for Netflix if they can sucker enough ISPs into doing it though. They don't have to pay for physical security, disaster recovery, rack space, or any of the overhead that every other tech company has to deal with. They just take your money, subtract a small cut for themselves, and forward it directly to Hollywood. Meanwhile they double your rates and you still think they're awesome. Even Apple couldn't get away with doing that....
"Completely trivial" != zero, and it's not Verizon's responsibility to subsidize Netflix's business model.
Apparently it's not enough for them to get free bandwidth, when the entire history of settlement free peering has relied on balanced traffic ratios. No, on top of that they want someone else to pay for their rack space, electricity, physical security, and all the other overhead that comes with running a modern data center. Essentially Netflix just wants to take your money and send it directly to Hollywood (after taking a cut for themselves of course) without any of that pesky overhead otherwise known as "running a business".
If you have a better system I'm all ears. Don't bother replying if your only idea is to trade the unarmed duopoly (Time Warner/Verizon) for a heavily armed monopoly (Government) that can literally put you in jail if you don't do what they want.
Really, you can serve millions of Verizon DSL and hundreds of thousands of FIOS customers with one caching box? That only uses a few ports, RUs, and a few hundred watts of power? At approximately zero cost?
Can I have free co-location services at the local central office too, or do I have to get to Netflix size before that happens?
The ISPs may be at fault, but Netflix is just begging to be sued with this little PR stunt. Here's an amusing exercise: Impose an absurdly low artificial limit within your LAN (easy enough to do with the QoS tools included in DD-WRT) and see if the Netflix buffering message blames your ISP. If the answer is "Yes" then Netflix likely just lost the lawsuit, irrespective of whatever legitimate problems the ISP may have.
Supposedly they only show the message if a "significant number" (the term isn't further defined) of users at the target ISP are having issues, which may provide them with some legal cover, but I'm skeptical that they can actually prove with a preponderance of the evidence that my slow down is the fault of my ISP. One false claim of such and they're on the hook.
One of two possibilities comes to mind:
1) Some genius at Netflix thought of this without consulting legal.
2) This is a ploy to get sued, then try to use the discovery process to find something damning in the internal decision making process at the ISPs.
#2 is interesting, but I think it's one hell of a gamble. Hell, how many people are using Wi-Fi to stream Netflix, making it vulnerable to interference from anything and everything? Netflix can discern the difference between dropped packets because of congestion and dropped packets because of my leaky microwave and/or neighboring wi-fi network/baby monitor/bluetooth device/etc on the same channel as my AP? With enough confidence to blame Verizon for the dropped packets?
They just have to fail to build the infrastructure required to support the bandwidth needs of their customers from a Netflix source.
And who gets to pay for that? I realize that's a politically unpopular question, but consider two facts:
1) Residential broadband networks were not originally designed or priced with high contention ratios in mind. This was demonstrated during the height of the p2p craze, when a small handful of users were able to consume a majority of the available network resources. Now you've got a mainstream application (streaming video) that uses as much or more bandwidth, one that can't be minimized by QoS rules or written off (justly or not) as illegal activity. You want 1:1 contention and promised speed? Open your pocketbook, because it's gonna cost you.... (>$1,100/mo is what my business pays for 30mbit/s of symmetrical pipe with SLA)
2) The last mile infrastructure costs the same to maintain whether you deliver three services (video, data, voice) over it or one service (data). If two services hemorrhage customers you've got to make up for the lost revenue by raising prices on the third service. CATV has peaked and will eventually be displaced by IPTV. Wireline voice has been a dying service for ten years and out of the three probably has the highest profit margin, so losing customers there really hurts. Data prices will rise to make up for these losses, even if the burden on the data network wasn't increasing, which of course it is.
You can't take a dispassionate look at broadband and not realize that the economics of the business are changing. The ISPs may be greedy bastards (Netflix isn't exactly an altruistic non-profit either, anybody remember the doubled prices just a few years ago?) but even those that hate them should be intellectually honest enough to recognize the increased costs and inefficiency (vis–à–vis point-to-multipoint solutions like OTA or CATV) imposed by IPTV.
How's that? Nuclear is awesome, I'm a huge proponent, but it doesn't exactly scale into the aerospace or automotive/trucking sectors. The failure of the green energy crowd to put forth a workable alternative for these sectors is rarely mentioned, but they'll have to come up with something if they're serious about abandoning hydrocarbons.
and have no redeeming quality other than being cheap on the surface.
Google the term "energy density". Hydrocarbons beat any non-nuclear alternative in this department, which is a large part of the reason why they're cheaper than the competition. I can put 14 gallons of gasoline (roughly equivalent to 1.8 billion joules or ~512 kilowatt hours) into my automobile in about one minute. I can't fully charge my cell phone battery (with a paltry capacity of ~10,000 joules) in less than an hour....
Im also not sure what world you live in where they have the capability to destroy one of our carriers.
The Russians spent the better part of the Cold War developing weapons and tactics to do exactly that. Google AS-4 Kitchen, Tu-22 Backfire, Oscar Class Submarine, SS-N-19 Shipwreck, Type 65 Torpedo, etc. Russia is probably the best equipped country in the world when it comes to taking on a USN CVBG. They've let a lot of their capability atrophy over the years, but then so has the USN (no more F-14, AIM-54C, fewer mid-air refueling assets, fewer ECM assets, less emphasis on AAW and ASW, etc.) so it's probably a wash. In the Arctic region, within range of Russian airbases? I wouldn't take the threat lightly, if I was commanding the CVBG.
Of course, pulling it off might be seen as a Pyrrhic victory, since it would enrage the American body politic to levels unseen since Pearl Harbor or 9/11. I can't think of a faster way to unite my squabbling countrymen than to sink a few USN warships on the high seas while killing a few thousand American sons and daughters. Can you?
If Russia wants a piece of northern Canada, they're taking it, 65 jets or no.
Umm, are you trolling or completely naive about geopolitics? Canada is a NATO member. An attack against one is an attack against all. There are three nuclear armed NATO states, and all three of them share common languages and cultural heritages with Canada. They aren't likely to look kindly upon any attempt to violate her sovereignty.
More to the point, Russia's MO isn't to invade her neighbors. It's to destabilize them, using restless minorities. That strategy works in poor countries with disparate ethic groups that share no common history. It isn't likely to bear fruit if applied to a rich developed country and I doubt that Moscow would try.
what US Attorney or AUSA is going to go balls to the wall probing one of their own agencies?
Congress can and frequently does call the three letter agencies out on the carpet, and if push came to shove could shut any or all of them down tomorrow.
The problem of course, is that the "calling out on the carpet" is usually motivated by political considerations, so it's more likely to happen when Congress and the White House are controlled by different political parties.
That's not that special in the United States of America. A citizen with the appropriate licenses (or no license at all in certain States) can be armed in virtually every location of consequence, save the secured portion of the airport and the local courthouse.
Here's the reasons why the NRA fights legislation like that: New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Maryland, and Hawaii. Put simply, the gun rights crowd doesn't trust you, because they've seen what you've done in States where you have unfettered control.
I didn't have any philosophical objection to UBCs, but I certainly didn't trust the motivation of the people who were trying to advocate them, particularly when they were simultaneously trying to ban an entire class of firearms that are rarely used to commit crimes.
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The only reasonable response to mass CCTV is for everyone to wear a balaclava.
Hmmm.... I can make an empty pointless political statement while looking like a tin-foil hat paranoid or I can be attractive to the opposite sex........
I wonder which of those two options the vast majority of the populace is going to opt for? ;)
"Professor, I feel it necessary to point out that criminal behavior is as unacceptable in the 24th century as it was in the nineteenth - and very much harder to get away with."
(The Geeks know which fictional character I'm quoting)
Sometimes TSA catches people that forget to leave their guns at home but never have they caught terrorists.
Who forgets where their firearm is? I have a concealed carry license. Multiple ones in fact, the combination is good in 30-35 States. I can tell you at any moment exactly where all of my firearms are and what condition (loaded, unloaded, last time they were oiled, etc.) they're in. I have precious little sympathy for someone that "forgets" where their firearm is. The very least that should happen to them is they lose their concealed carry licenses, because they're clearly too fucking stupid to carry a deadly weapon in the public space. Revoke their drivers licenses too, while we're at it, because I'll bet you $10,000 they're the same idiots who text and drive.
If you are born poor, educated by substandard schools, lack a stable family- your odds of "making poor life choices" is much higher.
Cry me a river. Tons of people grow up poor and don't commit crime. Likewise, tons of rich assholes commit crimes far more heinous than smartphone theft.
The only difference between the two is the rich guy is more likely to beat the rap, because he can afford better lawyers. That's an indictment of the criminal justice system, not an excuse for the poor choices of either the rich or the poor guy.
Please, demonstrate for me a technology that can tell you with reasonable certainty (preponderance of the evidence is the standard in a civil suit) where packets went missing? Now demonstrate that this technology scales to however many streams Netflix has in operation at a given time, and that they're actually using it every time they display this warning. Can't do those things? Guess what? They probably lose a contested lawsuit, irrespective of how much Verizon/Time Warner/Comcast/Mom & Pop ISP/Frontier may suck in the real world.
Don't take my word for it though. They seem to have backed down. Me thinks that some genius at Netflix didn't run this idea past legal before they put it into production.
Surely Verizon can't expect balanced peering when they sell asymmetrical service to their customers.
Settlement free peering has required balanced traffic ratios since the beginning of the internet. If you want to blow up that ecosystem the onus is on you to explain why your purposed replacement is better, from both a technical and economic sense. And not that it really matters (to that historical context), but Verizon sells asymmetrical service because that's how every consumer grade technology is designed. You think it makes more sense to use the limited bandwidth on a twisted pair connection (DSL) for upload that people would rarely use? Same with DOCSIS, though for different technical reasons (multiple modems trying to talk back to a single CMTS, via disparate paths with disparate noise levels/attenuation) than the DSL bandwidth limitation. The disparity still exists with most FTTH solutions (Google GPON and educate yourself), though less pronounced.
Tell me, what does the average consumer do where slow upload speeds are noticeable, besides uploading pictures/video to Facebook? Don't say "cloud backup" either, because nobody gives a shit if the initial sync takes six minutes or six days, it runs in the background and is totally transparent to most people.
And really, if Netflix offered cloud backup service they could probably right a whole lot of that balance while causing even more headaches for isps
Go for it. I don't think it would have as big of an impact as you think it would (including my porn collection I've got less than one terabyte of data, which would only need to be uploaded once, and realistically the data I truly care about totals less than 50GB) but there's nothing stopping Netflix from trying. Except of course the fact that Mr. Hastings doesn't seem to want to do anything besides cash checks. Diversification of the business? That's crazy talk.
Unconscionable? I reserve that word for things like murder, rape, or slavery, not mundane nonsense like slow internet service. Hidden deep in a contract? It's right there in their marketing materials. "Up to X mbit/s" What, you expected dedicated internet access for $30 to $60/mo? Best of luck with that. Connections with SLAs cost hundreds to thousands of dollars (my company pays >$1,100 for a dedicated 30mbit/s pipe) and even they don't promise specific speeds to third party networks.
I don't directly own any Verizon stock. I indirectly own some, via the mutual funds in my 403(b), as do you if you've got any sort of retirement account. They're a Fortune 100 company and component of the DJIA, it's hard not to own them if you've got any investment more serious than a certificate of deposit.
P.S., Lose the truetype font, it's obnoxious.
I pay my ISP.
For an "up to" connection. That makes no promises whatsoever regarding speed or reliability. So long as they're making a good faith effort you have no right to complain. If they're pocketing your money and providing you with nothing you've got a right to complain, even with the "up to" language, because that would constitute fruad. They're not doing that though, and not even the biggest shrill for Netflix would suggest that they are.
Here's the relevant snippet from the Verizon Online Customer Agreement. It's worth noting that every ISP on the planet has similar language:
"VERIZON DOES NOT WARRANT THAT ANY OF THE SERVICE, EQUIPMENT, OR OTHER EQUIPMENT AUTHORIZED BY VERIZON FOR USE IN CONNECTION WITH THE SERVICE WILL PERFORM AT A PARTICULAR SPEED, BANDWIDTH OR DATA THROUGHPUT RATE, OR WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, SECURE, OR FREE OF VIRUSES, WORMS, DISABLING CODE OR CONDITIONS, OR THE LIKE"
but it's still by far the most efficient way to deliver the service the customers already paid you to deliver so why quibble?
The quibble is Netflix expecting that someone else absorb the cost of delivering their product. Griping about network neutrality is a red herring. NN has nothing whatsoever to do with the cost of running the data center, and there are very few people not named "Hastings" that would have the chutzpah to suggest it's Verizon's job to provide them with free co-location services.
Great deal for Netflix if they can sucker enough ISPs into doing it though. They don't have to pay for physical security, disaster recovery, rack space, or any of the overhead that every other tech company has to deal with. They just take your money, subtract a small cut for themselves, and forward it directly to Hollywood. Meanwhile they double your rates and you still think they're awesome. Even Apple couldn't get away with doing that....
"Completely trivial" != zero, and it's not Verizon's responsibility to subsidize Netflix's business model.
Apparently it's not enough for them to get free bandwidth, when the entire history of settlement free peering has relied on balanced traffic ratios. No, on top of that they want someone else to pay for their rack space, electricity, physical security, and all the other overhead that comes with running a modern data center. Essentially Netflix just wants to take your money and send it directly to Hollywood (after taking a cut for themselves of course) without any of that pesky overhead otherwise known as "running a business".
If you have a better system I'm all ears. Don't bother replying if your only idea is to trade the unarmed duopoly (Time Warner/Verizon) for a heavily armed monopoly (Government) that can literally put you in jail if you don't do what they want.
Also, they shouldn't be advertising bandwidth they can't deliver.
Good thing they say "up to" then.....
Really, you can serve millions of Verizon DSL and hundreds of thousands of FIOS customers with one caching box? That only uses a few ports, RUs, and a few hundred watts of power? At approximately zero cost?
Can I have free co-location services at the local central office too, or do I have to get to Netflix size before that happens?
Can Netflix prove that ISPs are at fault?
The ISPs may be at fault, but Netflix is just begging to be sued with this little PR stunt. Here's an amusing exercise: Impose an absurdly low artificial limit within your LAN (easy enough to do with the QoS tools included in DD-WRT) and see if the Netflix buffering message blames your ISP. If the answer is "Yes" then Netflix likely just lost the lawsuit, irrespective of whatever legitimate problems the ISP may have.
Supposedly they only show the message if a "significant number" (the term isn't further defined) of users at the target ISP are having issues, which may provide them with some legal cover, but I'm skeptical that they can actually prove with a preponderance of the evidence that my slow down is the fault of my ISP. One false claim of such and they're on the hook.
One of two possibilities comes to mind:
1) Some genius at Netflix thought of this without consulting legal.
2) This is a ploy to get sued, then try to use the discovery process to find something damning in the internal decision making process at the ISPs.
#2 is interesting, but I think it's one hell of a gamble. Hell, how many people are using Wi-Fi to stream Netflix, making it vulnerable to interference from anything and everything? Netflix can discern the difference between dropped packets because of congestion and dropped packets because of my leaky microwave and/or neighboring wi-fi network/baby monitor/bluetooth device/etc on the same channel as my AP? With enough confidence to blame Verizon for the dropped packets?
Verizon DSL is awful and never meets the speeds the customer pays for.
Did you miss the words "up to" that are included on all of their marketing literature, the customer agreement, and your monthly bill?
They just have to fail to build the infrastructure required to support the bandwidth needs of their customers from a Netflix source.
And who gets to pay for that? I realize that's a politically unpopular question, but consider two facts:
1) Residential broadband networks were not originally designed or priced with high contention ratios in mind. This was demonstrated during the height of the p2p craze, when a small handful of users were able to consume a majority of the available network resources. Now you've got a mainstream application (streaming video) that uses as much or more bandwidth, one that can't be minimized by QoS rules or written off (justly or not) as illegal activity. You want 1:1 contention and promised speed? Open your pocketbook, because it's gonna cost you.... (>$1,100/mo is what my business pays for 30mbit/s of symmetrical pipe with SLA)
2) The last mile infrastructure costs the same to maintain whether you deliver three services (video, data, voice) over it or one service (data). If two services hemorrhage customers you've got to make up for the lost revenue by raising prices on the third service. CATV has peaked and will eventually be displaced by IPTV. Wireline voice has been a dying service for ten years and out of the three probably has the highest profit margin, so losing customers there really hurts. Data prices will rise to make up for these losses, even if the burden on the data network wasn't increasing, which of course it is.
You can't take a dispassionate look at broadband and not realize that the economics of the business are changing. The ISPs may be greedy bastards (Netflix isn't exactly an altruistic non-profit either, anybody remember the doubled prices just a few years ago?) but even those that hate them should be intellectually honest enough to recognize the increased costs and inefficiency (vis–à–vis point-to-multipoint solutions like OTA or CATV) imposed by IPTV.
Go camping without a firearm in Africa, a South American jungle, or the Arctic to experience regret.
Why would I do that? That makes as much sense as my cat asking me to declaw and detooth her.
I'm not sure which emotions would go through my mind as the boa constrictor tightened its grip, but I'd imagine regret would be among them.
Gods, it's awesome being on the top of the food chain....
How's that? Nuclear is awesome, I'm a huge proponent, but it doesn't exactly scale into the aerospace or automotive/trucking sectors. The failure of the green energy crowd to put forth a workable alternative for these sectors is rarely mentioned, but they'll have to come up with something if they're serious about abandoning hydrocarbons.
and have no redeeming quality other than being cheap on the surface.
Google the term "energy density". Hydrocarbons beat any non-nuclear alternative in this department, which is a large part of the reason why they're cheaper than the competition. I can put 14 gallons of gasoline (roughly equivalent to 1.8 billion joules or ~512 kilowatt hours) into my automobile in about one minute. I can't fully charge my cell phone battery (with a paltry capacity of ~10,000 joules) in less than an hour....
Im also not sure what world you live in where they have the capability to destroy one of our carriers.
The Russians spent the better part of the Cold War developing weapons and tactics to do exactly that. Google AS-4 Kitchen, Tu-22 Backfire, Oscar Class Submarine, SS-N-19 Shipwreck, Type 65 Torpedo, etc. Russia is probably the best equipped country in the world when it comes to taking on a USN CVBG. They've let a lot of their capability atrophy over the years, but then so has the USN (no more F-14, AIM-54C, fewer mid-air refueling assets, fewer ECM assets, less emphasis on AAW and ASW, etc.) so it's probably a wash. In the Arctic region, within range of Russian airbases? I wouldn't take the threat lightly, if I was commanding the CVBG.
Of course, pulling it off might be seen as a Pyrrhic victory, since it would enrage the American body politic to levels unseen since Pearl Harbor or 9/11. I can't think of a faster way to unite my squabbling countrymen than to sink a few USN warships on the high seas while killing a few thousand American sons and daughters. Can you?
If Russia wants a piece of northern Canada, they're taking it, 65 jets or no.
Umm, are you trolling or completely naive about geopolitics? Canada is a NATO member. An attack against one is an attack against all. There are three nuclear armed NATO states, and all three of them share common languages and cultural heritages with Canada. They aren't likely to look kindly upon any attempt to violate her sovereignty.
More to the point, Russia's MO isn't to invade her neighbors. It's to destabilize them, using restless minorities. That strategy works in poor countries with disparate ethic groups that share no common history. It isn't likely to bear fruit if applied to a rich developed country and I doubt that Moscow would try.
what US Attorney or AUSA is going to go balls to the wall probing one of their own agencies?
Congress can and frequently does call the three letter agencies out on the carpet, and if push came to shove could shut any or all of them down tomorrow.
The problem of course, is that the "calling out on the carpet" is usually motivated by political considerations, so it's more likely to happen when Congress and the White House are controlled by different political parties.
including the ability to be armed at all times
That's not that special in the United States of America. A citizen with the appropriate licenses (or no license at all in certain States) can be armed in virtually every location of consequence, save the secured portion of the airport and the local courthouse.
Here's the reasons why the NRA fights legislation like that: New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Maryland, and Hawaii. Put simply, the gun rights crowd doesn't trust you, because they've seen what you've done in States where you have unfettered control.
I didn't have any philosophical objection to UBCs, but I certainly didn't trust the motivation of the people who were trying to advocate them, particularly when they were simultaneously trying to ban an entire class of firearms that are rarely used to commit crimes.