There seems to be a lot of doubt about the "good" uses of strong encryption, e.g. to save lifes, create freedom, right a wrong, etc. Most people seem to adopt a "I have nothing to hide" attitude, seeing encryption as a danger rather than an opportunity. What is your favourite success story in this regard, i.e. a story where strong encryption lead to something "obviously" good (in an "American" sense of the word)?
Obviously you can't keep terrorists at bay unless you remove the *reason* why they become terrorists in the first place.
If you kill some, more will follow, there is no end. The whole idea of a "War on Terrorism" (a "war" usually being something that can be "won" in some sense) is so ridiculous that I find it hard to believe that the media and the people in this country eat it up to a large degree.
However, even then you are still left with the psychopaths who just happen to *like* death and destruction, and there is *really* nothing you can do about that, except what the "normal" justice system has come up with over the centuries (lock them up).
Note that a lot of people seem to confuse the notions of "terrorist" and "psychopath": A terrorist has an "public" agenda, a "real" goal like making the whole world believe in Jar Jar as a theological entity worthy of worship. A psychopath has "private" agenda, a "virtual" goal like cleaning the world of those he/she preceives to be dirty. Terrorists are organized, psychopaths are not; they might be smart, but there are never enough of them in one place agreeing enough on some agenda to pull of something like what we saw.
BTW, I don't know who said it, but it seems to fit: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." I bet a lot of innocent people were killed in the civil war, by what the *other* side considered acts of terrorism. That is also a reason why you can't "win" the "War on Terrorism"...
Never fight for freedom then? Because it would cost lives? Where is all this going?
"The Allied Forces were wrong to attack Nazi Germany? Sure, because it cost lives! I don't care *that* much for my freedom. If they eventually would have ruled the US, that would have been okay..."
Think about that with your current attitude. Is it still the same?
Here's something for the conspiracy buffs. What could someone with a really twisted mind do to (a) show off strength, (b) finally get all those freedom-loving hacker hippies under control, together with the rest of "moron humanity" as someone else put it?
Yes, that someone could employ a strawman tactic and make you *think* that it is okay to bomb whoever and to restrict your rights to whatever for your own safety, and you would even support that!
In rhetoric and in real live, the more extreme the strawman you build, the better the results for your own agenda. Note that all this is hypothetical intellectual bullshit, but worth thinking about anyway before you form an opinion.
Your reasoning sounds somewhat like this: A democracy got Hitler elected, therefore democracy is bad and we should get rid of it. Not that there really is a chance for a similar election in this country, where your only choice is a different face on the same old phrases, and maybe a different accent. But hell, why is the US still formally a democracy? We'd be "safer" in a more totalitarien society, right? So why bother with democracy? Each society faces the same problem: If everybody were "good" we would just live happily ever after. Since not everybody is, we have to do something about whoever is "evil". Striking the balance is the problem, just like you say. But if in doubt, you should always call for more openess if you want to preserve some kind of democracy, not for less. Or do you really want the Europeans to someday "liberate" the USA from itself? That would be an interesting new twist on history...
There is no such thing as "being stripped of many of our freedoms in the short term". Once it is gone, it's not going to come back until another civil war. That's the bottom line. Note that things that cost too much will go away again, but they will probably be replaced by something less costly. For example, increased airport security (whatever that is) will eventually be paid by those who fly, those who pay taxes, or it will die again, to be replaced by something like retina scans before you board an airplane...
Do you think it would make sense to create an university degree (or at least an "emphasis" within a computer science curriculum) for game development? Why or why not? If you think it makes sense, would you be willing to devote some of your precious time to actually teaching courses?
BTW, I used "computer science" as an example above, but I think that such a "program" would have to be much more interdisciplinary, maybe requiring cross-departmental cooperation big time.
Slashdot Mirror
There seems to be a lot of doubt about the "good" uses of strong encryption, e.g. to save lifes, create freedom, right a wrong, etc. Most people seem to adopt a "I have nothing to hide" attitude, seeing encryption as a danger rather than an opportunity. What is your favourite success story in this regard, i.e. a story where strong encryption lead to something "obviously" good (in an "American" sense of the word)?
Obviously you can't keep terrorists at bay unless you remove the *reason* why they become terrorists in the first place.
If you kill some, more will follow, there is no end. The whole idea of a "War on Terrorism" (a "war" usually being something that can be "won" in some sense) is so ridiculous that I find it hard to believe that the media and the people in this country eat it up to a large degree.
However, even then you are still left with the psychopaths who just happen to *like* death and destruction, and there is *really* nothing you can do about that, except what the "normal" justice system has come up with over the centuries (lock them up).
Note that a lot of people seem to confuse the notions of "terrorist" and "psychopath": A terrorist has an "public" agenda, a "real" goal like making the whole world believe in Jar Jar as a theological entity worthy of worship. A psychopath has "private" agenda, a "virtual" goal like cleaning the world of those he/she preceives to be dirty. Terrorists are organized, psychopaths are not; they might be smart, but there are never enough of them in one place agreeing enough on some agenda to pull of something like what we saw.
BTW, I don't know who said it, but it seems to fit: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." I bet a lot of innocent people were killed in the civil war, by what the *other* side considered acts of terrorism. That is also a reason why you can't "win" the "War on Terrorism"...
Sorry for being off-topic and ranting.
Never fight for freedom then? Because it would cost lives? Where is all this going?
"The Allied Forces were wrong to attack Nazi Germany? Sure, because it cost lives! I don't care *that* much for my freedom. If they eventually would have ruled the US, that would have been okay..."
Think about that with your current attitude. Is it still the same?
Here's something for the conspiracy buffs. What could someone with a really twisted mind do to (a) show off strength, (b) finally get all those freedom-loving hacker hippies under control, together with the rest of "moron humanity" as someone else put it?
Yes, that someone could employ a strawman tactic and make you *think* that it is okay to bomb whoever and to restrict your rights to whatever for your own safety, and you would even support that!
In rhetoric and in real live, the more extreme the strawman you build, the better the results for your own agenda. Note that all this is hypothetical intellectual bullshit, but worth thinking about anyway before you form an opinion.
Your reasoning sounds somewhat like this: A democracy got Hitler elected, therefore democracy is bad and we should get rid of it. Not that there really is a chance for a similar election in this country, where your only choice is a different face on the same old phrases, and maybe a different accent. But hell, why is the US still formally a democracy? We'd be "safer" in a more totalitarien society, right? So why bother with democracy? Each society faces the same problem: If everybody were "good" we would just live happily ever after. Since not everybody is, we have to do something about whoever is "evil". Striking the balance is the problem, just like you say. But if in doubt, you should always call for more openess if you want to preserve some kind of democracy, not for less. Or do you really want the Europeans to someday "liberate" the USA from itself? That would be an interesting new twist on history...
There is no such thing as "being stripped of many of our freedoms in the short term". Once it is gone, it's not going to come back until another civil war. That's the bottom line. Note that things that cost too much will go away again, but they will probably be replaced by something less costly. For example, increased airport security (whatever that is) will eventually be paid by those who fly, those who pay taxes, or it will die again, to be replaced by something like retina scans before you board an airplane...
Do you think it would make sense to create an university degree (or at least an "emphasis" within a computer science curriculum) for game development? Why or why not? If you think it makes sense, would you be willing to devote some of your precious time to actually teaching courses?
BTW, I used "computer science" as an example above, but I think that such a "program" would have to be much more interdisciplinary, maybe requiring cross-departmental cooperation big time.