How would you suggest they physically tap a cell phone? Or maybe you think criminals aren't smart enough to use a cell phone and do all their criminal communications from home...
You're kidding, right? A cell phone means the suspect's entire conversation is being broadcast. I would really be shocked if I learned that the police don't have equipment that can receive these transmissions. This would, of course, require staying within range which would mean they'd have to assign an officer to that task. There's no reason why this couldn't be done, and I'm fine with that because it again renders widespread surveillance impractical. I really don't care what difficulties this would entail; the whole point is that it wouldn't be done without a good reason.
Also while we may be able to trust a President Bush or President Obama with the ability to monitor our internet transactions, eventually there will arise a man like Julius Caesar or Nero or Napoleon who will use the ability of spying for his own enrichment and/or to eliminate enemies. Like Nixon did.
Only one such example is needed to prove both the possibility and the undesirability of the concept. Yes, it certainly can happen here. We know that because it's already been proven.
IMHO people who trust government are either fools, or they don't know history,
It's incredibly foolish, though I'm not sure how much to blame them for that. The vast majority of the population learns history FROM the government. The public schools are government-sponsored, staffed by government employees, with a curriculum that is created and approved by the government. As I've heard it said, if you send a child to a Catholic school they will be taught that Catholicism is great. If you send a child to a Baptist school they will be taught that Baptism is great. If you send a child to a government school...
The blame of which they are worthy is definitely non-zero, however. At some point the individual needs to understand that everyone who would teach him anything has some sort of bias or agenda no matter how good their intentions may be. It's normal and healthy to question what you are taught and what was omitted from your education and why. Any individual who fails to do so is correctly regarded as one of the sheeple or whatever you prefer to call them and their beliefs are unfortunately little more than sophisticated programming. It's amazing to consider just how much this alone is responsible for the world we know today and many of the problems it experiences.
As much as I loathe the fact that the previous administration abused wiretapping, maybe it's a necessary evil? I don't know all of the history of wiretapping, but I imagine that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies used it to capture dangerous criminals in the past and are currently doing it in the present. As long as a warrant is obtained, I don't see why it would be illegal. Of course there will be abuse, but don't throw out a tool simply because it can be abused. Many things in life can be abused. Does that warrant their expulsion from society? Alcohol is abused, but should it be done away with? Probably a stretch of an analogy, but it works.
Law enforcement, however, should not be allowed to wiretap without a warrant. Fighting terrorism, whether foreign against foreign or domestic, should not be an excuse for illegal wiretaps.
I do think we made a mistake by making it so easy to wiretap a phone/data line. No matter what kind of central monitoring technology would allow, it should be strictly illegal and completely inadmissable in any court. The police should have to physically install wiretapping equipment on the premises to be monitored or at most, on the physical line between the premises to be monitored and the telephone company. That way, if they have a specific suspect for which a warrant is obtained, they can monitor that suspect, but they cannot go fishing and cannot perform datamining. This would greatly hinder the value of warrantless wiretapping and would help to ensure that if you are a regular citizen who has given the police no reason to suspect you of a crime, then you can be more confident that you are not being monitored because it would be impractical to do so. I greatly prefer that to trusting the goodwill of people who have proven that they will abuse this power.
I think that's how one would correctly handle something that is rightly recognized as a necessary evil.
I don't know about Ext3, I never really liked it for it's ability to forget my files' existence.
That's rather unusual. I've always known Ext3 as an absolutely rock-solid filesystem. If I had files mysteriously disappear on an Ext3 volume, the first thing I would suspect is a hardware problem.
So do any of you have a creative solution for this problem?
Isn't the whole point of this "problem" that there shouldn't be a solution to the problem?
That was my thoughts exactly, I don't think the guy understands how security works. If you remove the qualifications to access a file to perseve only -- say -- the need for user name to match, then what the hell kind of nonsense security is that?
This may be a case where the physical security (possession of the portable media) is much more important than the filesystem permissions. Generally speaking, the portable media itself is a storage-only device and does not have the mechanisms in place to enforce file permissions, relying entirely on the machine to which it is connected for such tasks. Therefore, if you are not using encryption, then you should always assume that anyone with physical control of the media is going to be able to obtain the files on it. If nothing else, they can plug it into a machine that they own/control and copy the files as the superuser. If you are using encryption, then the filesystem permissions should be moot when talking about portable media.
See it's my little game to answer ever logical fallacy with another. It keeps the discussion going, while providing a subtle joke for myself. Jokes are always fun.
He may have been talking about your spelling of "grammar." If so, that's a whoosh.
** It's off-topic I know, but I always felt like forcing the entirety of the Windows source code to be public domain would have been the best punishment for Microsoft after they were convicted of abusing their monopoly. What better punishment for an abusive monopolist than to give anyone and everyone the ability to directly compete with them on their own turf? It's certainly a neater solution than meaningless fines or any of the proposals to split them up into multiple companies.
It's actually relatively on-topic. Anyway, what you're suggesting would almost certainly violate the Berne Convention. And I'm pretty sure your government is legally obliged to adhere to international treaties.
My answer to that, is that if a treaty interferes with doing the right and just thing, it is not the right and just thing which needs to be abandoned.
Abandoning a treaty may have negative consequences, such as losing the reciprocal treatment you enjoyed while honoring it. To that, I say that the main reason why there are so many abusive practices in the world is because we care far too much about convenience.
The problem isn't that businesses litigate over patent disputes. The problem isn't even so-called "patent trolls".
For dealing with the patent trolls, I have an idea. Why not make patents work like trademarks, in the sense that you must actively defend them or else you will lose them?
Not just patents, but the whole intellectual property idea in general is not really working anymore because it no longer provides a good balance between incentive to produce and the benefit to society of having these things eventually become public domain. It needs reform very badly. Restoring copyright to its original duration of twelve years, limiting patents to ten years, and requiring that patents be actively defended would go a long way towards fixing it. It would also help if "fair use" were more clearly spelled out in copyright law, so that meeting its criteria would prevent someone from being able to bring a lawsuit (as in, it could be immediately dismissed if they tried). This would be an improvement on its current status as a legal defense only after a suit is brought. Perhaps we could also use a law which states that any abuse of the copyright or patent systems by any corporation will result in the IP in question immediately becoming public domain**.
I am not a lawyer and therefore I admit that I may be ignorant concerning the full implications of my suggestions. I'd really appreciate feedback telling me either why you think these ideas would work or why you believe they would do more harm than good.
** It's off-topic I know, but I always felt like forcing the entirety of the Windows source code to be public domain would have been the best punishment for Microsoft after they were convicted of abusing their monopoly. What better punishment for an abusive monopolist than to give anyone and everyone the ability to directly compete with them on their own turf? It's certainly a neater solution than meaningless fines or any of the proposals to split them up into multiple companies.
Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures doesn't sue people over patents, because that would be patent trolling! No, instead they just threaten to sell the patent to a known litigious patent troll. So that's all right then. Timothy Lee details how using patents to crush profitable innovation works in practice, and concludes: 'In thinking about how to reform the patent system, a good yardstick would be to look for policy changes that would tend to put Myhrvold and his firm out of business.'
Please, summarize without injecting your childish sarcasm; save those for a comment reply. For example:
In order to avoid blatant patent trolling, Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures doesn't sue people over patents; they instead threaten to sell the patent to a known litigious patent troll. Timothy Lee details how using patents to crush profitable innovation works in practice, and concludes: 'In thinking about how to reform the patent system, a good yardstick would be to look for policy changes that would tend to put Myhrvold and his firm out of business.'
I much prefer the latter summary to the former, and I doubt I'm alone.
I don't believe this happens in isolation. I think it's directly caused by the frustration of seeing repeated instances of abusive behavior. That this abusive behavior is legal means that there is currently very little that anyone can do about it. No decent person enjoys seeing injustice with no remedy. That this might be revealed in the way a summary is worded is not really surprising. You certainly can successfully argue that it is less than professional, but I think that's much more useful when it's balanced by an appreciation of the cause and effect that explains why it happens.
"Private should mean no disclosure, not anonymized disclosure, not aggregate disclosure, just plain no disclosure period."
The profit motive and privacy are at odds, trying to make the most money and sell the most stuff means you want to know everything about everyone so that you can one up you competitors, it's a race to the bottom. Ideals in the real world always submit to the pragmatic concerns of making money in a capitalist society.
Is all of that really so much easier than attracting customers by having the best product at the best price point? The way I see it, if we pass strong pro-privacy laws that take such data-mining off the table entirely, and companies are instead forced to, y'know, actually be competitive, it would be to everyone's benefit. I know I'd much rather buy a product or a service because it's one of the best available, instead of buying a product/service because some clever scheme convinced me to do so.
Dear AC, perhaps we are using different definitions of "obsession." Here's mine: when something cannot possibly benefit your life in any measurable way whatsoever, and you devote energy to pursuing it anyway, this is something of an obsession.
Tonight, I spent some time pursing a better view of the beautiful sunset here in Paris, and then observing it, which could not possibly benefit my life in any measurable way whatsoever. I will do it again, the next time such an opportunity arises. I recommend that you should be cautious before you label people obsessed.
Yes, but you saw the sunset for yourself. You didn't hear second-hand about someone else who saw a beautiful sunset. That's why I know you have missed my point.
I made a clear distinction when I was talking about celebrities. The distinction was between actually personally knowing someone, versus going to lenghts to obtain second-hand information about a person you have not met, do not personally know, and in all likelihood are never going to meet. Tell me, when you read my post did you overlook this part?
However, it doesn't do a damned thing for me to know that $ACTRESS is thinking of divorcing her husband. I don't benefit from knowing this, therefore I can accurately say that it is not in my interests. Her family and personal friends might have an interest in this, and with good reason, but then they wouldn't need to find out second-hand from a TV show either.
There is no justification for anonymity, nor for secrecy. Anonymity and secrecy preserve and reinforce the hazards that they purport to protect people from.
So you'll be posting your full name, home address, and telephone number to Slashdot?
Note, I hope you don't do that because it would be a very bad move on your part. However, it would also be consistent with your position.
Your "account" is indexed under your phone number - they are looking it up to know what offers they should let you in on, check to see if you have a store credit card or should have one and of course to build their profile on you.
They don't care about your phone number other than that it is a unique identifier.
I have the money, they have the goods, we make an exchange. I like it when it remains that simple. Their mistake is assuming that I want to establish an "account" without first asking me. When it comes to my personal information, everyone is on a need-to-know basis. Almost no one needs to know. If they have an entitlement mentality that prevents them from respecting that, then I have no moral qualms whatsoever about giving them false information.
Dear AC, perhaps we are using different definitions of "obsession." Here's mine: when something cannot possibly benefit your life in any measurable way whatsoever, and you devote energy to pursuing it anyway, this is something of an obsession.
Sorry, no; an obsession is just a troubling preoccupation. Benefit has nothing to do with it.
Arguing semantics is much more useful when you are able to suggest a more suitable word. However, even then it's of little use, because even if I admit that "obsession" was a terrible choice of words, it doesn't do anything to change a single point I have made. Likewise, I can't help but notice you have not addressed any of the points I have made. So, I must conclude that this is the only fault you were able to find with my reasoning, which is pretty good, because it has nothing to do with my reasoning at all.
How is this any different than articles about rockets and space travel (after all, most of us will never travel into space, or work for NASA)? Or any other in a myriad of technical subjects that most of us are not, and will not be directly involved in or use directly.
That's not really a valid question and I'll explain why. The difference is that rockets and space travel are about the actual technology. If the entertainment industry operated that way, then all of the discussion would be about photography/camera work, lighting, audio recording, film editing, and other such techniques. That information is useful to anyone who wonders how these things are done, or who wants to do such things themselves. That's why your question is like comparing an apple to an orange.
For a real comparison you would have to ask why we don't have paparazzi following scientists around and invading their privacy and digging up dirt on them for public consumption. You'd have to ask why we talk about Firefox the browser and its features instead of the personal lives of the programmers who created it.
People are curious. They are curious about everything. It's an exercise in futility to pick and chose useful information over non-useful information since none of us knows what tomorrow holds. If someone want's to read celebratory gossip more power to them. In truth, the gossip is more likely to be both true and useful than news about an new process that may produce titanium at half the cost or an article about NASA's next big toy. We on slashdot find the technical news more interesting, normal people who are interested in interpersonal relationships find the gossip more interesting. It's two sides of the same coin.
Most of the time that you point out that something makes no sense whatsoever, some (possibly well-meaning) apologist will come out of the woodwork and respond with an attempt to portray all possible choices as equally viable. That way everything is just a personal preference with no objective criteria whatsoever. There needs to be something like "Godwin's law" for this. It's often an effective way to halt all useful discussion, and I'm not buying it. It's fine when you are talking about what kind of music you listen to or what kind of food you like to eat. However, it doesn't apply here.
Knowing that a scientist named John Doe just married his third wife doesn't do a damned thing for anybody. It's useless trivia. No one can take that information and produce a useful product from it. No one can grow as a person or improve their quality of life by learning this. However, knowing that a scientist named John Doe has invented and published a big improvement on how we produce titanium benefits everyone who produces titanium and everyone who purchases products containing it (anything from white paint to rockets). It is not useless trivia. The two types of information are therefore not on equal footing -- one is objectively useful, while the other is not. Ergo, this is not a mere preference or matter of taste, and it's intellectually dishonest to pretend like it is.
It's just that when someone can sing or dance or act, we pretend like this trivia is somehow profound or meaningful or useful. There's a certain desperation behind that if you look deeply into it. The people who do it don't want to so much as they need to. They have to have some kind of excitement, to make a big deal out of something, because otherwise they must address the emptiness of their own lives. There's nothing wrong with finding interpersonal relationships interesting, because interpersonal relationships are a big and important part of the whole life experience. However, there is something deeply wrong with such a strong interest in interpersonal relationships that don't involve you and in which you cannot participate, particularly when they involve some of the most immature, unenlightened, and superficial people that our society has to offer (i.e Paris Hilton, Brittney Spears).
Especially if you're outed by a friend who posts RL info without your permission that you can't retract.
Had this happen to me once.
That's why you have to be very careful about who your friends are. I am no longer surprised by someone who "suddenly changed" because it is not really sudden at all, it is merely subtle before it becomes bleedin' obvious. Sorry to hear you got screwed.
And yes, I have trusted people I should not have trusted and gotten screwed. What I learned from it is that I ignored red flags and warning signs that should have tipped me off and so I set myself up for what should have been a predictable outcome. Usually this is because I denied the reality of what that person was telling me about themselves in favor of seeing only what I wanted to see. In that way, the person who meant me harm actually made me sharper, wiser, and more difficult to deceive. That could not have happened if 100% of my reaction was to blame that other person for doing something wrong, because that's for victims. Whether a victim gets screwed or not depends entirely on the other person. Whether I get screwed or not depends entirely on whether I make good decisions.
Victims have another significant disadvantage: they don't profit from their negative experiences, because when everything is someone else's fault, there is no incentive to examine yourself and find out why you should have known better. Thus, where they should be learning and growing they are stagnant. The popularity of this mentality is really amazing.
Do you mean, you think you could've gotten an individual's medical records in MA for less than $20? Or maybe you can't see why someone would dig up an individual's medical records? (I can think of many... but then my employer was extorted by someone who'd stolen a bunch of medical-related data from them not that long ago.)
I think I hear a bit of "nobody would go to all that trouble" in your message. If in the early days of WiFi networks I described to you in tedius yet vague terms how to compromise WEP encryption, you probably would've thought the same thing. Today anyone who cares to can break WEP using readily available tools - it's really no bother at all if you're even slightly inclined to do it.
I've seen companies with contractual and regulatory obligations to protect data privacy make half-gestures to make it look like they're honoring privacy while still engaging in whatever easy-money scheme or shortcut they want. Shedding light on why those half-gestures don't work is a big deal.
That's the thing that I also think people don't understand. With good reason, I am not satisfied merely that someone probably wouldn't want to abuse my information. I am satisfied only when I know that they cannot do so.
I think the solution is to have the concept of "intellectual property" work both ways. Obviously your private information has value, otherwise advertisers and other companies wouldn't go to such great lenghts to obtain and use it. The problem is that they obtain it without your consent and without directly compensating you. For example, if I don't actively block web bugs, cookies, HTTP "ping", analytics tools, and other similar attempts, then that data will be gathered whether or not I like it.
The reason why I actively go out of my way to prevent companies from gathering data on me is simple. No one asked me if I wanted to be data-mined. I refuse to honor agreements in which I did not participate. Why anyone else would do so is a mystery to me.
So make each individual's private data their personal property. They can set whatever value they like, and if that value is more than a company thinks it is worth, the company is free to decline the sale. Most importantly, any attempt to just take that data will be theft, and anyone who does this can be prosecuted in a criminal court. I mean, think about it: why is it "marketing" when a company helps itself to my information against my will and "piracy" or "industrial espionage" if I helped myself to THEIR zeroes and ones against their will?
Except that most people who watch Entertainment Tonight and such aren't "obsessed" with celebrity trivia. Interest =/= obsession.
Dear AC, perhaps we are using different definitions of "obsession." Here's mine: when something cannot possibly benefit your life in any measurable way whatsoever, and you devote energy to pursuing it anyway, this is something of an obsession. To me, an interest is something different. The RIAA has an interest in strong copyright laws. Why? Because the RIAA is benefitted by strong copyright laws. Therefore, it's not a surprise that the RIAA tries to bring them about. However, it doesn't do a damned thing for me to know that $ACTRESS is thinking of divorcing her husband. I don't benefit from knowing this, therefore I can accurately say that it is not in my interests. Her family and personal friends might have an interest in this, and with good reason, but then they wouldn't need to find out second-hand from a TV show either.
Think about it this way. If we treated all industries equally, in the sense that all industries were treated just like the entertainment industry, then anytime you bought a car or a computer it would come with a big long list containing the names of all the members of management, designers, and factory workers who produced it as well as the truck drivers who shipped it and the advertisers who marketed it. We would then have TV shows and magazines talking about the personal private lives of those people who produced your cars and computers, whom they marry, how many times they divorce and why, what goes on behind closed doors in their homes, and paparazzi would follow them around and try to get "exclusive" or embarassing photos of them. Additionally, average people who never met any of them would talk about them fondly as though they personally knew them.
Now if this happened for the automobile or computer industries, and I said it was obsessive behavior, on what grounds would you dispute that? Real question. I'd like to know.
Then how do you explain shows like Entertainment Tonight and all of these magazines and Web sites devoted entirely to completely useless celebrity trivia? Y'know, the ability to obsess over the personal life of someone you have never met and will never personally know, merely because they can sing or act, should be recognized as a pathology. Voyeurism only seems to partly explain it; much of it seems to come from an empty and unsatisfying life that leads to an attempt to live vicariously through some sort of idol which is perceived to be successful, in that sense that "most men lead lives of quiet desperation". However stupid and useless it may be, I can't deny that many do consider it newsworthy and much of "the news" includes such elements.
Of course clearly plenty of people don't know how to look beyond their own nose or recognize their own instincts.
Unfortunately this type of self-knowledge has never been very popular despite the tremendous advantages it brings. The ability to say, "I have an instinct that makes me want to take this action, however, I know it isn't really what I want" is equivalent to being able to say "I am aware of a subconscious influence that this advertisement is trying to use, but it's not valid because it doesn't agree with my independent assessment of my own needs" or "I know this rude person wants me to be upset, but I am going to be kind to them anyway." The sad thing is that average people only think they make their own decisions, not realizing that many things they think they want are actually external influences.
Slashdot Mirror
How would you suggest they physically tap a cell phone? Or maybe you think criminals aren't smart enough to use a cell phone and do all their criminal communications from home...
You're kidding, right? A cell phone means the suspect's entire conversation is being broadcast. I would really be shocked if I learned that the police don't have equipment that can receive these transmissions. This would, of course, require staying within range which would mean they'd have to assign an officer to that task. There's no reason why this couldn't be done, and I'm fine with that because it again renders widespread surveillance impractical. I really don't care what difficulties this would entail; the whole point is that it wouldn't be done without a good reason.
Only one such example is needed to prove both the possibility and the undesirability of the concept. Yes, it certainly can happen here. We know that because it's already been proven.
It's incredibly foolish, though I'm not sure how much to blame them for that. The vast majority of the population learns history FROM the government. The public schools are government-sponsored, staffed by government employees, with a curriculum that is created and approved by the government. As I've heard it said, if you send a child to a Catholic school they will be taught that Catholicism is great. If you send a child to a Baptist school they will be taught that Baptism is great. If you send a child to a government school...
The blame of which they are worthy is definitely non-zero, however. At some point the individual needs to understand that everyone who would teach him anything has some sort of bias or agenda no matter how good their intentions may be. It's normal and healthy to question what you are taught and what was omitted from your education and why. Any individual who fails to do so is correctly regarded as one of the sheeple or whatever you prefer to call them and their beliefs are unfortunately little more than sophisticated programming. It's amazing to consider just how much this alone is responsible for the world we know today and many of the problems it experiences.
As much as I loathe the fact that the previous administration abused wiretapping, maybe it's a necessary evil? I don't know all of the history of wiretapping, but I imagine that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies used it to capture dangerous criminals in the past and are currently doing it in the present. As long as a warrant is obtained, I don't see why it would be illegal. Of course there will be abuse, but don't throw out a tool simply because it can be abused. Many things in life can be abused. Does that warrant their expulsion from society? Alcohol is abused, but should it be done away with? Probably a stretch of an analogy, but it works. Law enforcement, however, should not be allowed to wiretap without a warrant. Fighting terrorism, whether foreign against foreign or domestic, should not be an excuse for illegal wiretaps.
I do think we made a mistake by making it so easy to wiretap a phone/data line. No matter what kind of central monitoring technology would allow, it should be strictly illegal and completely inadmissable in any court. The police should have to physically install wiretapping equipment on the premises to be monitored or at most, on the physical line between the premises to be monitored and the telephone company. That way, if they have a specific suspect for which a warrant is obtained, they can monitor that suspect, but they cannot go fishing and cannot perform datamining. This would greatly hinder the value of warrantless wiretapping and would help to ensure that if you are a regular citizen who has given the police no reason to suspect you of a crime, then you can be more confident that you are not being monitored because it would be impractical to do so. I greatly prefer that to trusting the goodwill of people who have proven that they will abuse this power.
I think that's how one would correctly handle something that is rightly recognized as a necessary evil.
Does warrantless wiretapping help anyone other than the statists who have wanted this power for a long time and now have a working excuse for it?
That's rather unusual. I've always known Ext3 as an absolutely rock-solid filesystem. If I had files mysteriously disappear on an Ext3 volume, the first thing I would suspect is a hardware problem.
So do any of you have a creative solution for this problem?
Isn't the whole point of this "problem" that there shouldn't be a solution to the problem?
That was my thoughts exactly, I don't think the guy understands how security works. If you remove the qualifications to access a file to perseve only -- say -- the need for user name to match, then what the hell kind of nonsense security is that?
This may be a case where the physical security (possession of the portable media) is much more important than the filesystem permissions. Generally speaking, the portable media itself is a storage-only device and does not have the mechanisms in place to enforce file permissions, relying entirely on the machine to which it is connected for such tasks. Therefore, if you are not using encryption, then you should always assume that anyone with physical control of the media is going to be able to obtain the files on it. If nothing else, they can plug it into a machine that they own/control and copy the files as the superuser. If you are using encryption, then the filesystem permissions should be moot when talking about portable media.
Such as glass?
See it's my little game to answer ever logical fallacy with another. It keeps the discussion going, while providing a subtle joke for myself. Jokes are always fun.
He may have been talking about your spelling of "grammar." If so, that's a whoosh.
Maybe if you backed up your contrarian attitude with an argument, people would listen to you.
I've posted in this discussion so I can't mod you up. But I would if I could...
That's an interesting use of the "Reply" button.
** It's off-topic I know, but I always felt like forcing the entirety of the Windows source code to be public domain would have been the best punishment for Microsoft after they were convicted of abusing their monopoly. What better punishment for an abusive monopolist than to give anyone and everyone the ability to directly compete with them on their own turf? It's certainly a neater solution than meaningless fines or any of the proposals to split them up into multiple companies.
It's actually relatively on-topic. Anyway, what you're suggesting would almost certainly violate the Berne Convention. And I'm pretty sure your government is legally obliged to adhere to international treaties.
My answer to that, is that if a treaty interferes with doing the right and just thing, it is not the right and just thing which needs to be abandoned.
Abandoning a treaty may have negative consequences, such as losing the reciprocal treatment you enjoyed while honoring it. To that, I say that the main reason why there are so many abusive practices in the world is because we care far too much about convenience.
For dealing with the patent trolls, I have an idea. Why not make patents work like trademarks, in the sense that you must actively defend them or else you will lose them?
Not just patents, but the whole intellectual property idea in general is not really working anymore because it no longer provides a good balance between incentive to produce and the benefit to society of having these things eventually become public domain. It needs reform very badly. Restoring copyright to its original duration of twelve years, limiting patents to ten years, and requiring that patents be actively defended would go a long way towards fixing it. It would also help if "fair use" were more clearly spelled out in copyright law, so that meeting its criteria would prevent someone from being able to bring a lawsuit (as in, it could be immediately dismissed if they tried). This would be an improvement on its current status as a legal defense only after a suit is brought. Perhaps we could also use a law which states that any abuse of the copyright or patent systems by any corporation will result in the IP in question immediately becoming public domain**.
I am not a lawyer and therefore I admit that I may be ignorant concerning the full implications of my suggestions. I'd really appreciate feedback telling me either why you think these ideas would work or why you believe they would do more harm than good.
** It's off-topic I know, but I always felt like forcing the entirety of the Windows source code to be public domain would have been the best punishment for Microsoft after they were convicted of abusing their monopoly. What better punishment for an abusive monopolist than to give anyone and everyone the ability to directly compete with them on their own turf? It's certainly a neater solution than meaningless fines or any of the proposals to split them up into multiple companies.
Please, summarize without injecting your childish sarcasm; save those for a comment reply. For example:
I much prefer the latter summary to the former, and I doubt I'm alone.
I don't believe this happens in isolation. I think it's directly caused by the frustration of seeing repeated instances of abusive behavior. That this abusive behavior is legal means that there is currently very little that anyone can do about it. No decent person enjoys seeing injustice with no remedy. That this might be revealed in the way a summary is worded is not really surprising. You certainly can successfully argue that it is less than professional, but I think that's much more useful when it's balanced by an appreciation of the cause and effect that explains why it happens.
"Private should mean no disclosure, not anonymized disclosure, not aggregate disclosure, just plain no disclosure period."
The profit motive and privacy are at odds, trying to make the most money and sell the most stuff means you want to know everything about everyone so that you can one up you competitors, it's a race to the bottom. Ideals in the real world always submit to the pragmatic concerns of making money in a capitalist society.
Is all of that really so much easier than attracting customers by having the best product at the best price point? The way I see it, if we pass strong pro-privacy laws that take such data-mining off the table entirely, and companies are instead forced to, y'know, actually be competitive, it would be to everyone's benefit. I know I'd much rather buy a product or a service because it's one of the best available, instead of buying a product/service because some clever scheme convinced me to do so.
Dear AC, perhaps we are using different definitions of "obsession." Here's mine: when something cannot possibly benefit your life in any measurable way whatsoever, and you devote energy to pursuing it anyway, this is something of an obsession.
Tonight, I spent some time pursing a better view of the beautiful sunset here in Paris, and then observing it, which could not possibly benefit my life in any measurable way whatsoever. I will do it again, the next time such an opportunity arises. I recommend that you should be cautious before you label people obsessed.
Yes, but you saw the sunset for yourself. You didn't hear second-hand about someone else who saw a beautiful sunset. That's why I know you have missed my point.
I made a clear distinction when I was talking about celebrities. The distinction was between actually personally knowing someone, versus going to lenghts to obtain second-hand information about a person you have not met, do not personally know, and in all likelihood are never going to meet. Tell me, when you read my post did you overlook this part?
So you'll be posting your full name, home address, and telephone number to Slashdot?
Note, I hope you don't do that because it would be a very bad move on your part. However, it would also be consistent with your position.
Your "account" is indexed under your phone number - they are looking it up to know what offers they should let you in on, check to see if you have a store credit card or should have one and of course to build their profile on you.
They don't care about your phone number other than that it is a unique identifier.
I have the money, they have the goods, we make an exchange. I like it when it remains that simple. Their mistake is assuming that I want to establish an "account" without first asking me. When it comes to my personal information, everyone is on a need-to-know basis. Almost no one needs to know. If they have an entitlement mentality that prevents them from respecting that, then I have no moral qualms whatsoever about giving them false information.
And you wonder why you never get laid when you go to a bar.
Usually it's better to wait until you leave the bar.
Dear AC, perhaps we are using different definitions of "obsession." Here's mine: when something cannot possibly benefit your life in any measurable way whatsoever, and you devote energy to pursuing it anyway, this is something of an obsession. Sorry, no; an obsession is just a troubling preoccupation. Benefit has nothing to do with it.
Arguing semantics is much more useful when you are able to suggest a more suitable word. However, even then it's of little use, because even if I admit that "obsession" was a terrible choice of words, it doesn't do anything to change a single point I have made. Likewise, I can't help but notice you have not addressed any of the points I have made. So, I must conclude that this is the only fault you were able to find with my reasoning, which is pretty good, because it has nothing to do with my reasoning at all.
That's not really a valid question and I'll explain why. The difference is that rockets and space travel are about the actual technology. If the entertainment industry operated that way, then all of the discussion would be about photography/camera work, lighting, audio recording, film editing, and other such techniques. That information is useful to anyone who wonders how these things are done, or who wants to do such things themselves. That's why your question is like comparing an apple to an orange.
For a real comparison you would have to ask why we don't have paparazzi following scientists around and invading their privacy and digging up dirt on them for public consumption. You'd have to ask why we talk about Firefox the browser and its features instead of the personal lives of the programmers who created it.
Most of the time that you point out that something makes no sense whatsoever, some (possibly well-meaning) apologist will come out of the woodwork and respond with an attempt to portray all possible choices as equally viable. That way everything is just a personal preference with no objective criteria whatsoever. There needs to be something like "Godwin's law" for this. It's often an effective way to halt all useful discussion, and I'm not buying it. It's fine when you are talking about what kind of music you listen to or what kind of food you like to eat. However, it doesn't apply here.
Knowing that a scientist named John Doe just married his third wife doesn't do a damned thing for anybody. It's useless trivia. No one can take that information and produce a useful product from it. No one can grow as a person or improve their quality of life by learning this. However, knowing that a scientist named John Doe has invented and published a big improvement on how we produce titanium benefits everyone who produces titanium and everyone who purchases products containing it (anything from white paint to rockets). It is not useless trivia. The two types of information are therefore not on equal footing -- one is objectively useful, while the other is not. Ergo, this is not a mere preference or matter of taste, and it's intellectually dishonest to pretend like it is.
It's just that when someone can sing or dance or act, we pretend like this trivia is somehow profound or meaningful or useful. There's a certain desperation behind that if you look deeply into it. The people who do it don't want to so much as they need to. They have to have some kind of excitement, to make a big deal out of something, because otherwise they must address the emptiness of their own lives. There's nothing wrong with finding interpersonal relationships interesting, because interpersonal relationships are a big and important part of the whole life experience. However, there is something deeply wrong with such a strong interest in interpersonal relationships that don't involve you and in which you cannot participate, particularly when they involve some of the most immature, unenlightened, and superficial people that our society has to offer (i.e Paris Hilton, Brittney Spears).
Especially if you're outed by a friend who posts RL info without your permission that you can't retract.
Had this happen to me once.
That's why you have to be very careful about who your friends are. I am no longer surprised by someone who "suddenly changed" because it is not really sudden at all, it is merely subtle before it becomes bleedin' obvious. Sorry to hear you got screwed.
And yes, I have trusted people I should not have trusted and gotten screwed. What I learned from it is that I ignored red flags and warning signs that should have tipped me off and so I set myself up for what should have been a predictable outcome. Usually this is because I denied the reality of what that person was telling me about themselves in favor of seeing only what I wanted to see. In that way, the person who meant me harm actually made me sharper, wiser, and more difficult to deceive. That could not have happened if 100% of my reaction was to blame that other person for doing something wrong, because that's for victims. Whether a victim gets screwed or not depends entirely on the other person. Whether I get screwed or not depends entirely on whether I make good decisions.
Victims have another significant disadvantage: they don't profit from their negative experiences, because when everything is someone else's fault, there is no incentive to examine yourself and find out why you should have known better. Thus, where they should be learning and growing they are stagnant. The popularity of this mentality is really amazing.
Do you mean, you think you could've gotten an individual's medical records in MA for less than $20? Or maybe you can't see why someone would dig up an individual's medical records? (I can think of many... but then my employer was extorted by someone who'd stolen a bunch of medical-related data from them not that long ago.)
I think I hear a bit of "nobody would go to all that trouble" in your message. If in the early days of WiFi networks I described to you in tedius yet vague terms how to compromise WEP encryption, you probably would've thought the same thing. Today anyone who cares to can break WEP using readily available tools - it's really no bother at all if you're even slightly inclined to do it.
I've seen companies with contractual and regulatory obligations to protect data privacy make half-gestures to make it look like they're honoring privacy while still engaging in whatever easy-money scheme or shortcut they want. Shedding light on why those half-gestures don't work is a big deal.
That's the thing that I also think people don't understand. With good reason, I am not satisfied merely that someone probably wouldn't want to abuse my information. I am satisfied only when I know that they cannot do so.
I think the solution is to have the concept of "intellectual property" work both ways. Obviously your private information has value, otherwise advertisers and other companies wouldn't go to such great lenghts to obtain and use it. The problem is that they obtain it without your consent and without directly compensating you. For example, if I don't actively block web bugs, cookies, HTTP "ping", analytics tools, and other similar attempts, then that data will be gathered whether or not I like it.
The reason why I actively go out of my way to prevent companies from gathering data on me is simple. No one asked me if I wanted to be data-mined. I refuse to honor agreements in which I did not participate. Why anyone else would do so is a mystery to me.
So make each individual's private data their personal property. They can set whatever value they like, and if that value is more than a company thinks it is worth, the company is free to decline the sale. Most importantly, any attempt to just take that data will be theft, and anyone who does this can be prosecuted in a criminal court. I mean, think about it: why is it "marketing" when a company helps itself to my information against my will and "piracy" or "industrial espionage" if I helped myself to THEIR zeroes and ones against their will?
Except that most people who watch Entertainment Tonight and such aren't "obsessed" with celebrity trivia. Interest =/= obsession.
Dear AC, perhaps we are using different definitions of "obsession." Here's mine: when something cannot possibly benefit your life in any measurable way whatsoever, and you devote energy to pursuing it anyway, this is something of an obsession. To me, an interest is something different. The RIAA has an interest in strong copyright laws. Why? Because the RIAA is benefitted by strong copyright laws. Therefore, it's not a surprise that the RIAA tries to bring them about. However, it doesn't do a damned thing for me to know that $ACTRESS is thinking of divorcing her husband. I don't benefit from knowing this, therefore I can accurately say that it is not in my interests. Her family and personal friends might have an interest in this, and with good reason, but then they wouldn't need to find out second-hand from a TV show either.
Think about it this way. If we treated all industries equally, in the sense that all industries were treated just like the entertainment industry, then anytime you bought a car or a computer it would come with a big long list containing the names of all the members of management, designers, and factory workers who produced it as well as the truck drivers who shipped it and the advertisers who marketed it. We would then have TV shows and magazines talking about the personal private lives of those people who produced your cars and computers, whom they marry, how many times they divorce and why, what goes on behind closed doors in their homes, and paparazzi would follow them around and try to get "exclusive" or embarassing photos of them. Additionally, average people who never met any of them would talk about them fondly as though they personally knew them.
Now if this happened for the automobile or computer industries, and I said it was obsessive behavior, on what grounds would you dispute that? Real question. I'd like to know.
Then how do you explain shows like Entertainment Tonight and all of these magazines and Web sites devoted entirely to completely useless celebrity trivia? Y'know, the ability to obsess over the personal life of someone you have never met and will never personally know, merely because they can sing or act, should be recognized as a pathology. Voyeurism only seems to partly explain it; much of it seems to come from an empty and unsatisfying life that leads to an attempt to live vicariously through some sort of idol which is perceived to be successful, in that sense that "most men lead lives of quiet desperation". However stupid and useless it may be, I can't deny that many do consider it newsworthy and much of "the news" includes such elements.
Unfortunately this type of self-knowledge has never been very popular despite the tremendous advantages it brings. The ability to say, "I have an instinct that makes me want to take this action, however, I know it isn't really what I want" is equivalent to being able to say "I am aware of a subconscious influence that this advertisement is trying to use, but it's not valid because it doesn't agree with my independent assessment of my own needs" or "I know this rude person wants me to be upset, but I am going to be kind to them anyway." The sad thing is that average people only think they make their own decisions, not realizing that many things they think they want are actually external influences.