If they are ethical, why are they working with Microsoft?
Gee... because much of the world's economy flows across desktops and servers running MS products?
And if any association with an organization or group you don't like means something to you... are you suggesting that there are no unethical users of Linux or other non-MS platforms/tools?
Even people who don't use (or like) MS and/or its products have an interest in hundreds of millions of people running cleaner, safer machines. Get a grip.
I can't really commend the decision to start now, though, as it seems to be both forced by the current politics and belated in that they should have had the foresight to do it earlier.
Er... what would you say if they didn't do it (now)? It's either a good thing or it's not. Well, it can only be a good thing, really.
Nay, those are the very Sacred Properties of His Noodly Appendage. Carbon Nanotubes are merely the newest Tower Of Babel - a feeble attempt to use puny "science" to achieve Sublime Pastaness.
Carbon... pah! It's carbohydrates that are pure and holy!
Yes, we could spend all day talking about the technicalities of the clock, the politicization of human calendars, and what the odds are of the thing not getting blown up by someone who thinks that only Allah Knows What Time It Is, etc... but the whole point of the project is cultural/philoshopical. It (as the finished project is conceived) is a conversation piece designed to make observers actually think past what they're going to have for lunch, and whether or not Battlestar Galactica is a re-run or not tonight.
By checking the clock to see what time it is, in the context of a 10,000-year swath of time (still a geological/evolutionary blink of an eye), one is at least encouraged to keep that larger context in mind. It's intended to dimish the long-term weight of petty squabbles, perhaps remind people that 10,000 years back we were in an ice age, that sort of thing. Might even make you think about your 401k contribution (or forget about it!).
Why? Are you worried about tracing documents, but not worried about government tracking of other actions? Isn't it privacy that you're fundamentally extolling?
Why is it that poor people shouldn't be allowed into the park?
Who said that? The country is full of parks that do not charge for access. Millions and millions of acres of national wildnerness, ready and waiting for anybody who can transport themselves there. Of course, if you live right next to one, you can usually walk right in. You don't have to use the fancy parking lots, piped in plumbing, multi-media exhibits, and so on. But there are some high-profile parks that require a particularly heavy investment in maintenance and management. Are you suggesting that some "poor" (your word) person in, say, Louisiana, can't afford to offset the site maintenance with the usual few dollars at the door, but they can afford hundreds (or thousands) of dollars to travel there? Something doesn't ring true about your picture of things.
Some people just don't have that much money, should these people be denied access to public services as a result?
You mean like toll highways? If they don't want to pay, then no, they don't get to use it. Or maybe... Amtrak? Woops - have to buy a ticket. The postal service, perhaps? Nope, need a stamp. Park land is one thing. Park facilities, including multi-million-dollar ribbons of asphalt required to handle tour buses and large RVs are not something I would expect "poor" people to have to subsidize.
Oh, wait. "Poor" people don't pay federal taxes anyway. In fact, they not only don't pay taxes, they get services and credits paid for by other people's taxes. You're making it sound like that poor, hand-to-mouth day laborer that has the funds to drive around the country to visit Yellowstone or Glacier National Park, has paid loads of taxes to keep up the facilities there. Not so, obviously. Doesn't mean that, say, the thousands and thousands of acres of, as an example, the George Washington National Forest shouldn't be free to walk right into... and it is free.
so, then maybe these things aren't really that essential after all and the gov't shouldn't be providing them in the first place.
No, I'd say that it is pretty important to set aside vast amounts of land as public property. But give the fact that the majority of the population has little or no interest in actually getting up from their Playstations and using those resources, it makes sense to pass some of the costs of maintaining the facilities located on some of that land to the people that actually choose to use it. You know - like when you decide to purchase a ticket for a show at the Kennedy Center For The Arts in DC... it's run by the Park Service, but part of the box office receipts go towards maintaining the facility.
After all the people with the largest chunk of money to throw at it deserve the most access to it, right?
No, the people that visit it every year, in fairly predictable numbers, should share the main chunk of the cost of providing them with things like restrooms, water, parking, and other amenities that only they are using. A few dollars per person is nothing compared to the cost of traveling there, but makes a giant difference in the Park Service's budget, and keeps those places more accessible, not less.
It's "tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory crackpottery" to be suspicious that a convicted criminal might commit another crime?
So, best if we have Kevin Mitnick followed around, huh? Why is it that the slashdot crowd always complains that the law's to harsh on crackers, and that once you've done your time, blah blah blah... but that the politicized anti-trust treatment of MS is considered a life sentence? Do you have any idea the scrutiny under which they operate? Give it a rest.
...as long as they can make tons of money divvying up the frequency spectrum. For example, they're drooling over the eventual switch from analog to digital TV. The amount of cash they'll make off the range of analog TV frequencies will be huge.
This is not insightful, even though it includes the magic slashdot keywords "they" and "make money."
They FCC doesn't make money. They're a regulatory agency. They license the use of a finite natural resource, and enforce regs to make sure that someone feeling particularly "open" and "free" doesn't just crank up a huge transmitter and step all over everyone's use of the spectrum. For the heavy hitters, larger amounts of cash are involved in those licenses. For the rest of us, there's no licensing (or fee) involved.
Where do you think the licensing fees go? Would you rather that a large commercial user of the spectrum pay no fees, and that the budget is just offset by higher taxes on everyone else (even those that are not using that spectrum-user's services)? I'd much rather see people and businesses that make use of (and a living from) a finite public resource pay their own way than see all of us pay for it, whether we use it or not. User fees should offset the costs of regulating/protecting things - just like at national parks. Someone who never sets foot in a national park does still have an interest in preserving them, but most of that cash flow should still come from the people that drive their RVs through them, or need rangers to run off the bear that has them up a tree.
Likewise with spectrum. If I relied on a chunk of the airwaves to dispatch my fleet of taxis, I'd understand that there's a regulatory cost involved in keeping that assigned bit of spectrum set aside (and enforced).
Guns are meant to kill, and only operated by qualified personelle, so they should be identified.
No, guns are meant to direct a projectile in a given direction. Not unlike a golf club, actually. And of course, you can kill people with a gun, or with a golf club. And, "qualified"? What do you mean? The only qualification you need in most states, especially for shotguns and rifles, is to not be a criminal. At least we still have that relative freedom.
I use guns all the time, and have never killed anybody. I have, though used a gun to prevent harm from coming to somebody, but you're obviously not interested in hearing about that (since it would ruin your argument).
Same with explosives.
What world do you live in? As I expressly mentioned, those are tools used by farmers (to pull out tree stumps and rocks), construction workers (to help build foundations and roads), etc. Do you know how many thousands of times a day people use explosives in mining, agriculture, and construction... and no one is killed?
How to you figure that a printer's registration of its serial number controls information? Do you have a single bit of evidence that suggests that anyone, ever, has used that feature of those products to in any way prevent anyone from disseminating information (other than "information" in the form of counterfeit documents)? No, you don't.
Why dont people get this?
controling guns = good
controling instructions on building a gun = bad
Do you even hear yourself? People don't get that because it's irrational and impractical. You want freedom (of communication) but not the freedom to use your freely obtained information to defend yourself? How about a more sane (and constitutionally valid) take on it:
controlling information about guns = bad
holding people accountable for their actions = good
Did you know that the rate of murder in the country was actually down last year? In my county, it has actually gone up. And that's not people being shot by other people with guns: it's people being stabbed by people with knives. Do you recommend that only "trained personnel" have access to sharp metal things? Are knives only meant to kill people? If you don't think so, then don't you see the ridiculous double standard? Further, don't you think that people who don't want to be stabbed to death should have the means by which to defend themselves? Or, are you recommending (since you're not a big one on holding people accountable for their actions) that we have police officers at every house to make sure that everyone is safe from throat-cutting gang members, all the time? I'd rather not live under those circumstances, thank you, but I'd also like the option of preventing an idiot with a knife from hurting my family.
You control the information in society, you control alot more than knowing whether your vehicle has been in an accident 5 years ago
I absolutely guarantee that your privacy is at much greater risk from the information about your car than it is from the serialization of your printer output. Your tag numbers are recorded by databases as you pass through toll stops, your registration of your vehicle (and its type, the insurance you have on it, the work you've had done on it, including the mileage you've used, and much else) is easily cross referenced. On most newer vehicles, data recorders know how fast you've been going lately (including how you were accelerating or braking, etc., at the time of an accident). Fancy new nav systems in cars leave a lengthy trail of GPS-based information about where you've been lately, and how fast you were driving when you went. That type of information is being gathered and chewed on way, way more often and by more parties than your hardcopy laser printer output ever will be (especially if you're not faking official documents).
by thinking before you type. It's not "fishers," it's "fissures." You know, from the same root word that gives us "fission" (as in splitting the atom).
And why go to all the trouble of typing that extra apostrophe in "volcano's" when it forces people to then ask, "The volcano's what?" You're saying that something belongs to a volcano? Or did you mean to just use the plural, and simply say "volcanos" (as in, more than one volcano)?
I don't normally bother with this, but since you're asking a useful question that I can only hope some geologists will answer, I'm just hoping you'll include some more helpful spelling/syntax/punctuation next time around. It elevates the conversation, and reminds the IM kiddies that words actually mean something.
Is it just me, or is this sort of collusion between corporations and the secret police a little disturbing
Depends. Are you still trying to recover from unique VINs (vehicle identification numbers) on every car/truck, the use of your SSN for business purposes, or perhaps the way that some states are requiring firearm "fingerprints" on factory casings for after-the-fact matchups? The case mark registry - virtually identical to this printer business - was dreamt up years ago and pushed through many a state legislature, unfailingly by the leftier-part of the political spectrum.
Industry tracking of products, with that data available to the government, has been going on for years and years. Drugs are tracked, down the dose in some cases. Commercial explosives - such as used in road building and farming - are marked, per batch, with micro identifiers that survive combustion. There are many such examples, and many that date back to before the current administration. Were you complaining back then?
And that presumes that someone with a lot of time and brains has some reason to mess with you. But there are so many other, easier ways to do that without resorting to BS like that... so I'd tend to not sweat that. It's no different than cloning phones to get someone in trouble for phoning in bomb threats, or spoofing IP addresses to create kiddy pr0n log file entries, or plugging a wired phone into the interface on the outside of most people's houses to make use of their caller ID (and long distance account), or any of a jillion similar things. This printer business is all about bolstering law enforcement cases that have been built up typically by other means, or providing a lead in a case that will still need substantially additional work.
Not it's not. The principle is this: we the people elect, or through our elected officials appoint, sober, thoughtful judges who decide whether the risk of temporarily depriving an innocent person of their property (or similar hardship) is outweighed by the very likely finding of guilt. It's the job of the investigators and prosecutors to show the judge (or panel of judges) that warrant being asked for has merit. Do you reall, really think that even a first-day-on-the-job investigator couldn't show a judge the way in which the spammer in question was breaking the law? It's a no-brainer for the judge - the evidence in this investigation is huge, and the person under investigation goes to no trouble to hide his activities.
Of course he doesn't have a reason. Or, reason. Say what you want about Republicans getting support from the people that provide jobs (er, businesses), you aren't going to find a single instance of spammer-friendly Republican-let policy pushes. The GP is just being a slavish, craven, partisan twit.
but who is guilty, the people who create the malware or the people that finance them?
Neither. It's the person who actually acts to put that software on your machine. Sometimes those are the same person, but it's the act that counts.
im looking forward to seeing a few more executives in jail, they seem to think if you wear a suit and have a PLC/INC you can do what you want without recourse
Tell that the executives who are in jail. The people that own and operate legitimate businesses hear this all the time from their accountants, lawyers, marketing and IT people. The people you're worried about are people who are running sleazy companies (usually off-shore) and don't care anyway.
Don't make "executives" as a class of people the bad guys. There are hundreds of thousands of businesses in this country that do things right every day. There are just as many bad "executives" as there are bad teenagers cracking from their basements, bad low-level IT employees stealing customer credit data, and so on.
Well, then the artist wanted it that way. No one forces a band to stop playing bars and start looking for income through a recording career facilitated by a large media company. If they want that exposure and help, and don't have the clout to negotiate anything more favorable, then they're either going to compromise or... not.
Clearly we are unable to function without Their Googly Appendages, so I don't know how NASA is going to pull this off. Although a soccer-field-sized Space Daisy observatory does sound like something eBay would acquire, and that might get Google interested in a competing Cricket-Pitch Space Tulip.
The public interest in free and fair elections overrides your right to essentially buy laws.
You know, I hear a lot of people use the expression "buying laws," but they go to a lot of trouble to avoid actually identifying the fantasy mechanism by which they imagine that takes place. For something that you imply happens constantly, do you not have a single example where actual, un-punished felony bribery has resulted in a law? Or is there some other mechanism that a rabid, 24-hour-news-cycle media with untold thousands of partisan political reporters has yet to uncover? You must really be holding out for some big event, keeping that to yourself.
... Any candidate that runs, and uses my dollars, is getting coerced support from me...
Yes, they are. All of them equally...
And such coersion pleases you? You're good with financing religious fanatics, parties promoting pedophiles, parties in favor of reinstating slavery, or shooting illegal immigrants on sight? Instead of holding your nose and tolerating such nonsense yourself, and forcing me to pay for it too, how about you support the people you like, as you see fit, and I do the same?
It seems that you are afraid people would vote for Neo-Nazis, Anarchists, or other "irrational" candidates if they had any money (to quote you) "to make sure that [their] group's message is heard, and their purpose achieved".
No, I'm not worried about those votes, because they won't add up to those idiots being elected. But by propping them up with tax dollars, you're lending them an undeserved legitimacy, and suggesting that the entire country finds their views to be on an equal footing with every other view. The Flat Earth Society's candidate, for example, or the Pope For President party, are objectively, clearly not places I would ever put my vote. For you to force money from my wallet (which equals irreplaceable time from my short life) to say that they are equal, to me, is philosophical cowardice. Rather than letting the marketplace of ideas attract voices, support, and votes, you'd artificially inflate the credibility of crackpots, would-be despots, and (I begin to see you angle here) those trying to prop up demonstrably sinister ideologies like communism.
As a socialist, you're proably feeling the discomfort of being routinely unable to convince a lot of people that your world view is a useful, productive, and liberating one (since it's not). So, rather than adapt your viewpoint to reality and merit, you're trying to rationalize a centrally administered false economy of philosophical mediocrity. It doesn't work for socialized economies, and it's even more abhorrent when it comes to telling people what they think (or, what they have to say, no matter what they think). Forcing me to support a candidate that thinks Stalin had it right is... Stalinesque on the face of it.
I don't have a problem with my government being ran by fascists or any other group so long as they represent the true will of the people
That, right there, is moral relativism (and cowardice) at its absolute worst. That suggests a personal moral framework that is utterly rudderless, and with no demonstrable premises upon which to consistently build a rational ethic. It's embarassing, really - and you don't sound like you're 15, so you don't have the usual excuse for beign muddle-headed.
I'm not preventing you from expressing your opinion
My opinion, as expressed through my choices, actions, application of my time (and money), is that Stalinistas are evil. You would have me support them anyway. That means you want to control my expression.
Money has nothing to do with opinions.
So why are you so worried about giving mine to people that I don't think - because of their own expressed opinions - deserve my financial support? You're trying to have it both ways.
Of course interest groups will keep lobbying, but their influence will be diminshed. The only thing they could actually do is withdraw an endorsment. I don't mind pandering to groups of people. I do mind pandering to money.
And what about the money those groups need to spend in order to even interact with you, with candidates, with voters, with the press - all activities that may be the very essence of their existence. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to form a group that wants to collectively support a ballot initiative, a party, or a candidate - and there's no reason that group shouldn't be able to reach into their own pockets, or take donations from other like-minded people to make sure that the group's message is heard, and their purpose achieved. Otherwise you're right back into squelching free association and free speech. If that group wants to spend money to fly members out to visit (and inform, persuade, eduacation, celebrate) a candidate, or fly the candidate out to talk to them, what of it? It that group wants to streamline the whole process by letting the candidates own campaign make better, more efficient use of some of that money, why is that bad? That money can't go into the candidate's personal account, and he can't spend it on personal things. If that's what you're worried about, then it's not the fact that our daily lives and economy happen to use cash to travel, eat, rent rooms, print posters, produce TV ads, etc. - rather, you're just worried about lax enforcement of existing corruption laws.
Money isn't speech
No, money is just a fiduciary vehicle. Speech is speech, but other actions also serve as speech (putting up a sign, forming groups to speak louder and more eloquently than one person stomping on a street corner, etc).
Giving money to a candidate is a bribe.
Good thing it's illegal, then! Candidates that personally take money from their campaign organization's funds get to go to jail.
Your voice will be heard at the ballot box.
Yup, and I want to make sure that at least some other people that go are keeping in mind some things that I think are important. I may even want to spend some money making sure that message is clearly understood.
Furthermore, you're not backing any candidate in publicly financed elections.
Wrong. Any candidate that runs, and uses my dollars, is getting coerced support from me. I don't consider all candidates to be equal. I don't want my dollars to suggest that Neo-Nazis, or Anarchists, or any other irrational candidates are equally valuable on the national (or local) stage. They are not. That's my opinion, but you would prevent me from expressing that opinion, or worse: you would take my dollars and use them to make a statement of equality of merit where I do not perceive it to exist.
Yes, I'm a socialist.
Which explains the moral relativism, and pretty much ends the discussion, I guess.
I'd like to see how different the political landscape would be if no one was owned by the *AA's, oil interests, etc. The only way to eliminate corruption is to eliminate the money.
Right, because that way the American Association Of Retired People, the National Education Association, the various labor unions representing millions of poeple, the Sierra Club, the Union Of Concerned Scientists and all of those other evil organizations will finally be prevented from influencing elections. Whew!
elections should be publicly financed
So, instead of me getting to choose how I want my voice to be heard, you're going to force me to back a candidate? Excellent idea, comrade!
"So if I buy a car that will tip over when I make a corner over 15 kph, the company is responsible? And if the same car can have its windows opened by pushing in and down, the company has to claim partial responsibility for the damages and theft done by any vandal who exploits this?"
Poor analogy. Or, incomplete. Are you saying that the manufacturer doesn't tell the off-road vehicle's owner that it's not safe to corner at a certain speed, or says that their vehicle windows are burglar-proof? Who decides, in your scenario, what is bad "by design?" You think being able to push in a window to open it is a flaw, but where to you draw the line? How hard should you be able to push on a window before it fails? How much should every vehicle cost so that no one will be able to complain about any aspect of its capabilities? People who can only afford $9,000 cars can't really complain when they aren't built like $39,000 cars. People that want vehicles with high centers of gravity for driving on the farm can't complain when it doesn't handle like a performance street car. Since the real thread here is about security-related bugs, can you get back to vulnerabilities that actually fit the profile?
Like, locks on houses that really don't (couldn't possibly) keep out a semi-determined burglar? Or glass windows on stores that cna't keep out even casual people that don't care about any damage they cause? Is the glass maker responsible for that "flaw"?
When Cisco has a bug that causes router security to not do what it's supposed to do, should they be liable for the money they've charged the customer for their product, or for everything that goes wrong because a bad guy took action? The added costs to the price of software, etc., would make the skyrocketing malpractice insurance costs in the medical business look like nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
If they are ethical, why are they working with Microsoft?
Gee... because much of the world's economy flows across desktops and servers running MS products?
And if any association with an organization or group you don't like means something to you... are you suggesting that there are no unethical users of Linux or other non-MS platforms/tools?
Even people who don't use (or like) MS and/or its products have an interest in hundreds of millions of people running cleaner, safer machines. Get a grip.
I can't really commend the decision to start now, though, as it seems to be both forced by the current politics and belated in that they should have had the foresight to do it earlier.
Er... what would you say if they didn't do it (now)? It's either a good thing or it's not. Well, it can only be a good thing, really.
Nay, those are the very Sacred Properties of His Noodly Appendage. Carbon Nanotubes are merely the newest Tower Of Babel - a feeble attempt to use puny "science" to achieve Sublime Pastaness.
Carbon... pah! It's carbohydrates that are pure and holy!
our own shuttles keep blowing up
Twice means "keep blowing up?" I suppose three would mean "always blow up?"
Yes, we could spend all day talking about the technicalities of the clock, the politicization of human calendars, and what the odds are of the thing not getting blown up by someone who thinks that only Allah Knows What Time It Is, etc... but the whole point of the project is cultural/philoshopical. It (as the finished project is conceived) is a conversation piece designed to make observers actually think past what they're going to have for lunch, and whether or not Battlestar Galactica is a re-run or not tonight.
By checking the clock to see what time it is, in the context of a 10,000-year swath of time (still a geological/evolutionary blink of an eye), one is at least encouraged to keep that larger context in mind. It's intended to dimish the long-term weight of petty squabbles, perhaps remind people that 10,000 years back we were in an ice age, that sort of thing. Might even make you think about your 401k contribution (or forget about it!).
Why? Are you worried about tracing documents, but not worried about government tracking of other actions? Isn't it privacy that you're fundamentally extolling?
Why is it that poor people shouldn't be allowed into the park?
Who said that? The country is full of parks that do not charge for access. Millions and millions of acres of national wildnerness, ready and waiting for anybody who can transport themselves there. Of course, if you live right next to one, you can usually walk right in. You don't have to use the fancy parking lots, piped in plumbing, multi-media exhibits, and so on. But there are some high-profile parks that require a particularly heavy investment in maintenance and management. Are you suggesting that some "poor" (your word) person in, say, Louisiana, can't afford to offset the site maintenance with the usual few dollars at the door, but they can afford hundreds (or thousands) of dollars to travel there? Something doesn't ring true about your picture of things.
Some people just don't have that much money, should these people be denied access to public services as a result?
You mean like toll highways? If they don't want to pay, then no, they don't get to use it. Or maybe... Amtrak? Woops - have to buy a ticket. The postal service, perhaps? Nope, need a stamp. Park land is one thing. Park facilities, including multi-million-dollar ribbons of asphalt required to handle tour buses and large RVs are not something I would expect "poor" people to have to subsidize.
Oh, wait. "Poor" people don't pay federal taxes anyway. In fact, they not only don't pay taxes, they get services and credits paid for by other people's taxes. You're making it sound like that poor, hand-to-mouth day laborer that has the funds to drive around the country to visit Yellowstone or Glacier National Park, has paid loads of taxes to keep up the facilities there. Not so, obviously. Doesn't mean that, say, the thousands and thousands of acres of, as an example, the George Washington National Forest shouldn't be free to walk right into... and it is free.
so, then maybe these things aren't really that essential after all and the gov't shouldn't be providing them in the first place.
No, I'd say that it is pretty important to set aside vast amounts of land as public property. But give the fact that the majority of the population has little or no interest in actually getting up from their Playstations and using those resources, it makes sense to pass some of the costs of maintaining the facilities located on some of that land to the people that actually choose to use it. You know - like when you decide to purchase a ticket for a show at the Kennedy Center For The Arts in DC... it's run by the Park Service, but part of the box office receipts go towards maintaining the facility.
After all the people with the largest chunk of money to throw at it deserve the most access to it, right?
No, the people that visit it every year, in fairly predictable numbers, should share the main chunk of the cost of providing them with things like restrooms, water, parking, and other amenities that only they are using. A few dollars per person is nothing compared to the cost of traveling there, but makes a giant difference in the Park Service's budget, and keeps those places more accessible, not less.
It's "tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory crackpottery" to be suspicious that a convicted criminal might commit another crime?
So, best if we have Kevin Mitnick followed around, huh? Why is it that the slashdot crowd always complains that the law's to harsh on crackers, and that once you've done your time, blah blah blah... but that the politicized anti-trust treatment of MS is considered a life sentence? Do you have any idea the scrutiny under which they operate? Give it a rest.
...as long as they can make tons of money divvying up the frequency spectrum. For example, they're drooling over the eventual switch from analog to digital TV. The amount of cash they'll make off the range of analog TV frequencies will be huge.
This is not insightful, even though it includes the magic slashdot keywords "they" and "make money."
They FCC doesn't make money. They're a regulatory agency. They license the use of a finite natural resource, and enforce regs to make sure that someone feeling particularly "open" and "free" doesn't just crank up a huge transmitter and step all over everyone's use of the spectrum. For the heavy hitters, larger amounts of cash are involved in those licenses. For the rest of us, there's no licensing (or fee) involved.
Where do you think the licensing fees go? Would you rather that a large commercial user of the spectrum pay no fees, and that the budget is just offset by higher taxes on everyone else (even those that are not using that spectrum-user's services)? I'd much rather see people and businesses that make use of (and a living from) a finite public resource pay their own way than see all of us pay for it, whether we use it or not. User fees should offset the costs of regulating/protecting things - just like at national parks. Someone who never sets foot in a national park does still have an interest in preserving them, but most of that cash flow should still come from the people that drive their RVs through them, or need rangers to run off the bear that has them up a tree.
Likewise with spectrum. If I relied on a chunk of the airwaves to dispatch my fleet of taxis, I'd understand that there's a regulatory cost involved in keeping that assigned bit of spectrum set aside (and enforced).
Guns are meant to kill, and only operated by qualified personelle, so they should be identified.
No, guns are meant to direct a projectile in a given direction. Not unlike a golf club, actually. And of course, you can kill people with a gun, or with a golf club. And, "qualified"? What do you mean? The only qualification you need in most states, especially for shotguns and rifles, is to not be a criminal. At least we still have that relative freedom.
I use guns all the time, and have never killed anybody. I have, though used a gun to prevent harm from coming to somebody, but you're obviously not interested in hearing about that (since it would ruin your argument).
Same with explosives.
What world do you live in? As I expressly mentioned, those are tools used by farmers (to pull out tree stumps and rocks), construction workers (to help build foundations and roads), etc. Do you know how many thousands of times a day people use explosives in mining, agriculture, and construction... and no one is killed?
How to you figure that a printer's registration of its serial number controls information? Do you have a single bit of evidence that suggests that anyone, ever, has used that feature of those products to in any way prevent anyone from disseminating information (other than "information" in the form of counterfeit documents)? No, you don't.
Why dont people get this?
controling guns = good
controling instructions on building a gun = bad
Do you even hear yourself? People don't get that because it's irrational and impractical. You want freedom (of communication) but not the freedom to use your freely obtained information to defend yourself? How about a more sane (and constitutionally valid) take on it:
controlling information about guns = bad
holding people accountable for their actions = good
Did you know that the rate of murder in the country was actually down last year? In my county, it has actually gone up. And that's not people being shot by other people with guns: it's people being stabbed by people with knives. Do you recommend that only "trained personnel" have access to sharp metal things? Are knives only meant to kill people? If you don't think so, then don't you see the ridiculous double standard? Further, don't you think that people who don't want to be stabbed to death should have the means by which to defend themselves? Or, are you recommending (since you're not a big one on holding people accountable for their actions) that we have police officers at every house to make sure that everyone is safe from throat-cutting gang members, all the time? I'd rather not live under those circumstances, thank you, but I'd also like the option of preventing an idiot with a knife from hurting my family. You control the information in society, you control alot more than knowing whether your vehicle has been in an accident 5 years ago
I absolutely guarantee that your privacy is at much greater risk from the information about your car than it is from the serialization of your printer output. Your tag numbers are recorded by databases as you pass through toll stops, your registration of your vehicle (and its type, the insurance you have on it, the work you've had done on it, including the mileage you've used, and much else) is easily cross referenced. On most newer vehicles, data recorders know how fast you've been going lately (including how you were accelerating or braking, etc., at the time of an accident). Fancy new nav systems in cars leave a lengthy trail of GPS-based information about where you've been lately, and how fast you were driving when you went. That type of information is being gathered and chewed on way, way more often and by more parties than your hardcopy laser printer output ever will be (especially if you're not faking official documents).
You say potatoes, I say potatos. At least you didn't say volcanoe's!
by thinking before you type. It's not "fishers," it's "fissures." You know, from the same root word that gives us "fission" (as in splitting the atom).
And why go to all the trouble of typing that extra apostrophe in "volcano's" when it forces people to then ask, "The volcano's what?" You're saying that something belongs to a volcano? Or did you mean to just use the plural, and simply say "volcanos" (as in, more than one volcano)?
I don't normally bother with this, but since you're asking a useful question that I can only hope some geologists will answer, I'm just hoping you'll include some more helpful spelling/syntax/punctuation next time around. It elevates the conversation, and reminds the IM kiddies that words actually mean something.
Is it just me, or is this sort of collusion between corporations and the secret police a little disturbing
Depends. Are you still trying to recover from unique VINs (vehicle identification numbers) on every car/truck, the use of your SSN for business purposes, or perhaps the way that some states are requiring firearm "fingerprints" on factory casings for after-the-fact matchups? The case mark registry - virtually identical to this printer business - was dreamt up years ago and pushed through many a state legislature, unfailingly by the leftier-part of the political spectrum.
Industry tracking of products, with that data available to the government, has been going on for years and years. Drugs are tracked, down the dose in some cases. Commercial explosives - such as used in road building and farming - are marked, per batch, with micro identifiers that survive combustion. There are many such examples, and many that date back to before the current administration. Were you complaining back then?
And that presumes that someone with a lot of time and brains has some reason to mess with you. But there are so many other, easier ways to do that without resorting to BS like that... so I'd tend to not sweat that. It's no different than cloning phones to get someone in trouble for phoning in bomb threats, or spoofing IP addresses to create kiddy pr0n log file entries, or plugging a wired phone into the interface on the outside of most people's houses to make use of their caller ID (and long distance account), or any of a jillion similar things. This printer business is all about bolstering law enforcement cases that have been built up typically by other means, or providing a lead in a case that will still need substantially additional work.
But the principle is still unjust.
Not it's not. The principle is this: we the people elect, or through our elected officials appoint, sober, thoughtful judges who decide whether the risk of temporarily depriving an innocent person of their property (or similar hardship) is outweighed by the very likely finding of guilt. It's the job of the investigators and prosecutors to show the judge (or panel of judges) that warrant being asked for has merit. Do you reall, really think that even a first-day-on-the-job investigator couldn't show a judge the way in which the spammer in question was breaking the law? It's a no-brainer for the judge - the evidence in this investigation is huge, and the person under investigation goes to no trouble to hide his activities.
Of course he doesn't have a reason. Or, reason. Say what you want about Republicans getting support from the people that provide jobs (er, businesses), you aren't going to find a single instance of spammer-friendly Republican-let policy pushes. The GP is just being a slavish, craven, partisan twit.
but who is guilty, the people who create the malware or the people that finance them?
Neither. It's the person who actually acts to put that software on your machine. Sometimes those are the same person, but it's the act that counts.
im looking forward to seeing a few more executives in jail, they seem to think if you wear a suit and have a PLC/INC you can do what you want without recourse
Tell that the executives who are in jail. The people that own and operate legitimate businesses hear this all the time from their accountants, lawyers, marketing and IT people. The people you're worried about are people who are running sleazy companies (usually off-shore) and don't care anyway.
Don't make "executives" as a class of people the bad guys. There are hundreds of thousands of businesses in this country that do things right every day. There are just as many bad "executives" as there are bad teenagers cracking from their basements, bad low-level IT employees stealing customer credit data, and so on.
What you said. Thanks.
Well, then the artist wanted it that way. No one forces a band to stop playing bars and start looking for income through a recording career facilitated by a large media company. If they want that exposure and help, and don't have the clout to negotiate anything more favorable, then they're either going to compromise or... not.
Clearly we are unable to function without Their Googly Appendages, so I don't know how NASA is going to pull this off. Although a soccer-field-sized Space Daisy observatory does sound like something eBay would acquire, and that might get Google interested in a competing Cricket-Pitch Space Tulip.
The public interest in free and fair elections overrides your right to essentially buy laws.
... Any candidate that runs, and uses my dollars, is getting coerced support from me...
You know, I hear a lot of people use the expression "buying laws," but they go to a lot of trouble to avoid actually identifying the fantasy mechanism by which they imagine that takes place. For something that you imply happens constantly, do you not have a single example where actual, un-punished felony bribery has resulted in a law? Or is there some other mechanism that a rabid, 24-hour-news-cycle media with untold thousands of partisan political reporters has yet to uncover? You must really be holding out for some big event, keeping that to yourself.
Yes, they are. All of them equally...
And such coersion pleases you? You're good with financing religious fanatics, parties promoting pedophiles, parties in favor of reinstating slavery, or shooting illegal immigrants on sight? Instead of holding your nose and tolerating such nonsense yourself, and forcing me to pay for it too, how about you support the people you like, as you see fit, and I do the same?
It seems that you are afraid people would vote for Neo-Nazis, Anarchists, or other "irrational" candidates if they had any money (to quote you) "to make sure that [their] group's message is heard, and their purpose achieved".
No, I'm not worried about those votes, because they won't add up to those idiots being elected. But by propping them up with tax dollars, you're lending them an undeserved legitimacy, and suggesting that the entire country finds their views to be on an equal footing with every other view. The Flat Earth Society's candidate, for example, or the Pope For President party, are objectively, clearly not places I would ever put my vote. For you to force money from my wallet (which equals irreplaceable time from my short life) to say that they are equal, to me, is philosophical cowardice. Rather than letting the marketplace of ideas attract voices, support, and votes, you'd artificially inflate the credibility of crackpots, would-be despots, and (I begin to see you angle here) those trying to prop up demonstrably sinister ideologies like communism.
As a socialist, you're proably feeling the discomfort of being routinely unable to convince a lot of people that your world view is a useful, productive, and liberating one (since it's not). So, rather than adapt your viewpoint to reality and merit, you're trying to rationalize a centrally administered false economy of philosophical mediocrity. It doesn't work for socialized economies, and it's even more abhorrent when it comes to telling people what they think (or, what they have to say, no matter what they think). Forcing me to support a candidate that thinks Stalin had it right is... Stalinesque on the face of it.
I don't have a problem with my government being ran by fascists or any other group so long as they represent the true will of the people
That, right there, is moral relativism (and cowardice) at its absolute worst. That suggests a personal moral framework that is utterly rudderless, and with no demonstrable premises upon which to consistently build a rational ethic. It's embarassing, really - and you don't sound like you're 15, so you don't have the usual excuse for beign muddle-headed.
I'm not preventing you from expressing your opinion
My opinion, as expressed through my choices, actions, application of my time (and money), is that Stalinistas are evil. You would have me support them anyway. That means you want to control my expression.
Money has nothing to do with opinions.
So why are you so worried about giving mine to people that I don't think - because of their own expressed opinions - deserve my financial support? You're trying to have it both ways.
As far as relativism goes, I'm the one t
Of course interest groups will keep lobbying, but their influence will be diminshed. The only thing they could actually do is withdraw an endorsment. I don't mind pandering to groups of people. I do mind pandering to money.
And what about the money those groups need to spend in order to even interact with you, with candidates, with voters, with the press - all activities that may be the very essence of their existence. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to form a group that wants to collectively support a ballot initiative, a party, or a candidate - and there's no reason that group shouldn't be able to reach into their own pockets, or take donations from other like-minded people to make sure that the group's message is heard, and their purpose achieved. Otherwise you're right back into squelching free association and free speech. If that group wants to spend money to fly members out to visit (and inform, persuade, eduacation, celebrate) a candidate, or fly the candidate out to talk to them, what of it? It that group wants to streamline the whole process by letting the candidates own campaign make better, more efficient use of some of that money, why is that bad? That money can't go into the candidate's personal account, and he can't spend it on personal things. If that's what you're worried about, then it's not the fact that our daily lives and economy happen to use cash to travel, eat, rent rooms, print posters, produce TV ads, etc. - rather, you're just worried about lax enforcement of existing corruption laws.
Money isn't speech
No, money is just a fiduciary vehicle. Speech is speech, but other actions also serve as speech (putting up a sign, forming groups to speak louder and more eloquently than one person stomping on a street corner, etc).
Giving money to a candidate is a bribe.
Good thing it's illegal, then! Candidates that personally take money from their campaign organization's funds get to go to jail.
Your voice will be heard at the ballot box.
Yup, and I want to make sure that at least some other people that go are keeping in mind some things that I think are important. I may even want to spend some money making sure that message is clearly understood.
Furthermore, you're not backing any candidate in publicly financed elections.
Wrong. Any candidate that runs, and uses my dollars, is getting coerced support from me. I don't consider all candidates to be equal. I don't want my dollars to suggest that Neo-Nazis, or Anarchists, or any other irrational candidates are equally valuable on the national (or local) stage. They are not. That's my opinion, but you would prevent me from expressing that opinion, or worse: you would take my dollars and use them to make a statement of equality of merit where I do not perceive it to exist.
Yes, I'm a socialist.
Which explains the moral relativism, and pretty much ends the discussion, I guess.
I'd like to see how different the political landscape would be if no one was owned by the *AA's, oil interests, etc. The only way to eliminate corruption is to eliminate the money.
Right, because that way the American Association Of Retired People, the National Education Association, the various labor unions representing millions of poeple, the Sierra Club, the Union Of Concerned Scientists and all of those other evil organizations will finally be prevented from influencing elections. Whew!
elections should be publicly financed
So, instead of me getting to choose how I want my voice to be heard, you're going to force me to back a candidate? Excellent idea, comrade!
"So if I buy a car that will tip over when I make a corner over 15 kph, the company is responsible? And if the same car can have its windows opened by pushing in and down, the company has to claim partial responsibility for the damages and theft done by any vandal who exploits this?"
Poor analogy. Or, incomplete. Are you saying that the manufacturer doesn't tell the off-road vehicle's owner that it's not safe to corner at a certain speed, or says that their vehicle windows are burglar-proof? Who decides, in your scenario, what is bad "by design?" You think being able to push in a window to open it is a flaw, but where to you draw the line? How hard should you be able to push on a window before it fails? How much should every vehicle cost so that no one will be able to complain about any aspect of its capabilities? People who can only afford $9,000 cars can't really complain when they aren't built like $39,000 cars. People that want vehicles with high centers of gravity for driving on the farm can't complain when it doesn't handle like a performance street car. Since the real thread here is about security-related bugs, can you get back to vulnerabilities that actually fit the profile?
Like, locks on houses that really don't (couldn't possibly) keep out a semi-determined burglar? Or glass windows on stores that cna't keep out even casual people that don't care about any damage they cause? Is the glass maker responsible for that "flaw"?
When Cisco has a bug that causes router security to not do what it's supposed to do, should they be liable for the money they've charged the customer for their product, or for everything that goes wrong because a bad guy took action? The added costs to the price of software, etc., would make the skyrocketing malpractice insurance costs in the medical business look like nothing.
I'm from Europe. What is Vespa?
OK, you're not really from Europe, are you?
This is Vespa. From an American perspective, there is hardly a more European object on the face of the planet. Except maybe escargot.