I can blame the webmasters that insist on using flash and mandatory javascript (etc) even when it is unnecessary, ad peddlers that don't give two sh*ts about what goes throughout their network if the price is right, sites using a CMS for static content, that bet abandoned at some point, with the CMS getting taken over and serving exploit kit iframes for the next decade... etc... The issue at hand is that the current situation is caused by all involved parties not taking any responsibility whatsoever, it's neither the user, nor the companies, nor the websites, it's all of them.
+1 truth
I'm sick and tired of people who defend the unnecessary use of things like javascript by putting all of the blame for the accompanying reduction in security on the user.
The car analogy is that it is like demanding that people not wear seat-belts and when they get hurt in a wreck then blaming them for not having the latest air-bag system.
Inasmuch as it shows that there are ethical people in China. We need reminding that good people can be found in China - not all of them are evil, which is the impression you get from news.
A smart man once said that the Russians love their children too.
Sounds like a plan. Revoke all laws 10-20 years after they are passed, unless they can pass again.
Give the congresscritters something to do, so they can feel useful.
Hasn't been working with the PATRIOT act crap.
It may even be that the sunset provisions are essentially guaranteeing renewal because all the politicians are afraid that if they do not renew the law and some terrorist somewhere pulls off an attack then anyone running for the same office will be able to say that the incumbent let the terrorist kill people by not voting to renew the law.
And if google gives the works away by offering it for free on their site (ad-supported to run the infrastructure) are they still wrong'ing society?
Sounds to me like you are suggesting the sell-out of a basic tenent of society - that everybody is equal before the law - for a shiny trinket. A shiny trinket that they are still going to make money on selling to us.
Airline passengers have equal incentive to quit flying regardless of who provides the anal probes. Since the government is still the one mandating anal probes, it doesn't matter if the fingers in the butts are government employees or private employees they are still required by the government to stick them in.
The total theoreticaly cash available to them is limited to the number (and wealth) of people passing through the airport,
Because whether or not a private firm provides the boots on the ground, what they do is still mandated by the government and thus not necessarily tied to the number of dollars passengers are willing to pay for an anal probe.
The prison guard lobbies are just as culpable as a business when it comes to advocating longer sentences.
I'll give you that the prison guard unions do contribute to the problem. And maybe now that the TSA has just unionized this year we'll see them making more trouble too. But we'd have TSA unions to worry about either way. It's still less than having TSA union lobbyists and corporate lobbyists.
And it's worth noting that in the case of the TSA, privatization eliminates the conflict of interest. Currently, the federal government can use airport security as massive propaganda for security-related funding and power plays. You get a constant stream of security related warnings over the intercoms. TSA posters and warnings adorn every entrance. Security theater benefits the government.
Seems to me that TSA scare tactics aren't going to change with privatisation - scare tactics keep people in their place at the airport making the jobs of the people who put the posters up easier, so that won't stop. And if such scare tactics really are of value to the big brother wannabes they'll just mandate that they continue as part of some sort "base-line security awareness" requirements for airports, privatized or not.
Further, it's a great way for government to keep tabs on its citizens. There's a lot of exploitable power here.
I don't see that changing for the better. In fact, I see it getting worse with privatization. As it is now the government out-sources quite a bit of their citizen spying to companies like Axciom but at least it still has the semblance of legal restrictions regarding what the government can do with that info. Private corps have no such restrictions at all and they have a profit motive to over-collect and then resell anything they get in the process.
But by handing that security task back to private contractors, you eliminate one means for government to abuse its powers and incentive for government to mess up airport security for its advantage.
Seems to me the the very best you can hope for here is a wash. It is inarguable that privatising prisons in the USA has been a bad thing for just about everyone other than the prison industry. There really doesn't seem to be a substantive difference between exploiting prisoners and exploiting people who have little choice about flying because their livelihoods depend on it.
I guess this is a fundamental difference of perception here. Privatizing the TSA doesn't make their customers any less forced than they are now. It is still a government mandate and its still going to be a bunch of government "standards" that the private corp will have to meet. Except now there is incentive for that private corp to lobby the government to increase and/or create new standards. Right now all we have are politicians and relatively low paid bureaucrats motivated by CYA. Privatizing means you've got that same level of CYA plus well-heeled lobbyists.
I'll tell you why it won't, see above. those images/videos of people being molested would not be tolerated from a private group. Companies would be apologizing left and right and firing people, where as the TSA & government just says it's for your own good.
Sure that might happen. But getting a finger up your ass in order to fly isn't the only problem with the TSA. That's just the latest manifestation, its the one that has finally caused a little bit of news coverage. But all of the other crap, the Total Information Awareness programs, the liquids ban, the shoes, the long lines, the totally arbitrary rules made up on the spot, etc doesn't have a chance of getting fixed.
Big corps with near monopoly power abuse their customers in similar fashion all of the time and their customers just suffer through it. I don't see why a privatized TSA should be any different from companies like Comcast, Verizon or even local supermarkets all of which are able to get away one form or another of that same stuff.
If the government is so corrupt that it can't delegate these tasks without being able to manage the conflicts of interest, then that's a strong indication that the government shouldn't be doing those tasks at all.
I think that's rather arbitrary. On one hand you have almost the entire elimination of conflict of interest and on the other hand you have the inevitable conflict of interest. It sure seems like choosing the path that practically eliminates the conflict of interest is the most sensible choice regardless of the level of corruption.
Most people think prisons should be run by the government. It's one of the legitimate functions of government, IMO.
The question is WHY that is your opinion? It is my opinion too, but the reason I think that is because I believe privatizing prisons creates economic incentives to put more people in prison.
So what people would profit?
For the same reason I don't think prisons should be privatized - private security companies make more money the more "security" work they do. Thus privatizing the TSA would only create an incentive to increase the scope of their "security" work.
I'd rather not get groped or have nude pictures of me taken. Plus the fact then airports/airlines could choose.
Me too. But I don't think either of those necessarily follow from privatizing the TSA. I think the first is likely to become more intrusive, not less, since that's more work to bill for.
As for choice, I fully expect that any companies that get the contracts will follow the tried-and-true method of lock themselves in to a government contract by creating complexity such that switching out for a new company will involve so much overhead as to make it cost inefficient, at least on a year to year basis which is generally all anyone looks at for budgeting.
"Failure to detect threats" does not necessarily mean the program is a total waste of money, because of the deterrent effect on terrorists who would be risking human assets to sneak by the airport checkpoints.
It is a reasonable premise to assume that a deterred terrorist does not simply give up, he looks for an easier target. Therefore the deterrent effect can be measured by counting non-airport cases of terrorism.
In the most favorable interpretation for the TSA would be to count every single non-airport terrorist as having been "deterred" by the TSA. I believe that makes 3 -- the DC sniper, the Fort Hood shooter and the Times Square bomber.
That's 2 nutjobs with just guns and 1 nutjob who couldn't even build a functional bomb with all the space of an SUV, much less a suitcase. At around $6+ billion a year to fund the TSA, that's $60 billion doilars spent to save probably a handful of lives, which ended up lost somewhere other than an airplane anyway.
Meanwhile how many lives would have been saved if that $60 billion had been spent on health programs? Hell, how many could have been saved with just $6 billion? I think it is entirely reasonable argument to say that the TSA is costing lives, hundreds, if not thousands of lives through misappropriate of resources.
You keep adding qualifiers. Not only do opinions have to be based on direct experience, now they also must be reasonable. All those people who have opinions about God, I guess they really don't qualify as opinions then huh?
Have you ever heard of manslaughter vs involuntary manslaughter? The difference is whether the thoughts are "wrong".
Absolutely not even in the same league. The difference between intentional actions and accidents is nothing like determining how "reasonable" a belief is. For one thing intent, or lack thereof, is determined by examining actions, not by trying to figure out a person's belief structure and critical thinking skills.
Your argument is with the law, not me
That seems to be the cop out you've settled on here. If that's the best you've got, then why do you even post in the first place? If the law stands on its own it sure doesn't need you to lift a finger to justify it, now does it?
That you think society and everyone in it is wrong and you are the only right person is a full on mental illness.
For someone intent on accusing me of attacking you personally you sure don't practice what you preach. I think your irony meter is broken.
Really? That is no different in substance than "it should be illegal because it is illegal" Give me a break.
I assert that your disagreement is with the law and not me. But instead, you obviously can't find fault with that, so you attack me.
I attack your defense of the law. If you can't see the difference then you are way too personally involved. Especially when you say things like "you've made it clear that you are beyond help" - THAT is attacking the person and not the argument.
Google knew there was patent issues and they actually resolved them BY LICENSING THE VARIOUS PATENTS.
The evil part is that even though Google knew there were patent issues, they invited every other manufacturer to go ahead and just use the OS without getting their own licenses. Google fucked everyone.
That's a pretty extrordinary claim. I'd really like to see some sort of proof. Specifically that (a) google licensed the relevant patents and (b) google encouraged others to violate them. That's no joke, a citation that backs up those claims would go right into my bookmarks.
I would argue it's impossible to have a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind with absolutely no information at all, directly or indirectly, related to the mater.
No information? At a minimum you know I have a mother. Who knows, maybe you have a theory that someone's looks are related to the kind of things they say and that people in the same family tend to say the same sorts of things.
Whatever the case, trying to decide what another person has going on in their head and then punish them if their thoughts are "wrong" is, if not ridiculous, completely impractical..
However, as an opinion about your mother, I can't actually hold that opinion, as I have no personal knowledge of her, and thus it most certainly is not an opinion about your mother.
Since your entire argument hinges on the meaning of the word "opinion" I think it would be helpful to start with a formal definition. Merriam-Webster is generally considered canonical, probably second only to the OED.
opinion 1a : a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter 1b : approval, esteem 2a : belief stronger than impression and less strong than positive knowledge 2b : a generally held view 3a : a formal expression of judgment or advice by an expert 3b : the formal expression (as by a judge, court, or referee) of the legal reasons and principles upon which a legal decision is based
As you can see, the two most common definitions don't require anything like personal knowledge or evidence. Just simply belief. Sometimes a strongly held belief, but still just belief. Which pretty much ends this line of debate.
Actually, meaningful participation ended when wou started holding both sides of the conversation by putting words in my mouth.
No, what I did was attempt to read past your literal words and try to make the meaning behind them explicit. That's how reasonable people come to better understand a topic of debate. Instead of offering up a better explanation you just played the snark card.
And I said to myself, "These sacks of straw shouldn't be difficult to outwit in a combat situation!"
Since you've been reduced to snark it's seems you have no interest in meaningful participation. That's usually what happens when someone can't rationalise an argument that was based on emotion.
I never said that, I said offering that capability was not a viable solution.
Ok, so then you agree it is sufficient enough of a solution to deal with the problem of an asshole causing somebody mental harm. I don't see any other way for you to have it, unless your interest is in punishing people for being assholes rather than preventing harm.
Really? So now simply deleting messages should be a jailable offense? I think you've made explicit just how extreme your position is.
But even then you didn't pay attention - I did suggest a way to avoid your criticisim - having posters to other sites run by the same host make the determination. That prevents one guy from specifically targeting any particular web site.
You want this guy in jail and in order to justify what you want you are advocating that nobody try to fix the problem in any other way. Like I said in an earlier post you are going to the law as a first resort against the basic principle that the law should always be the remedy of last resort.
Slashdot Mirror
I can blame the webmasters that insist on using flash and mandatory javascript (etc) even when it is unnecessary, ad peddlers that don't give two sh*ts about what goes throughout their network if the price is right, sites using a CMS for static content, that bet abandoned at some point, with the CMS getting taken over and serving exploit kit iframes for the next decade... etc... The issue at hand is that the current situation is caused by all involved parties not taking any responsibility whatsoever, it's neither the user, nor the companies, nor the websites, it's all of them.
+1 truth
I'm sick and tired of people who defend the unnecessary use of things like javascript by putting all of the blame for the accompanying reduction in security on the user.
The car analogy is that it is like demanding that people not wear seat-belts and when they get hurt in a wreck then blaming them for not having the latest air-bag system.
Inasmuch as it shows that there are ethical people in China. We need reminding that good people can be found in China - not all of them are evil, which is the impression you get from news.
A smart man once said that the Russians love their children too.
Or just make up your own custom letterhead for a fictitious law firm.
The point is to keep them busy, so they don't feel like they need to write new stupid laws. It's not a complete solution.
They'll just cut-n-paste.
Sounds like a plan. Revoke all laws 10-20 years after they are passed, unless they can pass again.
Give the congresscritters something to do, so they can feel useful.
Hasn't been working with the PATRIOT act crap.
It may even be that the sunset provisions are essentially guaranteeing renewal because all the politicians are afraid that if they do not renew the law and some terrorist somewhere pulls off an attack then anyone running for the same office will be able to say that the incumbent let the terrorist kill people by not voting to renew the law.
And if google gives the works away by offering it for free on their site (ad-supported to run the infrastructure) are they still wrong'ing society?
Sounds to me like you are suggesting the sell-out of a basic tenent of society - that everybody is equal before the law - for a shiny trinket. A shiny trinket that they are still going to make money on selling to us.
My pockets in my jeans can fit a 7" tablet without much issue.
American obesity FTW!!
(ok, really Australia but don't let facts get in the way of a joke)
Airline passengers have equal incentive to quit flying regardless of who provides the anal probes. Since the government is still the one mandating anal probes, it doesn't matter if the fingers in the butts are government employees or private employees they are still required by the government to stick them in.
The total theoreticaly cash available to them is limited to the number (and wealth) of people passing through the airport,
Because whether or not a private firm provides the boots on the ground, what they do is still mandated by the government and thus not necessarily tied to the number of dollars passengers are willing to pay for an anal probe.
The prison guard lobbies are just as culpable as a business when it comes to advocating longer sentences.
I'll give you that the prison guard unions do contribute to the problem. And maybe now that the TSA has just unionized this year we'll see them making more trouble too. But we'd have TSA unions to worry about either way. It's still less than having TSA union lobbyists and corporate lobbyists.
And it's worth noting that in the case of the TSA, privatization eliminates the conflict of interest. Currently, the federal government can use airport security as massive propaganda for security-related funding and power plays. You get a constant stream of security related warnings over the intercoms. TSA posters and warnings adorn every entrance. Security theater benefits the government.
Seems to me that TSA scare tactics aren't going to change with privatisation - scare tactics keep people in their place at the airport making the jobs of the people who put the posters up easier, so that won't stop. And if such scare tactics really are of value to the big brother wannabes they'll just mandate that they continue as part of some sort "base-line security awareness" requirements for airports, privatized or not.
Further, it's a great way for government to keep tabs on its citizens. There's a lot of exploitable power here.
I don't see that changing for the better. In fact, I see it getting worse with privatization. As it is now the government out-sources quite a bit of their citizen spying to companies like Axciom but at least it still has the semblance of legal restrictions regarding what the government can do with that info. Private corps have no such restrictions at all and they have a profit motive to over-collect and then resell anything they get in the process.
But by handing that security task back to private contractors, you eliminate one means for government to abuse its powers and incentive for government to mess up airport security for its advantage.
Seems to me the the very best you can hope for here is a wash. It is inarguable that privatising prisons in the USA has been a bad thing for just about everyone other than the prison industry. There really doesn't seem to be a substantive difference between exploiting prisoners and exploiting people who have little choice about flying because their livelihoods depend on it.
in prison, the customers are forced.
I guess this is a fundamental difference of perception here. Privatizing the TSA doesn't make their customers any less forced than they are now. It is still a government mandate and its still going to be a bunch of government "standards" that the private corp will have to meet. Except now there is incentive for that private corp to lobby the government to increase and/or create new standards. Right now all we have are politicians and relatively low paid bureaucrats motivated by CYA. Privatizing means you've got that same level of CYA plus well-heeled lobbyists.
I'll tell you why it won't, see above. those images/videos of people being molested would not be tolerated from a private group. Companies would be apologizing left and right and firing people, where as the TSA & government just says it's for your own good.
Sure that might happen. But getting a finger up your ass in order to fly isn't the only problem with the TSA. That's just the latest manifestation, its the one that has finally caused a little bit of news coverage. But all of the other crap, the Total Information Awareness programs, the liquids ban, the shoes, the long lines, the totally arbitrary rules made up on the spot, etc doesn't have a chance of getting fixed.
Big corps with near monopoly power abuse their customers in similar fashion all of the time and their customers just suffer through it. I don't see why a privatized TSA should be any different from companies like Comcast, Verizon or even local supermarkets all of which are able to get away one form or another of that same stuff.
If the government is so corrupt that it can't delegate these tasks without being able to manage the conflicts of interest, then that's a strong indication that the government shouldn't be doing those tasks at all.
I think that's rather arbitrary. On one hand you have almost the entire elimination of conflict of interest and on the other hand you have the inevitable conflict of interest. It sure seems like choosing the path that practically eliminates the conflict of interest is the most sensible choice regardless of the level of corruption.
Most people think prisons should be run by the government. It's one of the legitimate functions of government, IMO.
The question is WHY that is your opinion? It is my opinion too, but the reason I think that is because I believe privatizing prisons creates economic incentives to put more people in prison.
So what people would profit?
For the same reason I don't think prisons should be privatized - private security companies make more money the more "security" work they do. Thus privatizing the TSA would only create an incentive to increase the scope of their "security" work.
I'd rather not get groped or have nude pictures of me taken. Plus the fact then airports/airlines could choose.
Me too. But I don't think either of those necessarily follow from privatizing the TSA. I think the first is likely to become more intrusive, not less, since that's more work to bill for.
As for choice, I fully expect that any companies that get the contracts will follow the tried-and-true method of lock themselves in to a government contract by creating complexity such that switching out for a new company will involve so much overhead as to make it cost inefficient, at least on a year to year basis which is generally all anyone looks at for budgeting.
"Failure to detect threats" does not necessarily mean the program is a total waste of money, because of the deterrent effect on terrorists who would be risking human assets to sneak by the airport checkpoints.
It is a reasonable premise to assume that a deterred terrorist does not simply give up, he looks for an easier target. Therefore the deterrent effect can be measured by counting non-airport cases of terrorism.
In the most favorable interpretation for the TSA would be to count every single non-airport terrorist as having been "deterred" by the TSA. I believe that makes 3 -- the DC sniper, the Fort Hood shooter and the Times Square bomber.
That's 2 nutjobs with just guns and 1 nutjob who couldn't even build a functional bomb with all the space of an SUV, much less a suitcase. At around $6+ billion a year to fund the TSA, that's $60 billion doilars spent to save probably a handful of lives, which ended up lost somewhere other than an airplane anyway.
Meanwhile how many lives would have been saved if that $60 billion had been spent on health programs? Hell, how many could have been saved with just $6 billion? I think it is entirely reasonable argument to say that the TSA is costing lives, hundreds, if not thousands of lives through misappropriate of resources.
So, a reasonable person
You keep adding qualifiers. Not only do opinions have to be based on direct experience, now they also must be reasonable. All those people who have opinions about God, I guess they really don't qualify as opinions then huh?
Have you ever heard of manslaughter vs involuntary manslaughter? The difference is whether the thoughts are "wrong".
Absolutely not even in the same league. The difference between intentional actions and accidents is nothing like determining how "reasonable" a belief is. For one thing intent, or lack thereof, is determined by examining actions, not by trying to figure out a person's belief structure and critical thinking skills.
Your argument is with the law, not me
That seems to be the cop out you've settled on here. If that's the best you've got, then why do you even post in the first place? If the law stands on its own it sure doesn't need you to lift a finger to justify it, now does it?
That you think society and everyone in it is wrong and you are the only right person is a full on mental illness.
For someone intent on accusing me of attacking you personally you sure don't practice what you preach. I think your irony meter is broken.
Both are, in fact, against the law.
Really? That is no different in substance than "it should be illegal because it is illegal" Give me a break.
I assert that your disagreement is with the law and not me. But instead, you obviously can't find fault with that, so you attack me.
I attack your defense of the law. If you can't see the difference then you are way too personally involved. Especially when you say things like "you've made it clear that you are beyond help" - THAT is attacking the person and not the argument.
Google knew there was patent issues and they actually resolved them BY LICENSING THE VARIOUS PATENTS.
The evil part is that even though Google knew there were patent issues, they invited every other manufacturer to go ahead and just use the OS without getting their own licenses. Google fucked everyone.
That's a pretty extrordinary claim. I'd really like to see some sort of proof. Specifically that (a) google licensed the relevant patents and (b) google encouraged others to violate them. That's no joke, a citation that backs up those claims would go right into my bookmarks.
I would argue it's impossible to have a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind with absolutely no information at all, directly or indirectly, related to the mater.
No information? At a minimum you know I have a mother. Who knows, maybe you have a theory that someone's looks are related to the kind of things they say and that people in the same family tend to say the same sorts of things.
Whatever the case, trying to decide what another person has going on in their head and then punish them if their thoughts are "wrong" is, if not ridiculous, completely impractical..
I honestly can't see anything persuasive in what you wrote, I did my best to pull something, anything, out of that. If I got it wrong then correct me.
And apparently, you can't express "I don't like suicide" by harassing the family of a person who committed suicide.
So... Your argument is that it should be illegal because it is illegal. Do you really find that line of reasoning to be compelling?
However, as an opinion about your mother, I can't actually hold that opinion, as I have no personal knowledge of her, and thus it most certainly is not an opinion about your mother.
Since your entire argument hinges on the meaning of the word "opinion" I think it would be helpful to start with a formal definition. Merriam-Webster is generally considered canonical, probably second only to the OED.
opinion1a : a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter
1b : approval, esteem
2a : belief stronger than impression and less strong than positive knowledge
2b : a generally held view
3a : a formal expression of judgment or advice by an expert
3b : the formal expression (as by a judge, court, or referee) of the legal reasons and principles upon which a legal decision is based
As you can see, the two most common definitions don't require anything like personal knowledge or evidence. Just simply belief. Sometimes a strongly held belief, but still just belief. Which pretty much ends this line of debate.
Actually, meaningful participation ended when wou started holding both sides of the conversation by putting words in my mouth.
No, what I did was attempt to read past your literal words and try to make the meaning behind them explicit. That's how reasonable people come to better understand a topic of debate. Instead of offering up a better explanation you just played the snark card.
And I said to myself, "These sacks of straw shouldn't be difficult to outwit in a combat situation!"
Since you've been reduced to snark it's seems you have no interest in meaningful participation. That's usually what happens when someone can't rationalise an argument that was based on emotion.
I never said that, I said offering that capability was not a viable solution.
Ok, so then you agree it is sufficient enough of a solution to deal with the problem of an asshole causing somebody mental harm. I don't see any other way for you to have it, unless your interest is in punishing people for being assholes rather than preventing harm.
Really? So now simply deleting messages should be a jailable offense? I think you've made explicit just how extreme your position is.
But even then you didn't pay attention - I did suggest a way to avoid your criticisim - having posters to other sites run by the same host make the determination. That prevents one guy from specifically targeting any particular web site.
You want this guy in jail and in order to justify what you want you are advocating that nobody try to fix the problem in any other way. Like I said in an earlier post you are going to the law as a first resort against the basic principle that the law should always be the remedy of last resort.