In your redneck wet dreams. That would be diplomatic suicide. For a country as dependent on international trade as the US - well, basically, you could kiss your economy goodbye.
The second the first advertiser ignores it is the second it ought to become mandatory, with fines equalling the ridiculous amounts the MAFIAA asks for copyright infringrement.
If we move for opt-in, there will be virtually noone who actually opt-in. Those who care about privacy will opt-out, those who don't care won't even realize the option exists. Subsequently, spammers will ignore it because it becomes fairly meaningless, and not ignoring it would lose them potential victims who don't care about being spammed. So the feature just becomes worthless.
Yes. Was that kind of what we all came to agree upon when it comes to UCE/spam? Opt-out is an open invitation for abuse. Opt-in is the only thing that works.
The whole purpose of the DNT header is to allow users to make a statement of "I do not want to be tracked", but if you make it the default it will just be a statement of "I have probably not bothered to change the default settings and most likely don't even realise such settings exist"
You've fallen victim to a trick of language. Maybe we should rename it "tracking preference header" or something, and allow it to say "yes", "no" or "I don't care". But that is all a strawman. The point is that it is not the fucking advertisers job to decide whether or not I really mean it. If the flag is set, then do not track me. It is not your job to interpret my intention.
It really is that simple. If MS decides to set DNT default on as a service to their users, then tough luck. Anyone who uses that as a justification to start ignoring it was just looking for an excuse and wanted to do that anyways.
Why would an advertiser reduce his exposure voluntarily?
It needs to be on by default, with massive fines for ignoring it. Seriously, have all those zombie apocalypse movies eaten away the brains of the/. crowd? Since when do we accept opt-out as a viable way? Haven't we concluded this discussion 10 years ago and agreed very strongly that opt-in is the only way that will not be massively abused?
Unless they're planning on adding the force of law to the DNT bit, all this will do is make advertisers ignore it (and, they could argue, rightfully so since they couldn't be certain that people turned it on of their own volition).
And that's when I very strongly want the full force of the law to come down on those advertisers.
DNT signals a preference. It is NOT the job of the advertisers to decide whether or not I really mean it. Their job is to comply. If they don't, my personal vote is for fining them on the same ridiculous scale that copyright infringement is fined. Say, $50,000 per incident. That means per page that I view where they ignore the DNT flag, and if they have two banners on the page, twice.
Yes, I am serious. Draw a line in the sand and shoot anyone crossing it. Especially advertisers, who don't understand anything less than that.
Which scares you more, Stuxnet and Flame, which at the very least appear to have been fairly specifically targeted, or Iran with nuclear weapons?
That's so easy, it's unfair: Stuxnet and Flame, of course. They already have caused considerable damage on a wide scale, and while they are targeted, it would be way too easy to re-target them on something that matters to me.
Iran with nukes, on the other hand, is still theoretical, still has a long way to go, and even if they had nukes the chances are 99:1 that they would use them for MAD and not actually use them and even if the extremely remote chance of a nuclear detonation came to pass, it would almost certainly not affect me in the slightest.
And, quite frankly, I don't buy nuclear fearmongering coming from the only country ever to actually drop nuclear bombs on civilian cities, twice.
I think that Iran should declare war on the US over it.
That would be stupid, and only what the US wants so it has an excuse to bomb them.
But this is an act of war and Iran should take it to the UN and request sanctions against the USA. Of course the veto power would block those, but if that were the case it should be followed up by a formal request to restructure the security council and remove all veto rights, a proposal that would have strong support within the UN as many countries dislike that left-over from WW2. And if this whole mess provides the straw that breaks the camel's back, the whole affair could cost the US a lot more than it was worth.
When you see an ad on the back of a bus that says "McDonalds", how will you know it's a URL?
You are confusing me with the people who advocate the abolishing of TLDs. I never said such a thing. But your comment is valid for something else: The new TLDs they whored out - how do you know that coca.cola is supposed to be a domain name?
First, the DNS is an interface between humans and machines (your computer doesn't need DNS, it would work just as well with pure IP addresses), so it's pretty important to get people on the job who know a little more about humans than your average socially-challenged geek.
Two, cars actually are designed by lots of people who are not car mechanics. Especially anything the driver interfaces with is not designed primarily for technology, but for safe and easy operation. And in many cars for esthetics.
All the people I mentioned have a purpose here. Linguists know something about creating proper categories of meaning, a purpose of gTLDs. Politicians would provide input for the structure of ccTLDs and whatever would replace.int while economists and mathematicians can advise on the various ways that the system can be gamed and exploited, like we have been experiencing for the past decade or two, to prevent that from happening again. Psychologists would help with the HCI and ensure the TLDs are easy to understand. I forgot anthropologists who would make sure they work across cultural barriers.
Yeah, that's a bit more heavy than shuffling them around a bit according to whatever your idea of the hour is, but we're talking the DNS here, not some unimportant TODO-WebApp or whatever.
If it's the same character for everything, you can leave it out. Browsers already add http:/// if you don't do it.
No, TLDs serve a purpose. Sure, we probably wouldn't have.mil as a TLD if we designed it today. We might do with just the countries and a few gTLDs for international stuff. Who knows? As I posted elsewhere, I'd think the most important part of a re-design is to let some designers, psychologists, linguists, etc. etc. say what they think. It should definitely not be a couple geeks doing it.
One idea that Apple has made good use out of is completely absent from Microsoft's presentation.
Ships Today!
My thoughts. If I can't buy it, then why announce it? Especially when you have a history (as MS does) of announcing products mostly to scare away competitors, then ship them delayed and with less features than you originally announced.
Because it isn't. A new category is expected to include something new - but this is just a hybrid stuck halfway between tablet and netbook. There's nothing in there that's not in either tablets or netbooks (and that includes the keyboard/cover which, while neat, already exists for existing tablets).
It falls inbetween two existing categories, but there just isn't enough innovation in there to justify a new category for itself. People will consider it a weird notebook or a tablet+, but not as something new, because there isn't anything new.
I would do a re-design by building a team that consists primarily not of geeks and tech people. They have a place, but there are psychological, political, economical, mathematical (game and decision theory) and linguistic issues here that are a lot more important than the implementation details.
We geeks have a sad tendency to ignore non-technical parts of a given problem. Our solutions are often brilliant, but lack acceptance because they are only brilliant in a technical sense.
No, that is actually an awful, horrible, user-hostile idea. It means you have to remember some arbitrary characters and their meanings, while ".com", ".org", etc. are fairly easy to remember because they are abbreviations and parts of what they stand for.
Seriously, my approach would be to let some people who know something about psychology, linguistics and such fields in on the re-design instead of crowd-sourcing it on geek news-sites.
So, in other words, no actual device exists, at this point, only prototypes?
Sorry, but MS doesn't exactly have the best reputation when it comes to these things. Better hold your horses until independent reviewers have had actual production models in their hands.
Anyone who read some of the other comments, those made by actual HAM radio enthusiasts, knows that a) what you post is true, but a well-selected sliver of the whole picture and b) generally received well and supported by the community affected.
So why is it not a stretch to assume your fearmongering, but not to assume that, say, b) will remain true for the Internet?
It is not a stretch to think that the ITU would impose similar rules on the Internet,
Oh yes, it is a stretch. It assumes that people in charge of international communications are dimwitted idiots who don't understand that HAM != Internet. That's quite an assumption to make, so unless you have evidence showing it to be likely, it's bullshit.
ITU's general approach to communications systems, which is based on an assumption that communication services are run by either commercial entities or by national governments.
Weird, their regulations for HAM radio assume quite the opposite.
The ITU's view is that individuals who run communications services are doing so for hobbyist purposes, and the rules set out by the ITU help to cement that.
So the ITU understands commercial, governmental and private purposes - pray tell, what others are there? Are you afraid that they might be missing NGOs even though there's a whole gTLD assigned to them (.org) ?
Do you have some reason to think that the ITU would not approach the Internet the same way it approaches radio?
Yes, I do. If you assume that they are of at least average intelligence, it stands to reason that they understand the fact that the two are not the same.
bullshit, because you just post a few fearmongering pieces of crap with no evidence whatsoever. You could at least have pointed to articles showing where people demand these things - or have you just pulled them out of your ass?
You should have been honest and written that that's a shortlist of things you are afraid of. Nothing more, nothing less.
The typical US paranoia that anything not run by them is bad.
Sure, some countries want to do some things. As if there weren't tons of people, special interest groups and even political parties who want to spy, censor, become Big Brother, outlaw homosexuality and declare pi to be equal to 3.
Just because there are some crazies who want to do crazy things doesn't mean it'll happen. Writing your articles with such a focus is dishonest fearmongering. It would be trivial to write an identical article opposing US control of crucial Internet parts by pointing out some crazy demands by some dimwit backwater politician, of which there is no shortage.
Slashdot Mirror
Rotfl
In your redneck wet dreams.
That would be diplomatic suicide. For a country as dependent on international trade as the US - well, basically, you could kiss your economy goodbye.
Adhering to it is not mandatory.
The second the first advertiser ignores it is the second it ought to become mandatory, with fines equalling the ridiculous amounts the MAFIAA asks for copyright infringrement.
Minor replacements:
If we move for opt-in, there will be virtually noone who actually opt-in.
Those who care about privacy will opt-out, those who don't care won't even realize the option exists.
Subsequently, spammers will ignore it because it becomes fairly meaningless, and not ignoring it would lose them potential victims who don't care about being spammed. So the feature just becomes worthless.
Yes. Was that kind of what we all came to agree upon when it comes to UCE/spam? Opt-out is an open invitation for abuse. Opt-in is the only thing that works.
The whole purpose of the DNT header is to allow users to make a statement of "I do not want to be tracked", but if you make it the default it will just be a statement of "I have probably not bothered to change the default settings and most likely don't even realise such settings exist"
You've fallen victim to a trick of language. Maybe we should rename it "tracking preference header" or something, and allow it to say "yes", "no" or "I don't care". But that is all a strawman. The point is that it is not the fucking advertisers job to decide whether or not I really mean it. If the flag is set, then do not track me. It is not your job to interpret my intention.
It really is that simple. If MS decides to set DNT default on as a service to their users, then tough luck. Anyone who uses that as a justification to start ignoring it was just looking for an excuse and wanted to do that anyways.
You really believe that?
Why would an advertiser reduce his exposure voluntarily?
It needs to be on by default, with massive fines for ignoring it. Seriously, have all those zombie apocalypse movies eaten away the brains of the /. crowd? Since when do we accept opt-out as a viable way? Haven't we concluded this discussion 10 years ago and agreed very strongly that opt-in is the only way that will not be massively abused?
Unless they're planning on adding the force of law to the DNT bit, all this will do is make advertisers ignore it (and, they could argue, rightfully so since they couldn't be certain that people turned it on of their own volition).
And that's when I very strongly want the full force of the law to come down on those advertisers.
DNT signals a preference. It is NOT the job of the advertisers to decide whether or not I really mean it. Their job is to comply. If they don't, my personal vote is for fining them on the same ridiculous scale that copyright infringement is fined. Say, $50,000 per incident. That means per page that I view where they ignore the DNT flag, and if they have two banners on the page, twice.
Yes, I am serious. Draw a line in the sand and shoot anyone crossing it. Especially advertisers, who don't understand anything less than that.
Which scares you more, Stuxnet and Flame, which at the very least appear to have been fairly specifically targeted, or Iran with nuclear weapons?
That's so easy, it's unfair: Stuxnet and Flame, of course. They already have caused considerable damage on a wide scale, and while they are targeted, it would be way too easy to re-target them on something that matters to me.
Iran with nukes, on the other hand, is still theoretical, still has a long way to go, and even if they had nukes the chances are 99:1 that they would use them for MAD and not actually use them and even if the extremely remote chance of a nuclear detonation came to pass, it would almost certainly not affect me in the slightest.
And, quite frankly, I don't buy nuclear fearmongering coming from the only country ever to actually drop nuclear bombs on civilian cities, twice.
I think that Iran should declare war on the US over it.
That would be stupid, and only what the US wants so it has an excuse to bomb them.
But this is an act of war and Iran should take it to the UN and request sanctions against the USA. Of course the veto power would block those, but if that were the case it should be followed up by a formal request to restructure the security council and remove all veto rights, a proposal that would have strong support within the UN as many countries dislike that left-over from WW2. And if this whole mess provides the straw that breaks the camel's back, the whole affair could cost the US a lot more than it was worth.
When you see an ad on the back of a bus that says "McDonalds", how will you know it's a URL?
You are confusing me with the people who advocate the abolishing of TLDs. I never said such a thing. But your comment is valid for something else: The new TLDs they whored out - how do you know that coca.cola is supposed to be a domain name?
I'm sorry, but that argument is nonsense.
First, the DNS is an interface between humans and machines (your computer doesn't need DNS, it would work just as well with pure IP addresses), so it's pretty important to get people on the job who know a little more about humans than your average socially-challenged geek.
Two, cars actually are designed by lots of people who are not car mechanics. Especially anything the driver interfaces with is not designed primarily for technology, but for safe and easy operation. And in many cars for esthetics.
All the people I mentioned have a purpose here. Linguists know something about creating proper categories of meaning, a purpose of gTLDs. Politicians would provide input for the structure of ccTLDs and whatever would replace .int while economists and mathematicians can advise on the various ways that the system can be gamed and exploited, like we have been experiencing for the past decade or two, to prevent that from happening again. Psychologists would help with the HCI and ensure the TLDs are easy to understand. I forgot anthropologists who would make sure they work across cultural barriers.
Yeah, that's a bit more heavy than shuffling them around a bit according to whatever your idea of the hour is, but we're talking the DNS here, not some unimportant TODO-WebApp or whatever.
If it's the same character for everything, you can leave it out. Browsers already add http:/// if you don't do it.
No, TLDs serve a purpose. Sure, we probably wouldn't have .mil as a TLD if we designed it today. We might do with just the countries and a few gTLDs for international stuff. Who knows? As I posted elsewhere, I'd think the most important part of a re-design is to let some designers, psychologists, linguists, etc. etc. say what they think. It should definitely not be a couple geeks doing it.
One idea that Apple has made good use out of is completely absent from Microsoft's presentation.
Ships Today!
My thoughts. If I can't buy it, then why announce it? Especially when you have a history (as MS does) of announcing products mostly to scare away competitors, then ship them delayed and with less features than you originally announced.
but why can't it be a new product category?
Because it isn't. A new category is expected to include something new - but this is just a hybrid stuck halfway between tablet and netbook. There's nothing in there that's not in either tablets or netbooks (and that includes the keyboard/cover which, while neat, already exists for existing tablets).
It falls inbetween two existing categories, but there just isn't enough innovation in there to justify a new category for itself. People will consider it a weird notebook or a tablet+, but not as something new, because there isn't anything new.
I would do a re-design by building a team that consists primarily not of geeks and tech people. They have a place, but there are psychological, political, economical, mathematical (game and decision theory) and linguistic issues here that are a lot more important than the implementation details.
We geeks have a sad tendency to ignore non-technical parts of a given problem. Our solutions are often brilliant, but lack acceptance because they are only brilliant in a technical sense.
a similar magical special character.
No, that is actually an awful, horrible, user-hostile idea. It means you have to remember some arbitrary characters and their meanings, while ".com", ".org", etc. are fairly easy to remember because they are abbreviations and parts of what they stand for.
Seriously, my approach would be to let some people who know something about psychology, linguistics and such fields in on the re-design instead of crowd-sourcing it on geek news-sites.
are both in the works
So, in other words, no actual device exists, at this point, only prototypes?
Sorry, but MS doesn't exactly have the best reputation when it comes to these things. Better hold your horses until independent reviewers have had actual production models in their hands.
True, portions have been paid at times. I think Obama also did that as a show of good will.
Anyone who read some of the other comments, those made by actual HAM radio enthusiasts, knows that a) what you post is true, but a well-selected sliver of the whole picture and b) generally received well and supported by the community affected.
So why is it not a stretch to assume your fearmongering, but not to assume that, say, b) will remain true for the Internet?
Look hard at what the UN does with the money it gets and tell me again that we should pay-up.
Because that's how democracy works: The majority sets the taxes and I have to pay them, whether I like what they do with it or not.
Apparently, you only like democracy when you are in charge of it.
It is not a stretch to think that the ITU would impose similar rules on the Internet,
Oh yes, it is a stretch. It assumes that people in charge of international communications are dimwitted idiots who don't understand that HAM != Internet. That's quite an assumption to make, so unless you have evidence showing it to be likely, it's bullshit.
ITU's general approach to communications systems, which is based on an assumption that communication services are run by either commercial entities or by national governments.
Weird, their regulations for HAM radio assume quite the opposite.
The ITU's view is that individuals who run communications services are doing so for hobbyist purposes, and the rules set out by the ITU help to cement that.
So the ITU understands commercial, governmental and private purposes - pray tell, what others are there? Are you afraid that they might be missing NGOs even though there's a whole gTLD assigned to them (.org) ?
Do you have some reason to think that the ITU would not approach the Internet the same way it approaches radio?
Yes, I do. If you assume that they are of at least average intelligence, it stands to reason that they understand the fact that the two are not the same.
All lists should be Opt-In by default.
You are free to start a "Please kill me now" list. ;-)
The ITU would almost certainly
Please provide supporting evidence for your claim or fuck off.
What are they going to do if we ignore their invoices?
Like you've been doing for years? The US has been owing the UN substantial amounts of money for decades.
My guess is
bullshit, because you just post a few fearmongering pieces of crap with no evidence whatsoever. You could at least have pointed to articles showing where people demand these things - or have you just pulled them out of your ass?
You should have been honest and written that that's a shortlist of things you are afraid of. Nothing more, nothing less.
The typical US paranoia that anything not run by them is bad.
Sure, some countries want to do some things. As if there weren't tons of people, special interest groups and even political parties who want to spy, censor, become Big Brother, outlaw homosexuality and declare pi to be equal to 3.
Just because there are some crazies who want to do crazy things doesn't mean it'll happen. Writing your articles with such a focus is dishonest fearmongering. It would be trivial to write an identical article opposing US control of crucial Internet parts by pointing out some crazy demands by some dimwit backwater politician, of which there is no shortage.
kindergarden