And this is all exactly what I view as being the problem. We keep giving people this cool new stuff with more and more ways to hurt themselves. Unfortunately, what should be common sense is not, and so people get caught by surprise. What we should be doing is explaining that this stuff is complex, it does a lot, you could run into trouble if you don't have a basic understanding of what it does. The smart phone equivalent of the previously mentioned toaster knowledge is more complex, because there's more there. We should be trying to take this stuff from things that should be common sense to things that actually are
That is easier said than done, of course. When done on a personal level, you run the risk of sounding like a pompous ass and then getting ignored. Coming from corporations or the like, it quite easily starts to sound like fear mongering and again gets ignored. It should be (again, should, but not is) the goal of those in the know, both technical enthusiasts/geeks and the companies creating these products, to try to make this happen, though.
Why is the Slashdot crowd so myopic about technology that they think all of these issues have been around for decades, or that everyone who happens to use what is now a fairly ubiquitous technology is fully dialed into all of the aspects of that technology?
Some of these are actually quite new social and legal considerations. Acting like you've known this forever makes you sound like a smug idiot.
It should be common sense that if something is tracking where you are at all times, then people will know where you are/were. You're right in that people commonly don't know how their expensive gadgets work and what they are capable of at even the most basic level, but just because something happens to be the common case doesn't mean that it "should" be the common case and accepted.
If you want to own and play with complex things then you need to understand complex things or it's more likely to come back and bite you in the ass. You don't necessarily need to understand it at more than a basic level, but you do need some level of understanding. Just like I don't understand toasters (a comparative simple bit of tech) well enough to build one but I understand them well enough to know not stick my finger in it when it's on or recently has been on. As those things get more complex, what you'll need to know and understand also tends to get more complex. This applies to many things in life, but is unfortunately ignored when it comes to computer related tech.
I stopped buying 2600 back in the late 90s... maybe '00 at the latest when they published 100% plagiarised to the word article from a really old Phrack about how to "hack" (more like be an annoying asshole on) irc. It was, of course, all stuff that hadn't worked in at least 4 or 5 years (and was frequently down to luck even then) like stealing channel op status during a netsplit so that you'd be opped and could steal the channel when it came back together.
That was when I realized that most of the stuff I was reading and didn't see the value of wasn't due to me not having a good enough understanding yet, it's because it was actually just stupid garbage.
Based on how Google Latitude and Maps work when I turn off the GPS info on my phone, I'm not sure if they bother with getting any more granular than whatever cell tower you are running off of. This gives several miles worth of error, but still pretty close, all things considered.
I think it's lines like this that gave us the "scheming career climber" impression.
people will see that you aren't a loudmouth, and so they share increasingly damning information about your coworkers and the company in general.
and
To quote the Grand Nagus from DS9, "You don't grab power, you accumulate it." Inevitably, you'll run across a player-hater. Wait for them to make a mistake and then show the boss what you did to fix their mistake.
His suggestion is not interacting with people beyond what is required to get them to give you information that you may be able to use against them later if they piss you off and to get power. That is one of the worst kinds of people to have around the office. I've worked with a few of them.
I've been there and I feel for ya, for what that's worth.
Back in 2006 I got my first job as a full time software developer as an actual hired on employee. This was after about 2 years working as a high level support (working directly with developers watching network traffic and debug code to see if the code they wrote was responding properly, etc) with some simple development. I was at the company for about 6 months and they had a major layoff and being one of the newest and least experienced developers, I was let go less than a month after purchasing my first house (and on the day I was planning to buy my Xbox 360, just for an extra little kick to the nuts).
The next six months were hell. I was applying for jobs every day, calling employers, calling recruiters, etc. You know the drill. No one would talk to me about development work because I didn't have enough experience with only 6 months full time (in Perl no less, which is basically not at all used around here) and a combined total of maybe 6-9 months spread out over 2 years from the job before (in Tcl, even more useless). So after a couple of months of getting shot down with that consistently given as the reason I started applying for support jobs again, phone support, hands on desktop support, anything to get a pay check coming in. As you've seen, they also wouldn't hire me. I had experience as a developer, however little, and that meant I was overqualified and would be looking for something better asap and they knew that. Some people suggested removing all of the stuff from my resume that made it clear I was overqualified for the support jobs, but that meant removing the last roughly 3 years of work experience, which was going to hurt my prospects at least as much.
Fortunately, I had stayed in contact with the Director of IT and the COO at the place that had laid me off and about 6 months later, when the budget allowed, they brought me back.
I haven't paid for cable or satellite tv in close to 10 years now. Blockbuster started the no late fees thing very shortly after I moved out of my parents house. I used that for a long time to watch movies and tv shows. The only downside was being behind on whatever the current tv series' were that my friends were all talking about. After awhile I switched to netflix due to being cheaper and having a wider selection of movies available, even with Blockbuster's through the mail offering.
As soon as netflix streaming was available on my xbox 360 I installed it. In the last year or two they have even started getting episodes for some tv shows right after they air on network tv.
Aside from being behind on some shows, I don't miss a thing. I can watch a bunch of episodes of a show in a row if I want rather than waiting a week. I can watch old shows easily and not be at the mercy of whoever picks which re-run to show if re-runs are even still on for it. I can watch whenever I want rather than only at the time they air it, which may not be at all convenient for me. It's definitely worth being behind on some current shows by a season, which as I understand it, may not even be the case with other streaming options but I am only really familiar with Netflix streaming.
I agree that we can't educate anyone who doesn't want to be. I think maybe we would have been better off if we always said "These things are complex. You will either need to learn about them or pay people to do stuff for you if you want to own one."
Treat them like a car. Even in the days where engines were "easy" to work on, you couldn't just quickly drop in a new rod and piston if you spun a bearing. I tend to think of networks in the same way, there are certain parts of it where it's just not going to be within the capabilities of someone without the time or inclination to learn about it.
Computers are complex. Something that can do many things in many different ways is always going to be complex to work with. One of the biggest disservices we've done for people in terms of computer and Internet use is telling them that they are simple and anyone can use one without any training. It's not true, it's not likely to ever be true, at least not while staying what we think of as a PC. When it becomes true you've got a WebTV (There might be a few people here who are too young to remember those... crazy) or a video game console.
As to firewalls and routers specifically? I believe UPnP does what you would like for the most part if app developers would make use of it (I haven't ever made use of it that I can think of, so I'm not 100% certain), although I believe having app developers include something that just goes in and modifies firewall rules as a black box to the end user is a risky idea. The app developer has no idea what else the user has on their system and how their changes to the firewall might affect that. This is the sort of thing end users should know about at a basic level, akin to changing a tire, checking coolant, etc. on a car. Many probably don't know and get by just fine, but they should know, it's definitely in their best interest.
I've said this before on here and I'm sure I'll say it many more times. While the internet has provided a lot of good and a lot of knowledge and I wouldn't ever support taking it away from people, you have to wonder what the hell the first guy who thought it would be a good idea to make normal users system adminstrators (that is what a home user is) on the largest, most complex network in the world was thinking.
Damn you. Now I've got a strong urge to dig out my NES. I played those games a ton back in the day and I'm pretty sure I picked up the first 2 at Funcoland way back in '01 or so and then promptly forgot about them.
In theory I agree and had thought of this. It'll be great until everyone jumps on the bandwagon, which they will, and I have to dig through my stack for the one for WoW, the one for my main bank, the one for my online only bank with higher interest, the one for the place I have my IRAs and Mutual Funds, the one for the VPN for work, etc.
Not that I want to reboot and use a boot disk whenever I want to access one of these things, either, of course. I just believe that there's only so much that can be done to protect people from doing stupid shit that causes them to get trojans, have their passwords guessed, or whatever. In the end, computers and the internet are complex. Education is the only reasonable way to not get screwed over and we'd be better off trying to teach users that computers are not like a toaster or even a VCR or DVD player and never will be (we currently do exactly the opposite in the name of making more money), so they'll just have to educate themselves.
This is an argument that I frequently make when people say that using wikipedia is bad because anyone can edit it, so it could easily be incorrect.
I returned to college a few years back after many years working in the real world as high level support and a software developer. One of the most entertaining things for me is to go through my college textbooks on technical subjects and see how many incorrect statements I can find. I've got a college textbook sitting around here somewhere that claims JavaScript runs in the actual Java JVM and that PHP and JavaScript have very little built in functionality and mostly function by running local binaries, storing the output, and then passing that output to another local binary.
Just because it's printed on dead trees, even from a "reputable" source, doesn't mean that everything in it is accurate and can be trusted. You should always have several sources and compare information between those sources to come to your conclusions. I see nothing wrong with including wikipedia as just one of many sources that you use.
While I see what you're saying, it's still a significantly different situation than running a mail server and keeping a copy of everyone's mail so that you (or some federal agency) can go through and read it later, no matter who it was addressed to just because you feel like it, which is what the person I replied to seemed to be claiming was ok since it's not encrypted.
The difference there is that it's nearly impossible for someone to accidentally read an e-mail as it sits on/passes through their server or network. If you choose to yell, you're publicly broadcasting it in a manner that someone actually has to go out of their way to not hear it.
What your saying is akin to saying that if you leave you car unlocked at the mall parking lot, it's ok for someone to hop in and take a look through your stuff. It's right there for everyone to see, right? No protection at all.
I seem to have to say this to people too often these days. Just because something can be done doesn't mean that it should be done.
Well, Dave's lyrics to the song Endgame sound more likely and less crazy by the day (and they weren't a very hard sell in the first place) although they were technically about a different document that this plan certainly ties directly into.
"A system of controlled movement, like a giant ant farm." is about fucking right.
I agree. I didn't RTFA, of course, but I did read the summary and the bit quoted in the summary sounds like something that should apply to software in general, not just p2p. Don't install shit I didn't specifically say I want installed. Don't stop me from disabling the software once it is installed. It also sounds like something that will be completely ignored by the sort of people who are causing software to be installed without the user's consent already.
In regards to your experience with inexplicable values in Perl, it sounds like at the time you had issues with some combo of not using the strict pragma and not understanding how Perl works. If you don't fully understand what is going on, it can be confusing. If you're not using strict, it can be an extra confusing clusterfuck. I think there were a lot of tutorials and such in the mid 90s not using strict.
For one, once they're licensed, they've shown they know how to do these things. Hold them responsible for having not properly secured their network just like you hold a licensed driver responsible for their mistakes (what would be a fair punishment? I don't know. We're not discussing fair. I said this wouldn't be fair in the first place). Once that sort of thing is a law, it shouldn't be too hard to require that routers cannot have open access and must require a password.
It's not good. It's too easily circumvented (just like many restrictions, so that wouldn't stop it from happening), it's open for all kinds of abuse, and involves the government sticking their nose all kinds of places I believe it doesn't belong. Like I said, there is no good solution, but you can certainly keep the average law abiding person under control though, if you're willing to pass such a law.
It really is a problem with no good solution. Most people don't want to know and don't see why they should know. Unfortunately, as complex as computers and the Internet is, it's impossible for those of us who do know to protect people from themselves like they want us to.
I'm not sure an "Internet License" would really be a fair thing to have (although I can certainly see the argument for it) and it's definitely too late now. There are also a lot of benefits to society even with all of this crap going on due to uninformed and/or lazy people. At the same time, it boggles the mind to think that someone sat down one day and said "You know, people who have an honest interest in computers spend years and even their whole lifetime studying computers and networks both in school and in their free time just to keep a small private network running right. I think it would be an excellent idea to take people who can barely run a VCR and make them system administrators on the largest, most insecure, hardest to control network in the world."
I'll third the Python vote. It's pretty cool, it takes less infrastructure and extra non-sense than C# or Java if you're looking to do web apps, etc.
I also really like Perl and it's what I do as my full time job. It's mostly dying out though and I think many of the jobs that used to be Perl jobs are now (or soon will be) Python jobs. I know you said you're just looking at it from a hobby standpoint, but hey, why not have a hobby that could be useful to your career later on if you change your mind or your life takes an unexpected turn?
Slashdot Mirror
that the CEO of the only telephone company who told the NSA they needed a warrant is now in jail,
Huh? What did I miss? I'm going to go hit up google, but could you provide a link or some more info in case my endeavor fails?
And this is all exactly what I view as being the problem. We keep giving people this cool new stuff with more and more ways to hurt themselves. Unfortunately, what should be common sense is not, and so people get caught by surprise. What we should be doing is explaining that this stuff is complex, it does a lot, you could run into trouble if you don't have a basic understanding of what it does. The smart phone equivalent of the previously mentioned toaster knowledge is more complex, because there's more there. We should be trying to take this stuff from things that should be common sense to things that actually are
That is easier said than done, of course. When done on a personal level, you run the risk of sounding like a pompous ass and then getting ignored. Coming from corporations or the like, it quite easily starts to sound like fear mongering and again gets ignored. It should be (again, should, but not is) the goal of those in the know, both technical enthusiasts/geeks and the companies creating these products, to try to make this happen, though.
It should be common sense that if something is tracking where you are at all times, then people will know where you are/were. You're right in that people commonly don't know how their expensive gadgets work and what they are capable of at even the most basic level, but just because something happens to be the common case doesn't mean that it "should" be the common case and accepted.
If you want to own and play with complex things then you need to understand complex things or it's more likely to come back and bite you in the ass. You don't necessarily need to understand it at more than a basic level, but you do need some level of understanding. Just like I don't understand toasters (a comparative simple bit of tech) well enough to build one but I understand them well enough to know not stick my finger in it when it's on or recently has been on. As those things get more complex, what you'll need to know and understand also tends to get more complex. This applies to many things in life, but is unfortunately ignored when it comes to computer related tech.
I stopped buying 2600 back in the late 90s... maybe '00 at the latest when they published 100% plagiarised to the word article from a really old Phrack about how to "hack" (more like be an annoying asshole on) irc. It was, of course, all stuff that hadn't worked in at least 4 or 5 years (and was frequently down to luck even then) like stealing channel op status during a netsplit so that you'd be opped and could steal the channel when it came back together. That was when I realized that most of the stuff I was reading and didn't see the value of wasn't due to me not having a good enough understanding yet, it's because it was actually just stupid garbage.
Based on how Google Latitude and Maps work when I turn off the GPS info on my phone, I'm not sure if they bother with getting any more granular than whatever cell tower you are running off of. This gives several miles worth of error, but still pretty close, all things considered.
people will see that you aren't a loudmouth, and so they share increasingly damning information about your coworkers and the company in general.
and
To quote the Grand Nagus from DS9, "You don't grab power, you accumulate it." Inevitably, you'll run across a player-hater. Wait for them to make a mistake and then show the boss what you did to fix their mistake.
His suggestion is not interacting with people beyond what is required to get them to give you information that you may be able to use against them later if they piss you off and to get power. That is one of the worst kinds of people to have around the office. I've worked with a few of them.
I've been there and I feel for ya, for what that's worth.
Back in 2006 I got my first job as a full time software developer as an actual hired on employee. This was after about 2 years working as a high level support (working directly with developers watching network traffic and debug code to see if the code they wrote was responding properly, etc) with some simple development. I was at the company for about 6 months and they had a major layoff and being one of the newest and least experienced developers, I was let go less than a month after purchasing my first house (and on the day I was planning to buy my Xbox 360, just for an extra little kick to the nuts).
The next six months were hell. I was applying for jobs every day, calling employers, calling recruiters, etc. You know the drill. No one would talk to me about development work because I didn't have enough experience with only 6 months full time (in Perl no less, which is basically not at all used around here) and a combined total of maybe 6-9 months spread out over 2 years from the job before (in Tcl, even more useless). So after a couple of months of getting shot down with that consistently given as the reason I started applying for support jobs again, phone support, hands on desktop support, anything to get a pay check coming in. As you've seen, they also wouldn't hire me. I had experience as a developer, however little, and that meant I was overqualified and would be looking for something better asap and they knew that. Some people suggested removing all of the stuff from my resume that made it clear I was overqualified for the support jobs, but that meant removing the last roughly 3 years of work experience, which was going to hurt my prospects at least as much.
Fortunately, I had stayed in contact with the Director of IT and the COO at the place that had laid me off and about 6 months later, when the budget allowed, they brought me back.
I haven't paid for cable or satellite tv in close to 10 years now. Blockbuster started the no late fees thing very shortly after I moved out of my parents house. I used that for a long time to watch movies and tv shows. The only downside was being behind on whatever the current tv series' were that my friends were all talking about. After awhile I switched to netflix due to being cheaper and having a wider selection of movies available, even with Blockbuster's through the mail offering.
As soon as netflix streaming was available on my xbox 360 I installed it. In the last year or two they have even started getting episodes for some tv shows right after they air on network tv.
Aside from being behind on some shows, I don't miss a thing. I can watch a bunch of episodes of a show in a row if I want rather than waiting a week. I can watch old shows easily and not be at the mercy of whoever picks which re-run to show if re-runs are even still on for it. I can watch whenever I want rather than only at the time they air it, which may not be at all convenient for me. It's definitely worth being behind on some current shows by a season, which as I understand it, may not even be the case with other streaming options but I am only really familiar with Netflix streaming.
I agree that we can't educate anyone who doesn't want to be. I think maybe we would have been better off if we always said "These things are complex. You will either need to learn about them or pay people to do stuff for you if you want to own one."
Treat them like a car. Even in the days where engines were "easy" to work on, you couldn't just quickly drop in a new rod and piston if you spun a bearing. I tend to think of networks in the same way, there are certain parts of it where it's just not going to be within the capabilities of someone without the time or inclination to learn about it.
Computers are complex. Something that can do many things in many different ways is always going to be complex to work with. One of the biggest disservices we've done for people in terms of computer and Internet use is telling them that they are simple and anyone can use one without any training. It's not true, it's not likely to ever be true, at least not while staying what we think of as a PC. When it becomes true you've got a WebTV (There might be a few people here who are too young to remember those... crazy) or a video game console.
As to firewalls and routers specifically? I believe UPnP does what you would like for the most part if app developers would make use of it (I haven't ever made use of it that I can think of, so I'm not 100% certain), although I believe having app developers include something that just goes in and modifies firewall rules as a black box to the end user is a risky idea. The app developer has no idea what else the user has on their system and how their changes to the firewall might affect that. This is the sort of thing end users should know about at a basic level, akin to changing a tire, checking coolant, etc. on a car. Many probably don't know and get by just fine, but they should know, it's definitely in their best interest.
I've said this before on here and I'm sure I'll say it many more times. While the internet has provided a lot of good and a lot of knowledge and I wouldn't ever support taking it away from people, you have to wonder what the hell the first guy who thought it would be a good idea to make normal users system adminstrators (that is what a home user is) on the largest, most complex network in the world was thinking.
Damn you. Now I've got a strong urge to dig out my NES. I played those games a ton back in the day and I'm pretty sure I picked up the first 2 at Funcoland way back in '01 or so and then promptly forgot about them.
In theory I agree and had thought of this. It'll be great until everyone jumps on the bandwagon, which they will, and I have to dig through my stack for the one for WoW, the one for my main bank, the one for my online only bank with higher interest, the one for the place I have my IRAs and Mutual Funds, the one for the VPN for work, etc.
Not that I want to reboot and use a boot disk whenever I want to access one of these things, either, of course. I just believe that there's only so much that can be done to protect people from doing stupid shit that causes them to get trojans, have their passwords guessed, or whatever. In the end, computers and the internet are complex. Education is the only reasonable way to not get screwed over and we'd be better off trying to teach users that computers are not like a toaster or even a VCR or DVD player and never will be (we currently do exactly the opposite in the name of making more money), so they'll just have to educate themselves.
This is an argument that I frequently make when people say that using wikipedia is bad because anyone can edit it, so it could easily be incorrect.
I returned to college a few years back after many years working in the real world as high level support and a software developer. One of the most entertaining things for me is to go through my college textbooks on technical subjects and see how many incorrect statements I can find. I've got a college textbook sitting around here somewhere that claims JavaScript runs in the actual Java JVM and that PHP and JavaScript have very little built in functionality and mostly function by running local binaries, storing the output, and then passing that output to another local binary.
Just because it's printed on dead trees, even from a "reputable" source, doesn't mean that everything in it is accurate and can be trusted. You should always have several sources and compare information between those sources to come to your conclusions. I see nothing wrong with including wikipedia as just one of many sources that you use.
While I see what you're saying, it's still a significantly different situation than running a mail server and keeping a copy of everyone's mail so that you (or some federal agency) can go through and read it later, no matter who it was addressed to just because you feel like it, which is what the person I replied to seemed to be claiming was ok since it's not encrypted.
The difference there is that it's nearly impossible for someone to accidentally read an e-mail as it sits on/passes through their server or network. If you choose to yell, you're publicly broadcasting it in a manner that someone actually has to go out of their way to not hear it.
What your saying is akin to saying that if you leave you car unlocked at the mall parking lot, it's ok for someone to hop in and take a look through your stuff. It's right there for everyone to see, right? No protection at all.
I seem to have to say this to people too often these days. Just because something can be done doesn't mean that it should be done.
yes, but THEN I'd watch the shit out of it.
You're onto something. I would watch the hell out of that.
Well, Dave's lyrics to the song Endgame sound more likely and less crazy by the day (and they weren't a very hard sell in the first place) although they were technically about a different document that this plan certainly ties directly into.
"A system of controlled movement, like a giant ant farm." is about fucking right.
Just because something is already bad, we shouldn't try to keep it from getting worse?
As pointed out by others who have already replied to you, there are also some significant differences between your examples and this new id.
I agree. I didn't RTFA, of course, but I did read the summary and the bit quoted in the summary sounds like something that should apply to software in general, not just p2p. Don't install shit I didn't specifically say I want installed. Don't stop me from disabling the software once it is installed. It also sounds like something that will be completely ignored by the sort of people who are causing software to be installed without the user's consent already.
In regards to your experience with inexplicable values in Perl, it sounds like at the time you had issues with some combo of not using the strict pragma and not understanding how Perl works. If you don't fully understand what is going on, it can be confusing. If you're not using strict, it can be an extra confusing clusterfuck. I think there were a lot of tutorials and such in the mid 90s not using strict.
For one, once they're licensed, they've shown they know how to do these things. Hold them responsible for having not properly secured their network just like you hold a licensed driver responsible for their mistakes (what would be a fair punishment? I don't know. We're not discussing fair. I said this wouldn't be fair in the first place). Once that sort of thing is a law, it shouldn't be too hard to require that routers cannot have open access and must require a password.
It's not good. It's too easily circumvented (just like many restrictions, so that wouldn't stop it from happening), it's open for all kinds of abuse, and involves the government sticking their nose all kinds of places I believe it doesn't belong. Like I said, there is no good solution, but you can certainly keep the average law abiding person under control though, if you're willing to pass such a law.
It really is a problem with no good solution. Most people don't want to know and don't see why they should know. Unfortunately, as complex as computers and the Internet is, it's impossible for those of us who do know to protect people from themselves like they want us to.
I'm not sure an "Internet License" would really be a fair thing to have (although I can certainly see the argument for it) and it's definitely too late now. There are also a lot of benefits to society even with all of this crap going on due to uninformed and/or lazy people. At the same time, it boggles the mind to think that someone sat down one day and said "You know, people who have an honest interest in computers spend years and even their whole lifetime studying computers and networks both in school and in their free time just to keep a small private network running right. I think it would be an excellent idea to take people who can barely run a VCR and make them system administrators on the largest, most insecure, hardest to control network in the world."
I'll third the Python vote. It's pretty cool, it takes less infrastructure and extra non-sense than C# or Java if you're looking to do web apps, etc.
I also really like Perl and it's what I do as my full time job. It's mostly dying out though and I think many of the jobs that used to be Perl jobs are now (or soon will be) Python jobs. I know you said you're just looking at it from a hobby standpoint, but hey, why not have a hobby that could be useful to your career later on if you change your mind or your life takes an unexpected turn?