If they're telling the truth, and not monitoring the data itself, just the endpoints.. then what good does encrypting do?
If you are encrypting everything by default and then route it through an anonymity network in onion layers (say Tor), then the destination and at some point the origination is encrypted from a man in the middle attack.
They can see that you sent something encrypted to a node and they could see that you received something from a node, but they would not be able to see where you sent it to, nor who sent it back.
Of course if they comprised an exit node, then all bets are off at least for the anonymity part...
Society is in many ways a lot more vulnerable now then it was in 1918 - its reliant on much more formal structures then it used to - if a disease manages to frighten people (it doesn't even have to kill many for this to occur) into not rocking up to work there will be a massive breakdown very quickly.
On the bright side, a large portion of population dying helps the unemployment rate.
I understand that denial is an important human psychologic defense mechanism, but can't you understand that "sharing" is just theft?
No. Because "copyright infringement" is officially stated in law as something entirely different as "theft".
Anyone who says otherwise is confusing the legal issue.
It is like arguing manslaughter, homicidal negligence, and murder are all the same crime. The LAW specifically states these are all DIFFERENT crimes which are ruled under DIFFERENT laws and no matter what people say until they are blue in the face makes it any different. (IANAL but know them in real life)
In fact, being convicted "copyright infringement" actually will get you a harsher penalty than being convicted of "theft" in most cases.
Secretary Gates wants to cancel the F-22 and cut our aircraft carrier fleet down so that we can focus on fighting insurgencies.
Do you not understand why the US lost Vietnam and the Soviets lost Afghanistan?
I think you misunderstand global conflict when it comes to superpowers.
Armed conflict that would result in total war between US, Russia, and China (China is just as likely to go to war with Russia and have so in the past in border skirmishes) which invariably result in nuclear exchange which makes having F-22 and aircraft carriers a moot point.
In lieu of MAD between superpowers, major powers tend to use smaller conflicts to carry out their conflict. As how the Soviets aided the Vietnamese and the US with the Afghanistan and the reason the USA and Soviets lost both conflicts was because there armies were built primary for global conflict against large powers.
Also... In all practical terms, an aircraft carrier can be sunk with one well placed torpedo or missile. They are good for power projection, but just like how the greatest warship Yamato was sunk with a well placed bomb from an aircraft, it would be a waste of resources when you are fighting asymmetrical wars in the streets of a 3rd world nation.
If war did break out with China and the US, don't you think as soon as foreign troops stepped on enemy soil that nuclear weapons would be authorized?
TFA gives the example of a white van involved in some crime. Well, I have a neighbor whose dog barks all night, but drives a brown van. No problem, a little Photoshop here and there, and voilá! "Instant Evidence"! The neighbors dog spends 6-8 months in the kennel while his owner does the same thing.
Wouldn't you think that they'd notice he really drives a brown van when they show up?
Its not as if you can report people as it is with certain authorities. In my city the official city website allows you to not only report potholes, but illegal activity.
I suppose if they had an "upload file" I could submit more data which I could spent more time doctoring, but as the current law has it, police can't use citizen media as evidence directly because of tampering legality issues (IANAL)
Either way I still can make up stuff in the report, but I'm sure it could come back to me once they figured out I was lying.
I'm amazed that in this day and age there are still people who think gold has inherent value and will suddenly be the default currency when everything goes Max Max Real Soon Now.
I am reminded of a scene in the Fist of the North Star anime in which the wasteland mauraders muder a family and steal their food leaving a suite case full of diamonds, gold, and money scatter like it was trash.
If the economy does cause such a world... Guns, ammo, gas, water, and food will be the commodities of the day.
I mean if you don't have a gun someone will take your gold anyways and if they are starving, they'll be more interested in your food.
No object in the world has inherent value, just the subjective values due to people's wants.
Food and drink has true value. Without it, you would die.
You don't need to eat gold on a daily basis nor use it to fuel the trucks that bring the food to your table nor power the water plants to filter the water and pump it to your tap (or bottled water).
this is so weird. talking gold investing on slashdot? i like gold but this mainstream attention is driving me crazy - there is a bubble in every market and i can't figure out how much time in this gold bull run we have.
There is an unsaid (well its said often) rule in investing, that when Joe Sixpacks grandmother starts investing in something, a bubble is soon to follow.
In all reality, the price of gold is really determined by the next person willing to pay for it. It has no major utility (other than looking good, being organically inert, and being a slightly worse conductor than silver) and the supply is ever increasing because of mining.
In fact there is more gold mining activity today than there ever were in the history of mankind.
People say gold is money, but even money is useless but you can't find anyone to trade so that you get gas for your car, a home to stay, food to eat, and water to drink.
It would be more logical to invest in oil than gold.
I'm surprised you didn't know that gold has been the most valuable commodity to any society that could get their hands on it. Why has gold been a universal currency for the past 5,000 years? Gold was valuable to the Incas, who had no connection to the east or west, until they were conquered by the Spanish.
And the Spanish brought all the gold back to Europe was created massive inflation and ruined their economy...
And please stop the myth about gold being the universal currency for the past 5,000 years.
First of all during Roman times salt and slaves were the general form of currency. Yes, the official Roman government issued gold, copper, AND silver currencies but it was of a limited supply and the majority of the citizens of the Empire had to barter using salt and other commodities.
Then during the middle ages, the serfs paid their taxes with wheat etc (they couldn't mine gold in their fields) and the gold/silver was relegated mostly between nobles and their hired hands and merchants.
As the gold supply was limited, most of the nations created silver currencies and by the time the colonists settled in North America, any gold found was shipped to Europe and the primary currency traded was barter, tobacco, and scrip (fiat from governors). This lasted all the way up until the 1800's.
Once the United States was created, there was no supply of gold to be had to back their currencies so they had a de facto silver backing of European coin. This continued until the 1870s when they officially switched from silver to gold as the backing which actually may have resulted in the bank panics of 1890 when they basically ran out of gold (which luckily the California gold rush eased it a bit until at least 1907)
It also worth mentioning that Germany switched from silver to gold in the 1870's too because they forced France to pay them theirs after the Franco-Prussian war;)
You start killing pirates and making it really risky to be a pirate and there won't be any more pirates willing to take the risk. Kinda like the old saying, "There are old pirates and there are bold pirates, but there are no old bold pirates".
You're talking about people who are living in Somalia.
They are more likely to be killed by a rival warlord faction member in the streets than to be while out pirating in the ocean.
1. Passage is innocent so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State. Such passage shall take place in conformity with this Convention and with other rules of international law.
2. Passage of a foreign ship shall be considered to be prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State if in the territorial sea it engages in any of the following activities:
(a) any threat or use of force against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of the coastal State, or in any other manner in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations;
(b) any exercise or practice with weapons of any kind;
(c) any act aimed at collecting information to the prejudice of the defence or security of the coastal State;
(d) any act of propaganda aimed at affecting the defence or security of the coastal State;
(e) the launching, landing or taking on board of any aircraft;
(f) the launching, landing or taking on board of any military device;
(g) the loading or unloading of any commodity, currency or person contrary to the customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations of the coastal State;
(h) any act of wilful and serious pollution contrary to this Convention;
(i) any fishing activities;
(j) the carrying out of research or survey activities;
(k) any act aimed at interfering with any systems of communication or any other facilities or installations of the coastal State;
(l) any other activity not having a direct bearing on passage.
You may wonder how armed Naval ships can have and use weapons, but that is because they are not merchant ships and are ruled by other naval treaties in respect to international law.
If this law was changed, you have to keep in mind that would allow Chinese and Russian merchant vessels to be armed while in US ports so it is a very sticky situation.
This really has to be the cheapest, most effective method - so there must be some, likely political, reason that it's not being used. Much of the issue with arming crew members seems to revolve around 1) training and 2) what to do with the weapons in whatever random port the ship ends up at where weapons aren't welcome.
International Maritime treaties forbid merchant ships from army themselves during peacetime.
If ships armed themselves, then they waive the "right of innocent passage" and when they are out of international waters, then they might run into problem with the local authorities.
I don't like that any more than you, but we have to face the facts: that's how it works.
Then it should be made illegal by having corporations stripped of powers of "the invidiual" and should be banned from having any political activities whatsoever.
Corporations would make a lot more profit if they could own slaves like the 1800's, no?
It is a safe bet that if they could they would and the only thing stopping them is the law.
We let that sort of thing happen every time we concede more and more to the government in terms of providing services for us. With all of the extra money and the ability to represent everyone, you suddenly realize that corps don't have to care what individuals want any more, they only have to care what the government wants.
Its not really the "Government Providing" services is the problem, but rather that the businesses hold about as much power as the government.
Even Thomas Jefferson wrote about the dangers of corporations as being a threat to freedom. The only alternative we have is to actually have government restrict businesses and individuals from being able to hold power over others. Sounds counter productive in a sense, but when we treat corporations better than individuals we get this mess.
If I'm not satisfied with the performance of an employee, I send him packing and hire someone who can do his job.
The problem is that there are usually only two employees available for this job, and if you fire the one who isn't doing his job, chances are the other one is a lot worse.
I hate having to choose between someone who sells my freedoms to corporations and a person who is a religious nut job who makes the Taliban look like atheists.
*sigh* If you want reform in the US, you have to outlaw a two party political system (and lobbying) and create a parliment that has proportional representation to allow 3rd parties to actually hold a large portion of the seats in government.
Finally, we are in for a decreased standard of living. That won't be because of the banks collapsing or the budget deficit however. It will be because of the regulation and tax schemes they are attempting to put onto energy right now. Your utility bills are expected to triple with the cap and tax or trade or whatever they are calling it now. They want to jack the cost of gas back up with burdensome taxes which means the cost if things like food and clothing will jump in price again too.
Hrm... I have to disagree that failure in economics always results in a decreased standard of living, because standard of living is directly tied to technology and science which amplifies our infrastructure and production efficiency.
Yes, economic activity can stimulate advances in science and technology, but if the economy collapses, science and technology lessens impact to an extent.
Example... The invention of the refrigeration machine increased the standard of living of people in general because they could store food long term.
Now if the economy shrinks and a lot of people go unemployed, it does not make all the refrigeration machines turn themselves off. People might not buy them as much and they will have to conserve energy in other areas, but in general their standard of living has not decreased. In fact there is a stimulus created for more efficient refrigerators that does not cost as much to run as before.
Same with cars and lightbulds... Sure we can't afford to drive as much as we used to and leave the lights on all the time, but this creates a stimulus for manufactures to develop cars that run on less gas and light bulbs that don't burn out as often and use less energy.
That said, the increase in costs of energy will cause a demand for solar and other methods of producing your own power without having to rely on paying a utility company.
Many businesses are doing this these days not only for the good press of going green but saving money as well.
Anyways... Its the science and technology that increases standard of living. The economic part helps stimulate investment in it.
Saying that it is "no surprise" that Europe comes first and Middle East comes last with a "paltry" number of manuscripts is completely unnecessary in this context and can easily be read as insulting to people in Middle East, with racism not far below the surface.
To be fair, the Crusaders really stole most of the ancient texts back in the 1200's and shipped them back to Europe. Then the mongols came in 1250 and burned everything that was left.
The role a college plays is twofold: firstly, discipline. Rigorous study involves tackling some challenging material instead of skipping that chapter. It means meeting a schedule. Those attendance quizzes are a reckoning call; if you don't know what you should, it will be self evident. In a sense, teachers play the same role as a personal fitness trainer.
Hrm... That is the problem because I have often found that the business world doesn't work like that. It is more about "the ends justify the means" and organizational dynamics than it is about cooperational learning.
And often people who have learned how to write research papers and take quizzes fail to adapt to a business world environment when they needed a different skill set.
For me at least, the majority of what I do for a living today was never learned in the class room (except maybe the command line).
As a current engineering undergrad that has taken some online courses in high school, I can imagine using online learning to supplement classroom education, but it certainly cannot replace it. Labs and hands on learning require physical presence. Also, by learning online, you're missing out on a lot of networking opportunities that you'd otherwise have with professors and other students. You can get to know professors over the internet, but it can't replace face to face conversation.
It really depends on the school and degree.
I often found the 200 person classes to be rather awkward and impersonal and I might as well watched a video presentation to learn just as well.
Of course they didn't have youtube back when I was in college, but had they offered the choice of going to such a lecture or watching it online, I would have saved the trip and watched it online.
Now it isn't a replacement for labs and hands on, but when you are majoring in business, math, or computer science, there really isn't a need to always have a real lab.
Oh and those networking opportunities... Unless you are going to be doing internship with your professors or plan to work for the universities, the real networking doesn't happen until you are out in the real world.
And considering how most businesses don't run face to face anymore (You'd be surprised how many businesses have offices all over the nation and maybe even internationally) your best bet to handle social networking is to get a blackberry.
Slashdot Mirror
If they're telling the truth, and not monitoring the data itself, just the endpoints.. then what good does encrypting do?
If you are encrypting everything by default and then route it through an anonymity network in onion layers (say Tor), then the destination and at some point the origination is encrypted from a man in the middle attack.
They can see that you sent something encrypted to a node and they could see that you received something from a node, but they would not be able to see where you sent it to, nor who sent it back.
Of course if they comprised an exit node, then all bets are off at least for the anonymity part...
Society is in many ways a lot more vulnerable now then it was in 1918 - its reliant on much more formal structures then it used to - if a disease manages to frighten people (it doesn't even have to kill many for this to occur) into not rocking up to work there will be a massive breakdown very quickly.
On the bright side, a large portion of population dying helps the unemployment rate.
I understand that denial is an important human psychologic defense mechanism, but can't you understand that "sharing" is just theft?
No. Because "copyright infringement" is officially stated in law as something entirely different as "theft".
Anyone who says otherwise is confusing the legal issue.
It is like arguing manslaughter, homicidal negligence, and murder are all the same crime. The LAW specifically states these are all DIFFERENT crimes which are ruled under DIFFERENT laws and no matter what people say until they are blue in the face makes it any different. (IANAL but know them in real life)
In fact, being convicted "copyright infringement" actually will get you a harsher penalty than being convicted of "theft" in most cases.
Secretary Gates wants to cancel the F-22 and cut our aircraft carrier fleet down so that we can focus on fighting insurgencies.
Do you not understand why the US lost Vietnam and the Soviets lost Afghanistan?
I think you misunderstand global conflict when it comes to superpowers.
Armed conflict that would result in total war between US, Russia, and China (China is just as likely to go to war with Russia and have so in the past in border skirmishes) which invariably result in nuclear exchange which makes having F-22 and aircraft carriers a moot point.
In lieu of MAD between superpowers, major powers tend to use smaller conflicts to carry out their conflict. As how the Soviets aided the Vietnamese and the US with the Afghanistan and the reason the USA and Soviets lost both conflicts was because there armies were built primary for global conflict against large powers.
Also... In all practical terms, an aircraft carrier can be sunk with one well placed torpedo or missile. They are good for power projection, but just like how the greatest warship Yamato was sunk with a well placed bomb from an aircraft, it would be a waste of resources when you are fighting asymmetrical wars in the streets of a 3rd world nation.
If war did break out with China and the US, don't you think as soon as foreign troops stepped on enemy soil that nuclear weapons would be authorized?
TFA gives the example of a white van involved in some crime. Well, I have a neighbor whose dog barks all night, but drives a brown van. No problem, a little Photoshop here and there, and voilá! "Instant Evidence"! The neighbors dog spends 6-8 months in the kennel while his owner does the same thing.
Wouldn't you think that they'd notice he really drives a brown van when they show up?
Its not as if you can report people as it is with certain authorities. In my city the official city website allows you to not only report potholes, but illegal activity.
I suppose if they had an "upload file" I could submit more data which I could spent more time doctoring, but as the current law has it, police can't use citizen media as evidence directly because of tampering legality issues (IANAL)
Either way I still can make up stuff in the report, but I'm sure it could come back to me once they figured out I was lying.
I wonder who he's got for his Favs!
I'm amazed that in this day and age there are still people who think gold has inherent value and will suddenly be the default currency when everything goes Max Max Real Soon Now.
I am reminded of a scene in the Fist of the North Star anime in which the wasteland mauraders muder a family and steal their food leaving a suite case full of diamonds, gold, and money scatter like it was trash.
If the economy does cause such a world... Guns, ammo, gas, water, and food will be the commodities of the day.
I mean if you don't have a gun someone will take your gold anyways and if they are starving, they'll be more interested in your food.
As someone experimenting with investing, and having bought some gold, I'm not libertarian.
This my friends, is an example of why bubbles happen in markets.
No object in the world has inherent value, just the subjective values due to people's wants.
Food and drink has true value.
Without it, you would die.
You don't need to eat gold on a daily basis nor use it to fuel the trucks that bring the food to your table nor power the water plants to filter the water and pump it to your tap (or bottled water).
Beyond that it is more likely subjective.
this is so weird. talking gold investing on slashdot? i like gold but this mainstream attention is driving me crazy - there is a bubble in every market and i can't figure out how much time in this gold bull run we have.
There is an unsaid (well its said often) rule in investing, that when Joe Sixpacks grandmother starts investing in something, a bubble is soon to follow.
In all reality, the price of gold is really determined by the next person willing to pay for it. It has no major utility (other than looking good, being organically inert, and being a slightly worse conductor than silver) and the supply is ever increasing because of mining.
In fact there is more gold mining activity today than there ever were in the history of mankind.
People say gold is money, but even money is useless but you can't find anyone to trade so that you get gas for your car, a home to stay, food to eat, and water to drink.
It would be more logical to invest in oil than gold.
I'm surprised you didn't know that gold has been the most valuable commodity to any society that could get their hands on it. Why has gold been a universal currency for the past 5,000 years? Gold was valuable to the Incas, who had no connection to the east or west, until they were conquered by the Spanish.
And the Spanish brought all the gold back to Europe was created massive inflation and ruined their economy...
And please stop the myth about gold being the universal currency for the past 5,000 years.
First of all during Roman times salt and slaves were the general form of currency. Yes, the official Roman government issued gold, copper, AND silver currencies but it was of a limited supply and the majority of the citizens of the Empire had to barter using salt and other commodities.
Then during the middle ages, the serfs paid their taxes with wheat etc (they couldn't mine gold in their fields) and the gold/silver was relegated mostly between nobles and their hired hands and merchants.
As the gold supply was limited, most of the nations created silver currencies and by the time the colonists settled in North America, any gold found was shipped to Europe and the primary currency traded was barter, tobacco, and scrip (fiat from governors). This lasted all the way up until the 1800's.
Once the United States was created, there was no supply of gold to be had to back their currencies so they had a de facto silver backing of European coin. This continued until the 1870s when they officially switched from silver to gold as the backing which actually may have resulted in the bank panics of 1890 when they basically ran out of gold (which luckily the California gold rush eased it a bit until at least 1907)
It also worth mentioning that Germany switched from silver to gold in the 1870's too because they forced France to pay them theirs after the Franco-Prussian war ;)
No. The cave artist didn't have any animals to pay cave prostitute, so he was trying to impress her by painting them.
hooking up to the net with Earthlink or AOHell dialup, and of course the evil plague that spread across the net at that time
I had Mindspring you insensitive clod!
Our legislators are supposed to be representing a geographical area, not a party.
Perhaps that is part of the problem. If our congress was elected nationally, they wouldn't be so apt to pander with pork barrell deliveries.
Of course I'd have a compromise, keep the senate the same and make the house of representatives into a parliament like Europe.
You start killing pirates and making it really risky to be a pirate and there won't be any more pirates willing to take the risk. Kinda like the old saying, "There are old pirates and there are bold pirates, but there are no old bold pirates".
You're talking about people who are living in Somalia.
They are more likely to be killed by a rival warlord faction member in the streets than to be while out pirating in the ocean.
http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part2.htm
You may wonder how armed Naval ships can have and use weapons, but that is because they are not merchant ships and are ruled by other naval treaties in respect to international law.
If this law was changed, you have to keep in mind that would allow Chinese and Russian merchant vessels to be armed while in US ports so it is a very sticky situation.
This really has to be the cheapest, most effective method - so there must be some, likely political, reason that it's not being used. Much of the issue with arming crew members seems to revolve around 1) training and 2) what to do with the weapons in whatever random port the ship ends up at where weapons aren't welcome.
International Maritime treaties forbid merchant ships from army themselves during peacetime.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocent_passage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_on_the_Law_of_the_Sea
If ships armed themselves, then they waive the "right of innocent passage" and when they are out of international waters, then they might run into problem with the local authorities.
I don't like that any more than you, but we have to face the facts: that's how it works.
Then it should be made illegal by having corporations stripped of powers of "the invidiual" and should be banned from having any political activities whatsoever.
Corporations would make a lot more profit if they could own slaves like the 1800's, no?
It is a safe bet that if they could they would and the only thing stopping them is the law.
We let that sort of thing happen every time we concede more and more to the government in terms of providing services for us. With all of the extra money and the ability to represent everyone, you suddenly realize that corps don't have to care what individuals want any more, they only have to care what the government wants.
Its not really the "Government Providing" services is the problem, but rather that the businesses hold about as much power as the government.
Even Thomas Jefferson wrote about the dangers of corporations as being a threat to freedom. The only alternative we have is to actually have government restrict businesses and individuals from being able to hold power over others. Sounds counter productive in a sense, but when we treat corporations better than individuals we get this mess.
If I'm not satisfied with the performance of an employee, I send him packing and hire someone who can do his job.
The problem is that there are usually only two employees available for this job, and if you fire the one who isn't doing his job, chances are the other one is a lot worse.
I hate having to choose between someone who sells my freedoms to corporations and a person who is a religious nut job who makes the Taliban look like atheists.
*sigh*
If you want reform in the US, you have to outlaw a two party political system (and lobbying) and create a parliment that has proportional representation to allow 3rd parties to actually hold a large portion of the seats in government.
Finally, we are in for a decreased standard of living. That won't be because of the banks collapsing or the budget deficit however. It will be because of the regulation and tax schemes they are attempting to put onto energy right now. Your utility bills are expected to triple with the cap and tax or trade or whatever they are calling it now. They want to jack the cost of gas back up with burdensome taxes which means the cost if things like food and clothing will jump in price again too.
Hrm... I have to disagree that failure in economics always results in a decreased standard of living, because standard of living is directly tied to technology and science which amplifies our infrastructure and production efficiency.
Yes, economic activity can stimulate advances in science and technology, but if the economy collapses, science and technology lessens impact to an extent.
Example... The invention of the refrigeration machine increased the standard of living of people in general because they could store food long term.
Now if the economy shrinks and a lot of people go unemployed, it does not make all the refrigeration machines turn themselves off. People might not buy them as much and they will have to conserve energy in other areas, but in general their standard of living has not decreased. In fact there is a stimulus created for more efficient refrigerators that does not cost as much to run as before.
Same with cars and lightbulds... Sure we can't afford to drive as much as we used to and leave the lights on all the time, but this creates a stimulus for manufactures to develop cars that run on less gas and light bulbs that don't burn out as often and use less energy.
That said, the increase in costs of energy will cause a demand for solar and other methods of producing your own power without having to rely on paying a utility company.
Many businesses are doing this these days not only for the good press of going green but saving money as well.
Anyways... Its the science and technology that increases standard of living. The economic part helps stimulate investment in it.
Saying that it is "no surprise" that Europe comes first and Middle East comes last with a "paltry" number of manuscripts is completely unnecessary in this context and can easily be read as insulting to people in Middle East, with racism not far below the surface.
To be fair, the Crusaders really stole most of the ancient texts back in the 1200's and shipped them back to Europe. Then the mongols came in 1250 and burned everything that was left.
Should I have a plumber re-run copper all over my house?
If they soldered those pipes with lead... Then yeah.
But that had nothing to do with your sink.
The role a college plays is twofold: firstly, discipline. Rigorous study involves tackling some challenging material instead of skipping that chapter. It means meeting a schedule. Those attendance quizzes are a reckoning call; if you don't know what you should, it will be self evident. In a sense, teachers play the same role as a personal fitness trainer.
Hrm... That is the problem because I have often found that the business world doesn't work like that. It is more about "the ends justify the means" and organizational dynamics than it is about cooperational learning.
And often people who have learned how to write research papers and take quizzes fail to adapt to a business world environment when they needed a different skill set.
For me at least, the majority of what I do for a living today was never learned in the class room (except maybe the command line).
As a current engineering undergrad that has taken some online courses in high school, I can imagine using online learning to supplement classroom education, but it certainly cannot replace it. Labs and hands on learning require physical presence.
Also, by learning online, you're missing out on a lot of networking opportunities that you'd otherwise have with professors and other students. You can get to know professors over the internet, but it can't replace face to face conversation.
It really depends on the school and degree.
I often found the 200 person classes to be rather awkward and impersonal and I might as well watched a video presentation to learn just as well.
Of course they didn't have youtube back when I was in college, but had they offered the choice of going to such a lecture or watching it online, I would have saved the trip and watched it online.
Now it isn't a replacement for labs and hands on, but when you are majoring in business, math, or computer science, there really isn't a need to always have a real lab.
Oh and those networking opportunities... Unless you are going to be doing internship with your professors or plan to work for the universities, the real networking doesn't happen until you are out in the real world.
And considering how most businesses don't run face to face anymore (You'd be surprised how many businesses have offices all over the nation and maybe even internationally) your best bet to handle social networking is to get a blackberry.