"A door key is a device containing five digits (a "something you know") encoded as depths of grooves."
No: the fact that it encodes some information doesn't make it "something you know"; it's still something you have. Proof: memorize with as much precision as you want your key's profile. Now, try to open the door without a key.
If anything, the fact that the token encodes some information makes it not a pure "security by something you have" device and this fact makes it less reliable, and the less reliable as a "something you have" the more it relies in the encoded information and the less in the very token ownership -confront with the old "let me pass through, see here the king's ring!" (in the understandment that the king's ring is easily recognizable and not falsiable): you can use the information to produce a new token and use the second token in place of the first (a key's copy). But note you still *need* the token, so it's not a "something you know" device.
"> it certainly is something you, and nobody but you is Serious injury to a finger can result in its fingerprint becoming no longer something I am."
Thus making a fingerprint not the perfect "something you are" test, not throwing any logical fault to the premise. Would you consider a theoretical flaw in the login/password concept the fact that you can forget your password?
"> and nobody but you is I wouldn't be entirely sure of that. Please take some time to read about silicone fingers."
Thus making the testing device buggy, not throwing any logical fault to the premise. Would you consider a theoretical flaw in the login/password concept the fact that some login software has a bug such as password "42" always matching?
"The Suricata Engine and the HTP Library are available to use under the GPLv2. [...] Membership in the OISF Consortium Group provides a non-gpl limited license for the Suricata IDS engine in return for ongoing support."
Mix the two and what you get is:
1) Suricata is open to "tivoization" (which is quite a concern for a kind of software that naturally tends to be offered in a "black box" model).
I don't think I'll consider Suricata on my environment any time soon. 2) In order to be part of the community you should pass away copyrights for the fruits of your job to OISF which in turn is free to close development of future versions of the software at any time.
""Something you have" typically involves a device containing some form of stored "something you know". "Something you are" can't be revoked and reissued in case of compromise."
a) So what? Does it make what I said any less true?
b) """Something you have" typically involves a device containing some form of stored "something you know""
Tipically? The tipical example of security by "something you have" is a door key. 'Nough said.
c) "Something you are" can't be revoked and reissued in case of compromise."
Again, so what? Provided that the something that you are identifies you biunivocally, that is, that it certainly is something you, and nobody but you is, it just *can't* be compromised.
""The problem comes when they loose the USB stick." Basically as much a problem as when they forget their password. Not quite. Loosing the USB stick means someone else could gain access."
I don't think anyone is proposing gaining access *only* based on "something you have" but on a multifactor way. I in fact was thinking about two factor based on something physical (not necesarily a USB stick) and a password.
"Two-factor mitigates the issue, but still doesn't solve it - especially for primary authentication methods (e.g. local computer login). Two-factor is fine for secondary authentication (e.g. websites, VPN, etc.)."
I don't see your point. Are you implying that somehow two-factor is worse for primary authentication than one-factor? How is it, since "the other factor" on such a two-factor system can be exactly the same factor as for one-factor?
Authentication requires at least one of these (of course, mixing two or three is better):
* Something you know
* Something you have
* Something you are
"When your password rules have a net effect of disallowing people from using their familiar pneumonic systems for remembering passwords, you force them to write the passwords down."
Using your family's lungs for your passwords? You'd better write them down on a piece of paper, you sadistic criminal!!!
"In my opinion, with 6 billion+ people, even the lower end of consumption is too high to sustain. US high consumption makes the problem worse but doesn't create the problem."
No, it may not create the problem (industrial revolution does) but certainly it does seed the problem (which is basically the same thing for all practical purposes).
USA, about 5% of world's population, consumes about 25% of all world's energy production.
As per wikipedia, USA per capita energy consumption in "kilogrammes of oil equivalent per year" was 7794.8 as of 2003. Let's see other countries: Finland: 7218.1 Sweden: 5764.8 Germany: 4203.1 United Kingdom: 3918.1 Switzerland: 3718.6 (...) China: 1138.3
So, you see, even a first world country with a quality of life that has nothing to envy to USA and that is a damn fridge doesn't manage to expend at USA's rates where most European countries -developed, industrialized, geographically challenging, are at about 50~60% levels... and you need seven Chineses to get one American.
Given that the "American Way Of Life" is kind of a referent and goal for developing countries, USA is not "part of the problem"; it is the damn problem. You will say that even at Chinese levels growing population will only push forward the problem all you want but when we are talking, energy-wise, 6.000Mill. people vs. 42.000Mill. people that's not pushing forward the problem but enterily a different problem.
"Low consumption areas with high populations have destroyed their areas"
As in "high consumption areas with whatever populations have not destroyed their areas"? Have you tried to seed some wheat in Manhattan, lately? Did you read "The grapes of wrath"? Did you heard about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Maybe you got some news lately of a "little" oil spill from BP?
"Could the U.S. consumption be lowered-- absolutely. But that doesn't address the fundamental problem."
"There's a lot of ground under those 13.7 football fields, and a hell of a lot of air above them."
There's the equivalent of half an inch of liquid air over our heads and, well, you can go living underground as soon as you want.
Regarding the football fields themselves, if you put them on a 4x4 square (yes, that would make well over 13.7 fields), an athlete could run around them in about 3.5 minutes.
"Wait, is that American football or regular football?;-)"
I thought about it, yes. While regular football would have allow for easier numbers (it's basically half an Ha each) I opted for American football in lieu of our Slashdot American hosts, which is a bit longer.
We in Europe are luckier since we have more soccer fields for each of ourselves than they have American football fields.
"Considering that you are claiming man to have altered "the environment" you need to alter your calculation to include, at a minimum, the entire airspace of the troposphere if not more..."
You are not aware how thin "thin air" is, do you?
Well, as Torricelli thought us, the weight of the entire air column (up to the troposphere and beyond) is equivalent to that of a water column 10,33m high. Given that industrial liquid air has a density of 870Kg/m^3, if the whole atmosphere were liquid it would amount to about 12mm (a bit less than half an inch for you imperials) over the floor.
So again: Do you really think it takes too much arrogance to imagine that a single man can alter 13,7 football fields *and half and inch of liquid air over them*, within his lifetime through farming, mining, driving, building, etc.?
Well, I think you nickname says all, but anyway...
Just have a look at which countries of the planet have higher population grow rates. Now have a look at which parts of the planet have higher power consumption per capita.
Now think about why there's so little overlap between them.
In other words: China has about four times the population of USA and it's only *now* that China's Carbon emissions are comparable to that of USA (which still means 1:4 on emissions per capita). Watts per capita are still lightyears away.
No, mate, the problem, the main problem is not overpopulation, but first world's overconsumption. It's very easy for first world to say: that's the way we reached our style of life but now we ban this path for you.
"*why is it natural when its anything but human, as though somehow we weren't on the same playing field as the rest of nature?"
On one hand, I ask that too, and so did scientists like Ramón Margalef.
On the other, for this case is very easy to see the difference. While natural, non-antropogenic Carbon emissions are more or less closed in a circle, specially for climacic ecosystems, which produces a neutral ballance (it is emitted as much carbon as it's fixed) antropogenic Carbon it's an open circle, not part of a closed system, not at least on short range (one could argue that current fossil emissions are just part of a cycle started about 600 Mill. years ago that will end on a form of equilibrium or another in some millions of years -be it subsumed again or being part of a super-greenhouse planet, the likes of Venus, but I don't think such a point will add up so much to the thread).
"Thats 106 W/m^2 on the surface, im sure some more is absorbed in the atmosphere..."
Not. It's 106 W/m^2 *overall* (heck, why I took the time to write down "taking account for distance, angle and albedo"? may I ask myself).
These are raw numbers (I should be able to avoid this since I'm going to use the same data than you for reference -well, if you don't even read the very Wikipedia you reference I think it's no wonder you don't read what I wrote, either):
* 1.366 W/m^2 is the average value out of atmosphere as measured by satellites.
* Then you should consider that the Earth is a spheroid so, on one hand it exposes more surface than simply its cross section and on the other only roughly half the spheroid is exposed to sunlight at a time. That makes about 342 W/m^2 (basic geometry -will I'll need to do the calculus for you or will you be able to cope with that? Hint: cross section is a circle with surface=PI*r^2, exposed surface is roughly 2*PI*r^2).
* Then you should consider albedo which is calculated to worlwide average at 0,31, in other words, 69% of solar energy is reflected by Earth's "whitiness". Thus, about 106W/m^2 is what's getting into the system (for the sake of the argument I didn't count the light that it's absorbed by the atmosphere and then reemited on longer wavelenghts to space or else the number would be more about 85W/m^2 than 106W/m^2).
"But for the love of god (or Allah, or Dawkins, or whatever) do NOT compare it to a "traditional" 100W light bulb which is ~10% efficient at getting that power into light form. More like 10 of them. And also from wikipedia on "solar energy""
Oh, sure! But read it you first, please.
While it's true that a light bulb is quite an unefficient decive to turn power into *visible* light it's in fact *very* efficient turning it into light, infrared light to be more precise -also known as "heat", and then, there comes your wikipedia article. Please pay attention to that funny diagram, "Solar Radiation Spectrum".
But this is just disgressing since it does nothing to do with either visible or invisible radiation since I never talked about light but energy. 100 Watts are 100 Watts are 100 Watts. The comparation, if any, is against the light bulb not the other way around precisely because what you state: we recieve from the Sun comparatively more visible light than from a 100 Watts bulb, so if you don't find impressive comparing the Sun to a 100W bulb try comparing it to a ~50W bulb, which would make even more sense (since that's more or less the bulb you would need to get the same "light" than from a current 100W bulb if its radiation spectrum were alike to that of Sun).
"Humans use something like 500 EJ a year... That wouls be a hell of a lot of light bulbs..."
Hence my point "2)" that you conveniently forgot about.
"No, I don't think it's unrealistic. What IS unrealistic to to blame ONLY man to the exclusion of all other contributing factors, which is what the A in AGW and all the real debate is about."
I don't think anybody sane would deny there are other forces in the game since it's obvious the climate has changed, quite widely, in times when human activity can certainly be discounted.
Anyway this is not what I was arguing nor it is the position of those that want to give credit to the option that anthropogenic causes should be considered for changes for about the two last centuries up to the point of considering a trollish straw man even mentioning.
"This blinkered "it's all mans' fault" is nonsense. It's partly mans' fault at best."
Up the point that it is maybe at least partially "man's fault" it's all that counts: or have you heard anyone proposing we can do something about sun's emissions variations or rotation angle or any other of the cosmic or Earth-based variations? Since all we can do about is anthropogenic variations all that rests is cost/benefit analysis. And we'd better don't let the energy tycoons (esp. oil tycoons) be the ones to assess such cost/benefit analysis.
"Will reducing man's contribution in a real way (not Carbon Credits, or other bullshit), have a significant slowing affect considering the input of the above mentioned phenomena ? Again, show me !"
On one hand it's due diligence. Given that it's certainly worthy the proposition that human beings are able to significantly affect their 13.7 football fields in just a single life timespan and that we have been doing it at an exponential rate for about eight generations we'd better be safe than sorry and start acting now if even "just in case".
On the other hand, you seem to consider that Sun is so much "bigger" than anything that man can do that it's a bit silly even considering the options (13.7 versus 164,377 football fields or a factor of about a x10000 on your accounts). It's only you should consider two other things:
1) While Sun is big and hot beyond ordinary human common sense, it's far away beyond human common sense too. The average energy we recieve from Sun taking account for distance, angle and albedo is more or less 106 W/m^2. So Sun's energy finally reaching the Earth is at odds with what is needed to light up an office table (a "traditional" 100W bulb on an office table lamp for a table about a square meter). Not quite impressive expressed that way, uh?
2) It's not about raw energy as much as catalizer effects: one drop of poison can trash away a full well of fresh water, right?
"As opposed to the sun which has a surface area of 6088000000000 Km^2 ?"
As opposed to nothing. All by itself: do *you* really think too arrogant that a human can significative alter his 13,7 football fields share within his lifespan?
Mean earth surface per inhabitant: 0,074 Km^2/habitant, or, to give it in "real international standards units", about 13,7 football fields.
Do you really think it takes too much arrogance to imagine that a single man can alter 13,7 football fields within his lifetime through farming, mining, driving, building, etc.?
"The reason this is an issue Is because Microsoft's source is closed"
Or not.
One of the biggest "spy issues" post Perestroika was about bussiness negotiations for airliners (Boeing vs Airbus). Being Microsoft the big company it is you can bet foreing countries intelligences want to know what's happening inside and that has nothing to do with source code.
"2 million other retards getting infected and becoming part of the same botnet is a much bigger, much different problem."
And that's the case just because the "you shit it out you pay for the mop" policy is not enforced.
"Just like you personally not getting vaccinated for a highly contagious disease is mainly your problem, but if a significant portion of the population refuses vaccination it becomes a societal problem."
And it is dealt with at the political/legal level; it's not the bussiness for any private company. At all.
"You guys probably bitch about not being able to run servers off your mobile phones too."
Why not? What if I want to run a server on my daughter's phone so I can pull it for i.e. it's location? Is it the ISP's bussiness to decide what can or can't I do? They provide me with the tubes on agreed bandwith; that's all it should be.
>> You don't get it. ISPs should not be the police of the internet. They should manage the traffic, but they shouldn't care what the traffic is. > Why?
Because: 1) Because I'm the customer: I don't want them to protect me; I just want them providing "the tubes" and that's all. 2) Because they are not and authority 3) Because they shouldn't be an authority since this should be a government bussiness not a private corporation one. 4) Because due to the fact that ISP is basically a regional monopoly anything outside net neutrality is asking for market disbalances.
Slashdot Mirror
"A door key is a device containing five digits (a "something you know") encoded as depths of grooves."
No: the fact that it encodes some information doesn't make it "something you know"; it's still something you have. Proof: memorize with as much precision as you want your key's profile. Now, try to open the door without a key.
If anything, the fact that the token encodes some information makes it not a pure "security by something you have" device and this fact makes it less reliable, and the less reliable as a "something you have" the more it relies in the encoded information and the less in the very token ownership -confront with the old "let me pass through, see here the king's ring!" (in the understandment that the king's ring is easily recognizable and not falsiable): you can use the information to produce a new token and use the second token in place of the first (a key's copy). But note you still *need* the token, so it's not a "something you know" device.
"> it certainly is something you, and nobody but you is
Serious injury to a finger can result in its fingerprint becoming no longer something I am."
Thus making a fingerprint not the perfect "something you are" test, not throwing any logical fault to the premise. Would you consider a theoretical flaw in the login/password concept the fact that you can forget your password?
"> and nobody but you is
I wouldn't be entirely sure of that. Please take some time to read about silicone fingers."
Thus making the testing device buggy, not throwing any logical fault to the premise. Would you consider a theoretical flaw in the login/password concept the fact that some login software has a bug such as password "42" always matching?
"The Suricata Engine and the HTP Library are available to use under the GPLv2.
[...]
Membership in the OISF Consortium Group provides a non-gpl limited license for the Suricata IDS engine in return for ongoing support."
Mix the two and what you get is:
1) Suricata is open to "tivoization" (which is quite a concern for a kind of software that naturally tends to be offered in a "black box" model).
I don't think I'll consider Suricata on my environment any time soon.
2) In order to be part of the community you should pass away copyrights for the fruits of your job to OISF which in turn is free to close development of future versions of the software at any time.
""Something you have" typically involves a device containing some form of stored "something you know". "Something you are" can't be revoked and reissued in case of compromise."
a) So what? Does it make what I said any less true?
b) """Something you have" typically involves a device containing some form of stored "something you know""
Tipically? The tipical example of security by "something you have" is a door key. 'Nough said.
c) "Something you are" can't be revoked and reissued in case of compromise."
Again, so what? Provided that the something that you are identifies you biunivocally, that is, that it certainly is something you, and nobody but you is, it just *can't* be compromised.
""The problem comes when they loose the USB stick."
Basically as much a problem as when they forget their password.
Not quite. Loosing the USB stick means someone else could gain access."
I don't think anyone is proposing gaining access *only* based on "something you have" but on a multifactor way. I in fact was thinking about two factor based on something physical (not necesarily a USB stick) and a password.
"Two-factor mitigates the issue, but still doesn't solve it - especially for primary authentication methods (e.g. local computer login). Two-factor is fine for secondary authentication (e.g. websites, VPN, etc.)."
I don't see your point. Are you implying that somehow two-factor is worse for primary authentication than one-factor? How is it, since "the other factor" on such a two-factor system can be exactly the same factor as for one-factor?
"you can make the rest of the C:\ drive writable only to administrators and not make normal users administrators. Problem solved."
Have you really tried that in a real world environment? You can bet is *much* easier to say it than doing it.
"The problem comes when they loose the USB stick."
Basically as much a problem as when they forget their password.
"After all, any security system involves secrets"
False.
Authentication requires at least one of these (of course, mixing two or three is better):
* Something you know
* Something you have
* Something you are
Only the first one relies on secrets.
"When your password rules have a net effect of disallowing people from using their familiar pneumonic systems for remembering passwords, you force them to write the passwords down."
Using your family's lungs for your passwords? You'd better write them down on a piece of paper, you sadistic criminal!!!
"In my opinion, with 6 billion+ people, even the lower end of consumption is too high to sustain.
US high consumption makes the problem worse but doesn't create the problem."
No, it may not create the problem (industrial revolution does) but certainly it does seed the problem (which is basically the same thing for all practical purposes).
USA, about 5% of world's population, consumes about 25% of all world's energy production.
As per wikipedia, USA per capita energy consumption in "kilogrammes of oil equivalent per year" was 7794.8 as of 2003. Let's see other countries:
Finland: 7218.1
Sweden: 5764.8
Germany: 4203.1
United Kingdom: 3918.1
Switzerland: 3718.6
(...)
China: 1138.3
So, you see, even a first world country with a quality of life that has nothing to envy to USA and that is a damn fridge doesn't manage to expend at USA's rates where most European countries -developed, industrialized, geographically challenging, are at about 50~60% levels... and you need seven Chineses to get one American.
Given that the "American Way Of Life" is kind of a referent and goal for developing countries, USA is not "part of the problem"; it is the damn problem. You will say that even at Chinese levels growing population will only push forward the problem all you want but when we are talking, energy-wise, 6.000Mill. people vs. 42.000Mill. people that's not pushing forward the problem but enterily a different problem.
"Low consumption areas with high populations have destroyed their areas"
As in "high consumption areas with whatever populations have not destroyed their areas"? Have you tried to seed some wheat in Manhattan, lately? Did you read "The grapes of wrath"? Did you heard about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Maybe you got some news lately of a "little" oil spill from BP?
"Could the U.S. consumption be lowered-- absolutely. But that doesn't address the fundamental problem."
Except that *is* the fundamental problem.
"There's a lot of ground under those 13.7 football fields, and a hell of a lot of air above them."
There's the equivalent of half an inch of liquid air over our heads and, well, you can go living underground as soon as you want.
Regarding the football fields themselves, if you put them on a 4x4 square (yes, that would make well over 13.7 fields), an athlete could run around them in about 3.5 minutes.
Not very impressive.
"Wait, is that American football or regular football? ;-)"
I thought about it, yes. While regular football would have allow for easier numbers (it's basically half an Ha each) I opted for American football in lieu of our Slashdot American hosts, which is a bit longer.
We in Europe are luckier since we have more soccer fields for each of ourselves than they have American football fields.
"Considering that you are claiming man to have altered "the environment" you need to alter your calculation to include, at a minimum, the entire airspace of the troposphere if not more..."
You are not aware how thin "thin air" is, do you?
Well, as Torricelli thought us, the weight of the entire air column (up to the troposphere and beyond) is equivalent to that of a water column 10,33m high. Given that industrial liquid air has a density of 870Kg/m^3, if the whole atmosphere were liquid it would amount to about 12mm (a bit less than half an inch for you imperials) over the floor.
So again: Do you really think it takes too much arrogance to imagine that a single man can alter 13,7 football fields *and half and inch of liquid air over them*, within his lifetime through farming, mining, driving, building, etc.?
Well, I think you nickname says all, but anyway...
Just have a look at which countries of the planet have higher population grow rates. Now have a look at which parts of the planet have higher power consumption per capita.
Now think about why there's so little overlap between them.
In other words: China has about four times the population of USA and it's only *now* that China's Carbon emissions are comparable to that of USA (which still means 1:4 on emissions per capita). Watts per capita are still lightyears away.
No, mate, the problem, the main problem is not overpopulation, but first world's overconsumption. It's very easy for first world to say: that's the way we reached our style of life but now we ban this path for you.
"*why is it natural when its anything but human, as though somehow we weren't on the same playing field as the rest of nature?"
On one hand, I ask that too, and so did scientists like Ramón Margalef.
On the other, for this case is very easy to see the difference. While natural, non-antropogenic Carbon emissions are more or less closed in a circle, specially for climacic ecosystems, which produces a neutral ballance (it is emitted as much carbon as it's fixed) antropogenic Carbon it's an open circle, not part of a closed system, not at least on short range (one could argue that current fossil emissions are just part of a cycle started about 600 Mill. years ago that will end on a form of equilibrium or another in some millions of years -be it subsumed again or being part of a super-greenhouse planet, the likes of Venus, but I don't think such a point will add up so much to the thread).
"Thats 106 W/m^2 on the surface, im sure some more is absorbed in the atmosphere..."
Not. It's 106 W/m^2 *overall* (heck, why I took the time to write down "taking account for distance, angle and albedo"? may I ask myself).
These are raw numbers (I should be able to avoid this since I'm going to use the same data than you for reference -well, if you don't even read the very Wikipedia you reference I think it's no wonder you don't read what I wrote, either):
* 1.366 W/m^2 is the average value out of atmosphere as measured by satellites.
* Then you should consider that the Earth is a spheroid so, on one hand it exposes more surface than simply its cross section and on the other only roughly half the spheroid is exposed to sunlight at a time. That makes about 342 W/m^2 (basic geometry -will I'll need to do the calculus for you or will you be able to cope with that? Hint: cross section is a circle with surface=PI*r^2, exposed surface is roughly 2*PI*r^2).
* Then you should consider albedo which is calculated to worlwide average at 0,31, in other words, 69% of solar energy is reflected by Earth's "whitiness". Thus, about 106W/m^2 is what's getting into the system (for the sake of the argument I didn't count the light that it's absorbed by the atmosphere and then reemited on longer wavelenghts to space or else the number would be more about 85W/m^2 than 106W/m^2).
"But for the love of god (or Allah, or Dawkins, or whatever) do NOT compare it to a "traditional" 100W light bulb which is ~10% efficient at getting that power into light form. More like 10 of them. And also from wikipedia on "solar energy""
Oh, sure! But read it you first, please.
While it's true that a light bulb is quite an unefficient decive to turn power into *visible* light it's in fact *very* efficient turning it into light, infrared light to be more precise -also known as "heat", and then, there comes your wikipedia article. Please pay attention to that funny diagram, "Solar Radiation Spectrum".
But this is just disgressing since it does nothing to do with either visible or invisible radiation since I never talked about light but energy. 100 Watts are 100 Watts are 100 Watts. The comparation, if any, is against the light bulb not the other way around precisely because what you state: we recieve from the Sun comparatively more visible light than from a 100 Watts bulb, so if you don't find impressive comparing the Sun to a 100W bulb try comparing it to a ~50W bulb, which would make even more sense (since that's more or less the bulb you would need to get the same "light" than from a current 100W bulb if its radiation spectrum were alike to that of Sun).
"Humans use something like 500 EJ a year... That wouls be a hell of a lot of light bulbs..."
Hence my point "2)" that you conveniently forgot about.
"No, I don't think it's unrealistic. What IS unrealistic to to blame ONLY man to the exclusion of all other contributing factors, which is what the A in AGW and all the real debate is about."
I don't think anybody sane would deny there are other forces in the game since it's obvious the climate has changed, quite widely, in times when human activity can certainly be discounted.
Anyway this is not what I was arguing nor it is the position of those that want to give credit to the option that anthropogenic causes should be considered for changes for about the two last centuries up to the point of considering a trollish straw man even mentioning.
"This blinkered "it's all mans' fault" is nonsense. It's partly mans' fault at best."
Up the point that it is maybe at least partially "man's fault" it's all that counts: or have you heard anyone proposing we can do something about sun's emissions variations or rotation angle or any other of the cosmic or Earth-based variations? Since all we can do about is anthropogenic variations all that rests is cost/benefit analysis. And we'd better don't let the energy tycoons (esp. oil tycoons) be the ones to assess such cost/benefit analysis.
"Will reducing man's contribution in a real way (not Carbon Credits, or other bullshit), have a significant slowing affect considering the input of the above mentioned phenomena ? Again, show me !"
On one hand it's due diligence. Given that it's certainly worthy the proposition that human beings are able to significantly affect their 13.7 football fields in just a single life timespan and that we have been doing it at an exponential rate for about eight generations we'd better be safe than sorry and start acting now if even "just in case".
On the other hand, you seem to consider that Sun is so much "bigger" than anything that man can do that it's a bit silly even considering the options (13.7 versus 164,377 football fields or a factor of about a x10000 on your accounts). It's only you should consider two other things:
1) While Sun is big and hot beyond ordinary human common sense, it's far away beyond human common sense too. The average energy we recieve from Sun taking account for distance, angle and albedo is more or less 106 W/m^2. So Sun's energy finally reaching the Earth is at odds with what is needed to light up an office table (a "traditional" 100W bulb on an office table lamp for a table about a square meter). Not quite impressive expressed that way, uh?
2) It's not about raw energy as much as catalizer effects: one drop of poison can trash away a full well of fresh water, right?
"As opposed to the sun which has a surface area of 6088000000000 Km^2 ?"
As opposed to nothing. All by itself: do *you* really think too arrogant that a human can significative alter his 13,7 football fields share within his lifespan?
"It takes quite a bit of arrogance to believe that humanity can change the Earth's climate that much, that fast."
Earth's surface: 510,072,000 Km^2
Earth's population: 6,856,832,000
Mean earth surface per inhabitant: 0,074 Km^2/habitant, or, to give it in "real international standards units", about 13,7 football fields.
Do you really think it takes too much arrogance to imagine that a single man can alter 13,7 football fields within his lifetime through farming, mining, driving, building, etc.?
"Why should I have to pay more because I'm a larger person than you?"
Why should I have to pay more because I'll need more luggage at my destination, then?
"What kind of real-life stressful situation involves the person being stuck in a chair without a computer and without access to the internet?"
One with a flakey router?
"The reason this is an issue Is because Microsoft's source is closed"
Or not.
One of the biggest "spy issues" post Perestroika was about bussiness negotiations for airliners (Boeing vs Airbus). Being Microsoft the big company it is you can bet foreing countries intelligences want to know what's happening inside and that has nothing to do with source code.
"2 million other retards getting infected and becoming part of the same botnet is a much bigger, much different problem."
And that's the case just because the "you shit it out you pay for the mop" policy is not enforced.
"Just like you personally not getting vaccinated for a highly contagious disease is mainly your problem, but if a significant portion of the population refuses vaccination it becomes a societal problem."
And it is dealt with at the political/legal level; it's not the bussiness for any private company. At all.
"You guys probably bitch about not being able to run servers off your mobile phones too."
Why not? What if I want to run a server on my daughter's phone so I can pull it for i.e. it's location? Is it the ISP's bussiness to decide what can or can't I do? They provide me with the tubes on agreed bandwith; that's all it should be.
>> You don't get it. ISPs should not be the police of the internet. They should manage the traffic, but they shouldn't care what the traffic is.
> Why?
Because:
1) Because I'm the customer: I don't want them to protect me; I just want them providing "the tubes" and that's all.
2) Because they are not and authority
3) Because they shouldn't be an authority since this should be a government bussiness not a private corporation one.
4) Because due to the fact that ISP is basically a regional monopoly anything outside net neutrality is asking for market disbalances.