either stay under your rock or quit complaining and 'work' the system (aka opt in or opt out).
If by rock, you mean encrypt and obfuscate all of your communications, then yeah, that's already happening via TOR and other such services. And I'm going to bet that there'll be more of this in the coming future. Much more.
Even if the NSA doesn't read your emails, it doesn't mean they haven't read my emails or say, Nancy Pelosi's emails or more likely, John Boehner's emails or Rand Paul's e-mails. And, taking that a step further, just because it hasn't been abused so far doesn't mean it's not going to be abused in the future. In fact, the secrecy around the program means that we'd have no way of telling whether it was abused or not, now, and in the future.
There are so many things wrong with this entire affair, at so many levels, you can start anywhere and get there by aimlessly wandering around.
Not just that. Most personal computers aren't connected directly to the internet. They usually go through NATs, routers, firewalls, etc. that will not conceal this type of traffic. Not only that, but ISP's have these QoS and zombie-detection devices that have exactly the type of logic that will flag the machine as a bot and a notice.
Trust no one, nothing, more than anyone, anything else. For example, self-signed certs are just as trustworthy as those signed by a CA.
Decentralize and distribute the information storage. Basically, a P2P/Freenet type of architecture where information is not stored in one place. Your own website could be distributed across multiple machines. When somebody requests a page, you go out and look for your pages from the distributed pool, then come back. But the individual machines don't know what they're holding, nor would anyone else possessing those machines without yours.
What's funny is that you mention Deep Throat. Deep Throat in actuality was a very product of this corruption. Someone got passed over for a promotion, and that someone used some dirt to take out the guy responsible.
Deep Throat wasn't a whistleblower. He was a self-serving asshat out for revenge. And if you want to push the conspiracy a little further, he did it to show everyone else what a "lowly lieutenant" could do if they crossed him, even if the boss is dead.
Look up who Deep Throat is. And look up his old boss (hint: it's the guy who killed a president and had Congress cover it up for him).
Whoa! Don't lump the NSA with the official rent-a-cops like DHS and TSA.
NSA is signals intelligence. They're supposed to be monitoring the communications of other countries. And they're supposed to protect our own communications from their foreign counterparts.
That they've been turned into a lackey of the FBI is not their fault. If you want to find where the fault lies, look higher.
A significant populartion of the whistleblowers over the past ten years are from the NSA. I would (like to) think that there are still some patriotic people working in there.
Now, if you had said FBI, you'd be closer to the truth. An organization founded on corruption (wiretapping everybody and anybody with power, and then using their dirt against them to do your bidding), and continued to do so for nearly sixty years (more than half it's lifetime), can and will never be clean.
No, with a normal distribution, half the population is going to be above and the other half below, no matter what average you take. That's assuming a normal distribution. I don't know what distribution visual acuity of the industrialized world's population actually is. I'd hazard a guess that it's skewed to the lower end with the higher end quickly diminishing.
Now, instead of the mean or even the median, the average that best fits in this case is probably the mode.
The moment you write a document like the constitution, somebody is looking for how to game it.
They're called lawyers, and this idea applies to all written documents.
The judges are supposed to keep that sort of behavior in check, but they are pressured by various forces, including the other two branches of the government as well as the people, to do the popular thing instead of the right thing. Their own biases also come into play, but good judges either try to set that aside, or recuse themselves if they are unable to.
If you are sending a package, and paying a carrier to deliver it, it's a 50/50 relationship... you shouldn't have an expectation of privacy; UPS can just rip open your package and go through it.
Actually, this was settled with mail via the USPS a while ago. Stuff inside the envelopes were considered confidential, while any markings on the outside (address, return address, etc.) were not.
I believe this was used to justify the legality of collecting certain types of "metadata" not so long ago.
Just because things can get much, much worse, doesn't mean things couldn't also be much, much better. If you compare yourself with the worst, then you'll only ever be second-worst.
the human race, at it's best, is in such stark contrast with such senseless ignorance and brutality.
This is where you err. Humans, as individuals, at their individual best, stand in stark contrast to such bestial behavior. Once herd mentality kicks in, that which separates us from any other animal turns into what you describe as thin as a patina.
Note also that throughout the ages, the "best" happen when humans act individually, with little to no input from others.
DOS was still around up until Vista. It also is a decent albeit crude intro to Posix CLIs. And Word actually copied a lot of Wordperfect's interface and functionality. Where it didn't, there are options.
I don't know if they know how to "refine" things. Their CEO is a salesperson. Salespeople can't understand how making programs start up 10% faster and use 50% less overhead, would be a good selling point. On the other hand, a brand-spankin' new, snazzy interface is a great selling point.
And part of the "brand-spankin' new" selling points is actually changing the version number. Look at what Firefox started doing when Chrome became popular.
Just FYI, LyX sucks at WYSIWYG document creation and editing. TeX is hard and LyX makes it easier, but it's still nowhere near ready for the masses.
See, Microsoft had this brilliant idea to change their default document view from "Normal" to "Print Layout" that shows how the document would (should) look like when printed out. It's a small change; both views were present already. I don't even know if Microsoft came up with the idea first. But the difference is significant. One view makes Word true WYSIWYG while the other meant was just a glorified text editor. In case you haven't noticed, the Normal view is no more.
LyX is still lacking, in that, and many other ways.
European trademarks have always been a problem for U.S. companies, and vice versa. Except most European companies have the foresight to see if their product violates U.S. trademark before launching it there, and rebrand as necessary.
U.S. companies instead just go ahead and ram their products through without even looking. Then they wonder why they're getting sued for trademark infringement.
And on the same topic, Microsoft could name it Ding.
Software killed the device, namely the business decisions that limited the software. And the worst part is, they still haven't learned from any of this yet.
OTOH, the hardware is pretty awesome. Could do with a better screen though.
Slashdot Mirror
either stay under your rock or quit complaining and 'work' the system (aka opt in or opt out).
If by rock, you mean encrypt and obfuscate all of your communications, then yeah, that's already happening via TOR and other such services. And I'm going to bet that there'll be more of this in the coming future. Much more.
There's no reply.
Or you just playing stewpit?
Just don't do it with a backpack.
Yeah, but nobody said that had to be your real name, so long as you get your order.
Even if the NSA doesn't read your emails, it doesn't mean they haven't read my emails or say, Nancy Pelosi's emails or more likely, John Boehner's emails or Rand Paul's e-mails. And, taking that a step further, just because it hasn't been abused so far doesn't mean it's not going to be abused in the future. In fact, the secrecy around the program means that we'd have no way of telling whether it was abused or not, now, and in the future.
There are so many things wrong with this entire affair, at so many levels, you can start anywhere and get there by aimlessly wandering around.
Not just that. Most personal computers aren't connected directly to the internet. They usually go through NATs, routers, firewalls, etc. that will not conceal this type of traffic. Not only that, but ISP's have these QoS and zombie-detection devices that have exactly the type of logic that will flag the machine as a bot and a notice.
Distrust, decentralize, distribute.
Trust no one, nothing, more than anyone, anything else. For example, self-signed certs are just as trustworthy as those signed by a CA.
Decentralize and distribute the information storage. Basically, a P2P/Freenet type of architecture where information is not stored in one place. Your own website could be distributed across multiple machines. When somebody requests a page, you go out and look for your pages from the distributed pool, then come back. But the individual machines don't know what they're holding, nor would anyone else possessing those machines without yours.
Skew it with noise.
What's funny is that you mention Deep Throat. Deep Throat in actuality was a very product of this corruption. Someone got passed over for a promotion, and that someone used some dirt to take out the guy responsible.
Deep Throat wasn't a whistleblower. He was a self-serving asshat out for revenge. And if you want to push the conspiracy a little further, he did it to show everyone else what a "lowly lieutenant" could do if they crossed him, even if the boss is dead.
Look up who Deep Throat is. And look up his old boss (hint: it's the guy who killed a president and had Congress cover it up for him).
Wrong! If you're nobody and just a loud mouth, they'll just keep tabs on you--until you become somebody. Then they'll swoop in and crush you.
Did you think I was talking about Russia?
Whoa! Don't lump the NSA with the official rent-a-cops like DHS and TSA.
NSA is signals intelligence. They're supposed to be monitoring the communications of other countries. And they're supposed to protect our own communications from their foreign counterparts.
That they've been turned into a lackey of the FBI is not their fault. If you want to find where the fault lies, look higher.
A significant populartion of the whistleblowers over the past ten years are from the NSA. I would (like to) think that there are still some patriotic people working in there.
Now, if you had said FBI, you'd be closer to the truth. An organization founded on corruption (wiretapping everybody and anybody with power, and then using their dirt against them to do your bidding), and continued to do so for nearly sixty years (more than half it's lifetime), can and will never be clean.
No, with a normal distribution, half the population is going to be above and the other half below, no matter what average you take. That's assuming a normal distribution. I don't know what distribution visual acuity of the industrialized world's population actually is. I'd hazard a guess that it's skewed to the lower end with the higher end quickly diminishing.
Now, instead of the mean or even the median, the average that best fits in this case is probably the mode.
The moment you write a document like the constitution, somebody is looking for how to game it.
They're called lawyers, and this idea applies to all written documents.
The judges are supposed to keep that sort of behavior in check, but they are pressured by various forces, including the other two branches of the government as well as the people, to do the popular thing instead of the right thing. Their own biases also come into play, but good judges either try to set that aside, or recuse themselves if they are unable to.
If you are sending a package, and paying a carrier to deliver it, it's a 50/50 relationship... you shouldn't have an expectation of privacy; UPS can just rip open your package and go through it.
Actually, this was settled with mail via the USPS a while ago. Stuff inside the envelopes were considered confidential, while any markings on the outside (address, return address, etc.) were not.
I believe this was used to justify the legality of collecting certain types of "metadata" not so long ago.
Preferably visualized in this form.
Not just elected politicians either. Every high-level government worker, for their government-issued phones and pagers.
That explains Texas and the Gulf, but what about Alaska? Don't tell me it's all from the unsuccessful scalers of Mt. McKinley and insomniacs.
This is a false dichotamy.
Just because things can get much, much worse, doesn't mean things couldn't also be much, much better. If you compare yourself with the worst, then you'll only ever be second-worst.
the human race, at it's best, is in such stark contrast with such senseless ignorance and brutality.
This is where you err. Humans, as individuals, at their individual best, stand in stark contrast to such bestial behavior. Once herd mentality kicks in, that which separates us from any other animal turns into what you describe as thin as a patina.
Note also that throughout the ages, the "best" happen when humans act individually, with little to no input from others.
(try getting Libre Office past those HR drones)
Those drones are making it more difficult now than ever to cross over.
DOS was still around up until Vista. It also is a decent albeit crude intro to Posix CLIs. And Word actually copied a lot of Wordperfect's interface and functionality. Where it didn't, there are options.
I don't know if they know how to "refine" things. Their CEO is a salesperson. Salespeople can't understand how making programs start up 10% faster and use 50% less overhead, would be a good selling point. On the other hand, a brand-spankin' new, snazzy interface is a great selling point.
And part of the "brand-spankin' new" selling points is actually changing the version number. Look at what Firefox started doing when Chrome became popular.
Just FYI, LyX sucks at WYSIWYG document creation and editing. TeX is hard and LyX makes it easier, but it's still nowhere near ready for the masses.
See, Microsoft had this brilliant idea to change their default document view from "Normal" to "Print Layout" that shows how the document would (should) look like when printed out. It's a small change; both views were present already. I don't even know if Microsoft came up with the idea first. But the difference is significant. One view makes Word true WYSIWYG while the other meant was just a glorified text editor. In case you haven't noticed, the Normal view is no more.
LyX is still lacking, in that, and many other ways.
European trademarks have always been a problem for U.S. companies, and vice versa. Except most European companies have the foresight to see if their product violates U.S. trademark before launching it there, and rebrand as necessary.
U.S. companies instead just go ahead and ram their products through without even looking. Then they wonder why they're getting sued for trademark infringement.
And on the same topic, Microsoft could name it Ding.
Software killed the device, namely the business decisions that limited the software. And the worst part is, they still haven't learned from any of this yet.
OTOH, the hardware is pretty awesome. Could do with a better screen though.
What was someone thinking?
Someone was not, obviously. RT/8 has been one blunder after another, from start to finish. At this point, it's becoming comical.