After reading the article, I'm left with the impression that the only "news" - witht he emphasis on the new is that someone has found some encrypted files in Switzerland.
Once you cut through all the emotional stuff, used to build up a story and instill FUD into the readership (phrases like "heavily" encrypted - I should hope so; "sophisticated" - well yes, they're nukes, "rogue states" etc.) you're not left with much.
After the actual story, the author merely pulls out all the old files to remind us of all the old scare stories they've run in the past.
The real clincher is that this isn't actually news at all. These documents were found in 2006. Forget the 1% news, it's actually no news at all!
There are two seperate issues here. The question about packing everything yourself is to stop another person sneaking a bomb into your belongings. The point about searching your laptop is to stop illegal data (whether it's just smut, sensitive information or propaganda) from entering/leaving a country.
In the latter case, it doesn't matter whether the material belongs to you. You were found in posession and therefore you cop the punishment. In the same way that if someone surreptitiosly drops a shop's property into your pocket/bag, you get busted for shop-lifting.
This only seems to be an issue with laptops that you carry through a customs/immigration check. If a person had confidential or "discrete" data they didn't want to have investigated, what's to stop them placing it on a CD/DVD and stashing it in their checked bags?
It seems to me that a small (tiny) amount of foresight will simply stop this being a problem. In the same way that terrorists don't carry the C4 in their pockets, people who don't want their data scanned can easily carry it elsewhere or just send it via email.
I forsee a future where laptops only contain the installed software. All the users' personal data will either be online or on extremely small media that will be so hard for a minimum-wage security guard to find, that they'll effectively be invisible.
Take a well-working technique: numeric keypads. Replace it with an unfamiliar interface, where the baddies can see from further away, especially in the dark, what the solution is. Fail to account for one of the most common disabilities (colour blindness) and you have an utterly pointless application of technology for it's own sake.
Finally, what do you do when one of the lights fail?
most definitely not (though the mod system is merely a popularity contest. Say something that the geek-crowd agree with - whether it's right/relevant or not and you'll get modded up.)
Even worse, without the replies/mods and consequent page-hits, advertising revenue would be near to zero
> Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off
No, it's because most bloggers have the mistaken idea that like-minded souls will seek out and read their stuff, think hard about it and then post an insightful response which re-inforces their self-worth. As we all know, most blogs are a write-only medium, if they have any benefit to the writer it's purely cathartic as it lets the writer vent a bit.
>... have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences,
If that was the case, sales of diaries would be huge. They aren't. People don;'t write for themselves, they write for their (imagined) audience.
Given that most governments now consider George Orwell's classic: 1984 more as an instruction manual than a warning, someone should make it clear to the govt. that we are not asking them to close these sites down.
But since the academic standard of these hypothetical engineers has dropped so much, you still only have 1 - 2% of graduates - measured by the 1950 standards. All the other people who graduate now (with the much reduced standards needed to get a degree) would not have made it, 50 years ago. In that respect we've not moved forward.
What has changed is the application of technology to help all these poorly qualified people to solve more difficult problems. An "IQ" multiplier, if you like. I would also suggest that what you refer to as "computer skills" is merely a mechanically learned response to a stimulus: when a certain something appears on the screen, click on the corresponding box. You're right: such a person, with only a simple stimulus/response education would be useless in the 1950's. As soon as we manage to program-out this link, they'll be useless in the 2050's too.
when it sticks every time, you know you have the kind of luck that's needed to make it in the film industry. Really - one guy with no money makes some successful movies. (Though not so successful that I've heard of him, or his studio.) Let's hear it for the tens of thousands who don't.
It's simply a numbers game. Having talent helps a little, Knowing people helps a little. Having a huge amount of money helps a lot. Without the money a tiny minority will make it but it's purely down to chance. As an expert, he follows in the standard I.T. definition as "someone who's right twice in a row".
Really, the items on this list are so old they smell bad.
Multicore processors - not exactly novel, plus it's just another way of packaging multi-processor systems that have been around for decades. The only new attribute is that they're coming down in price.
Social networks? what planet have these guys been on for the last 5 years?
Even better "user interface" at number 6.
Frankly I'm surprised that Web 2 didn't make it. Maybe they disguised that as #5, web mashups?
Hopefully no-one made the mistake of paying for this list.
if the OP buys a Linux-installed machine, he won't qualify for a rebate against the unwanted MS operating system because he never go it. Put that with the price (as reported) being higher than for a MS bos and you've taken a double hit.
Principles and "sending a message" are all very fine sentiments, but I'd take the MS box, then send a message by getting the O/S rebate.
The only way Apple could get any kind of toe-hold in the average household is if their stuff is cheaper than anyone else's. That's all it takes, just low price. Oh yes and they should've started this strategy about 5 years ago.
I have no idea why the media is so in love with Apple and it's products - the real world just seems to ignore them. From what I've seen, no real people use Apple PCs or laptops, a some have oneiPod and a tiny fraction have an iPhone (but would they buy another?). It's only the media "luvvies" who seem to use them in any great number, and are responsible for placing them in TV and film productions. This gives the entirely false impression that they are ubiquitous - they aren't. Outside the U.S. an Apple PC/lappy is about as common as a tandem bicycle - you know they exist, but see maybe one or two a year.
Will that change? No. They don't offer any functions that average, normal, people want, at a price they're willing to pay.
But having better weapons than the uncumbents and a willingness to use them are the "tools" that all colonising groups have used since one family of cavemen moved into territory occupied by another.
If or when people do start to colonise space and the moon, we (as ground-dwellers) will soon discover to our cost that there's a strategic advantage to being at the top of the gravity well. This is a lesson that was well known to the cavemen who threw rocks at each other, and people who defended castles with arrows and boiling oil. It seems to have been forgotten in the modern era.
Put aside all the theories, bar-room lawyers, treaties that aren't worth a dam' and the fools who are willing to hand over money here on terra-firma. All that will go out of the window (or would that be viewing port) as soon as someone finds a resource there that can turn a profit. Once that happens you've got a very slow gold rush on your hands. All the people back on earth who paid for a "claim" can yell all they want, they'll be drowned out by everyone else laughing.
However the chances of anyone, or country, raising the capital to go there and set up a commercial enterprise are very small. The chances of them being able to turn whatever they find back into ca$h are even smaller and the chances of making more than the hundreds of billions they spend are infinitesimal.
That's the reason so few people live in the Gobi Desert. It's thousands of times more hospitable than the moon (or mars, for that matter) and millions of times cheaper to get to. However there's nothing there worth having.
Imagine all these alien races pumping out designs for their technologies, their culture, maths, arts, ideas (and mistakes). A sort of free/open-source for technologies, arts, ideas. No-one gains directly from sending out their "intellectual property", but no-one can be threatened by having a recipient turning it against them (the distances are too large for any sort of practical attack - Andromeda Strain/Ophiuchi Hotline notwithstanding.)
While none of the civilisations gain from sending their own stuff out, they do gain from receiving other "people's", hence the system works in an altruistic way.
Measuring your success by the number of posts, either as an individual or as a forum owner is irrelevant - unless you're counting on advertisement revenue.
If I was interested in this topic, I'd be inclined to post to whichever one had the more professional (i.e. lowest spam ratio) content
These groups are overwhelmingly not emailers (yes I know a few members of either of these groups will trump up "I do" - you've self-selected so you're not representative)
Once you take these groups out, you probably have about 80% of the population. I'd have to say that I doubt if all, or even close to all, the remainder have used email. Therefore I assume the total of never-emailed is higher than the 20% cited.
However, in the grand scheme of things, so what? People can lead full and happy lives without technology. Hard as it may be for the tech-obessed to even consider it, not everyone is like them.
The nice thing about a "normal" phone is that it's possible and even easy to hold and press it's buttons with just one hand. So if you're carrying something you don't have to put it down - or if you're dangling from the end of a rope, you can all the emergency services to come and rescue you.
If you're dangling from said rope with only an iPhone in your hand, you're pretty much screwed - unless you have learned the trick of operating it's touch-screen with your nose.
You have to wave your arms around - which is very tiring (much more so than a couple of finger movements for a mouse). that means you can't keep it up for more than a couple of minutes. If you don't beleive me, just try holding your arm aoutstretched for any length of time.
Second, it takes up an enormouse amount of space. Your fingers don't have the dots-per-inch resolution of a mouse, so the interface area has to be bigger and therefore more expensive.
On a purely practical point, you also cover up the object you're addressing. Unless you have transparent fingers, you can't see all the detail of whatever's underneath. A basic and unresolvable design flaw.
Finally, there's the goo factor. Imagine all the smears, stains and gunge that will accumulate on the touch surface - both from your hands and everyone else who uses it. Apart from the obvious hygiene issues, the surface will get dirty. We know how annoying the occasional fingerprint is on a screen - now think what it'll be like when the screen is covered in grease and other smudges.
In summary, it never caught on. The only people who advocate it are those who've watched Minority Report a few too many times. It's not cool, it's not futuristic and hopefully is doomed to the junkheap of techno-history along with punch-cards and robo-vacuum cleaners.
Given the email address you posted from, it should be ingrained into your psyche that anything new like this has a cost attached. Just work out your worst-case costing for this change and tell them "if you want this access, it'll cost $X".
If they still want it, you just didn't propose a high enough cost. Double it and try again.
Like any survey, the results can be affected by the question that's asked.
So: "do you beleive in free speech?" 99% of the respondents say yes (1% don't know)
Or: "Should the internet be regulated, to protect your children?".. now we're getting into interesting territory - I'd be willing to bet that most parents of 18 or less year-olds would say yes.
How about: "Should the ISPs do more to reduce pornography on the internet?"
Try this: "Is it reasonable for your employer to restrict your net surfing?"
Finally: "Do you think the government should protect internet users from violent or inappropriate content?"
Now tell me: which one of these questions defines censorship? The answer will depend on your individual outlook and where you live, whether you're responsible for other people. The final point about censorship is that no matter what your personal opinion of it is, you don't have the right to impose your view on others. Even if they're in favour of it and you think you know better.
Somehow I had got the impression that a lawyer had to be licensed by each state that he/she practised in (anyone?).
If that's so, then wouldn't this guy only be able to take cases that were applicable to Misssiisssiiissiipppii (or however it's spelt).
Personally, I can't see him geting a lot of business - unless of course it's merely a novelty act and he gets a proper job doing divorces or whatever they have out there.
Slashdot Mirror
Once you cut through all the emotional stuff, used to build up a story and instill FUD into the readership (phrases like "heavily" encrypted - I should hope so; "sophisticated" - well yes, they're nukes, "rogue states" etc.) you're not left with much.
After the actual story, the author merely pulls out all the old files to remind us of all the old scare stories they've run in the past.
The real clincher is that this isn't actually news at all. These documents were found in 2006. Forget the 1% news, it's actually no news at all!
Apart from the nukes
And how long do you think they'll detain you while they try?
In the latter case, it doesn't matter whether the material belongs to you. You were found in posession and therefore you cop the punishment. In the same way that if someone surreptitiosly drops a shop's property into your pocket/bag, you get busted for shop-lifting.
It seems to me that a small (tiny) amount of foresight will simply stop this being a problem. In the same way that terrorists don't carry the C4 in their pockets, people who don't want their data scanned can easily carry it elsewhere or just send it via email.
I forsee a future where laptops only contain the installed software. All the users' personal data will either be online or on extremely small media that will be so hard for a minimum-wage security guard to find, that they'll effectively be invisible.
Finally, what do you do when one of the lights fail?
Avoid.
Even worse, without the replies/mods and consequent page-hits, advertising revenue would be near to zero
No, it's because most bloggers have the mistaken idea that like-minded souls will seek out and read their stuff, think hard about it and then post an insightful response which re-inforces their self-worth. As we all know, most blogs are a write-only medium, if they have any benefit to the writer it's purely cathartic as it lets the writer vent a bit.
> ... have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences,
If that was the case, sales of diaries would be huge. They aren't. People don;'t write for themselves, they write for their (imagined) audience.
Given that most governments now consider George Orwell's classic: 1984 more as an instruction manual than a warning, someone should make it clear to the govt. that we are not asking them to close these sites down.
What has changed is the application of technology to help all these poorly qualified people to solve more difficult problems. An "IQ" multiplier, if you like. I would also suggest that what you refer to as "computer skills" is merely a mechanically learned response to a stimulus: when a certain something appears on the screen, click on the corresponding box. You're right: such a person, with only a simple stimulus/response education would be useless in the 1950's. As soon as we manage to program-out this link, they'll be useless in the 2050's too.
It's simply a numbers game. Having talent helps a little, Knowing people helps a little. Having a huge amount of money helps a lot. Without the money a tiny minority will make it but it's purely down to chance. As an expert, he follows in the standard I.T. definition as "someone who's right twice in a row".
Really, the items on this list are so old they smell bad.
Multicore processors - not exactly novel, plus it's just another way of packaging multi-processor systems that have been around for decades. The only new attribute is that they're coming down in price.
Social networks? what planet have these guys been on for the last 5 years?
Even better "user interface" at number 6.
Frankly I'm surprised that Web 2 didn't make it. Maybe they disguised that as #5, web mashups?
Hopefully no-one made the mistake of paying for this list.
... you can hear is R3's lawyers leafing through the 2008 Mercedes catalog.
Principles and "sending a message" are all very fine sentiments, but I'd take the MS box, then send a message by getting the O/S rebate.
I have no idea why the media is so in love with Apple and it's products - the real world just seems to ignore them. From what I've seen, no real people use Apple PCs or laptops, a some have oneiPod and a tiny fraction have an iPhone (but would they buy another?). It's only the media "luvvies" who seem to use them in any great number, and are responsible for placing them in TV and film productions. This gives the entirely false impression that they are ubiquitous - they aren't. Outside the U.S. an Apple PC/lappy is about as common as a tandem bicycle - you know they exist, but see maybe one or two a year.
Will that change? No. They don't offer any functions that average, normal, people want, at a price they're willing to pay.
If or when people do start to colonise space and the moon, we (as ground-dwellers) will soon discover to our cost that there's a strategic advantage to being at the top of the gravity well. This is a lesson that was well known to the cavemen who threw rocks at each other, and people who defended castles with arrows and boiling oil. It seems to have been forgotten in the modern era.
Put aside all the theories, bar-room lawyers, treaties that aren't worth a dam' and the fools who are willing to hand over money here on terra-firma. All that will go out of the window (or would that be viewing port) as soon as someone finds a resource there that can turn a profit. Once that happens you've got a very slow gold rush on your hands. All the people back on earth who paid for a "claim" can yell all they want, they'll be drowned out by everyone else laughing.
However the chances of anyone, or country, raising the capital to go there and set up a commercial enterprise are very small. The chances of them being able to turn whatever they find back into ca$h are even smaller and the chances of making more than the hundreds of billions they spend are infinitesimal.
That's the reason so few people live in the Gobi Desert. It's thousands of times more hospitable than the moon (or mars, for that matter) and millions of times cheaper to get to. However there's nothing there worth having.
Imagine all these alien races pumping out designs for their technologies, their culture, maths, arts, ideas (and mistakes). A sort of free/open-source for technologies, arts, ideas. No-one gains directly from sending out their "intellectual property", but no-one can be threatened by having a recipient turning it against them (the distances are too large for any sort of practical attack - Andromeda Strain/Ophiuchi Hotline notwithstanding.)
While none of the civilisations gain from sending their own stuff out, they do gain from receiving other "people's", hence the system works in an altruistic way.
Measuring your success by the number of posts, either as an individual or as a forum owner is irrelevant - unless you're counting on advertisement revenue.
If I was interested in this topic, I'd be inclined to post to whichever one had the more professional (i.e. lowest spam ratio) content
How about over 60?
These groups are overwhelmingly not emailers (yes I know a few members of either of these groups will trump up "I do" - you've self-selected so you're not representative)
Once you take these groups out, you probably have about 80% of the population. I'd have to say that I doubt if all, or even close to all, the remainder have used email. Therefore I assume the total of never-emailed is higher than the 20% cited.
However, in the grand scheme of things, so what? People can lead full and happy lives without technology. Hard as it may be for the tech-obessed to even consider it, not everyone is like them.
If you're dangling from said rope with only an iPhone in your hand, you're pretty much screwed - unless you have learned the trick of operating it's touch-screen with your nose.
You have to wave your arms around - which is very tiring (much more so than a couple of finger movements for a mouse). that means you can't keep it up for more than a couple of minutes. If you don't beleive me, just try holding your arm aoutstretched for any length of time.
Second, it takes up an enormouse amount of space. Your fingers don't have the dots-per-inch resolution of a mouse, so the interface area has to be bigger and therefore more expensive.
On a purely practical point, you also cover up the object you're addressing. Unless you have transparent fingers, you can't see all the detail of whatever's underneath. A basic and unresolvable design flaw.
Finally, there's the goo factor. Imagine all the smears, stains and gunge that will accumulate on the touch surface - both from your hands and everyone else who uses it. Apart from the obvious hygiene issues, the surface will get dirty. We know how annoying the occasional fingerprint is on a screen - now think what it'll be like when the screen is covered in grease and other smudges.
In summary, it never caught on. The only people who advocate it are those who've watched Minority Report a few too many times. It's not cool, it's not futuristic and hopefully is doomed to the junkheap of techno-history along with punch-cards and robo-vacuum cleaners.
If they still want it, you just didn't propose a high enough cost. Double it and try again.
So: "do you beleive in free speech?" 99% of the respondents say yes (1% don't know)
Or: "Should the internet be regulated, to protect your children?" .. now we're getting into interesting territory - I'd be willing to bet that most parents of 18 or less year-olds would say yes.
How about: "Should the ISPs do more to reduce pornography on the internet?"
Try this: "Is it reasonable for your employer to restrict your net surfing?"
Finally: "Do you think the government should protect internet users from violent or inappropriate content?"
Now tell me: which one of these questions defines censorship? The answer will depend on your individual outlook and where you live, whether you're responsible for other people. The final point about censorship is that no matter what your personal opinion of it is, you don't have the right to impose your view on others. Even if they're in favour of it and you think you know better.
If that's so, then wouldn't this guy only be able to take cases that were applicable to Misssiisssiiissiipppii (or however it's spelt).
Personally, I can't see him geting a lot of business - unless of course it's merely a novelty act and he gets a proper job doing divorces or whatever they have out there.