You're missing the point. The fact that the government does it AT ALL is the issue. Just because I may or may not win the reverse lottery of actually having an analyst review my communications and then decide that I'm actually a threat (which I'm not), doesn't mean it's ok for it to happen. The fact that they dare to do it at all is treason.
No it isn't, it's like a government who has so much contempt for you, and thinks you're so stupid that you'll actually accept a double-speak reply that base and condescending as remotely acceptable.
The internet is dead, folks. It's only a matter of time until these kinds of controls are first, established, and second, exercised.Without (possibly repeated) violent revolution against oppressive governments and corporations, all freedom will be destroyed or forced underground, and that includes the 'net. While new technology may be able to occasionally open new frontiers for free speech and action, those will eventually be usurped and suppressed as well. The oppressor must be destroyed before freedom can openly exist.
No, that analogy doesn't work, because DropBox isn't competing with Apple. In fact, they're potentially bringing Apple customers. Let's say, for example, that people using your store in the analogy above routinely made deals to sell things that you didn't sell - in fact which didn't really have anything to do with what you sold. Would you have a problem with that? If it were me, I wouldn't and might even encourage it, because it would have the potential to bring more people to my store - all of whom are potential customers for my goods as well.
I bet 20 years from now we're going to have to do things like emulate false activation servers for DRM so we can actually play the games.
Maybe you will. I sure as hell won't, because I won't buy a game that uses DRM like that on general principle. I don't care how awesome it is - my life will not be duller or less meaningful if I never play it.
This is one of the principles Ubisoft and others have forgotten. I don't have to buy your crap, and I sure as hell won't if I don't trust you. Ever. You aren't entitled to a sale, Ubisoft. You aren't entitled to anything. Show this kind of arrogance, and all you get is me utterly ignoring everything you do from now on.
SOAPBOX
These companies seem to think that all they really have to do is hype a title and then the mass of cattle-gamers will rush to the nearest store and buy 5 copies on release day, fearing their lives will end in dismal agony if they don't. Maybe that'll work for a while, but eventually people get wise to this sort of thing, and then you're screwed. I cite plummeting movie theatre attendance in the past 50 years as an example. /SOAPBOX
5?? Hell, i've probably had 20. Especially if you count every single hardware change.
I wonder how deep this protection goes, i.e. we know it works with video cards - how about monitors? What happens if I get a new keyboard (especially one that would require drivers, i.e. high-end gaming keyboards and the like)?
Fortunately haven't bought this game (and now never will), but if I had I'd be demanding money back. Bad move, Ubisoft. Makes me not want to buy any of your products again, ever.
Most people are simply too apathetic and ignorant about anything that doesn't obviously and directly affect their day to day lives.
I don't know about that. Most people do have pretty strong opinions, and if you ask around (seriously, just as an experiment, stand on a well-walked street sometime and unobnoxiously, unobtrusively ask - it's fun and very enlightening, and unless you have no social skills and/or look like an axe murderer, the number of people willing to talk to you will surprise you) you'll find that most people's opinions are the same: "congress sucks. The president is an idiot. All I really want to do is live my little life the way i want to and be left alone, and to hell with all of them."
All that to say, I personally don't think elections mean squat. I don't even think votes are recorded, much less counted. I have no possible way to prove that, just lots of circumstantial evidence. Not that it probably matters anyway, since if I'm right there's not a damn thing any one of us can do about it.
Very Rand-sian of you, but actually that has never worked (to my knowledge anyway), not once in all of history. It's a great idea in theory but just doesn't work in the real world. This is why revolutions are necessary.
Unfortunately, fun as it sounds, that kind of thing doesn't work (along with tossing it out a window into oncoming traffic, blowing the piss out of it with your favorite handgun, mailing it to Europe, etc). The thug--sorry, cops monitoring the device will know you've discarded it after just a few minutes, and since these things are so cheap and easy to obtain, they'll just attach another one.
Um, sorry. Are any of those things crimes? I think not. Trying to justify surveillance for any of those things means you're either in favor of this kind of invasion, or too cowardly to fight it.
Uh, yeah - afraid he's right. All the examples you give happened during eras that pale in comparison to now. You have exactly zero personal freedom in the US today; the government can (and does) arrest and detain (without limit) its own citizens for no apparent reason and holds them indefinitely without trial. That fact alone makes the former statement you're questioning valid.
One is obvious, the other isn't. If I, as a law-abiding citizen, notice the cops following me around, I'm probably going to find out why (honestly and non-confrontationally if possible). A tracking device is hidden, and therefore is being used without my knowledge.
IMHO, both are invasive and should be non-permissible without warrants; both violate the 4th amendment. As if the Constitution means anything anymore.
Not sure I would completely agree with the effectiveness of this study from a psychological perspective. It's interesting, no doubt, but the problem is that the people in the capsule still know they're on earth, safe, etc. They have a known end date for the study, etc. Assuming all that's taken into account here of course, but I wouldn't rely on the results in assuming that a human could maintain santiy for this period of time while actually in flight.
I agree - unfortunately I think Steve's "vision" for Apple is a consumer company that no longer caters to the tech market (Mac Pro is going away, Macbook Pro is about to just become a really expensive tablet with a keyboard, etc). In terms of making billions (more) for the company, that's brilliant. But it dishonors the company Apple was founded as originally, and unfortunately leaves those of us who love and explore technology out in the cold (in terms of their products). IMHO, Microsoft has been trying to do exactly the same thing for many years now, they're just not as quick and efficient as Apple (i.e., they both see the same goal - Apple can quickly and efficiently get there, Microsoft flounders around ineptly for a while but still somehow gets there).
If they succeed, mobile app development will pretty much require using a Mac.
Eh - maybe. I think there will always be a open-source solution, and the only folks that won't use it in any capacity will be those who don't need the flexibility and creativity open-source provides. Of course, those using the open-source solution are a small market (i.e., they won't make you rich), but if you're writing apps for the apple app store and expecting to get rich, you've already lost the plot.
geeks generally don't buy at BB unless they need a part fast.
Every time I've tried that they either didn't have the part I needed (9/10 times) or it was at least 3 times more expensive than the average online resource. So this geek doesn't buy there, period. If I need a part fast, Amazon/NewEgg will overnight it - never needed one faster than that. Best Buy is a waste of good retail space.
Do this and you've 1) assigned ultimate control of all passwords to the government, and 2) assigned everyone a bar code. Sounds like a great idea, Stalin.
How about this (policy at my company since we can't afford a decent auth token solution) - share your password, lose your job. Period. IT occasionally conducts "stings" (i.e., social engineering pen tests) to find out if anyone will do it, thereby keeping awareness and paranoia at a healthy high.
Otherwise, let's not get city hall involved in this, please. Auth tokens are great, but let's keep control in the hands of the organization, or at most a (private) group of central authentication companies.
...somehow they believe that smoke from your burning trash pile is affecting them by increasing global warming or something.
While I do see your point, I think the devil is in the details here. Surely before extradition the country with which the evil trash-burning planet-destroyer has citizenship would want to see more than just unsubstantiated whining on behalf of their neighbor (i.e., does this country have an actual list of the damages caused, backed up with data, etc.?) Also, IANAL but I think extradition treaties do generally have lists of crimes which are worthy of extradition, and I seriously doubt said crime would be on the list.
Dropbox is secure - just use PGP to encrypt everything you put up there, and decrypt it upon arrival at your host machine. I suppose that would require a jail-broken Android, but that's not all bad...
I don't generally accept arguments that the cloud isn't secure. It is, if used correctly (see above). The cloud is like a public restroom - you treat it differently than the one in your house by being much more conscious about cleanliness and such (in the cloud, more conscious about security), but it's perfectly acceptable to use both.
There is perhaps a growing feeling or perception that current education is mostly about memorization at the great expense of imagination. Imagination is creation. Memorization is indoctrination.
True, and imagination is a trait of artists and free men. Indoctrination is how one creates slaves.
Well said, but doesn't modern society in general equate the two? Would that possibly be one of the strongest criticisms of modern culture, or what passes for culture?
College is about training people so they can do a job.
No, that's trade school. Only in recent memory has college become a worker-factory, all about providing base-level skills (and most recently, only the facade of those) required to get a job and make money. College that does what you suggest is just an institution to manufacture wage-slaves.
The irony of course is that, as many true geeks will tell you, college is hardly required to get a good job and make lots of money; the richest often have no degree and while I haven't seen actual numbers, I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of top wage-earners have limited college, at most. Those who do attend and complete college (probably the vast majority of them) end up with (at best) mediocre jobs (which, in the U.S, they may have just lost given the current unemployment rate).
Call me an idealist, but college shouldn't be primarily about getting a good job. That may be a happy side benefit, but college should be about higher education - that is, building upon basic skills learned in pre-college education (critical thinking, intermediate mathematics, hard sciences, and fine arts) to refine the person as a human being. College should be an institution where those people with the required talents may learn the skills to transcend the worker-class and obtain the tools needed to accomplish something truly great (be it art or science, or perhaps both). Sadly, a scant few current high-school graduates have even basic math and hard science skills, and no critical thinking or fine arts skills at all, and they graduate college with nothing added. I suggest that the wage-slave mentality you've outlined in your statement is largely to blame.
Slashdot Mirror
You're missing the point. The fact that the government does it AT ALL is the issue. Just because I may or may not win the reverse lottery of actually having an analyst review my communications and then decide that I'm actually a threat (which I'm not), doesn't mean it's ok for it to happen. The fact that they dare to do it at all is treason.
No it isn't, it's like a government who has so much contempt for you, and thinks you're so stupid that you'll actually accept a double-speak reply that base and condescending as remotely acceptable.
The internet is dead, folks. It's only a matter of time until these kinds of controls are first, established, and second, exercised.Without (possibly repeated) violent revolution against oppressive governments and corporations, all freedom will be destroyed or forced underground, and that includes the 'net. While new technology may be able to occasionally open new frontiers for free speech and action, those will eventually be usurped and suppressed as well. The oppressor must be destroyed before freedom can openly exist.
No, that analogy doesn't work, because DropBox isn't competing with Apple. In fact, they're potentially bringing Apple customers. Let's say, for example, that people using your store in the analogy above routinely made deals to sell things that you didn't sell - in fact which didn't really have anything to do with what you sold. Would you have a problem with that? If it were me, I wouldn't and might even encourage it, because it would have the potential to bring more people to my store - all of whom are potential customers for my goods as well.
Good luck getting a bead on a target a couple km up with a minigun...
I bet 20 years from now we're going to have to do things like emulate false activation servers for DRM so we can actually play the games.
Maybe you will. I sure as hell won't, because I won't buy a game that uses DRM like that on general principle. I don't care how awesome it is - my life will not be duller or less meaningful if I never play it.
/SOAPBOX
This is one of the principles Ubisoft and others have forgotten. I don't have to buy your crap, and I sure as hell won't if I don't trust you. Ever. You aren't entitled to a sale, Ubisoft. You aren't entitled to anything. Show this kind of arrogance, and all you get is me utterly ignoring everything you do from now on.
SOAPBOX
These companies seem to think that all they really have to do is hype a title and then the mass of cattle-gamers will rush to the nearest store and buy 5 copies on release day, fearing their lives will end in dismal agony if they don't. Maybe that'll work for a while, but eventually people get wise to this sort of thing, and then you're screwed. I cite plummeting movie theatre attendance in the past 50 years as an example.
5?? Hell, i've probably had 20. Especially if you count every single hardware change.
I wonder how deep this protection goes, i.e. we know it works with video cards - how about monitors? What happens if I get a new keyboard (especially one that would require drivers, i.e. high-end gaming keyboards and the like)?
Fortunately haven't bought this game (and now never will), but if I had I'd be demanding money back. Bad move, Ubisoft. Makes me not want to buy any of your products again, ever.
Most people are simply too apathetic and ignorant about anything that doesn't obviously and directly affect their day to day lives.
I don't know about that. Most people do have pretty strong opinions, and if you ask around (seriously, just as an experiment, stand on a well-walked street sometime and unobnoxiously, unobtrusively ask - it's fun and very enlightening, and unless you have no social skills and/or look like an axe murderer, the number of people willing to talk to you will surprise you) you'll find that most people's opinions are the same: "congress sucks. The president is an idiot. All I really want to do is live my little life the way i want to and be left alone, and to hell with all of them."
All that to say, I personally don't think elections mean squat. I don't even think votes are recorded, much less counted. I have no possible way to prove that, just lots of circumstantial evidence. Not that it probably matters anyway, since if I'm right there's not a damn thing any one of us can do about it.
Very Rand-sian of you, but actually that has never worked (to my knowledge anyway), not once in all of history. It's a great idea in theory but just doesn't work in the real world. This is why revolutions are necessary.
Unfortunately, fun as it sounds, that kind of thing doesn't work (along with tossing it out a window into oncoming traffic, blowing the piss out of it with your favorite handgun, mailing it to Europe, etc). The thug--sorry, cops monitoring the device will know you've discarded it after just a few minutes, and since these things are so cheap and easy to obtain, they'll just attach another one.
Um, sorry. Are any of those things crimes? I think not. Trying to justify surveillance for any of those things means you're either in favor of this kind of invasion, or too cowardly to fight it.
Uh, yeah - afraid he's right. All the examples you give happened during eras that pale in comparison to now. You have exactly zero personal freedom in the US today; the government can (and does) arrest and detain (without limit) its own citizens for no apparent reason and holds them indefinitely without trial. That fact alone makes the former statement you're questioning valid.
One is obvious, the other isn't. If I, as a law-abiding citizen, notice the cops following me around, I'm probably going to find out why (honestly and non-confrontationally if possible). A tracking device is hidden, and therefore is being used without my knowledge.
IMHO, both are invasive and should be non-permissible without warrants; both violate the 4th amendment. As if the Constitution means anything anymore.
Not sure I would completely agree with the effectiveness of this study from a psychological perspective. It's interesting, no doubt, but the problem is that the people in the capsule still know they're on earth, safe, etc. They have a known end date for the study, etc. Assuming all that's taken into account here of course, but I wouldn't rely on the results in assuming that a human could maintain santiy for this period of time while actually in flight.
I agree - unfortunately I think Steve's "vision" for Apple is a consumer company that no longer caters to the tech market (Mac Pro is going away, Macbook Pro is about to just become a really expensive tablet with a keyboard, etc). In terms of making billions (more) for the company, that's brilliant. But it dishonors the company Apple was founded as originally, and unfortunately leaves those of us who love and explore technology out in the cold (in terms of their products). IMHO, Microsoft has been trying to do exactly the same thing for many years now, they're just not as quick and efficient as Apple (i.e., they both see the same goal - Apple can quickly and efficiently get there, Microsoft flounders around ineptly for a while but still somehow gets there).
If they succeed, mobile app development will pretty much require using a Mac.
Eh - maybe. I think there will always be a open-source solution, and the only folks that won't use it in any capacity will be those who don't need the flexibility and creativity open-source provides. Of course, those using the open-source solution are a small market (i.e., they won't make you rich), but if you're writing apps for the apple app store and expecting to get rich, you've already lost the plot.
geeks generally don't buy at BB unless they need a part fast.
Every time I've tried that they either didn't have the part I needed (9/10 times) or it was at least 3 times more expensive than the average online resource. So this geek doesn't buy there, period. If I need a part fast, Amazon/NewEgg will overnight it - never needed one faster than that. Best Buy is a waste of good retail space.
Heard that. I'd rather put a drill bit through my skull. Slowly. Best Buy embodies all that's evil in the mediocre tech world.
You're out of your damn mind.
Do this and you've 1) assigned ultimate control of all passwords to the government, and 2) assigned everyone a bar code. Sounds like a great idea, Stalin.
How about this (policy at my company since we can't afford a decent auth token solution) - share your password, lose your job. Period. IT occasionally conducts "stings" (i.e., social engineering pen tests) to find out if anyone will do it, thereby keeping awareness and paranoia at a healthy high.
Otherwise, let's not get city hall involved in this, please. Auth tokens are great, but let's keep control in the hands of the organization, or at most a (private) group of central authentication companies.
...somehow they believe that smoke from your burning trash pile is affecting them by increasing global warming or something.
While I do see your point, I think the devil is in the details here. Surely before extradition the country with which the evil trash-burning planet-destroyer has citizenship would want to see more than just unsubstantiated whining on behalf of their neighbor (i.e., does this country have an actual list of the damages caused, backed up with data, etc.?) Also, IANAL but I think extradition treaties do generally have lists of crimes which are worthy of extradition, and I seriously doubt said crime would be on the list.
So if a Chinese hacks into an American server, you agree they should be immune from prosecution by US courts?
Well unfortunately, yes - it has to work both ways. I may not like it, but I do have to abide by it.
Dropbox is secure - just use PGP to encrypt everything you put up there, and decrypt it upon arrival at your host machine. I suppose that would require a jail-broken Android, but that's not all bad... I don't generally accept arguments that the cloud isn't secure. It is, if used correctly (see above). The cloud is like a public restroom - you treat it differently than the one in your house by being much more conscious about cleanliness and such (in the cloud, more conscious about security), but it's perfectly acceptable to use both.
There is perhaps a growing feeling or perception that current education is mostly about memorization at the great expense of imagination. Imagination is creation. Memorization is indoctrination.
True, and imagination is a trait of artists and free men. Indoctrination is how one creates slaves.
Well said, but doesn't modern society in general equate the two? Would that possibly be one of the strongest criticisms of modern culture, or what passes for culture?
College is about training people so they can do a job.
No, that's trade school. Only in recent memory has college become a worker-factory, all about providing base-level skills (and most recently, only the facade of those) required to get a job and make money. College that does what you suggest is just an institution to manufacture wage-slaves.
The irony of course is that, as many true geeks will tell you, college is hardly required to get a good job and make lots of money; the richest often have no degree and while I haven't seen actual numbers, I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of top wage-earners have limited college, at most. Those who do attend and complete college (probably the vast majority of them) end up with (at best) mediocre jobs (which, in the U.S, they may have just lost given the current unemployment rate).
Call me an idealist, but college shouldn't be primarily about getting a good job. That may be a happy side benefit, but college should be about higher education - that is, building upon basic skills learned in pre-college education (critical thinking, intermediate mathematics, hard sciences, and fine arts) to refine the person as a human being. College should be an institution where those people with the required talents may learn the skills to transcend the worker-class and obtain the tools needed to accomplish something truly great (be it art or science, or perhaps both). Sadly, a scant few current high-school graduates have even basic math and hard science skills, and no critical thinking or fine arts skills at all, and they graduate college with nothing added. I suggest that the wage-slave mentality you've outlined in your statement is largely to blame.