Dr Ray Stantz: You know, it just occurred to me that we really haven't had a successful test of this equipment. Dr. Egon Spengler: I blame myself. Dr. Peter Venkman: So do I. Dr Ray Stantz: Well, no sense in worrying about it now. Dr. Peter Venkman: Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.
Technically while the phone itself is omnidirectional, a cell site is not. It isn't highly accurate, however the tower does know what direction you're calling from and will transmit to your phone in close to that direction using panel antennas. This is also one way that cell towers achieve greater call density, since there is no need to transmit away from the phone (what good would that do). This frees up channels on the antennas your call isn't being transmitted on to handle other users, and allows it to direct more power to you and not in directions that clearly don't need it.
Of course the cell phone thing is ridiculous. Even IF you could get two modern (i.e. microwave-band) phones to operate at the full 2W continuously, you're a far cry from the hundreds of watts a microwave oven needs to cook the same eggs -- and a microwave oven has a resonation chamber to bounce the waves around until they're absorbed by the food. I suppose if you irradiated an egg using cell phones and could build a metal chamber to resonate those waves and contain them until absorption, you could eventually cook an egg. It would take a long time though, and for what it will cost you in either cell bills or fried phones you could have just bought a damn Egg McMuffin!
I wouldn't worry too much about the brits taking over. We'd have every crazed gun-toting redneck in the country telling them where they can shove their tea (and we know how well armed the British populace is). Besides, if their ships are anything like their cars, they're going to leak all of their oil out and die before they ever get here.
Maybe we should start making cartoons of the Prime Minister in compromising positions in an attempt to start a riot. US Coast Guard Officer: "My god, what is that? A pack of angry badgers coming on shore? Those teeth will chew right through our defenses!" Guy with the binoculars: "No sir, it's just the Brits. See, over there! That badger just stopped fighting for a spot of afternoon tea." Officer: "Fire at will! Oh, and get me a beer."
Given that Firefox has this nifty (and actually functioning) feature which can check for updates on it's own, I think people will have plenty of opportunity to upgrade gracefully.
I'd still use FF 1.0.6 (and did, until 1.0.7 came out) over IE any day of the week. In fact the only real bug I've found in 1.5 has to do with a self-signed cert on a Radware accelerator (SSL site), which I cannot explain. It happens at random times too so I can't just duplicate it either. Very odd.
What you say is chance (i.e. evolution) I think may actually be a comletely predictable series of events, which is just subject to such a complex order of variables and conditions that we can't wrap our minds around it.
Why do tree branches grow the way they do? Because God pointed his finger and made it so? I doubt it. Whether God exists remains to be seen, but I think the constant environmental conditioning (air movement, sunlight, water, pollutants, whether an ant crapped in that spot - quite literally everything that could happen in the growth of a tree) in addition to the genetic predisposition of the tree itself caused that branch to grow where it did. The same goes for anything else which is a living, dynamically adapting and growing organism. We call it chance because there is simply no way for us to understand the complete nature of why it happens the way it does -- but just because we can't understand it, does not make it random. A million things can affect where *one* branch grows, now extend that to all branches, of all trees, and you begin to understand the sheer scope of the problem; and we're just talking about trees, which stay in one place.
Two trees of the same seed, grown next to each other in an isolated tank, will still grow differently. Molecular differences in their environment will ensure that, no matter how carefully the enclosure is built. (Plus, my guess is there is a small genetic difference even between trees of the same type.) If we could control 100% of energy and matter down to the atom in this environment I surmise we'd be able to control "chance" reasonably well, but that isn't going to happen, so seemingly random changes will happen that we'll never be able to quantify or predict.
Humans have this quirky way of thinking that just because something isn't immediately obvious, or because the concept is just too massive to wrap their minds around, that it is controlled by random chance, or a mysterious supreme power. I won't debate the existence of God, but despite our advances in history our understanding of science and the whole of everything around us is neophytic at best. To even begin to think we have a grasp on the concept-at-large is hilarious.
Last time I checked, your face is far from hidden in a car. In fact, on every one of the photo-radar speeding tickets I've cerimoniously received from the local authorities, my face through the window has been clear as day. Throw in some good infared imaging and they could even do it at night (though they don't... yet).
About the only way they aren't going to track you, assuming you don't have some biometric chip implanted in your ass, is if you walk everywhere with a ski mask on. This of course poses other issues, particularly when trying to participate in certain retail and banking activities. Plus I think you're going to get arrested just on principle walking around in that sort of thing.
No, face transplants are where it's at these days. Need to conceal your identity in modern-day society? Become Captain Kirk! Or maybe the President.. I bet if you looked like him, those darn photo radar tickets would just get lost in the mail!
Power regulation is all about regulating the delivery of power. Communications regulation is about regulating the delivery of, well, communications.
If a power company suddenly starts spewing broadband over power lines, they won't magically be able to skirt whatever regulation affects other ISP's just because they're a power company. They would then become an ISP just like the rest (albeit with a different mode of delivery than your local cable company) and would be subject to the rules affecting the service they are providing.
Of course, you can say that they could technically monitor anyone they want as long as they made it a 'national security' matter, but then again, you are probably wearing tinfoil hats and living confortably in your tempest cages, so you have nothing to worry about.
They can, and I don't wear tinfoil hats and sit in a cage.
I do, however, live in the real world, and work in technology. It isn't that hard to spy on people, and facilities are in place to do just that.
Just because you don't do anything wrong, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. If you communicate electronically (by that I mean email, telephone, web, etc) it can be monitored. In particular if you communicate overseas, is IS monitored. This is just how it is; the legalities are a grey area (getting more black and white by the day though) but in the interest of national security, law itself becomes a grey area anyway.
I don't need Harvard to tell me that. My mom has it (gets it when typing, she's also an artist and a chef and those activities can trigger it), my sister has issues with it from being a musician, and I have it from years of typing. Coincidence? Nope. My father is a musician, types a lot, and has no problems with it. However my mom's, sister's, and my own wrists are smaller physically which leaves less room for things to expand in there.
Pressure on the wrist CAN trigger it, but that isn't the only cause. Take riding a motorcycle for instance - there is no pressure on the wrist, yet the repeated extension of the wrist from throttle movements (I race them, so this is frequent and full-range movement) can give me some carpal-like symptoms. However that could just be a condition which is caused by the existence of other factors.
I've started using a trackball which helps, only now I get a pressure spot on the lower right side of my right palm from that resting on the desk. One of those gel pads might help, we'll see... Generally though I limit the length of typing I do (which is hard when you do what I do), take frequent breaks, and stretch routinely to keep things more fluid. Seems to help.
So let's say I own or use several computers, and some are employer-owned (and so will not have my personally identifiable data stored anywhere on it). This has to be a contingency they thought of, which would mean you're still stuck authenticating.
What's to stop me from buying a TPM-enabled system, and setting up an anonymous web proxy on it such that my traffic can go through that system from ANY PC regardless of what it has in it. The TPM anonymizer will pass the request to the "trusted" system, and life will be good.
I'm sure I'm missing something here, but I have also seen enough difficult problems solved to know there are some smart people out there who can figure it out.
Yeah I guess you could check your bank's cert every time you visit the site, but get real - even hardcore techies don't bother with that unless something just seems wrong. The average user doesn't even know what an SSL certificate is, let alone how to check it or why they should. All they know is the website has a picture on it saying "This Site Secured by [insert favorite CA here]" and they believe it.
I dare say most would click 'OK' on any cert warning, and if you can manage to bypass that somehow the user will be *completely* blind to what is going on, happily giving up their information. You don't even have to give them anything back, just spit out a "We're sorry, this site is experiencing technical difficulties right now, try back later" page and call it a day while you silently gather whatever information you want.
Having watched the less technically-inclined use the Internet, they will use whatever search engine shows up on their screen so long as it spits something back when they type in a few words and click "Go".
If AOL switches to MSN, >95% of the users will not care unless MSN can't give them what they need.
Not getting into whether it will become illegal to do so, I have to surmise that any technology created can be defeated. It's the basic principle of computer security, and is every bit as valid here.
It's hard to track a vehicle that just broadcasts a GPS signal from the same 10-foot area in Siberia 24x7, or that doesn't broadcast anything at all. As for RFID tracking in tires, if you can find the frequency of the chip it shouldn't be too hard to take care of (or overload electronically, somehow).
I don't doubt that they're trying to track movement - that is nothing new. And I certainly can't stop them from videotaping me, which they already do to motorists every day. But knowing where I go minute by minute (and likely why I go there) is just going too far. Too much potential for abuse, and too little history of responsible use of power by the people who want to know. I don't break laws that will put me in jail, but at the same time I have to expect that I can move from place to place without being questioned, tracked, and scrutinized. This just reeks of the Soviet-era "show me your papers" stuff, and at some point enough is enough.
Of course in Germany, Hitler rose to power by either silencing those who opposed him, or by convincing the masses by and large that there was nothing to fear. I wonder if one day the world will need to be saved from itself, or if it will slip into a global police state where your every communication, motion, and action is monitored and analyzed by those who believe they're right and should control you. Hell, maybe this sounds like paranoia - it might be. But I'm also fairly observant, and don't have some anti-government agenda. I just think we are globally heading down a path that will put us in a place we died to get other countries out of 55 years ago.
I think we're going to go downhill before it gets better... But we'll see.
"The scary thing is, I can imagine "Googlism" becoming a real religion someday..."
I'd say it already is. You can ask Google anything, it will answer. It may not always be the answer you want, but you're going to get *something* back. A force that seemingly knows everything and encompasses the world sure sounds like a god to me! About the only thing it can't yet do is create life or information on it's own, it just regurgitates human discovery.
The ONLY thing the First Amendment guarantees with respect to free speech, is that the government cannot censure what you say. Here's an excerpt from a brief explanation on the Cornell Law School's web page:
"The most basic component of freedom of expression is the right of freedom of speech. The right to freedom of speech allows individuals to express themselves without interference or constraint by the government. The Supreme Court requires the government to provide substantial justification for the interference with the right of free speech where it attempts to regulate the content of the speech. A less stringent test is applied for content-neutral legislation. The Supreme Court has also recognized that the government may prohibit some speech that may cause a breach of the peace or cause violence. The right to free speech includes other mediums of expression that communicates a message."
A private entity can prevent you from saying anything on something they control, and is under no obligation to like it and continue your use of their services if you say it somewhere else. Take an Internet forum for example - I run several. I withold ALL rights to delete, moderate, or edit any posting I find offensive. I could even take that a step further and do nasty things to posts which go against my personal views, however I choose not to. However I'd be perfectly legal in doing so, provided I didn't use the government's resources to do that enforcing for me.
Nothing illegal happened here, and even though the school may receive government funding it does not mean they are an extension of the government itself. They can keep this kid from saying anything they want to on their web servers, etc - and if he posts something unfavorable, they can kick him out unless they're breaching some sort of contract in doing so. It isn't nice, and goes against the sort of free thinking a University is supposed to encourage, but it's legal. Ethics are a whole other side to the issue.
You know, it saddens me that an entire new generation of geeks is coming into the world and will never actually grasp the meaning of #@Sg8FG$%$#(([NO CARRIER].
*sigh* The memories...
Oh... In Soviet Russia, the modem carrier drops YOU!
Actually you're a bit off base, and the "60 + 60" math people throw around for auto accidents just bugs me.
Some cars nowadays can protect you from a 60mph impact. They'll sacrifice every inch of themselves to absorb the impact, but can prevent fatally traumatic injury in some cases.
However, hitting an oncoming vehicle travelling at the same speed as you is the same as hitting a stationary object which can take that kind of hit without moving (i.e. substantial tree, concrete barrier, etc). The observed force to the driver would be the same as running your car into an immovable wall at 60mph, since the two vehicles (assuming equal weight) would cancel each other out. Now, a Geo running into the front of a Mack truck is obviously going to lose big-time, unless it's at parking lot speeds. F=MA after all.
Slashdot Mirror
Dr Ray Stantz: You know, it just occurred to me that we really haven't had a successful test of this equipment.
Dr. Egon Spengler: I blame myself.
Dr. Peter Venkman: So do I.
Dr Ray Stantz: Well, no sense in worrying about it now.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.
Technically while the phone itself is omnidirectional, a cell site is not. It isn't highly accurate, however the tower does know what direction you're calling from and will transmit to your phone in close to that direction using panel antennas. This is also one way that cell towers achieve greater call density, since there is no need to transmit away from the phone (what good would that do). This frees up channels on the antennas your call isn't being transmitted on to handle other users, and allows it to direct more power to you and not in directions that clearly don't need it.
Of course the cell phone thing is ridiculous. Even IF you could get two modern (i.e. microwave-band) phones to operate at the full 2W continuously, you're a far cry from the hundreds of watts a microwave oven needs to cook the same eggs -- and a microwave oven has a resonation chamber to bounce the waves around until they're absorbed by the food. I suppose if you irradiated an egg using cell phones and could build a metal chamber to resonate those waves and contain them until absorption, you could eventually cook an egg. It would take a long time though, and for what it will cost you in either cell bills or fried phones you could have just bought a damn Egg McMuffin!
I wouldn't worry too much about the brits taking over. We'd have every crazed gun-toting redneck in the country telling them where they can shove their tea (and we know how well armed the British populace is). Besides, if their ships are anything like their cars, they're going to leak all of their oil out and die before they ever get here.
Maybe we should start making cartoons of the Prime Minister in compromising positions in an attempt to start a riot.
US Coast Guard Officer: "My god, what is that? A pack of angry badgers coming on shore? Those teeth will chew right through our defenses!"
Guy with the binoculars: "No sir, it's just the Brits. See, over there! That badger just stopped fighting for a spot of afternoon tea."
Officer: "Fire at will! Oh, and get me a beer."
That was one of the more intelligent posts I've seen on slashdot to date.
They stole your stapler too?!?!
Given that Firefox has this nifty (and actually functioning) feature which can check for updates on it's own, I think people will have plenty of opportunity to upgrade gracefully.
I'd still use FF 1.0.6 (and did, until 1.0.7 came out) over IE any day of the week. In fact the only real bug I've found in 1.5 has to do with a self-signed cert on a Radware accelerator (SSL site), which I cannot explain. It happens at random times too so I can't just duplicate it either. Very odd.
What you say is chance (i.e. evolution) I think may actually be a comletely predictable series of events, which is just subject to such a complex order of variables and conditions that we can't wrap our minds around it.
Why do tree branches grow the way they do? Because God pointed his finger and made it so? I doubt it. Whether God exists remains to be seen, but I think the constant environmental conditioning (air movement, sunlight, water, pollutants, whether an ant crapped in that spot - quite literally everything that could happen in the growth of a tree) in addition to the genetic predisposition of the tree itself caused that branch to grow where it did. The same goes for anything else which is a living, dynamically adapting and growing organism. We call it chance because there is simply no way for us to understand the complete nature of why it happens the way it does -- but just because we can't understand it, does not make it random. A million things can affect where *one* branch grows, now extend that to all branches, of all trees, and you begin to understand the sheer scope of the problem; and we're just talking about trees, which stay in one place.
Two trees of the same seed, grown next to each other in an isolated tank, will still grow differently. Molecular differences in their environment will ensure that, no matter how carefully the enclosure is built. (Plus, my guess is there is a small genetic difference even between trees of the same type.) If we could control 100% of energy and matter down to the atom in this environment I surmise we'd be able to control "chance" reasonably well, but that isn't going to happen, so seemingly random changes will happen that we'll never be able to quantify or predict.
Humans have this quirky way of thinking that just because something isn't immediately obvious, or because the concept is just too massive to wrap their minds around, that it is controlled by random chance, or a mysterious supreme power. I won't debate the existence of God, but despite our advances in history our understanding of science and the whole of everything around us is neophytic at best. To even begin to think we have a grasp on the concept-at-large is hilarious.
Last time I checked, your face is far from hidden in a car. In fact, on every one of the photo-radar speeding tickets I've cerimoniously received from the local authorities, my face through the window has been clear as day. Throw in some good infared imaging and they could even do it at night (though they don't ... yet).
.. I bet if you looked like him, those darn photo radar tickets would just get lost in the mail!
About the only way they aren't going to track you, assuming you don't have some biometric chip implanted in your ass, is if you walk everywhere with a ski mask on. This of course poses other issues, particularly when trying to participate in certain retail and banking activities. Plus I think you're going to get arrested just on principle walking around in that sort of thing.
No, face transplants are where it's at these days. Need to conceal your identity in modern-day society? Become Captain Kirk! Or maybe the President
You are comparing apples to oranges.
Power regulation is all about regulating the delivery of power.
Communications regulation is about regulating the delivery of, well, communications.
If a power company suddenly starts spewing broadband over power lines, they won't magically be able to skirt whatever regulation affects other ISP's just because they're a power company. They would then become an ISP just like the rest (albeit with a different mode of delivery than your local cable company) and would be subject to the rules affecting the service they are providing.
The P2P apps can tunnel between themselves. Problem solved.
Of course, you can say that they could technically monitor anyone they want as long as they made it a 'national security' matter, but then again, you are probably wearing tinfoil hats and living confortably in your tempest cages, so you have nothing to worry about.
They can, and I don't wear tinfoil hats and sit in a cage.
I do, however, live in the real world, and work in technology. It isn't that hard to spy on people, and facilities are in place to do just that.
Just because you don't do anything wrong, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. If you communicate electronically (by that I mean email, telephone, web, etc) it can be monitored. In particular if you communicate overseas, is IS monitored. This is just how it is; the legalities are a grey area (getting more black and white by the day though) but in the interest of national security, law itself becomes a grey area anyway.
I don't need Harvard to tell me that. My mom has it (gets it when typing, she's also an artist and a chef and those activities can trigger it), my sister has issues with it from being a musician, and I have it from years of typing. Coincidence? Nope. My father is a musician, types a lot, and has no problems with it. However my mom's, sister's, and my own wrists are smaller physically which leaves less room for things to expand in there.
Pressure on the wrist CAN trigger it, but that isn't the only cause. Take riding a motorcycle for instance - there is no pressure on the wrist, yet the repeated extension of the wrist from throttle movements (I race them, so this is frequent and full-range movement) can give me some carpal-like symptoms. However that could just be a condition which is caused by the existence of other factors.
I've started using a trackball which helps, only now I get a pressure spot on the lower right side of my right palm from that resting on the desk. One of those gel pads might help, we'll see... Generally though I limit the length of typing I do (which is hard when you do what I do), take frequent breaks, and stretch routinely to keep things more fluid. Seems to help.
So let's say I own or use several computers, and some are employer-owned (and so will not have my personally identifiable data stored anywhere on it). This has to be a contingency they thought of, which would mean you're still stuck authenticating.
What's to stop me from buying a TPM-enabled system, and setting up an anonymous web proxy on it such that my traffic can go through that system from ANY PC regardless of what it has in it. The TPM anonymizer will pass the request to the "trusted" system, and life will be good.
I'm sure I'm missing something here, but I have also seen enough difficult problems solved to know there are some smart people out there who can figure it out.
The magnetic poles move YOU!
Oh come on, it's at least on topic. They're moving to Siberia.
Yeah I guess you could check your bank's cert every time you visit the site, but get real - even hardcore techies don't bother with that unless something just seems wrong. The average user doesn't even know what an SSL certificate is, let alone how to check it or why they should. All they know is the website has a picture on it saying "This Site Secured by [insert favorite CA here]" and they believe it.
I dare say most would click 'OK' on any cert warning, and if you can manage to bypass that somehow the user will be *completely* blind to what is going on, happily giving up their information. You don't even have to give them anything back, just spit out a "We're sorry, this site is experiencing technical difficulties right now, try back later" page and call it a day while you silently gather whatever information you want.
Having watched the less technically-inclined use the Internet, they will use whatever search engine shows up on their screen so long as it spits something back when they type in a few words and click "Go".
If AOL switches to MSN, >95% of the users will not care unless MSN can't give them what they need.
Not getting into whether it will become illegal to do so, I have to surmise that any technology created can be defeated. It's the basic principle of computer security, and is every bit as valid here.
It's hard to track a vehicle that just broadcasts a GPS signal from the same 10-foot area in Siberia 24x7, or that doesn't broadcast anything at all. As for RFID tracking in tires, if you can find the frequency of the chip it shouldn't be too hard to take care of (or overload electronically, somehow).
I don't doubt that they're trying to track movement - that is nothing new. And I certainly can't stop them from videotaping me, which they already do to motorists every day. But knowing where I go minute by minute (and likely why I go there) is just going too far. Too much potential for abuse, and too little history of responsible use of power by the people who want to know. I don't break laws that will put me in jail, but at the same time I have to expect that I can move from place to place without being questioned, tracked, and scrutinized. This just reeks of the Soviet-era "show me your papers" stuff, and at some point enough is enough.
Of course in Germany, Hitler rose to power by either silencing those who opposed him, or by convincing the masses by and large that there was nothing to fear. I wonder if one day the world will need to be saved from itself, or if it will slip into a global police state where your every communication, motion, and action is monitored and analyzed by those who believe they're right and should control you. Hell, maybe this sounds like paranoia - it might be. But I'm also fairly observant, and don't have some anti-government agenda. I just think we are globally heading down a path that will put us in a place we died to get other countries out of 55 years ago.
I think we're going to go downhill before it gets better... But we'll see.
"The scary thing is, I can imagine "Googlism" becoming a real religion someday..."
I'd say it already is. You can ask Google anything, it will answer. It may not always be the answer you want, but you're going to get *something* back. A force that seemingly knows everything and encompasses the world sure sounds like a god to me! About the only thing it can't yet do is create life or information on it's own, it just regurgitates human discovery.
The ONLY thing the First Amendment guarantees with respect to free speech, is that the government cannot censure what you say. Here's an excerpt from a brief explanation on the Cornell Law School's web page:
"The most basic component of freedom of expression is the right of freedom of speech. The right to freedom of speech allows individuals to express themselves without interference or constraint by the government. The Supreme Court requires the government to provide substantial justification for the interference with the right of free speech where it attempts to regulate the content of the speech. A less stringent test is applied for content-neutral legislation. The Supreme Court has also recognized that the government may prohibit some speech that may cause a breach of the peace or cause violence. The right to free speech includes other mediums of expression that communicates a message."
A private entity can prevent you from saying anything on something they control, and is under no obligation to like it and continue your use of their services if you say it somewhere else. Take an Internet forum for example - I run several. I withold ALL rights to delete, moderate, or edit any posting I find offensive. I could even take that a step further and do nasty things to posts which go against my personal views, however I choose not to. However I'd be perfectly legal in doing so, provided I didn't use the government's resources to do that enforcing for me.
Nothing illegal happened here, and even though the school may receive government funding it does not mean they are an extension of the government itself. They can keep this kid from saying anything they want to on their web servers, etc - and if he posts something unfavorable, they can kick him out unless they're breaching some sort of contract in doing so. It isn't nice, and goes against the sort of free thinking a University is supposed to encourage, but it's legal. Ethics are a whole other side to the issue.
The light spins YOU!
You know, it saddens me that an entire new generation of geeks is coming into the world and will never actually grasp the meaning of #@Sg8FG$%$#(([NO CARRIER].
*sigh* The memories...
Oh... In Soviet Russia, the modem carrier drops YOU!
Actually you're a bit off base, and the "60 + 60" math people throw around for auto accidents just bugs me.
Some cars nowadays can protect you from a 60mph impact. They'll sacrifice every inch of themselves to absorb the impact, but can prevent fatally traumatic injury in some cases.
However, hitting an oncoming vehicle travelling at the same speed as you is the same as hitting a stationary object which can take that kind of hit without moving (i.e. substantial tree, concrete barrier, etc). The observed force to the driver would be the same as running your car into an immovable wall at 60mph, since the two vehicles (assuming equal weight) would cancel each other out. Now, a Geo running into the front of a Mack truck is obviously going to lose big-time, unless it's at parking lot speeds. F=MA after all.