So a few episodes back of this show, weren't we saying that stuff wasn't adding up in the tone and the feds were False Flagging? "Informant" is a little different, but close - in that they're still going to try to point to these groups and go all "see, our kiddies aren't safe from these online terrorists!"
And out came the usual "Tin Foil Hat" arguments in response.
Actually, I'll reverse the joke and gun for +1 Insightful.
Ready?
Literally why does this story even exist? This code takes out nuclear reactors and "researchers ask programmers for help"? Really?! (Does "Ask" imply they want the answer FREE?!)
So the Dept of Homeland Security is busy helping yank down file share sites and they have no time for this?
Ladies and Gentlemen and AI's, this is your answer to why we're spiralling into a mess.
I had a mini love of programming for a couple of years as a child, because the Commodore 128 hit the sweet spot for a child's interest that I've rarely seen matched since. The 128's devastating secret was that it could produce both Sprites and Lines. So you just design a sprite, tell it to move, design another sprite, tell that to move, draw some lines, ask for a collision check between either the sprites or the lines, and Voila, you have simple games. 100 lines of code for the shell, another 200 for some music and art and effects and easter eggs and stuff.
But then although I didn't have the vocabulary until 20 years later, I looked at the next step and it was like Everest. What I instinctively realized was that Computing was about to go from cool 1-man projects on the 80's suite of machines, to multi-dev projects on either Mac or PC-clone, and that *it was too early*. I am sensitive to the volatility of knowledge, so I didn't want to become like Scotty on the TNG episode "Relics".
So I left programming and formal lab science (that same next leap from projects to pro) for a classical business education that pays the rent. So now my geek interests are in using finished utilities made by everyone else, and sometimes commissioning a couple of my own.
On my shelf is a tome about how F. W. Woolworth started the "subsustence wage trap" by forcing people into inferior economic curves by being the only job in town but not enough to properly live on.
And you know it's a power trip for lots of those corp execs simply asking for extra hours of work out of salaried people "just because".
Wait a minute, the Spin Doctor got here and led us right where he wants us.
So the real story is that Sony lost security on 50,000 tracks and the title became "Michael Jackson tracks copied"?! Really? They had to pick one of only about 10 Flamebait artists?
The Founding Fathers did an incredible initial job. The problem is that slowly corrupting forces withered away at those freedoms.
Take a deep breath:
"Average people are not smart enough to create a Darknet on Retroshare as Govt keeps banning more and more types of information sharing. Average people are not smart enough to actively log out of their accounts while Google gives them targeted ads in their email based on what they watched on Youtube. Politicians are not smart enough to vote against a bill labeled "Protect the Children From Internet Pornographers Act" because they're either dreading the instant Ad Hominem smeared in the papers (and indexed by Google remember?), or else they are already bought and want the powers for themselves."
We would need to have a Privacy Explosion so epic, we whisper it in the same tones as the Godwin subject. Right now it's all "leaking", and "mostly contained", but suppose absolutely everyone had the entire dataset on everyone else, through some kind of nuclear grade data blunder.
I'd see a shift in fashion to consumer "privacy suits" with faces completely hidden.
And once again it takes Hairyfeet to throw a really tough counterweight into the discussion.
I have bad UI gripes about the other browsers, especially Chromium-Family ones, so I am more in a "do something about Firefox".
My solution has been to run the Derivatives. Currently CometBird is interesting, with additional built in FlashBlock abilities. Yes, it takes an extra click to view Youtube videos, but on the plus side, Hulu can't figure it out, so I get nice peaceful Silence instead of Hulu ads.
It also avoids an annoying "collection" routine when I close it - Firefox Natural on my home XP machine goes and "gathers" memory, or something, sowhen my habit of "close a window and make a new instance" kicks in, I get all these "Firefox is already open" messages. For better or for worse Cometbird doesn't do that.
I used to use PaleMoon on the same principles "Subset of Firefox" but lately it started getting buggy on my use cases so I dropped it.
You nailed a key issue: If a company wants to write their own 100% proprietary blob, sure. Have at it.
But if they swipe "free code" (aka GPL) then whine about losing "competitive advantage" if they release their end result, that's the abuse we should stop.
"Hi. GPL is enforced by a version of Copyright Law. Remember how much fun you had with that? Now pay up. Or, MAYBE if we are nice, drop the code you swiped and White-Room it from scratch."
Then they grew up, sans computer skills (some of them), and have Internet Explorer, drive Ford Explorer, and their kids watch rerun-DVD's of Dora the Explorer.
The scary thing lately is that the "questions" asked in one story/thread are answered within a week in a subsequent thread. From a few stories above this one:
"A few years back, Sony bought up a small company running an online collectible card game called Star Chamber: The Harbinger Saga. Two days ago, they announced that the servers will be shutting down on March 29, 2012. All of our virtual collectible cards? Poof. It's not surprising - the user base is small and dwindling - but it's proof that any server-based digital goods you 'own' can vanish on a corporation's whim."
Hate to break it to you, but anything you can dream up with satire, they're already dreaming up for real.
SOPA-II is... wait for it... PC-FIPA, HR1981 = Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act.
I submitted it a week ago for a Slashdot story. It got voted up Red Hot in the Firehose. Slashdot didn't run it. They ran the Idle piece of "Eternal Copyright" instead.
So yes, RIAA-Guy is partially right. We're already bored with Blackouts.
"If you don't get your bill passed, make it WORSE, change the backstory to the ultimate counter line, and submit it again!"
Sorry, the Rear Sensor on my minivan is total junk, and that's on a good day. On bad days it dies and then goes into false alarms. My building has a funny parking layout where I basically have to back "into" my building every morning and cut a hard turn to get out. So not only have I endured 500+ false positives, (and lots of Put Your Seatbelt On beeps), but when it snows that blocks the sensor, which then panics and almost CAUSES an accident because it makes it hard to think straight. I'm already within two feet every morning from logistics. I basically "threaten" to back straight into my house wall. Silence. I make the hard turn to get out. BeeBeeBeeBeeBeeOMFGOMFGBEEEBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!
Nope. Not havin' that.
Meanwhile, did no one notice the "Camera" part of "Rear View Cameras"? Really?! So How long before a "Mandated Rear View Camera" records the *Driver*? Why is EVERY modern problem "solved" by a Camera, (with of course total abuse of Due Process.)
Bonus Tip: Wouldn't every picture in my rearview camera... wait for it... be COPYRIGHTED to me?!
Sorry, I have a Pet Rant on Borders, and you walked into it.
From an Article about Adapting, Borders was a Moron-Company.
The Future of Physical Books is Print Live On Demand. Forget the shipping, the stocking, the overages, the underages. Just print the damn thing.
The tech is out there. I have three vitally important Case-Tomes from Harvard Bookstore *TwoYears Ago*. Forget Amzon and "Go Home, Wait Three Days". Just "Print the thing in an hour".
But no. They couldn't be bothered to spend $100,000 "Medium Peanuts" per machine and secure the Digital Rights per copy.
"Responder's" post below has half the answer, but I'm replying to you.
A new wrinkle is that computing is getting so complex that "general users" don't even understand existing features and designs, let alone bugs. So that "a few bugs" blends in with "I never understood computers anyway".
So yes, with that $700,000,000 savings in fixing bugs, an Executive with a good poker face at $100,000 a year is priceless - he just deflects it all and the "troublesome users" go away. It leaves Help Desks to find slightly crazed fixes to the problems.
---- Hooray for Friendly Tech-Friendly Lawyers (Rare Species Lawyerus Friendlius!)
Do firms form "Liasons" to cringes at the Biz Speak coming up "Synergize" efforts across a whole field of practice? I feel that one of the problems "We on the Defense" from atrocities likes the slew of copyright bills face is that all 150 of the opponents are camping out in the same 20 bars and official rooms planning strategy and patting backs leaving us stuck without a corresponding network Have you folks heard about New York Country Lawyer? He's been quieter lately while working on his cases directly but he's been one of our resident 's on these topics for a long time now So just suppose your 7 states don't include New York does it make sense to form a coalition on these topics? "Okay 50 state action needed PoultonKafka?" "Yep We have states 1 through 7" "Nice BeckermanLegal?" "Here with New York and any other states"
Hulk "That's a lot of Attorney Generals Don't make them angry You wouldn't like it when that many AG's get angry"/Hulk
Here is an old list I made of your fellow 's along with a fragment of their "Proof Statement" Take with Pi Grains of Salt etc (I kept hitting the Lameness Filter. Assume each of these folks had "IAAL" on a post.) SPYvSPY ari_j debrain sampson7 DavidBrown Jim Tyre Yoshi Have Big Tail Zordak mbstone wrecked conlaw caitsith01 crrkrieger Dusabre Legal Penguin apc siliconbunny locker1776 tambo judmarc Chuut-Riit ninewands calbanese Macadamizer Darth_Foo buelba
cpt kangarooski Authentication borrowed from Ars Technica"Tribus: This and all my posts are in the public domain I am a lawyer I am not your
I strongly dispute that much of literature could be written as 2-3 level Hypertext.
In particular, let's glance at Dickens' Tale of Two Cities. There's a novel that could have benefitted by putting 100 pages of it into Hypertext Footnotes!!
Modern Example: Lord of the Rings.Same Problem: Put the 23 page Species Histories into Hypertext.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, now you see how the game works - the last hidden hole cards.
They draft bills to Protect Kids From 4Chan but they threaten to kill your kids if it helps their cause.
With that kind of logic in operation, nothing else matters.
So a few episodes back of this show, weren't we saying that stuff wasn't adding up in the tone and the feds were False Flagging? "Informant" is a little different, but close - in that they're still going to try to point to these groups and go all "see, our kiddies aren't safe from these online terrorists!"
And out came the usual "Tin Foil Hat" arguments in response.
Except - it turned out true after all.
So now where do we stand in the Meta-Eval here?
Actually, I'll reverse the joke and gun for +1 Insightful.
Ready?
Literally why does this story even exist? This code takes out nuclear reactors and "researchers ask programmers for help"? Really?! (Does "Ask" imply they want the answer FREE?!)
So the Dept of Homeland Security is busy helping yank down file share sites and they have no time for this?
Ladies and Gentlemen and AI's, this is your answer to why we're spiralling into a mess.
I had a mini love of programming for a couple of years as a child, because the Commodore 128 hit the sweet spot for a child's interest that I've rarely seen matched since. The 128's devastating secret was that it could produce both Sprites and Lines. So you just design a sprite, tell it to move, design another sprite, tell that to move, draw some lines, ask for a collision check between either the sprites or the lines, and Voila, you have simple games. 100 lines of code for the shell, another 200 for some music and art and effects and easter eggs and stuff.
But then although I didn't have the vocabulary until 20 years later, I looked at the next step and it was like Everest. What I instinctively realized was that Computing was about to go from cool 1-man projects on the 80's suite of machines, to multi-dev projects on either Mac or PC-clone, and that *it was too early*. I am sensitive to the volatility of knowledge, so I didn't want to become like Scotty on the TNG episode "Relics".
So I left programming and formal lab science (that same next leap from projects to pro) for a classical business education that pays the rent. So now my geek interests are in using finished utilities made by everyone else, and sometimes commissioning a couple of my own.
Sure they do.
On my shelf is a tome about how F. W. Woolworth started the "subsustence wage trap" by forcing people into inferior economic curves by being the only job in town but not enough to properly live on.
And you know it's a power trip for lots of those corp execs simply asking for extra hours of work out of salaried people "just because".
Wait a minute, the Spin Doctor got here and led us right where he wants us.
So the real story is that Sony lost security on 50,000 tracks and the title became "Michael Jackson tracks copied"?! Really? They had to pick one of only about 10 Flamebait artists?
I'll take you seriously.
The Founding Fathers did an incredible initial job. The problem is that slowly corrupting forces withered away at those freedoms.
Take a deep breath:
"Average people are not smart enough to create a Darknet on Retroshare as Govt keeps banning more and more types of information sharing. Average people are not smart enough to actively log out of their accounts while Google gives them targeted ads in their email based on what they watched on Youtube. Politicians are not smart enough to vote against a bill labeled "Protect the Children From Internet Pornographers Act" because they're either dreading the instant Ad Hominem smeared in the papers (and indexed by Google remember?), or else they are already bought and want the powers for themselves."
Maybe.
We would need to have a Privacy Explosion so epic, we whisper it in the same tones as the Godwin subject. Right now it's all "leaking", and "mostly contained", but suppose absolutely everyone had the entire dataset on everyone else, through some kind of nuclear grade data blunder.
I'd see a shift in fashion to consumer "privacy suits" with faces completely hidden.
And once again it takes Hairyfeet to throw a really tough counterweight into the discussion.
I have bad UI gripes about the other browsers, especially Chromium-Family ones, so I am more in a "do something about Firefox".
My solution has been to run the Derivatives. Currently CometBird is interesting, with additional built in FlashBlock abilities. Yes, it takes an extra click to view Youtube videos, but on the plus side, Hulu can't figure it out, so I get nice peaceful Silence instead of Hulu ads.
It also avoids an annoying "collection" routine when I close it - Firefox Natural on my home XP machine goes and "gathers" memory, or something, sowhen my habit of "close a window and make a new instance" kicks in, I get all these "Firefox is already open" messages. For better or for worse Cometbird doesn't do that.
I used to use PaleMoon on the same principles "Subset of Firefox" but lately it started getting buggy on my use cases so I dropped it.
I'll reply to you.
You nailed a key issue: If a company wants to write their own 100% proprietary blob, sure. Have at it.
But if they swipe "free code" (aka GPL) then whine about losing "competitive advantage" if they release their end result, that's the abuse we should stop.
"Hi. GPL is enforced by a version of Copyright Law. Remember how much fun you had with that? Now pay up. Or, MAYBE if we are nice, drop the code you swiped and White-Room it from scratch."
Then they grew up, sans computer skills (some of them), and have Internet Explorer, drive Ford Explorer, and their kids watch rerun-DVD's of Dora the Explorer.
No no, you missed Sony's new product!
Collectible Rootkit CD's! Each one will screw your computer in a brand new way! Collect them all! Get Malware Combos for even more fun!
The scary thing lately is that the "questions" asked in one story/thread are answered within a week in a subsequent thread. From a few stories above this one:
"A few years back, Sony bought up a small company running an online collectible card game called Star Chamber: The Harbinger Saga. Two days ago, they announced that the servers will be shutting down on March 29, 2012. All of our virtual collectible cards? Poof. It's not surprising - the user base is small and dwindling - but it's proof that any server-based digital goods you 'own' can vanish on a corporation's whim."
http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/03/02/214243/sony-to-delete-virtual-goods
Hate to break it to you, but anything you can dream up with satire, they're already dreaming up for real.
SOPA-II is ... wait for it ... PC-FIPA, HR1981 = Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act.
I submitted it a week ago for a Slashdot story. It got voted up Red Hot in the Firehose. Slashdot didn't run it. They ran the Idle piece of "Eternal Copyright" instead.
So yes, RIAA-Guy is partially right. We're already bored with Blackouts.
"If you don't get your bill passed, make it WORSE, change the backstory to the ultimate counter line, and submit it again!"
xkcd probably has prior art on that kind of thing!
Sorry, the Rear Sensor on my minivan is total junk, and that's on a good day. On bad days it dies and then goes into false alarms. My building has a funny parking layout where I basically have to back "into" my building every morning and cut a hard turn to get out. So not only have I endured 500+ false positives, (and lots of Put Your Seatbelt On beeps), but when it snows that blocks the sensor, which then panics and almost CAUSES an accident because it makes it hard to think straight. I'm already within two feet every morning from logistics. I basically "threaten" to back straight into my house wall. Silence. I make the hard turn to get out. BeeBeeBeeBeeBeeOMFGOMFGBEEEBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!
Nope. Not havin' that.
Meanwhile, did no one notice the "Camera" part of "Rear View Cameras"? Really?! So How long before a "Mandated Rear View Camera" records the *Driver*? Why is EVERY modern problem "solved" by a Camera, (with of course total abuse of Due Process.)
Bonus Tip: Wouldn't every picture in my rearview camera ... wait for it ... be COPYRIGHTED to me?!
Sorry, I have a Pet Rant on Borders, and you walked into it.
From an Article about Adapting, Borders was a Moron-Company.
The Future of Physical Books is Print Live On Demand. Forget the shipping, the stocking, the overages, the underages. Just print the damn thing.
The tech is out there. I have three vitally important Case-Tomes from Harvard Bookstore *TwoYears Ago*. Forget Amzon and "Go Home, Wait Three Days". Just "Print the thing in an hour".
But no. They couldn't be bothered to spend $100,000 "Medium Peanuts" per machine and secure the Digital Rights per copy.
So no, I have zero sympathy for Borders.
Hmm. I'm not sure I agree with this.
Once you reach a certain size, your Hugeness Precedes you.
Facebook has scared me off with its ulbiquity combined with privacy problems.
So then "Also Ran" Yahoo (of all folks, not the other 8 companies with a patent or three?) decides to show up in news?
Yahoo: Not Facebook. Not an Interlinked Service subject to Google's New (Anti) "privacy" (sales) policy.
Bonus: I have been on Yahoo Mail for some 8 years. Suddenly that's the Underdog Rebel choice to win.
So if they can make it stick, sure, let Facebook pay them some survival cash.
"Responder's" post below has half the answer, but I'm replying to you.
A new wrinkle is that computing is getting so complex that "general users" don't even understand existing features and designs, let alone bugs. So that "a few bugs" blends in with "I never understood computers anyway".
So yes, with that $700,000,000 savings in fixing bugs, an Executive with a good poker face at $100,000 a year is priceless - he just deflects it all and the "troublesome users" go away. It leaves Help Desks to find slightly crazed fixes to the problems.
Warning! Wall of Post Coming! Don't hurt me mods!
----
Hooray for Friendly Tech-Friendly Lawyers (Rare Species Lawyerus Friendlius!)
Do firms form "Liasons" to cringes at the Biz Speak coming up "Synergize" efforts across a whole field of practice? I feel that one of the problems
"We on the Defense" from atrocities likes the slew of copyright bills face is that all 150 of the opponents are camping out in the same 20 bars and
official rooms planning strategy and patting backs leaving us stuck without a corresponding network Have you folks heard about New York
Country Lawyer? He's been quieter lately while working on his cases directly but he's been one of our resident 's on these topics for a long
time now So just suppose your 7 states don't include New York does it make sense to form a coalition on these topics? "Okay 50 state action
needed PoultonKafka?" "Yep We have states 1 through 7" "Nice BeckermanLegal?" "Here with New York and any other states"
I saw this article a little while ago:
http://coupmediaorg/internet/google-new-privacy-policy-challenged-by-36-state-attorney-generals-2302
Hulk "That's a lot of Attorney Generals Don't make them angry You wouldn't like it when that many AG's get angry" /Hulk
Here is an old list I made of your fellow 's along with a fragment of their "Proof Statement" Take with Pi Grains of Salt etc
(I kept hitting the Lameness Filter. Assume each of these folks had "IAAL" on a post.)
SPYvSPY
ari_j
debrain
sampson7
DavidBrown
Jim Tyre
Yoshi Have Big Tail
Zordak
mbstone
wrecked
conlaw
caitsith01
crrkrieger
Dusabre
Legal Penguin
apc
siliconbunny
locker1776
tambo
judmarc
Chuut-Riit
ninewands
calbanese
Macadamizer
Darth_Foo
buelba
cpt kangarooski Authentication borrowed from Ars Technica"Tribus: This and all my posts are in the public domain I am a lawyer I am not your
lawyer and this is not legal advice"
That's one of the cases for Underrated.
You mean he writes some of the finest letters of the OSS movement? :0
Hi there...
Just confirming for my notes:
"YAAL" aka You Are A Lawyer, and want to possibly represent the wronged little guy in these types of digitial property cases?
Regards,
--Tao
"I didn't talk to him. I just posted stuff on my Facebook Wall. It's not my fault he read it along with my 1300 other Facebook Friends!"
Hello Sir.
I strongly dispute that much of literature could be written as 2-3 level Hypertext.
In particular, let's glance at Dickens' Tale of Two Cities. There's a novel that could have benefitted by putting 100 pages of it into Hypertext Footnotes!!
Modern Example: Lord of the Rings.Same Problem: Put the 23 page Species Histories into Hypertext.