Instead of Drexel University and the Whining Student, pretend it is Dave Drexel who works for Whining Corporation. Let's say that Dave Drexel spends his pay on booze and wanders around the workplace drunk, threatening people.
Now let's paraphrase your arguments:
Once you give Dave his paycheck, you've lost the right to say how it's spent. You don't have the right to say "Hey, I gave you money, you need to do what I say." But you're perfectly within your rights to say "I don't want to give any MORE money to you because I don't like what you do with it."
OK, so Whining Corp must never tell Dave Drexel to stop drinking on the job. They can fire him if they want, but they mustn't explain why.
In reality, accountability usually goes with money. Anyone who gives you money becomes your boss to some small degree. For good or bad, Universities have been pretty successful at evading that accountability.
The examples you give seem to me like asserting control over your self, your money, your computer, and your private information - or preventing others from asserting control over these things. No, I'm not comparing that to slavery.
Here are some other example applications:
To build computers which will only run approved operating systems.
To build appliances which insist on phoning home in order to function, and which cannot be fooled by their owners.
To give weapons to third world countries which will be effective in their wars but ineffective if turned against the US.
To sell creative works which can only be viewed under the conditions specified by the seller.
Each of these is an attempt by one party to control another through encryption. They are at least somewhat comparable to slavery.
Why not use a script that posts possible encryption schemes to slashdot? Each post would represent one 8-bit character. Each bit would be communicated by the presence or absence of a word or phrase:
People who have never fired a gun are more likely to demonize guns. People who have not beneficially used cryptography are more likely to support restrictions on crypto.
When I was a child, I was trained to fire a.22 rifle. Therefore, I am permanently in the pro-gun camp. I could come up with lots of "reasons" but the real reason is experience. Likewise, most religious people follow the religion in which they were raised.
As for sanity checks, what's the point? Accidental and criminal shooting far outnumber shootings by insane people. It's just that the media gives more play to "loony kills 20" than to "drug dealer shoots another drug dealer, again."
That's a bit simplistic. Guns and crypto are both ways to assert power. While the direct goal of a gun is to kill, the indirect goal is to control the situation. That could be a robber taking control of a store, or an army taking control of a nation. Or it could be a storekeeper maintaing control of a store against a robber, or an army defending a nation (denying control to outsiders).
The direct goal of crypto is to turn communicatons into impenetrable noise. The indirect goal (frequently) is to coordinate the actions of numerous individuals or groups without disclosing those actions to opponents. In other words, to gain or maintain control of a situation.
The real issue is not killing; it is control. Humans have a deep-seated need to control others, whether it's expressed through slavery, communism, corporatism, imperialism or imprisonment. And likewise, we have a deep-seated need to evade the control of others - to assert self-control.
Guns and crypto are both tools for asserting control, of others or of oneself.
I don't agree that one-time pads are sustainable for terrorists.
They were sustainable for soviet spies in the US.
Besides,in the end you will still be sending a message which makes no sense of any kind (the encrypted string). The FBI will come kocking on your door and say (prob not very politely) that they want the key.
You mean like numbers stations? Whose door does the FBI knock on? These stations have been around for a long time.
Anyhow, spies and terrorists don't need machine cryptography. Until the advent of the PC, any encryption machine would be very suspicious item to have in a residence. Machine cryptography is a boon to military forces because they need to exchange a lot of data to coordinate activities in real time. Spies and terrorists don't seem to work that way. Do you think the terrorist pilots were reporting how each day of flight training went?
I'm not altogether convinced that there is any grunt-level work in a properly run software shop. I have certainly seen programmers doing repetitive work, but it was always because they failed to automate or abstract. It's always better to have fewer and smarter programmers. As for age, I think a mixture is best.
Less experienced programmers can be helpful as buffers to absorb the sparks from overheated egos and prevent the outbreak of war.
Are you under the impression that HP is run by engineers, or exists to gratify engineers and sysadmins? My impression is that the current HP inherited this "Unix business" which they don't understand and don't know what to do with. The only people who buy the stuff are HP shops that already understand the benefits. I've never seen HP reach out to new potential customers for Unix; only for NT.
I think the current objective is to reap huge financial rewards for Carly and other executives by destroying the company. This is pretty standard during takeovers.
Googles very targeted itty bitty side ads are probably among my favorite types of ads.
Yes, I clicked on one of those once. Then I learned that like all ads on the internet they link to some incredibly slow, bloated, badly designed page that has nothing to do with the ad. Now I have as much aversion to those ads as to banner ads.
Google was smart, but a step smarter would be to have the ads link to a google page which presents the advertiser's "pitch" in a clean, minimal format. Something that will download in under 1 second over dialup. Then the risk of clicking would be lower.
Re:The Corporate Republic
on
Morals and Layoffs
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I don't think that's it. I think the government favors big corporations. I've worked in big companies and small, and there's no way the big ones were efficient. They waste almost all their money.
Local governments give huge tax breaks to attract big corporations so they will 'create jobs'. They don't care if the additional burdens kill some small companies that could create tomorrow's jobs.
Every layer of government regulation benefits the big players over the small ones because the cost of compliance can be amortized better. (OK, that's an economy of scale).
I agree. But I don't think banning employment-at-will is the solution. I'd rather ban all employment contracts. Our labor laws already provide a good, well-balanced contract. The exchange should be simple - work for money. When a corporation hands an individual a pre-printed form and demands he sign it, the whole idea of contract has been perverted.
Re:Just one sign of a deeper problem.
on
Morals and Layoffs
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I'm afraid slashdot misled you again. The ATA does not make all hacking a terrorist act. The ATA references USC title 18 Sec 1030 for definition of a "protected computer". That law essentially defines two classes of "protected computer": A) Government and bank, and B) Engaged in interstate commerce.
The ATA only references (A), government and bank.
I still think the law is excessively broad and excessively harsh. But we are not helping our cause much by misrepresenting the law.
Good points about Lincoln.
Re:has JK ever worked for such a company ?
on
Morals and Layoffs
·
· Score: 2
Unfortunately, publicly traded companies cannot afford to "underperform". Even if the company is rich, profitable and sustainable, it has to constantly work to maximize returns or it risks takeover. If a business saves up money to last through the tough times, that just makes it a more tempting takeover target. Takeover occurs when the combined value of the shares is less than the company's assets.
Why do you want ancient companies? From what I see, most prominent companies start off creating something worthwhile, and eventually ossiffy into fossils that just drag down the country. Established huge companies can do bad, irrational things that no startup could afford. Are you happy about AOL/Time Warner? Will you be happier when they're 50 years old and own everything? Personally I'd be quite happy if they were broken up right now. Yes, a lot of people would lose jobs, but a lot of money and people would be freed and re-injected into the economy.
Stagnation is not good. When you wish for 50-year old companies, you're wishing for stagnation.
Well you are more correct than the previous posters, but I still have reservations. Projecting fairy-tale ideas of good and evil onto a market does not lead to clear perception. Asking where "disloyalty" came from is like asking who "started it" in the middle east. An equally worthwhile question is, "Who started loyalty?"
My best guess is that the military started corporate loyalty. People who had fought WWII together brought certain attitudes and structures to the workplace, most of which were really good for both employer and employee, such as banning corruption and nepotism and promoting people on merit.
Loyalty to a company is nonsense. Save your loyalty for those who deserve and appreciate it.
It sounds like I'm disagreeing with you, but I'm not.
No, it's not silly. Chances are the victim of harassment has no desire to make a stink about it. In your scenario she would need to "prove" harassment as a defense against her "crime" of quitting without notice. This may be too intimidating a barrier. As you point out, the employer can bypass this issue at the expense of two weeks pay. So the real issue is preserving the employee's freedom to leave.
It's been said a million times, but that doesn't make it true. What these anti-hypocrites need to learn is:
There is more than one person posting on slashdot. If Alice says the weather is cold, and Bob says the weather is hot, this does not make Alice and Bob hypocrites.
Things change. If Alice says it's hot, and tomorrow Alice says it's cold, she is not necessarily a hypocrite. Maybe it got colder.
People change. If Alice says it's hot, then five minutes later she says it's cold, and the temperature is constant, maybe her perception of temperature has changed.
Porting a web application from NT/IIS to Unix/Apache is a serious undertaking. Anyone who makes that investment isn't doing it "for the time being." Microsoft would have to offer some incredible value to lure you back.
Inertia is Microsoft's greatest advantage and selling point. At this stage in the game, I don't see them winning back any ground they lose.
How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm After they've seen Paree?
Yes. And part of making this work would be abolishing the unified ID number (SSN). Instead, the maintainers of the ID database should generate a new primary key for each business relationship you enter. The linkage between these keys (which is the core of your personal information) would only be accessible via court order or at your request.
Also, in many situations the government could issue a one-time ID number, or transaction ID. Imagine that you want to pay with a check. You stick your ID in a slot and it cryptographically signs a message asking the government for a one-time ID. The government returns this number, and the store prints it on the back of the check. If the check bounces, they can get a warrant to find your real identity. If nothing happens, the number is purged from the database in a month.
Properly planned and implemented, a central identification system could be a great guardian of privacy. But where is the understanding and will to create such a thing?
It's not as contradictory as you think. I too used to code in a converted industrial space, with pleasant beams of sunlight entering through a skylight. Through clever placement, my monitor was not subject to glare. It was a very enjoyable and productive environment.
Now I'm in a "standard office environment" - flourescent lights, tubes, and glare. The lights overpour what sunlight makes its way to my cube, defeating my body's natural sense of the day's progression. The glare gives me headaches.
I think the best working environment has natural light and natural shadow. And some truly dark caves for those who need them.
I think the bill is about distributing encryption software, not send encrypted bytes. Therefore, your point of vulnerability would be distribution. You couldn't use the web or ftp. You could try gnutella or freenet. But would you trust crypto software of unknown origin? If you write "supercrypto" and I download it from freenet, how do I know it hasn't been backdoored by some third party? Digital signature? What if I have the wrong public key for you?
If the government can disrupt the normal, overt channels of communication for crypto software and development, they can do huge damage. I'll never feel comfortable with crypto software that hasn't had substantial peer review, and this scheme could prevent that.
OK, so how can we come up with a system that makes searching your communications as hard, noisy, public, and time-consuming as searching your house? The digital era is confronting us with a certain template that keeps repeating: where once there was a balance of power between two parties, now the power wants to slide all to one side or the other.
In copyright, it used to be possible to copy a book or a record. But it was time consuming, and the result was not as good as the original. However, it was worthwhile if the work was out of print, and the threat of copying prevented many abuses by publishers. With digital technology, it seems we have to choose between a world of unrestricted, cheap, perfect copying, and a world of draconian restrictions and no copying at all.
Likewise with this issue of search. It doesn't bother me in principle that the government can search my communications - I just don't want it to be so cheap, easy, fast and invisible that it's automated into a huge vacuum-cleaner system. But I see no way to restore the pre-digital balance.
I think we all know that the need for a search warrant is not meaningful in itself. Some trustworthy technical barrier needs to impede these searches
From what I've seen, the bill would prohibit the distribution of encryption software that doesn't have the backdoor. This is relatively enforceable. What makes you think the bill outlaws encrypted communications?
Once again, geeks are treating the government like a computer, and expecting some "edge case" to cause a crash. It won't work that way. The intent of the bill will be clear, and judges will follow that intent. Look at Kaplan/DMCA.
So, if you send an email in Navajo, that is in no way a violation of the proposed bill. But if you distribute software that encrypts communications into something like Navajo, and you don't use the backdoor, that is in violation of the bill.
It almost seems like you're deliberately not getting it, in order to attack a strawman. I oppose this bill for the one sound reason: because it is a Fourth Amendment violation.
But how can it be immoral to raise prices in response to a perceived pinch in supply? Should the vendor keep selling at the low price, thus causing people to rapidly exhaust his supply? They'll line up around the block and fill Jerry cans, rejoicing in the low price. Then the vendor has to close up shop until he can get more gas. Is that what you recommend?
Slashdot Mirror
Now let's paraphrase your arguments:
OK, so Whining Corp must never tell Dave Drexel to stop drinking on the job. They can fire him if they want, but they mustn't explain why.
In reality, accountability usually goes with money. Anyone who gives you money becomes your boss to some small degree. For good or bad, Universities have been pretty successful at evading that accountability.
Here are some other example applications:
- To build computers which will only run approved operating systems.
- To build appliances which insist on phoning home in order to function, and which cannot be fooled by their owners.
- To give weapons to third world countries which will be effective in their wars but ineffective if turned against the US.
- To sell creative works which can only be viewed under the conditions specified by the seller.
Each of these is an attempt by one party to control another through encryption. They are at least somewhat comparable to slavery.Your intuition is correct. They have the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The relationship between signals intelligence and law is an odd one, as shown here.
People who have never fired a gun are more likely to demonize guns. People who have not beneficially used cryptography are more likely to support restrictions on crypto.
.22 rifle. Therefore, I am permanently in the pro-gun camp. I could come up with lots of "reasons" but the real reason is experience. Likewise, most religious people follow the religion in which they were raised.
When I was a child, I was trained to fire a
As for sanity checks, what's the point? Accidental and criminal shooting far outnumber shootings by insane people. It's just that the media gives more play to "loony kills 20" than to "drug dealer shoots another drug dealer, again."
That's a bit simplistic. Guns and crypto are both ways to assert power. While the direct goal of a gun is to kill, the indirect goal is to control the situation. That could be a robber taking control of a store, or an army taking control of a nation. Or it could be a storekeeper maintaing control of a store against a robber, or an army defending a nation (denying control to outsiders).
The direct goal of crypto is to turn communicatons into impenetrable noise. The indirect goal (frequently) is to coordinate the actions of numerous individuals or groups without disclosing those actions to opponents. In other words, to gain or maintain control of a situation.
The real issue is not killing; it is control. Humans have a deep-seated need to control others, whether it's expressed through slavery, communism, corporatism, imperialism or imprisonment. And likewise, we have a deep-seated need to evade the control of others - to assert self-control.
Guns and crypto are both tools for asserting control, of others or of oneself.
They were sustainable for soviet spies in the US.
You mean like numbers stations? Whose door does the FBI knock on? These stations have been around for a long time.
Anyhow, spies and terrorists don't need machine cryptography. Until the advent of the PC, any encryption machine would be very suspicious item to have in a residence. Machine cryptography is a boon to military forces because they need to exchange a lot of data to coordinate activities in real time. Spies and terrorists don't seem to work that way. Do you think the terrorist pilots were reporting how each day of flight training went?
I'm not altogether convinced that there is any grunt-level work in a properly run software shop. I have certainly seen programmers doing repetitive work, but it was always because they failed to automate or abstract. It's always better to have fewer and smarter programmers. As for age, I think a mixture is best.
Less experienced programmers can be helpful as buffers to absorb the sparks from overheated egos and prevent the outbreak of war.
Are you under the impression that HP is run by engineers, or exists to gratify engineers and sysadmins? My impression is that the current HP inherited this "Unix business" which they don't understand and don't know what to do with. The only people who buy the stuff are HP shops that already understand the benefits. I've never seen HP reach out to new potential customers for Unix; only for NT.
I think the current objective is to reap huge financial rewards for Carly and other executives by destroying the company. This is pretty standard during takeovers.
Yes, I clicked on one of those once. Then I learned that like all ads on the internet they link to some incredibly slow, bloated, badly designed page that has nothing to do with the ad. Now I have as much aversion to those ads as to banner ads.
Google was smart, but a step smarter would be to have the ads link to a google page which presents the advertiser's "pitch" in a clean, minimal format. Something that will download in under 1 second over dialup. Then the risk of clicking would be lower.
I don't think that's it. I think the government favors big corporations. I've worked in big companies and small, and there's no way the big ones were efficient. They waste almost all their money.
Local governments give huge tax breaks to attract big corporations so they will 'create jobs'. They don't care if the additional burdens kill some small companies that could create tomorrow's jobs.
Every layer of government regulation benefits the big players over the small ones because the cost of compliance can be amortized better. (OK, that's an economy of scale).
I agree. But I don't think banning employment-at-will is the solution. I'd rather ban all employment contracts. Our labor laws already provide a good, well-balanced contract. The exchange should be simple - work for money. When a corporation hands an individual a pre-printed form and demands he sign it, the whole idea of contract has been perverted.
I'm afraid slashdot misled you again. The ATA does not make all hacking a terrorist act. The ATA references USC title 18 Sec 1030 for definition of a "protected computer". That law essentially defines two classes of "protected computer": A) Government and bank, and B) Engaged in interstate commerce.
The ATA only references (A), government and bank.
I still think the law is excessively broad and excessively harsh. But we are not helping our cause much by misrepresenting the law.
Good points about Lincoln.
Unfortunately, publicly traded companies cannot afford to "underperform". Even if the company is rich, profitable and sustainable, it has to constantly work to maximize returns or it risks takeover. If a business saves up money to last through the tough times, that just makes it a more tempting takeover target. Takeover occurs when the combined value of the shares is less than the company's assets.
Why do you want ancient companies? From what I see, most prominent companies start off creating something worthwhile, and eventually ossiffy into fossils that just drag down the country. Established huge companies can do bad, irrational things that no startup could afford. Are you happy about AOL/Time Warner? Will you be happier when they're 50 years old and own everything? Personally I'd be quite happy if they were broken up right now. Yes, a lot of people would lose jobs, but a lot of money and people would be freed and re-injected into the economy.
Stagnation is not good. When you wish for 50-year old companies, you're wishing for stagnation.
Well you are more correct than the previous posters, but I still have reservations. Projecting fairy-tale ideas of good and evil onto a market does not lead to clear perception. Asking where "disloyalty" came from is like asking who "started it" in the middle east. An equally worthwhile question is, "Who started loyalty?"
My best guess is that the military started corporate loyalty. People who had fought WWII together brought certain attitudes and structures to the workplace, most of which were really good for both employer and employee, such as banning corruption and nepotism and promoting people on merit.
Loyalty to a company is nonsense. Save your loyalty for those who deserve and appreciate it.
It sounds like I'm disagreeing with you, but I'm not.
No, it's not silly. Chances are the victim of harassment has no desire to make a stink about it. In your scenario she would need to "prove" harassment as a defense against her "crime" of quitting without notice. This may be too intimidating a barrier. As you point out, the employer can bypass this issue at the expense of two weeks pay. So the real issue is preserving the employee's freedom to leave.
Inertia is Microsoft's greatest advantage and selling point. At this stage in the game, I don't see them winning back any ground they lose.
Yes. And part of making this work would be abolishing the unified ID number (SSN). Instead, the maintainers of the ID database should generate a new primary key for each business relationship you enter. The linkage between these keys (which is the core of your personal information) would only be accessible via court order or at your request.
Also, in many situations the government could issue a one-time ID number, or transaction ID. Imagine that you want to pay with a check. You stick your ID in a slot and it cryptographically signs a message asking the government for a one-time ID. The government returns this number, and the store prints it on the back of the check. If the check bounces, they can get a warrant to find your real identity. If nothing happens, the number is purged from the database in a month.
Properly planned and implemented, a central identification system could be a great guardian of privacy. But where is the understanding and will to create such a thing?
It's not as contradictory as you think. I too used to code in a converted industrial space, with pleasant beams of sunlight entering through a skylight. Through clever placement, my monitor was not subject to glare. It was a very enjoyable and productive environment.
Now I'm in a "standard office environment" - flourescent lights, tubes, and glare. The lights overpour what sunlight makes its way to my cube, defeating my body's natural sense of the day's progression. The glare gives me headaches.
I think the best working environment has natural light and natural shadow. And some truly dark caves for those who need them.
I think the bill is about distributing encryption software, not send encrypted bytes. Therefore, your point of vulnerability would be distribution. You couldn't use the web or ftp. You could try gnutella or freenet. But would you trust crypto software of unknown origin? If you write "supercrypto" and I download it from freenet, how do I know it hasn't been backdoored by some third party? Digital signature? What if I have the wrong public key for you?
If the government can disrupt the normal, overt channels of communication for crypto software and development, they can do huge damage. I'll never feel comfortable with crypto software that hasn't had substantial peer review, and this scheme could prevent that.
OK, so how can we come up with a system that makes searching your communications as hard, noisy, public, and time-consuming as searching your house? The digital era is confronting us with a certain template that keeps repeating: where once there was a balance of power between two parties, now the power wants to slide all to one side or the other.
In copyright, it used to be possible to copy a book or a record. But it was time consuming, and the result was not as good as the original. However, it was worthwhile if the work was out of print, and the threat of copying prevented many abuses by publishers. With digital technology, it seems we have to choose between a world of unrestricted, cheap, perfect copying, and a world of draconian restrictions and no copying at all.
Likewise with this issue of search. It doesn't bother me in principle that the government can search my communications - I just don't want it to be so cheap, easy, fast and invisible that it's automated into a huge vacuum-cleaner system. But I see no way to restore the pre-digital balance.
I think we all know that the need for a search warrant is not meaningful in itself. Some trustworthy technical barrier needs to impede these searches
From what I've seen, the bill would prohibit the distribution of encryption software that doesn't have the backdoor. This is relatively enforceable. What makes you think the bill outlaws encrypted communications?
Once again, geeks are treating the government like a computer, and expecting some "edge case" to cause a crash. It won't work that way. The intent of the bill will be clear, and judges will follow that intent. Look at Kaplan/DMCA.
So, if you send an email in Navajo, that is in no way a violation of the proposed bill. But if you distribute software that encrypts communications into something like Navajo, and you don't use the backdoor, that is in violation of the bill.
It almost seems like you're deliberately not getting it, in order to attack a strawman. I oppose this bill for the one sound reason: because it is a Fourth Amendment violation.
But how can it be immoral to raise prices in response to a perceived pinch in supply? Should the vendor keep selling at the low price, thus causing people to rapidly exhaust his supply? They'll line up around the block and fill Jerry cans, rejoicing in the low price. Then the vendor has to close up shop until he can get more gas. Is that what you recommend?