>Did we learn nothing about history while our young people studied algorithms? Did taking "Computer Science" classes seclude us from the reality of how all of this would be used?
Obviously the answer to your questions is, "Enough people don't learn those lessons, don't believe it will apply to them, or simply don't care."
The time for analysis and hand-wringing was years ago, now it's just a pump-and-dump scheme at every level. The fools just think they have a place to run to, and that's the big flaw in the plan.
I suspect we'll do it here in the US too eventually, under a "national security" umbrella to, "protect ourselves some foreign cyber-terror" or such nonsense. The UK will probably do it first...
Edit: Remember that a huge portion of this country is demanding a 2000 mi long wall be built along one border... don't underestimate stupid and scared.
It is already happening in the US, just slightly differently. Befitting our "national character", as the Chinese term it, our great wall is made of advertising.
Deep packet inspection is here today for Comcast and other ISP customers. The nominal reason for the surveillance is typical adtech panty-sniffing, but of course the data is also available for subpoena, assuming ISPs actually ask for one, or just freely given out (that's more of an ATT thing).
And given that we know the FBI recruits Geek Squad techs to become informants and collaborators[1], who really thinks the FBI, DEA or another TLA won't do the same/hasn't already started doing the same with, say, network techs at Comcast? The same come-ons that worked for the Stasi work just fine elsewhere.
The people down-voting this comment, if they're doing so out of the belief that "it won't happen here", are simply wrong.
The surveillance-entertainment complex was born in the US, and the tools are massively attractive to anyone who covets power. Anyone who doesn't think the world-empire of the day will use them is deluding themselves.
> These men [Cheney and Rumsfeld] planned for suspension of the Constitution, not just after nuclear attack, but for any “national security emergency,” which they defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988 as: “Any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.”
2) Man in the middle attack (this would needs browsers to accept certificates with a matching wildcard domain )
(1) would block internet commerce at the border - this is not acceptable in western countries were free trade is above everything else. (2) is a problem because the wildcard certificates will leak out and criminals will use them, this will eliminate trust and kill internet commerce internally (also it is quite resource intensive)
In any event a great firewall is a great tragedy: for Russia that would mean the end of any remaining freedom of speech and an end to the independent opposition - for example Navalny will no longer be able to mobilize anyone. Its a fact how freedom of communication directly translates into political liberties; block one of them and you loose the other... (it is also a Pyrrhic victory for the Russian state because limiting information results leads to ptechnological backwardness)
So for the meantime that means that a great firewall in a western country is very unlikely. Of course internet pundits said that of Russia at the turn of this century.... so the fact remains that it is impossible to predict anything.
>And before you tell me Tor is nothing more than a privacy tool, remember that most sites ban Tor exits because the majority of users are troublemakers.
So... don't tell you the truth, because you've already decided that a bunch of anonymous people are "bad".
Have you ever considered a career in law enforcement or politics?
What's the truth? Most websites require you to fill a captcha, confirm your mobile number, or simply block you if you happen to use the service from a Tor exit. That's something you can check yourself, go to the big sites (Alexa top for example), and see it. Even Hacker News shows you a captcha if you register from Tor.
Do you believe those sites are in some kind of major plot to bother Tor users, or they simply are fed up with the abuse coming from Tor? Ockham's razor.
So often you get stories in which a certain type of person cries, "Thought Police!" as a way to deflect from the core issues, but... this really is an example of that. As you say, the thoughts you have and express on your own time, which in no way change your professionalism, are your thoughts, period. I can't even imagine the life I would have led, the friends and colleagues I would never have had if "What you think is unacceptable, regardless of how well you act," was some kind of standard.
I also wonder how the hell some people think minds are to be changed, if the way they want to deal with them is quarantine. Most of the time, you need have some mutual knowledge and respect between two parties for one to really reach the other.
Let's reductio ad absurdum: what if one of your friends was a literal nazi. Never gassed any Jews, but thought it was a good idea. Wouldbe okay with that?
I'd work with the reanimated corpse of Adolf Hitler if he made good, well-documented commits.
Tolerance (noun): "the ability or willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviour that one dislikes or disagrees with". Tolerance only counts for anything if it's an effort, if you have to grit your teeth and bite your tongue to make it work. Tolerance is meaningless if you only tolerate people who you consider worthy of tolerating.
I find it odd that many of the people who are so vehement about no-platforming and safe spaces are also strident advocates for a rehabilitative model of criminal justice. That seems profoundly dissonant - if you're a literal murderer I'll fight for your right to be re-integrated into society, but if you hold views that I find unacceptable I'll fight to ensure that you're completely marginalised. I don't see how more division and more antipathy is going to create a more inclusive society.
They've murdered way more people than the Nazis, after all, and they're still a going concern.
Most of the various groups that call themselves "Nazis" or "KKK" consist of about five yokels who meet in somebody's garage. Communists still control entire countries.
So, how about it: is it okay to fire people for being Communists? If not, why not?
The discussion as I understood it was centered on professionalism rather than friendship. When you do business with someone, you can and should take into account their publicly-known actions and public statements. Anything else is bad business.
However, when I do business with someone I don't know on a personal level, there is every possibility that person is secretly a Rape Nazi. My question is, is catching all of the Rape Nazis worth the cost of sacrificing all borders between the personal and the professional, between public and private life?
So far as I know, doing so is the only way one could guarantee that one never conducted any business with someone whose personal beliefs differ from one's own to an unsatisfactory degree.
Not the OP, but I definitely would not be ok with that. Making me wonder if such a person would be my friend in the first place because we'd clash pretty badly over that. If I found out I would probably try real hard to convince them of the error of their ways (according to me, at least) and if that was unsuccessful I'd stop being their friend.
> Let's reductio ad absurdum: what if one of your friends was a literal nazi. Never gassed any Jews, but thought it was a good idea. Wouldbe okay with that?
Well put, I wonder would the signers be so vocal in support if he were a fundamentalist Christian that opposed abortion and gay marriage?
No, but I don't see that as being remotely similar to someone who roleplays a bigot during sex. If I had a friend who liked to dress up like Himmler and get roundly spanked, I'm not going to judge him for it. If I have a friend who calmly remarks that maybe "Hitler really did nothing wrong," I'm going to be furious and horrified.
Lets really try not to judge people for their kinks, because they tend to be strange, inexplicable, and personal.
Again, when this letter was first posted, there was no mention of this being a sex thing. As far as well all knew, the matter was about actual misogyny, not kink.
Yep, the way I read that is to rinse the lenses in water after cleaning them.
Horrid.
Glad I ditched using my own lenses now in favour of glasses. I still have a good supply of them .. just never liked the poking around in the eye business.
There is a certain irony, given that "The Pentagon" has become at least roughly synonymous with, "Unbelievably bloated and corrupt". If the F-35 were a privately funded venture, everyone involved would have probably shot themselves.
Of which the largest government body is... the military. "Healthcare" is the largest expenditure, but largely to a collection of unconnected private industry... the military is a different matter.
Business fails all the time usually does not result in seppuku. The problem with government bloat is the lack of death for the business, not its purveyors. The plane is not built by the government, but Lockheed Martin, a private company. If government cut funding a while ago, they would've stopped working on the plane.
You have to wonder if the bright young things who've been "disrupting" food really understand just how poisonously hard the food service industry is? Even if all they ever did was read Kitchen Confidential I feel like they could have seen some of these issues (supply chains, employees, vendor issues) coming a mile away.
That could just be a matter of attempts at a crackdown failing spectacularly. Reddit mods have been pretty aggressive in trying to prune United stories, without actually blocking or removing them. It can be enough, in other words, just to increase the friction in the system, not to eliminate bad press, but reduce its volume and persistence.
Aggressively enforcing rules of various subreddits, no actual skullduggery that I've seen at least. So, while normally a subreddit might allow a repost, or a topic to be covered by more than one article, they crack down hard on that. In a sub like WorldNews they were being extremely quick and harsh with "US Internal Politics" for another example, which effectively kills the post.
In essence, it's just how police operate; if you were subjected to every reasonable measure police could bring to bear on you, all of the time, your life would be a misery; A legally sanctioned, totally acceptable misery, but the power of "discretion" keeps that from being the reality for "acceptable" groups.
