51–60 of 86 posts
My answer is "hell no", always has been and even more so now; and I can deal with the disappearance of functionality, but the nagging is especially irritating and the timing doubly ironic.
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Is the EFF really strapped for cash? If their budget was 2 or 3 times bigger, would they really be able to do a lot more?
Unlikely. And I believe that the issue is that some politicians still have an old school boy mentality where nerds/geeks are somehow lesser than them. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) famously said "Bring in the Nerds" during SOPA hearings. He then continued to call people in technology nerds multiple times. Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrrj9Wc2L84 Rep. Mel Watts (D-NC) made it a point in his opening stat…
Good. That creates an opportunity for more enlightened people to challenge the incumbents, backed by the ample funding that the nerds are going to be throwing around increasingly in order to protect their industry from the incompetents.
A saying that begins "First they ignore you" comes to mind.
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Off-topic, but a fun way to take this to the next level: if you have your own domain, you can set mx records with the same priority at different services to randomly scatter your incoming mail. You can then pull them in with pop3 with your mail client or getmail with something like Dovecot to provide a self-hosted IMAP interface. You get the added benefit of having automatic fallbacks if one of your mail services is…
Would you really get a random distribution if MX records all had the same priority? Sounds like a fun test & experiment.
I can't speak for all DNS servers but BIND will return them in a different order each time it answers an query.
For example, the first query returns "mx1, mx2, mx3"; next query returns "mx2, mx3, ms1"; next query returns "mx3, mx1, mx2". Many resolvers seem to simply use the first one so it's roughly equivalent to round robin load balancing.
This is why in my recent rant about how Microsoft could re-establish its relevance [1], one recommendation was that Microsoft differentiate itself as the only tech titan to champion a decentralized cloud. I fairly strongly feel that would be a competitive advantage. (Of course if all self-managed security implemented on Microsoft operating systems can be subverted by the NSA, it's a moot point.) [1] http://tiamat.tso…
Rule #1: Never follow your competitor in pitch dark.
This is why in my recent rant about how Microsoft could re-establish its relevance [1], one recommendation was that Microsoft differentiate itself as the only tech titan to champion a decentralized cloud. I fairly strongly feel that would be a competitive advantage. (Of course if all self-managed security implemented on Microsoft operating systems can be subverted by the NSA, it's a moot point.) [1] http://tiamat.tso…
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Can't the NSA spy on foreign operations without any legal oversight, as opposed to spying on domestic operations with "oversight" from a secret court? Both are bad.
> Can't the NSA spy on foreign operations without any legal oversight Yeah. It would be kind of bizarre to have a military signals intelligence service where spying on foreign electronic communications was some kind of exceptional activity. The whole point of the NSA is spying on foreign operations. The legal restrictions involving a "secret court" (the two courts themselves aren't secret, though their proceedings te…
And then international travel became a routine occurrence, and countries made "alliances", and international commerce became one of the most powerful forces driving the global economy, and the Internet arrived, and the kind of black and white world you're imagining went away. No country exists in such a vacuum in the twenty-first century, and a country that respects the basic rights of its own people but completely ignores the rights of others will pay a price for that hostility sooner or later. At least today that price is mostly measured in dollars and not blood as it might have been a few decades ago.
It's sad that a lot of the abuses we've seen and heard about in recent years have to be curtailed through financial pressure and not politicians doing the right thing, but that doesn't make people voting with their wallets any less effective.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unlikely. And I believe that the issue is that some politicians still have an old school boy mentality where nerds/geeks are somehow lesser than them. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) famously said "Bring in the Nerds" during SOPA hearings. He then continued to call people in technology nerds multiple times. Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrrj9Wc2L84 Rep. Mel Watts (D-NC) made it a point in his opening stat…
Until congress starts to realize that nerds are not basement dwellers, and instead are pop culture (Facebook, The Internship) they will continue to roll their eyes at any sort of lobbying. Good. That creates an opportunity for more enlightened people to challenge the incumbents, backed by the ample funding that the nerds are going to be throwing around increasingly in order to protect their industry from the incompet…
After SOPA, it became clear that the U.S. info sector could no longer neglect its lobbying efforts in Washington. The MPAA and RIAA represent comparatively tiny (in terms of revenue) interests but were only thwarted by the unpredictable (and unreliable) intervention of the public. Now this. The info sector has become big industry and is going to play a correspondingly big role in U.S. politics going forward. They're…
Pretty simple way to frame this in a way that Washington can understand: The NSA data collection programs are _job killers_ for American high-tech workers and its most innovative companies.
"Hard working, innovative technology companies are losing out to foreign companies due to this unaccountable, big government program. It's time to reign in this anticompetitive NSA behavior and let American business compete on a level playing field." *formatted for a talking head to use on FOX News/MSNBC/CNN
The NSA has put them in their place and now they're whining. And don't forget, these programs keep you safe."
People will believe whatever spin fits better with their pre-existing point of view.
This is why in my recent rant about how Microsoft could re-establish its relevance [1], one recommendation was that Microsoft differentiate itself as the only tech titan to champion a decentralized cloud. I fairly strongly feel that would be a competitive advantage. (Of course if all self-managed security implemented on Microsoft operating systems can be subverted by the NSA, it's a moot point.) [1] http://tiamat.tso…
Microsoft has such a good relationship with the government that its unlikely to be able to extricate itself to every accomplish that.