It is much easier and better mandate a physical address during a forced registration.
At that point, it's quite easy to inform EU residents that they are unable to continue do to regulations rather than rely on some type of spoofed IP or VPN
-15 karma · joined April 1, 2017
At that point, it's quite easy to inform EU residents that they are unable to continue do to regulations rather than rely on some type of spoofed IP or VPN
2. I've lived in Germany for 8 years, Czech republic for 3, and a few shorter stints in several other countries. That experience or lack thereof doesn't preclude one from being able to make sound judgments or understand people. I find that people who tend to sandbox someone in like that usually have a deference to authority or to the "experts".
3. The only speech that needs protecting is hate and offensive speech. If you don't protect that, why bother with anything else, your safe so long as you don't commit a thoughtcrime..
4. I do think police brutality is starting to become an issue in the U.S. and it's unfortunate because groups like antifa and BLM distract from a very real issue that for many years, exacerbated under Bush, put on steroids under Obama, and I can't imagine Cheeto Jesus actually helping this problem. When you train cops like marines, dress them as marines, give them MRAPS and other equipment from the wars in the middle East, I'm not sure how ppl can believe they won't act as marines. On top of that, add in things like civil asset forfeiture and there are problems. That being said, I can tell you I've seen what the Polezei do if your simply under suspicion, or if you make some mistake. I've literally seen them handcuff someone and wail on them with that baton before taking them to jail for very little. And unlike the U.S., you're generally not suing them to get fair recourse, you shut your face, literally. However, in general, compared to some places, you can and for the most part do live your day to day life without being taxed by the police.
5- again. It's not a problem for you, you seem to be ok with whatever speech they have assigned to you. You think US is a uniquely violent and deadly place, how many countries have you lived in, because I can assure you, you don't say that after actually spending time in someplace that's truly violent and deadly.. Ignorance is bliss I suppose, try living Mexico or Pakistan for a few months. You'll literally worry about the police as much as much as you do about being taken for ransom monies. Wonderful ppl though..
6- we all cherry pick datas. how about these: https://crimeresearch.org/2016/01/compared-to-europe-the-us-...
https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/26/schools-are-still-o...
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
The truth of it is we should probably ban cars if we are really serious about saving innocent life Data is data, it says whatever you make it say.. statistically what they want to say.. Analysts invoke ahh number of methods to statistically say what they want their intended audience wants to hear. Which I find most silly, because people tend to hear What they want regardless of what's actually said..
7- I'm not even sure what this means. But I can clearly see your doing the same thing that you're accusing me of. I used to love living in Germany, and still do (I'd give anything for a good doner kebop). But I always noticed a widespread disdain for the Turks among my German friends though. To me it seemed quite foolish and something I was never really able to wrap my head around. But as I traveled even more, I realized, that most of western Europe is quite homogenous in its race and ideas. I think this sets the U.S. apart even further, and you can see many issues that are coming to head in Europe denote the ethnic shifts in the countries. You can say what you like, I can read as well.
8- those are different instances, as I said. My point with the Hebdo attack was that it actually didn't happen.. The firearms allegedly used are banned there. How could it possibly occur if it isn't actually possible because they didn't have the firearms, it was literally fake news......... /sarc
The worst attack did occur in Europe, in recent history anyway. Feel free to look it up...
The U.S. is changing. for better and for worse. We might be far more ethnically diverse, but we have far less diversity of thought now, that is really to its detriment I believe. And, as they implied in that podcast, more and more politics and govt is becoming the religion and the god for those without any belief system, and that is a dangerous path, that's what I see historically anyway. Who knows. It's 2018, maybe that's all silly stuff from the past.
I don't find this article particularly offensive, just extremely naive.
For all it's problems, in the U.S. we still enjoy both freedom of speech and freedom from the tyranny of socialized govt, both have reared it's ugly head in pretty spectacular ways recently..
Namely, you can end up in jail if you teach your dog to salute at Heil Hitler, or if you decide you want to present the middle finger to your govt overlords on a traffic cam, or if you think you might like to send your child to a different hospital that offers hope, no matter how grim the ultimate outcome, or if you defend yourself in your home from a robber with a knife.. Just to name a few..
The first and second amendments of the U.S. are unlike very few In the world. Statistically most people are very unlikely to encounter such gun crimes like school shootings, but you'd never know that because we have a media and culture driven by ratings and agenda.
But there is a lot of truth that people have much less value for life. That's not just a U.S. problem.. I'm a U.S. citizen, so I can criticize the mayor of London openly without fear, but their plans(or talks) to remove any and all knives from stores and the hands of their citizens is a pretty good example.. But no knife, no problem, you can do it pretty effectively with a truck, I recall 80 or so were killed a few years ago, and at least 10 were killed a few days ago in Toronto. And anyone with any sizeable amount of intellect could probably devise a plan that is highly effective by stealing a semi.. Someone with actual intelligence could probably devise a scheme to drop small IED's via drones and could probably be pretty lethal and remain effectively safe from capture, let alone any of the other mainstream methods..
And on top of it all, even with all the gun bans, one of the worst gun massacres in recent history occurred not in the U.S., but good old Europe.. Many countries have effectively banned all weapons, But that just means that the law abiding citizens are the ones who become defenseless.. I've sarcastically argued numerous times that the Charlie Hebdo attacks were fake news, and the people were just made up, after all, such firearms are actually banned there, so such an event isn't actually possible to happen, those weapons are banned..
It gets even better when looking at countries like Mexico, S. America etc, where the police may actually be part of the mob, flip a coin as to whether you'll survive if you call for help (I suppose if your passport is blue or from the euro block they probably try to take care of you for tourism sake)..
In any case, I think a recent episode of econtalk with Jonah Goldberg http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/04/jonah_goldberg.html summed up a lot of truths about the place we are at in our society, especially in the U.S.. It's quite worth a listen.. Because ultimately, though the above is bad, we often forget that gives have historically persecuted people far worse, and though it's 2018 (as if somehow that means something), it's still happening ( IRS/FBI)etc..
Ultimately, These are problems govt cannot solve, and the answer the govt will give might not be an answer that's good, for average Joe at least.. But I do think, in the U.S., It's a road we are heading down..
Ideally, there should only be a select few that determine which apps and programs should run for the masses. We should even control which software users have access to.. After all, giving the people too many choices leads to imminent danger on all fronts and is uncontrollable.
I'm increasingly convinced that there are a great many who relish the idea that the internet, privacy, software, and ultimately life should be state controlled, similar to China or North Korea, as long as It's their people making the rules..
It's 2018 and that would never happen though.
The terms and conditions seem fairly laid out and transparent. It seems to be worded for a 5th or 6th grade English reading level.
They seem clear and concise. I can't imagine any better content for average users.
Seriously though, this is a good read that still rings true. The author does a lot with both privacy and surveillance..
It's an asinine question.. It's like someone asking, "how do I keep smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day and completely eliminate my risk of COPD and lung cancer". Yeh um, you either keep enjoying those cigarettes and accept your shitty ended of life consequences or quit.
If you don't want google or Facebook siphoning your data, don't log in with them. You can still use many of the services google offers without logging in, it just Won't be very convenient..
There are tons of alternatives. None of them are easy, some of them aren't free. Because you pay somewhere, nothing is free. Proton mail is a great alternative to gmail, but it costs. Hosting your own social media is harder, mastadon or hubzilla is great for friends n family, but it costs time. Ejabberd for messaging.
I use an LG V20 and have never once used play services. It's completely disabled.
Almost all my apps I get from 3rd party app stores, mainly fdroid and a few others. As well, I've had an old google account linked to a prepaid card and a phone that is rooted, and I used to download apps from play store with it, use an apk extractor, and send the apps to my new phone.
The days of this happening are not long for this world though, as more and more app devs are implementing safety net and forced play services checks. This really started happening around the pokemonGo time period. Some don't implement it correctly and you can still bypass it, but it's a real hassle..
A recent update broke a scanner app that I use to get alerted if a police scanner gets really busy.. I emailed the dev to ask why, they implied google is really pushing these safety checks now. Wonderful security, keeping us safe..
Even still, you only have to use play and play services if you plan on using the play store apps... I realize I'm an outlier, but then again, I've never been bothered by the few minutes longer it took me to login via mobile browser instead of just getting the app. Everyone makes choices about where and what they spend their time on.. I've always valued my privacy I suppose..
Very few countries outside the US have true freedom of speech. Try to say heil Hitler in Germany and see where it gets you. The reality is that these are wonderful places, but you need to follow their laws.
Don't kid yourself, both parties are essentially the same, who feeds them just look different. On top of that, Congress continues to cede more powers to the administrative state.. It becomes all about control really..
The primary reason no one should have been worried when DT got elected is that for a great many years, the system was designed that no matter who is driving the ship, they won't sink it because they don't have that power (same goes for BO & GWB). But for years we've been pushing for more centralized authority with power resting at the figurehead, that really ramped up after '01, and later BO put it on steroids.
As private institutions fall away for newer generations, the govt becomes "something we all do together", and the primary solution for having someone else take care of societal problems for us, after all, it's what we pay taxes for...
Congress keeps outsourcing it's responsibilities to the president, no matter what letter, R or D is behind the name on the office door. Tariffs, wars, weaponized govt agencies, privacy rights, drone strikes, surveillance, and on and on...
This isn't a problem of the system, it's merely a symptom of the current state of our society and I personally don't think whether it's tariffs or privacy, little will change in a direction that we would like. The people want easy solutions, they want someone to take care of problems for them. That's exactly what we are getting.
In just a few short years, people who have never known life without the patriot act or the fear and anxiety of walking into an airport unmolested will be voting.
I agree with you in principal. But I'm far less hopeful that meaningful solutions will come. After all, it's not been them that has enacted these secret courts, fisa, patriot act, ndaa, weaponizing govt ( irs, fbi, dhs, ...), that's been their role models, us. All in the name of safety.
You paid real money for the hardware..
You have paid 0 for the use of Google's servers and their software. E.g. you enjoy their Maps app, you enjoy seeing real time traffic. You enjoy using Keep and let them host all your memos on it. You enjoy Photos and like that all your pics are in the 'cloud'. You enjoy......
You paid real money for the hardware yes, and it works with ur without your data. But another cost is your usage of their software...
Everyone does some type of calculus on this cost. I bought their hardware as well, and i don't sell my data to them.. at all.. However, I'm looked at by most of my friends and family as the eccentric privacy guy that runs tech stuff for them.
I run services mainly for myself, but many of my friends/family use them.. NextCloud for backups to a FreeNas and for sharing, ejabberd for chat, Piwigo for sharing photos &blog, davical for contacts and calendar, phabricator to share some of my programs, the all important email, and I've occasionally been conned into running a quake server.
I pay in time and convenience. I use and contribute to apps on Fdroid. I contribute when i can to the OSM project for mapping. I still have to use waze for traffic. And instead of having apps that siphon off my data, i simply go to their websites and check stuff (yelp and occasionally facebook), and yes, it's as painful as it sounds..
I know everyone can't do a lot of these, but a few services have popped up that do some of these for you for cheap, proton mail being the biggest (imo).. Running a mail server is the most challenging, in part because more and more people rely on the big providers for email, and in turn, those big providers are flagging lots if self hosted smaller email providers as spam. Outlook is really hard, i can even send email to an outlook account from a Comcast account and it gets flagged as spam..
So yes, unfortunately you aren't the customer, although you might feel differently and they've definitely marketed things in a misleading way. The truth of the matter is i highly doubt anyone reading this site wouldn't be able to do any of the above, and making it sound otherwise is folly. We all choose who and what to pay and what we pay with.
It's not even as much about privacy, as it is freedom. I was an avid google talk and google reader user, they walled off talk to hangouts and eliminated reader. Once you realize that it's better to have some self reliance rather than convenience, your world will change.
ftfy
Besides the above, how did that recent uprising in Catalonia work out...
Tweet, hold signs, vigils, hashtag whatever.. Without the blood of sacrifice and guns to make it painful, those people were really just pissing into the wind.
Science is a process, a method by which we can answer certain types of questions. To often people hear things like settled science, or the science is crystal clear, not up for debate.. These are political posturing and have little to do with actual science. It's absurd, and some people realize this.
As with any science, data comes in late, or sometimes not at all. There are quite a few FDA prescription drugs that were approved and later recalled, some with devastating effects on their consumers.
The truth is, science is done by people, people who are infallible. People who make mistakes, who see things from a certain point of view, or who don't have all the data yet. Additionally, prediction models can be tweaked to say exactly what you want to, with devastating effect on our community.
You can't say anything though. Even in grad school labs, to make certain statements or even hint about things can lead to problems with your advisor, or research, or worse yet, peers.. Academia is a great place, at least it has been for me, as long as you keep your head down and focus on research.. i dont think it's the best place now if you truly want to question everything. I wouldn't even venture where you could go for that now.
I think this has led to a generalized mistrust, and it falls on all of us. The reality is that data is always changing, models change, etc.. People who put policies into legislation need to balance not only the aspect of the science, but the overall big picture; cultural, societal, expectations, desires etc. as well. That's politics. I think it was Russ Roberts who said you can engineer a bridge, but you can't engineer society in the same way. And i think that's right, too Often we miss that.
>For basic things like roads?
Ever listen to the radio?? The government has a lot of advertisements. Everything from "Make sure you have the correct child safety seat in your vehicle" to the standard "think before you drink" or don't beat your wife as well as the advertising of services that one should use.. You occasionally see them on late night TV, but you can often see them at times when children watch tv.
> Will be replaced by the armed enforcement department.
>I'd love to know your reasoning behind this
i think is using historical references. However, govts have notoriously used force in some method or another. Imminent domain and civil assett forfeiture readily come to mind. Of course govt can use other methods including weaponizing it's agencies, e.g. the IRS and the FBI are historic examples, but one could imagine the FCC doing similar.. I understand that's difficult to grasp depending on your political persuasion.
> There is but it is outsourced to the IRS or other department
>Which cuts costs because they are already doing it and there is no increase in their workload
I'm not even sure, are you serious about this??. Surely not.
> Like it or not, access to the internet is a scarce resource
>Yes, but you only need to assess health and ensure QoS levels are maintained. It's completely understandable to be throttled in peak load times and enjoy more resources off-peak.
Again. This seems pretty short sighted. Tech changes, and it changes fast. The idea that we should enshrine some particular technology in place for the future is horrific in terms of future innovation.
But more than this, i think we now have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a "right" is. I tend to think the end goal of such articles is the marginalization of the word, as has been done with other words such as rape..
Tech Policy Podcast: #206: The Future of Internet Regulation w/ FCC Chairman Ajit Pai http://podcast.techfreedom.org/e/206-the-future-of-internet-...
But, I think Robert Graham summed it up pretty well when he said "you believe the FCC should allow companies to bend the rules when it's in the interests of customers, then you don't believe in NetNeutrality." Lots of politics and emotion in the hysteria, very little sound reasoning.
Even if the Times went completely far far far left, they aren't the only game in town. I can choose to read any of a number of other papers, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist etc..
What alternative is there fire FB?? Mastodon.. Hubzilla..? They're great, if someone has the capability to run the service. I'd argue that most users can't be bothered to learn more than a chromebook let alone understand how to run their own server.
When you have a monopoly like this, it either needs government regulation, ( which is generally bad because it tends to hurt other similar companies), or break them up, i think this is the ideal option, but i don't know in this case.. Break it up by forcing all their code to open source, of perhaps force them to run it more federated or diaspora like and mandating interoperability with these other services..
I'm not sure what the answer is. Of course the real answer is nobody has to use Facebook.. But for a lot of people, that's not an option they're interested in, and since fb literally have all the data, it likely needs regulation which i find very distasteful and terrifying.
However, they still scan and read email. People can't be inconvenienced. I tend to think this is worse than scanning for ads.
I also tend to think anyone concerned about privacy moved from Google long ago. After all, its terrifying when you allow a company to determine if perhaps your received/sent links are fake, or malware, maybe they should report that you like certain sites, or have a flight.. People lived the idea of the President maxing out his power with executive orders, until they didn't.. Life is ask about tradeoffs i suppose..
http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/google-gmail-ads-emails...
Common carrier also specifically lists certain communications as being prohibited, namely, that which obscene, intent to abuse, threaten, or harass another person.
At that point, it becomes the interpretation of what is harassment? Is it being swatted or stalked, or as it seems to be the trend that now, language or the crime of non similar thought can be considered harassment.
You can see it even on here. Instead of a thicker skin, or not using something like Twitter, people espouse ideas such as enforcing non 'harassing' language. But in my mind there is a clear difference in the 'harassment' online, and real harassment, e.g. you're swatted at 4am, they poison your pets, they stalk you, not just once but could continue for weeks or months or years on end.
At the risk of sounding like an old curmudgeon, I do understand that now more than ever, we have an entire generation that has never been taught anything except their online persona is as important, if not more important than who they are in meatspace. It's easy to understand, they have really become a brand, their own brand, which is both good and unfortunate. The reality is that life will continue on regardless of data pipes working or not.
The growing outcry for safety and homogeneous thought is larger than ever, in almost every aspect. But with regard to the internet, the issue is that as this group becomes the majority, their calls carry more and more weight for moving the internet into the same world as many US universities.. Every campus now has a Free Speech zone, an XX meter square that you can freely speak your mind, and even hand out constitution pamphlets. Step outside that, speak your mind and you are charged with 'harassment'.
I'm not that hopeful though. As we move more into the world of where the government continues to take a larger role in making the internet fair, we relinquish certain other things. Of course, it starts benign, but it ends up quite different.
It's akin to celebs complaining about gun control, stating they hate guns and would never have one themselves, as they are guarded by several armed body guards.