Posts by Charles 9 16605 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
"Trying to match airlines 'zero fatalities in a year' record would make ground transportation too expensive to use... with horrifying economic, social, health, safety, and other damage."
But it'll be demanded once more people get killed because they'll demand "What price a life?" The reason the airliner industry gets the scrutiny it does is because although aircraft disasters are rare, they tend to bite HARD: low incidence, but high consequence. Car fatalities are higher per capita, but the numbers and environment tend to run against them (more and less predictable obstacles). It's basically a case of comparing birds to bulls: not much in common between them.
Then there's nothing you can do. The next step after carjacking will be driveway/parking lot carjacking: jacking the car before they get started. There will ALWAYS be vulnerable points where a carjacker can jack the driver's identity and the car would have no way to know the difference (Perfect Impersonator Problem).
Or the kid was never in your sight until the very last instant when he pops out from a seemingly-too-narrow gap just two feet in front of you (possibly deaf so unable to hear your approach and blind due to position) with cars hemming you in on both sides. Even at 10kph you're still likely to hit and possibly drag the kid under. Heck, not even a computer would probably able to save the situation. As they say, sometimes Crap Happens.
"If the self driving car has got itself into a position where such a choice has to be made, then the programmer / manufacturer has failed and someone probably ought to go to jail."
Not necessarily. The situation could be thrust upon them outside their control (a "Crap Happens" moment), like a tree suddenly falling onto the road. That's why the Trolley Problem exists: because Crap Happens. You can't account for Crap Happens moments because they can happen even when standing still, meaning the only alternative is to not do anything.
"Could we at least give her the dignity of a name?"
Is it REALLY necessary to attach a name to the victim? In the US at least, it's considered very bad form (not to mention an invasion of privacy) to prematurely identify victims. At the very least, time needs to be allowed to inform next of kin.
"Just say NO to all of the Social Network (sorry Slurping YOUR Life Networks). We had a life before this crap and we should be able to rise up and have one again PFB (Post FaceBook)."
Oh? We had life before cars and electricity, too. Thing is, once you reach a certain point, the momentum keeps it from reversing barring something of cataclysmic proportions. Basically, unless Facebook directly causes the loss of a significant percentage of the population, people will see Facebook as too useful to ignore, especially for people for whom it's the ONE AND ONLY form of contact (I speak firsthand on that). And no, various family values preclude ignoring people for whom Facebook is the exclusive contact point.
"I will never forget the $50 million taxpayers were extorted out of to keep the Hobbit movies here."
It's nothing new. The oil industry does it all the time: threaten to leave the country and take their tax revenues with them, leaving them with a choice: 10% of something (along with the jobs and payroll taxes) or 100% of nothing.
Many rangers already operate on those protocols. Problem is, the poachers counter by operating on "Let God Sort 'Em Out" protocols: killing and stripping all that get in their way. Thus they usually come armed to the teeth and ready for a war. Rangers have prices on their own heads, and even helicopters aren't safe.
The Chinese quacks will simply insist on fully-traced wild-grown rhino horn and will turn down any substitutes as not potent enough. And they won't accept scientific explanations for anything because they practice things that work yet defy science (like acupuncture).
"It would likely see other side effects such as poachers no longer being individuals with rifles, but groups with machine guns."
It's already at that point, and we're talking big stuff like BARs; they're capable of shooting at helicopters now. They even put prices on the heads of the rangers. The amount of money in the trade, they could wipe out every animal in central Africa and they wouldn't bat an eyelid.
"Since these business dealings like any good drug deal rely on repeat business and word of mouth that the product is good."
Not necessarily if the demand is not triggered by them (and it doesn't; it goes to fertility and involves nonphysical qualities, so they're picky about where the keratin comes from; after all, can science explain acupuncture?). So if there are enough potential clients, the sellers may not care about the customers. One dies, another will replace him.
Except some applications (like Windows X) don't play ball and use their own resolvers to get around strategies like yours. And because of things like SNI, it's tricky to block at the IP level without risking collateral damage (telemetry updates can use the same IP as security updates).
Plus you overestimate the intelligence of the average computer user.
It's not just that. The kids are rebellious enough to attack their parents. One dad tried to spank his kid, he spun around and stomped his dad's feet with both of his. Dad ended up with a broken foot, and with the police on notice, retribution is impossible. It's not just a matter of teaching discipline to them; they're less capable of learning, tending to retaliate instead...sometimes past the point of no return.
" If your phone is at home then you have an alibi that you weren't at the crime scene at the time of the crime. It doesn't matter about any one else because you're not going to be a suspect based on phone location data but the others are."
Wanna bet? What are the odds of you NOT being taken by SOME passing selfie as you pass? Same for all those surveillance cameras you may not know about? Unless you carry some EMP jammer on your person or know you have a shadow twin...
"1997/1998, Santa Barbara CA: A cop in a cruiser along turnpikes and highways... not everywhere, but often enough you saw one sitting at the curb monitoring traffic... Also, in Goleta, you wouldn't have to wait for campus cops to come to a phoned-in publicly drunk situation... the cops would arrive faster than you walk to the end of the block... That alone will keep a lot of folks in check..."
But even back in the 1970's cops were targeted. One episode of Adam-12 featured an ambush of two cops in their car by a black militia. Then we fast-forward to July 5 last year when a cop in the Bronx was shot in the head from behind. In his car. A flat-out cop hit. That's how little respect the police get these days, which doesn't speak well for their respect of civilization in general.
But then the wealthy and corporations do one of two things.
1. They move out of your jurisdiction, taking their money with them leaving you with 100% of nothing. If ever have to deal with your country again, they'll use shells with enough degrees of separation to keep all the big money out of it.
2. They band together to take over the government and then batten down the hatches to make sure they can't be dislodged again.
You see BOTH happening quite often in the USA.
"The village constable, in my day, knew what you were doing day in day out, because he walked the streets, and he talked to the people that he met. Poeple knew him, and he was approachable. Stuff got sorted out that way."
That was until people got nuts enough to target beat cops, on foot and in their cars, simply because they were cops. From then on, every police uniform has an invisible bullseye on its back. Eventually, you either (a) get them off the streets or (b) run out of recruits who view the job as suicide.
"Living here is getting scarier every day."
I consider that, but I also travel. As bad as the US is, many places elsewhere are still worse. For example, many places do not protect basic rights such as freedom of speech. Consider the concept of Lèse-majesté. At least Americans are free to insult the President. In many other places, it's a capital offense.
"1) Stop using Google for as much as possible"
Google uses you even when you don't use it. Unless you're a complete and total hermit out of site of even land-photography planes and satellites, the moment someone on Google identifies you, you're already screwed.
"2) Stop telling the world whay you are going to do on Social Media"
Like (1), your friends will do it for you.
"3) Lie when asked to fill in a survey. Give totally wrong information about yourself including use wrong but valid addresses"
Great, give the government and demographics firms a reason to pay you a personal visit instead. They can tell if you're lying. Ever heard of the Panda-B test?
"4) Disable GPS on your phone when you don't need it."
You know GPS is PASSIVE. You can use it without sending information back as long as you use a passive device.
"5) Stop using the Satnav for a 5 min drive to Tesco's/ASDA's. You know the way."
Not necessarily if they keep closing different roads every day.
"6) Shred or preferably burn every bit of paper that has your address on it rather than just throwing it away in Recycling."
One, people have shown enough patience to intercept and put trash back together a la jigsaw puzzles. Two, if you're THAT paranoid, you need to fear the Postal Service, which means you're already too late to shred, as they recorded the information before your mail ever got to you.
"7) Do the same to all those shop receipts where you paid by Card or say Apple Pay."
What about the STORE COPIES? Now you want us to break and enter into the stores to shread THOSE copies, too?
"There are many, many more things you can do to keep yourself out of the spotlight but basically stop making it easy for {redacted} to observe you and finagle their way into your life.."
Too late. It's already too easy to spy on you if they wish without any action on your part. Basically, to interact with society in any significant way, you WILL be profiled. It's the price of civilization. Think it's too high? Then you're an anarchist, plain and simple.
"Careless Talk and Actions can come back to hurt you big time."
ANY Talk and action can come back to hurt you...fatally, even. The whole "Give me six lines" business.
The problem becomes when they dovetail together: when the government and big business become intertwined together. Recall the Gilded Age when the robber barons and the like had enough power to influence governments. So you can't overlook either one.
As for Orwellian society, I think the Founding Fathers grossly overestimated the intelligence of the average human, who seems to prefer life in slavery to freedom in death.
"The social contract between the government and the governed has long been broken and one sided."
Then civilization was broken long ago and the unwashed masses prefer the police state. Sounds like the game was over long ago since someone among the government's going to be willing to Kill Em All if they're about to lose.
To which I ask Mr. Franklin, "What happens, then, when you find out that the ONLY way to get ANY form of safety, full stop, is to give up your liberties? Are you then willing to posit that civilization as you know it is doomed to failure?"
Because it's becoming more and more the case that things are polarizing such that it's going to become all or nothing.
"Do you know what would have happened just a few years ago if people even suspected the OS *might* be phoning home? A full riot."
To which I respond, "ORLY?" CCTV is NOT new technology, yet I never saw riots in the streets over them. I've never seen people literally DIE rather than fall under someone else's gaze a la Patrick Henry's quote, "Give me liberty or give me death." IOW, I think the Founding Fathers grossly overestimated the average human being.
Have you tried DOSBox? I've managed to get the 3dfx version of Carmageddon to work on it via a Flide-ti-OpenGL emulation layer. Now, if they can find a way to get the S3 ViRGE version of Terminal Velocity to work...
It is PHYSICALLY impossible to have BOTH anonymity AND attribution without resorting to some third party who can itself be subverted. It's just like with voting. You can either have a FREE (anonymous) vote or a TRUE (attribution) vote because security demands no third-party involvement.
Well, one basic way is to just hijack port 53 wholesale. That blocks custom DNS connections because they'll just redirect them all to their own server (it's a chokepoint, so unless you support nonstandard DNS standards or ports, you're stuck). Another basic way is to block all traffic wholesale until it spots the signature of an HTTP connection, which it then redirects to the portal.
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