Re: When the Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth...
Personally, the yardstick that I use is the basic "act as you wish others would act", but yours is very good as well.
5648 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Feb 2015
"I imagine that quite a few of the top brass at, say, Facebook are alarmed at how successfully their echo chamber has been subverted by different parties."
I don't.
I think that Facebook is quite alarmed that too many people in the public at large may be becoming aware of this stuff. I don't think they actually care at all about it otherwise.
I agree with most of what Schneier says here, except for this part:
"The reason for this American impasse, Schneier said, was that politicians stateside don't have a clue about the internet, and how it works and can be abused."
Clueless politicians are an important part, but I don't think they're the main reason for the impasse. I think the main reason is that the major companies involved actively don't want any of this to happen and are doing everything they can to make sure it doesn't.
"Azure has been successful only because it was the only good path for MS developers and customers"
I don't know about "only". Judging by the extreme (and extremely insulting) hard sell that a couple of Microsoft reps gave to us about Azure last year, some of that success is likely to be from arm-twisting. Although that didn't work with us -- they managed to anger management so much they committed to never even considering the use of Azure in the future.
Like with Notepad, the value and utility of Calc is that it's basic. Basic enough that I don't know why it needs a community around it. The only thing that's likely to do is to increase the number of features and complexity of the thing, which would ruin the main thing that I find useful about it.
"My Yubikey lives on my phone. It's got a USB interface for plugging into the PC/Laptop, and NFC support for the phone to communicate with."
Since my phone is the least secure and trustworthy device I own and use, I don't (and won't) use it for any 2FA-related purpose.
"while the networks CLAIM that 5G will improve coverage"
Which is very strange claim, as each 5G antenna has a much shorter range than previous cell technologies. That means that more antennas are required to cover the same area. How this will make coverage an easier thing to achieve is a bit mysterious to me.
It worked reasonably well for me. I only had to go off on two people in my social circle about including me in any way with Facebook, and now (as near as I can tell), I don't have that problem anymore. Several of my friends and family think I'm being overly sensitive about it, but they respect my stance regardless.
If I discovered that someone routinely ignores my wishes on this, I would most likely cut them out out of my social circle entirely on the basis that they can't be trusted.
"Do FB staff avoid admitting that's who they work for ? Are people turning down a FB job offer because of peer and family pressure ?"
We'll be there when having Facebook in your work history makes it more difficult to find work elsewhere. That's a trend that I'm already seeing that start of.
Facebook is a vile company who will continue to abuse everyone until the day they go out of business. No surprise there.
"Users have the option to remove their phone number from their account, though that would preclude using it for account recovery."
Which they should absolutely do. Not just with Facebook, but with all 2FA. Nobody should be using a cell phone as part of 2FA, whether it's Facebook's system or anybody else's.
"Dont change the physical interface from the current/USB-C formfactor."
But please do stop shoving all those incompatible signals through USB-C. As it is right now, we're back in the dark ages when cables that look identical on the outside can inserted into the wrong sockets and physically damage your devices. We're going to have to start labeling our cables and sockets again and remembering to double-check everything before plugging anything in.
It's insanity.
The Big Problem that USB solved was that it made connecting an managing peripherals much easier and less error-prone that it had been with the legacy serial port. However, beginning with USB 3, that advantage seems to have been eliminated.
USB4 promises to make that even worse, particularly since it will use USB-C, which makes the complexity problem worse than ever all by itself.
We'll see, though. Maybe they're work this out in the end. In the meantime, I'm going to stick with USB2. If I need high speed data transfer, I'm not using USB anyway, so 2 is just fine.
"I have no idea whether its the exception or the rule these days."
As near as I can tell, it's the norm when you're talking about certain groups from other industries and areas and the exception everywhere else.
Silicon Valley companies have pretty much become the epitome of the sorts of businesses that profit by harming people and society.
"What the many of us seem not to have noticed is that behind the code these tech people are sharks just like the captains of industry have always been."
What amazes me is that so many people didn't catch on when they started saying things like "data is the new oil". Had everyone forgotten what the behavior of oil companies was (and is)? They were essentially declaring their intention to become evil right then and there.
I honestly don't understand how Title II is inappropriate for internet service providers. It seems 100% appropriate and correct to me.
The problem here is that the telecoms have been intentionally (and successfully) conflating two different things: the internet itself, and the services that run on the internet.
The internet itself is nothing but a telecommunications network, conceptually no different than the phone network. Title II is clearly and obviously the correct classification of it.
ISPs also run their own services on top of that telecommunications network (such as VoIP, email, streaming, etc.). Those services are distinct from the internet, and those services are clearly and obviously Title I.
"if scalpers make money by selling tickets for more than the regular price, then the band and/or the organizers could make more money by selling tickets for higher than the regular price, so no matter how you look at it, these people are stealing from the artist."
I disagree. No matter how you look at it, if you buy something you are not stealing from anyone if you resell it at a price higher than you bought it for.