Re: Just a point of clarification...
"Expecting a congress critter to think at all is like expecting the statue of liberty to tango."
It takes two to tango.
2726 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Apr 2007
"compared to the transparent good sense of the originators of the original set."
Which were snatched up by Freenom, a Dutch company that specializes in taking advantage of poor African countries. I've got a few of those domains (.cf .ml) myself and would love to pay for them if the money went to those countries instead of towards some European executive's second BMW.
" I suspect this is a conflict between an independent businesswoman and a state-sponsored group."
You may have nailed it there, but it is long story. How much Sophia Bekele really toots her own horn is somewhat off-putting. However, she's been working on this for a long time and also worked for ICANN so may be a good contender. To be fair though it's important to note that the TLD will be managed by the DotConnectAfrica Trust. The other contender, South Africa’s ZA Central Registry (ZACR), has apparently received endorsement of the African Union whereas Bekele's group didn't. Here's an older, and African, article about this. Actually, the whole thing is a right mess. Wikipedia outlines the .africa history.
"Windows, still held together with tape and bailing wire."
Actually I think it is user loyalty and market share which is holding it together. When Mark Zuckerberg comes up with a native Facebook OS, MS-Windows will be toast because it won't serve any purpose outside a business environment.
- PC market shambling towards an unquiet grave
- The two are agreed that the market remains in sharp decline.
It's a way of talking that fits short sighted bean counters. The reality is that not so many are being sold lately and likely things are just levelling off. Like the "decline" of the CD this could be news for the next 10 years or more.
". . . If enterprises don't start making strides towards defensible architecture today, massive ransoms may end up getting paid tomorrow."
Nothing is perfect, but I am disappointed that the all inclusive word "enterprises" is used here instead of mentioning exactly whom this is referring to. At the extremes there are a number of operating systems which are indeed working specifically on this task. Even some more common ones make this an important consideration. I feel that some very hard working software architects are being unfairly put down here.
No need for extraordinary or malicious measures. There are safe pranks which can effectively be applied here. USB sticks filled with one of the standard stink bomb mixtures and heating up when you plug them in will work fine. When the office smells like rotten egg and faeces, the culprit will be shamed.
"Too optimistic a view."
I see how you would think so, and I agree with the rest of your post. I didn't mean to sound optimistic though. I'm very pessimistic about this situation and suggest that all we do, even though we need to do it, will be for nothing in the end. These governments are on a track to shut down any free speech and related freedoms, that it will be very many years before the people regain control through legal means.
I'm not entirely sure that the government doesn't have a big role here, at least on the municipal level. First of all, they will have to build, or encourage through tax incentives, many more recycling facilities to deal with the surge in broken or obsolete equipment. And then there's the increase in landfill requirements. They should probably start right now by buying more more garbage trucks.
". . . 0.1% of the entire dark web or 0.2% of the legal dark web. Check you out."
Thanks. Actually, I don't think it is so easy to measure how many there are. One thing about .onion sites though is that they are dead easy to set up and can be hosted anywhere because they don't need an IP and so NAT is no issue. There's no need to get/buy an IP or domain name. It's very convenient - and they're certainly not "illegal".
Actually, I should have mentioned above that Tor Browser is not only Firefox with Tor, but it looks and works much like Firefox for your daily browsing.
It never was. It's just an alternate network. In fact this quote from the article:
"websites are hard to find, unless you’re in the know, and sites on the dark web cannot be reached without the use of specialized software."
is complete bullshit. Just download the Tor Browser and you're on. While you're there you can download Darwin's Origin of Species, the Bible, Koran, or other controversial classics from one of my sites here http://ibgk7stvp6bov6x6.onion Of course all these onion sites can be reached from the clearnet as well and you'll find them on Google too. This darknet nonsense has got to be the joke of the century.
PS: The Tor Browser is just a recent version of Firefox with the Tor protocol built in. Also, to reach onion sites, you can just append .to on the end of the address. There are other suffixes which work sometimes like .nu. But why not just do a search here https://ahmia.fi/.
the social networking giant was given unspecified demands to allow surveillance and, when that was refused, the service was suspended. This despite claims from the Egyptian government that Free Basics was actually suspended because it competed with commercial service providers.
Or could they mean competing with government services?
I think the obligation to verify is the big thing here. Will they actually enforce that? I note that ICANN has a real name policy and they do enact it on occasion, but one can generally give fake information if one is so inclined. Another example is Russia who, as I just experienced, ask for passport information when registering their ccTLD. However, that seems to be mostly bureaucratic posturing as they apparently don't verify.
"Just curious, but why is everybody blindly accepting what the FBI are telling us when they say that they unlocked the phone? Surely they're capable of lying?"
Of course they're lying. They saw a possibility of loosing the case and thus weakening their next try. So they came up with this plan. They know they can't be forced to give proof, but I say pix or it didn't happen.
Indeed. When the subject matter is not understood, then a survey makes little sense.
In an international survey (24,000 respondents in 24 countries), the group claims more than 70 per cent want the “dark net” shut down (which rests on the assumption that 70 per cent of people actually know what the “dark net” is).
Most of the darknet isn't actually dark and is available on clearnet by appending .nu or .link to the onion address. I run "dark net" sites for a number of reasons - just like other folk do. One is an art project available as an onion site, though also available on clearnet like this. Seriously, if people surveyed have no experience with the topic, what do their answers really mean?
One would think that the mark would realize that the authorities don't use e-mail and all communication, such as a speeding ticket from an automated camera are sent to the address on record for the owner of the licence plate. That is the way it works in this province (Canada BC). I suspect jurisdictions where e-mail will suffice for delivery of legal papers would be rare, or even non existent.
"Seems you got the wrong end of the stick there."
wat? I'm responding to the post directly above me.
I'm suggesting to those who are complaining about sarcasm that it would be a good idea to not comment on something they admittedly don't understand - the above article notwithstanding.
"There being a narrower channel is an explanation for why some people do find it difficult to convey or infer tone from text, but it's not something that makes "tone is difficult to convey in text" a fact."
This really deserves some more upvotes. Why is it that some people who are less accomplished at these forms of communication complain about the use by those who are accomplished? I have difficulty understanding French, but I don't complain about other people using it.
"He has a future so long as he can continue to co-exist with all the restraints and pressures around him. But I'm not sure that's being long-lived. And I don't see him ever being accepted back here."
It must be near impossible to live within the restraints and pressures if one works for the US government. And if one does, then it would be hard to live with oneself - sociopaths excepted of course.
The thing is that he was still fighting the same fight then, the Telcos just forgot. When Wheeler was lobbying for cable companies they were the underdog. Now that they're on top, it's time to view them differently. The Telcos were touting Wheeler's appointment as a huge win at first. Being not of that same persuasion themselves, they forgot that some people work from principles.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's certificates are current and expire on March 22 of 2016, the report puts it like this:
C=US, O=DigiCert Inc, OU=com.digicert.www, CN=DigiCert SHA2 High Assurance Server CA
OK, you tell me how one can read "March 22 of 2016" from that. I give up.
"I'd much rather enforce laws against false advertising than laws against astroturfing."
False advertising is never likely to be enforceable. You're supposed to know that if you buy that new car advertised with the two sexy ladies that the ladies are not included. Did you want to see a disclaimer on the ads?
“80 to 90 per cent” of publishers will simultaneously block the ad blockers for the month of August.
Your self censoring is commendable. Anybody who doesn't have their blocker yet, uBlock Origin is a good one.