Posts by Twaddle

America's hot and cold spots for broadband revealed in new map

Averages don't mean much

This map, while interesting does not paint a reality picture of the United States. We have VAST areas where there is absolutely NO service other than Satellite connection. The copper infrastructure is woefully under-maintained and thanks the to shills we call Congress and State and local govt we have ungodly anti-competitive environments with legalized monopolies abound. Efforts to "break" the monopolies end up in endless rounds of court delays and legal costs. We also have to remember that these are "reported" speed results which means that someone already has some sort of Internet connectivity. I lived in the SF Bay area (35 miles from San Francisco and San Jose and the "BEST" I could get for a long time as 2.5/768 over copper unless you went with the cable people(monopoly that hit you with rate hikes 2-3 times a year). Fortunately I no longer live there and enjoy 60/4 in a mountain community in North Carolina. Bottom line, its a matter of where you live in the US that is the biggest factor in whether you have broadband, have something better or something less. I'd like to see a map where there is NO broadband offered as well

Files aren’t property, says US government

You would be lucky IF you even saw a charge sheet these days in matters of "National Security" in the US of A. Just an allegation of possession of a data file can and will bring on a bad-ass gorilla into your life. National secrets would be considered knowlege as they are not physical but still are the property of the US govt and posession of national secrets in any form by anyone or any organization other than the US govt will be frowned upon.

Re: Good news for Wikipedia, Assange, and Manning

They could "confiscate" a copy of the data but they cannot confiscate the knowledge. Do not make the mistake of believing that govts work like sane rational human beings work.

Re: Property rights or the collection there of

Try telling the powers that be that they have no rights to the information/knowledge on your PC, notebook etc. Time and time again authorities "seize" the intelectual property of private citizens and if its encrypted, demand the key to access that "information/knowledge" or be punished. Hmmm an encryption key is knowledge and knowledge can't be owned.

We are going through an "angels on the head of a pin" discussions and in the end its the biggest baddest gorilla who will prevail and all this discussion is moot. One's rights exist as long as one can protect such rights. In this case the guy has no way to protect his rights because he can't protect what he doesn't have possession of. The Cloud Computing/storage concept is on its death bed due to this notion. HP, Dell, IBM et al- are you listening???

Welcome to Amerika

Believe me, the posession of a "file" by unauthorized persons of CIA origins on a persons system or physical body (a la thumb drive or ANY other form of storage) is a quick way to gain access to places like Gitmo or a discrete fatal administration of a measured amount of lead to the cranium. The US govt (most govts in fact) is famous for wanting things both ways. It's property and can be possessed when and if it suits them and its not property and can't be possessed when and if it suits them. I do love my country but disagree with some of their thought processes and administration of law.One must be sure to be of sound mind before dealing with our Feds because after dealing with them you will question your sanity.