Back doors and encryption

[garote]

In physical communications, the level of personal privacy and ease of interception form an inverse relationship, and we all instinctively understand this. A shout is less private than a whisper. A wave in a crowd is less private than a touch on your shoulder. Skywriting is not at all private. An unvoiced thought is the most private of all

Comments

[ex_juan_gan]

There is a solution. Just to run away from all this. Somehow I'm sure that if you are a native Alaskan in a village, this will hardly touch you. As to what will happen 50 years from now, or 500 years from now... so far a bunch of pessimistic predictions have been very wrong.

[garote]

Ooooh you can run, but you can't hide. ;)

Also just about every Alaskan village has a cell tower and satellite internet now, and all the decent-sized towns are wired to the point where they offer wireless internet in hotels and RV parks!

[ex_juan_gan]

Wow, really? Have you been there? Have you seen those mostly abandoned villages? It's an emptiness, as I remember.

[garote]

I went through there in 2004, before Ye Olde Smartphone Revolution, and there was still plenty of internet to be had.

Plenty of luddites too, of course. The most interesting encounter was with a half-drunk guy in Valdez who saw the GPS receiver stuck to the side of my van and concluded that I was some kind of terrorist planning an attack.

[android606]

Where do you think all those cat pictures come from? Do you really think people intentionally post those for the whole world to see??

[android606]

Speaking of cats, I'm really glad my cat doesn't have a psychic internet peanut. I think I might like her less if I really knew what she was thinking.

[garote]

I bet you have a pretty darned accurate idea of what she's thinking anyway!!

[pigshitpoet]

HOUELLEBECQ
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<... )

[garote]

Well the short answer would be, anyone who wants to make money without getting out of their chair. :D

Interesting quote about entering the workforce. I imagine it feels that way when people make no effort to match what they do for a living with what interests them. Sure, most people don't have a lot of choice, but anyone above blue-collar work at least, must have some degree of freedom.

I don't agree with the part of the quote about sex though. "Because they're ugly" actually has surprisingly little to do with having a sex life. "Because they're abrasive, selfish, and unobservant" has a lot more to do with it... But people don't like hearing that because it contradicts their belief that because they maintain their body to a certain standard, they therefore deserve to have sex with people who appear to match that standard.

[pigshitpoet]

short version, down to the short-hairs, i would say yes! absolutely.. not 'because they're ugly', that is just a projection by someone equally insecure in themselves, i would say moreso, fashionable or poor, there is more likely 'no accounting for taste'.. the word deserve also bothers me. it is more a matter of choice, you either want to or you don't or you are confused. i have been all three. sometimes i am very attracted to someone who could be labeled ugly by western media fashionista society standards. at the same time i find some of the new wave fashion also to be repulsive (to me). so what i hear you saying is that in the variety of fabric of people and focuses in society, it is a matter of personal choice or permission, depending which end of the stick you be at

[android606]

Dang, kids. I'm happy if I can eat a pizza and watch some donkey porn once in a while, in peace.

I know for certain that the NSA is keeping a database full of my pizza orders. Who knows what sorts of insidious things they might do with that information?!

Also, cats.

[android606]

Not to add to the paranoia or anything, but every Intel chipset has a GPRS and 802.11 radio built in. It's always there and powered on, even in devices that don't have wireless data like tablets or desktop PCs. It's in the design specs, and with the right firmware you can twiddle the bit to turn it on and off, but nobody there seemed to have any idea what it was actually for. It's not directly accessible from the OS with production release firmware.

Illuminati confirmed.

[garote]

Well. silicon is cheap...
Remember that furor back in the 90's over how Intel was putting a unique serial number into each Pentium chip, and how this would supposedly enable secure online commerce, and how critics claimed it was all about spying and destroying anonymity?

So much for all that. eh? :D

[android606]

Hah hah yeah, soon every bit of every byte will have a government-mandated serial number stamped on it!

[garote]

That creates an interesting recursion problem for the feds. :D