[BenKenobi]

Love the article. Sums my feelings up just perfectly.

[relictele]

Beyond the practical considerations, the issue and the article demonstrate the folly of allowing novices to enact laws with no thought given to the consequences (intentionally or otherwise). See also: firearms, vehicles, alcohol.

[cuban leaf]

I’ve always enjoyed technology, but about 15 years ago it hit me that it WILL be our undoing more surely than the invention of the nuclear bomb. The article (which I just finished) touches on exactly some of the things that concern me.

It helps one understand the book of Revelation better too.

[cuban leaf]

He got into one very exciting, and scary thing” 3D printing, but sort of just implied gray goo without overtly discussing it.

[GonzoGOP]

The problem with congress regulating the internet can be expressed in one simple number; 58.2. That is the average age of member of congress. And the leaders are even older. Most don't know a darn thing about how the internet actually works.

In the beginning the internet was dominated by people who understood it. Most people had no contact with computers. That was something for nerds. Eventually the internet will in the same way most of us use a car. We can drive a car, but would never consider trying to decide what parts can be added or pulled out of the engine. OK Obama did just that with the Volt and we see how well that worked out.

Today we are now in the transition phase. Most people know just enough to be very dangerous. They think they understand the internet because they browse google or download an MP3 from iTunes. But they do not know what is going on in the black box. Worse yet they don't even realize that they don't know.

[mamelukesabre]

Seems to me we’ve already lost control of our own PCs and this is why the public is open to the concept of a “cloud”.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Oh Boy....

*****************************EXCERPT**********************************************

In fact, the Motion Picture Association of America, a SOPA proponent, circulated a memo citing research that SOPA might work because it uses the same measures as are used in Syria, China, and Uzbekistan. It argued that because these measures are effective in those countries, they would work in America, too!

[IamConservative]

Companies wanting to protect their copyright can. The technology exists to do it, it’s called encryption. However, these companies also realize implementing the solution will also dramatically reduce the opportunity for distribution.

[ctdonath2]

How could he write that much about that topic without mentioning the iOS (aka iPhone etc.) “walled garden”?

[buridan]

Very interesting. Thanks for posting!

[indthkr]

General-Purpose Computing:
1. Price
2. Performance
3. Security


=> Pick two.

[roamer_1]

What a great article - Thank you.

I think it will always boil down to the idea that knowledge always strives to be free - As a programmer with a line of software, I have resigned myself to that ‘Open Source’ inevitability. Governments will never be able to fully regulate information because of that principle... Nor will I. Copyright is only useful in preserving the integrity of the knowledge, not the knowledge itself.

And even that is questionable in it’s ability to be enforced. Someone can DL my source, change one byte of information and claim a wholly independent fork - It is the moral fiber of the individual which is at fault - and there is really nothing I can do to stop that from happening, nor is there anything anyone else can do either... just from the sheer volume of replication that is on-going. And that is not going to change.

The hackers are always going to be a step ahead, and those who know (and those who know ‘those who know’) will always be able to circumvent prevention measures simply because any prevention is an artificially derived limitation which can inevitably be overridden... because knowledge strives to be free. It has ALWAYS been so.

[zeugma]

BFL. No time

[ShadowAce]

[ShadowAce]

[frithguild]

Freedom in the future will require us to have the capacity to monitor our devices and set meaningful policies for them; to examine and terminate the software processes that runs on them; and to maintain them as honest servants to our will, not as traitors and spies working for criminals, thugs, and control freaks.

This was an action of trespass quare clausum fregit, tried at the Hudson Circuit at March Term 1845. The plaintiff complained that the defendants, on the 17th of August, 1843, and on divers other days between that day, and the commencement of the suit broke and entered the plaintiff's close, and there dug and carried away large quantities of earth, gravel and stone, and brought and deposited thereon large quantities of earth, gravel, and stone, and dug large ditches, drains and sluices, and thereby caused the water which fell during the rains to flow over upon the said close, and upon adjoining closes of the plaintiff, so that the same were thereby washed, and injured, the grain, grass, herbage, and trees destroyed, &c. the soil rendered less fertile, and large quantities of earth thrown against the barn, and into the cider mill of the plaintiff, being upon the said close. Vreeland v. Berry, 21 N.J.L. 183, 1847 WL 3015 (Supreme Court of Judicature N.J. 1847)

[Dysart]

Mark