An invalid cert means you could be susceptible to a man in the middle attack. But even with an invalid cert, you're still more protected than without SSL. An educated user can make an educated decision. Unfortunately we are talking about mass market computer users, who as anyone in IT can tell you do the stupidest things imaginable on a daily basis. We're also dealing with web site operators that just want to put something up and let the server deal with everything with a minimum of hassle. Doing SSL at all is not easy, and doing it right is hard.
In the military, they have a standard that all technical manuals must be written for a 4th grade reading level. How to operate the tank? 400 pages that an average 10 year old could understand (with enough attention span). Every piece of open source software should have the same goal, not just for its documentation (you do have docs, right?), but for its API design. Instead, as I read in another comment by jandrese: "All of the APIs are apparently written with the thought that anyone messing with SSL should have PhD in cryptography first, because otherwise they're just going to screw it up."
We should concentrate on educating Web designers to only use HTTPS when it's really appropriate and necessary.
No we shouldn't. HTTPS should be everywhere. A somewhat insecure implementation of SSL is better than no SSL. Further, everything should be encrypted so that we can have some basic level of privacy. It's also not a good idea to raise a red flag for hackers to see over every "appropriate and necessary" use of strong encryption. And finally, if you want it to be illegal to spy on you, it helps to have the DMCA on your side. Any attempt to protect communications makes it a crime to break the encryption no matter how trivial it is to do so (based on my not lawyerly understanding; I am not responsible if this assumption gets you into trouble).
But it's the job of government to serve all of its consituents' best interests, not to make a profit come hell or high water.
You've got a point there, but it isn't even necessary. Mitt Romney can make a profit come hell or high water. All that Carly Fiorina can do is torpedo a successful company's profits and market share. It's reasonable (if misguided) to think that a successful CEO might have some skills that apply to political office. But Carly Fiorina is about as far from a successful CEO as you can get.
I said logistical support
It's a real shame that most people don't understand the vast majority of military action is logistics. I know it's off topic, but I would really, really love to play a strategy game that at least gave a nod to this huge facet of all military operations larger than border skirmishes.
Science and the scientific method evolved alongside and informed by philosophy for the last several thousand years. Nearly all prominent figures in science prior to the foundation of the modern scientific method were primarily philosophers (Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes, et al). The scientific method we use today has enabled many intelligent people to pursue knowledge without needing to first understand the limits of our own perceptions and understanding, i.e. philosophy. But philosophy is still the foundation of why the scientific method works at eliminating the bias that creeps in from the human element.
If you live in a Time Warner area, saying "no" to Time Warner means saying no to cable and usually to internet above DSL speeds. For some of us, that service is more valuable than any message we might send by refusing to support Time Warner. Not much of a choice, really.
If you house catches fire, your tax dollars paid for the fire department to come save you. We as a society have decided that you can't say "no" to funding the fire department, because plenty of short sighted idiots will do just that and their houses will burn down. Even worse, if people could make that decision, the government would need to spend even more tax money on keeping track of who has and has not paid for that service. And further, the fire department would still have to show up and make sure that the fire in your house doesn't spread to nearby houses that are protected. Some government services are universally good for society and can only be effective if everyone pays for them.
Of course not every government program is a fire department. That's why our government has constitutional limits to what it can do. Unfortunately those limits have broken down over the last 70 years as people of all political persuasions and branches of government have pushed to make all laws national. You see, the strictest limits are imposed on the federal government, which can only make laws about very narrowly specific things (which have been interpreted less narrowly over time). Federal government is supposed to be weaker than state government because individual voters have less power over it. But as society has become more complex and interconnected, and voters have adopted a larger context to our lives, it is ourselves that have pushed for more and more power to which we have less power to say "no".
So ultimately, it's right that we can't say "no" to the IRS. But we clearly don't have as much power as we should over where that money goes. The solution is to get more involved with local politics and put our emphasis on state government. Historically, the Democrats were for states' rights until FDR; after that the Republicans paid lip service to the idea, but it's pretty clear nowadays that nobody in Washington is serious about abdicating power to the states. And the unfortunate thing is that the states simply aren't prepared to take that power. They would have to raise taxes and gain power, and especially with most state governments controlled by Republicans that simply isn't going to happen. So the federal government can't just give up its power until the states are ready to take it, or else the unelected corporations (Time Warner et al) will expand to fill the resulting power vacuum.
To make a car analogy...Macs are like the Honda Civics of the computer market. They probably cost more used than they're worth, but there's a good reason for it. A 20 year old Honda is more likely to still work right than a 20 year old Chevy, and you pay a premium for that. So when you're buying a new car, if you want it to last a long time, you might take that into consideration and buy a Honda. Of course not everybody does, because people that buy new cars don't usually care if it will work right when it's 10 years old. If you want the latest technology, maybe you shouldn't buy a Mac unless you really want to spend several thousand on a new computer every year. But at least you won't have to buy a new one next year if you don't want to.
Don't read too far into the analogy because it will break down quickly beyond the reliability metric.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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So apparently Watson didn't play Jeopardy. Apparently it was the programmers who played Jeopardy, using Watson as a tool. Does that prove Watson is not intelligent?
Let's say a fictional Dr. Sorenson, unscrupulous and backed by a powerful and wealthy totalitarian state with no regard for human life, has several dozen children upon which to conduct unrestricted psychological experiments. After years of research and careful conditioning, he has succeeded in programming a child to disregard all concerns except the acquisition of knowledge and the ability to understand complex and tricky queries. This child is completely subservient to Dr. Sorenson's instructions. It grows and learns over the next 20 years, a human tool to the evil Doctor. After that time has passed, the state wants to prove that its children are the best educated in the world, and so taps Dr. Sorenson's research to do so. The child is to travel to America with a team of caretakers, much like Watson, and play Jeopardy. The child is not exercising free will or otherwise acting in any recognizably human manner; it only is acting out years of conditioning and controlled learning. Clearly, it is actually Dr. Sorenson that is playing Jeopardy, using the child as a tool. Does that prove that the child is not intelligent?
It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. - Voltaire
