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Comment Re:Of course (Score 1) 141

Because if you didn't, when (he he....maybe "if") the entire Internet finally switches to IPv6, you'd have to run 4to6 hacks on your router, and probably have large swathes of the Internet unreachable, because your IPv4 internal network doesn't have the capability to properly address the IPv6 address space.
Much easier to just use IPv6 internally to begin with.

Comment Re:Metadata (Score 1) 175

Most snail mail is read and sorted by machines before it gets to the postman.
There is ample opportunity to collect metadata electronically with snail mail.

A snail mail letter can be dropped into a bulk, anonymous mailbox outside a variety store miles from your home/workplace, with no return address, and still get to where it needs to go. That makes the connections between sender and receiver impossible to track.

This isn't possible for email, as it needs an email account to be sent from.

Comment Re: it is the wrong way... (Score 1) 291

If CO2 isn't pollution, I challenge you to breathe a bag of it.

So, let's see what else is classified as "pollution" by this idiotic definition:

- 100% pure water? Check.
- 100% pure nitrogen? Check.
- Grandma's homemade apple pie? Check.
- the natural marble countertops in my kitchen? Check.

Wow. I guess just about every piece of matter in the entire universe is pollution, huh?

Comment Re:it is the wrong way... (Score 1) 291

How do you recommend governments act to reduce carbon emissions?

Of the 186 billion or so tons of carbon that are dumped into the atmosphere on an annual basis from various sources, human activity - ALL human activity - is responsible for less than 10 billion of those.
Historically, we're at the tail end of an interglacial period, which happens every 100,000 years (and have for millions of years), give or take, and last between 15,000 and 20,000 years, on average. When this interglacial period ends, we're going to be dumped back into an ice age, just as has happened every single time the earth has had an interglacial period in the past. Reducing carbon emissions will do nothing to encourage or prevent this, as warming and cooling cycles have happened consistently for millions of years, despite CO2 ppm ranges from the current 380 or so, up to over 7000 in the Cambrian period. Late in the Ordovician Period was actually an ice age, even though atmospheric CO2 was over 4000 ppm. Anti-carbon global warming proponents typically state that 450-500 ppm is a "tipping point" after which there will be no way to stop a runaway greenhouse effect. If this was true, we wouldn't be here, and the earth would already be a second, uninhabitable Venus.
Right now, we're roughly 18,000 years into an interglacial that, historically, should last between 15,000 and 20,000 years. When the current trend of global warming started, 18,000 years ago, it was (obviously) well before industrial pollution, smokestacks, automotive exhaust, etc. Despite this, the average earth temperature climbed by approximately 9 degrees Celsius, and sea levels rose by 300 feet. The 1 or 2 degrees for the last century or so that we're panicking over right now isn't even close to the limit of natural temperature changes due to these cycles, so it's absolutely impossible to state that human activity is causing any temperature changes at all. The last 120 years of temperature changes aren't even statistical noise in the history of the earth. Incidentally, right now is not even the warmest global average temperature in recent history. During a period extending roughly from AD 1000 to 1300, there was a period called the "Medieval Warm Period" which was slightly warmer than it currently is today. This was followed by a "mini ice age" for about 650-700 years, which we are currently emerging from. The currently slight warming trend is almost guaranteed to be due to this, rather than atmospheric CO2. This Medieval Warm Period isn't the warmest recent period that we know of, though. From approximately 7500 years ago to 4000 years ago was a period known as the Holocene Maximum, which is the hottest period in human history.

Now, when the current interglacial ends - and it will - we'll be dumped into another ice age, as I've already stated. During the last ice age, the entire land mass of what is now Canada was completely covered in glaciers. These extended to large parts of the northern US. Similarly, large swathes of Russia and China were buried under ice, as well as England, Scandinavia, etc.
The amount of water tied up in glaciers during this period made the rest of the warmer part of the earth very dry and barren compared to today. Forested areas were very limited, and what wasn't forested was pretty much inhospitable. Today, thanks to natural global warming, the earth is a relative paradise, with plant and animal life in huge areas that were nothing but ice 20,000 years ago.
This is what we're headed back towards, within, at absolute most, 2000 years. With the severe reductions in arable farmland, there is absolutely no way that an ice age earth could support the 7 billion people currently living on this rock. We're concerned about a few thousand deaths and a fair amount of economic damage if sea levels rise a few feet, but completely ignoring the billions of starvation and disease deaths that will happen when the earth enters its next ice age. If it's true that increases in atmospheric CO2 will cause significant global warming (despite all the geological evidence to the contrary), then it might be the only thing that could prevent the next ice age. We should be dumping as much CO2 into the atmosphere as we can, to try to stave off this eventuality.

So, to answer your question of what governments should do to limit CO2 emissions:
Absolutely nothing.

Comment Re: Probe requests should be manual (Score 1) 112

GPS is completely passive (unless you use AGPS, but even then it doesn't leak a lot of information).

I know that.

You can use GPS without any network connection, and nobody will know.

This thread/discussion is about using GPS to figure out which network connection(s) to look for and connect to, so this statement, while true, is not even remotely applicable to the topic.

If you record and leak location information, that is not particular to GPS and can only be avoided by not using any location service at all.

Also true. However, most people have apps installed on their Android phone. Too many Android apps request fine location permission for no legitimate reason. I assume a lot of the free ones that display ads want location so they only display ads for brick and mortar businesses that are geographically relevant. Even for this, though, the coarse, network-based location service would be much more accurate than necessary.

See my response to your sibling post, as well.

Comment Re: Probe requests should be manual (Score 1) 112

The article is about eavesdropping on probe requests that a device sends. In my proposal, a device would first listen for signals from GPS satellites to narrow the list of hidden SSIDs before determining which probe requests to send. Could you explain how using a GPS receiver to narrow down these probe requests would be "potentially even more intrusive"?

Because way too many programs on Android request fine location permission. Yes, this is a problem with the programs themselves, but that's why I said "potentially." However, every time your phone turned on the GPS momentarily to determine location and therefore which probes to send, any or all of these programs, if installed, would be able to snag your exact location, and send it off to the developer on the next network connection.

Comment Re:Cisco is an accomplice? (Score 1) 255

Does this make every link, switch, and router on the route an accomplice? Why not?

No. The vast majority of data that flows through a switch is not involved in a crime. Tor is explicitly designed to hide user's identity. It is widely understood to be the tool of choice for trafficking in illegal goods. Most people who are not committing crimes do not use it.

If Cisco started building switches with special features designed to evade the law, they would be an accomplice to crimes that used those features. They don't, and Tor does.

How does "hide the user's identity" == "evading the law"?

Comment Re:What a crazy situation (Score 1) 149

Considering that #1 non-disease loss of life is due to car crashes (maybe it is guns in the US, but US is special in that regard) and significant portion of these involve speeding, they are not investing enough in speed traps. I would definitely welcome more speed traps. Speed kills, and clearly people cannot understand that basic fact.

So your solution to traffic accident deaths is to reduce the speed at which the accident occurs, thereby improving the chances of the people involved of surviving?
Wouldn't a better solution be to prevent the accident altogether? Since death can occur at speeds as low as 7-8 mph (a friend of mine was a cop, and saw it happen more than once - broken neck.), that means at best, reducing speeds will prevent some deaths, but not all. Not to mention the damage to vehicles that must be repaired, damage to the environment from leaking automotive fluids, etc.etc.

How about this: Get the complete morons who shouldn't be put behind the wheel of a golf cart off the road, and we'll have far fewer accidents, regardless of what the speed limit is.
I know, I know....study after study shows that accident rates increase when speed limits increase. Well, there's a very subtle, but massive selection bias in every single one of those studies. They only select people who've been in accidents. What they actually prove is that people who are likely to get into an accident are more likely to get into one at a higher speed. They don't include the guy who's been driving at 35 over the limit for a 40 mile trip to work and back for 40 years, and never been in an accident.

Have you seen those "<Country>'s Worst Driver" shows? Have you ever stopped to think that every incompetent, useless driver on every one of those shows has passed a driver's test? What is wrong with this picture? The problem isn't speed limits. It starts WAAAAY before we ever get there. The problem is, practically worldwide, we're letting complete incompetents behind the wheel of a car.

Here's another thing: Have an at fault accident in most jurisdictions, and you'll get fined. Have an accident that kills someone, and you'll probably still just get fined. Have another one 6 months later, and you'll get fined again. Barring your being drunk at the time, though, the chances of you losing your licence are slim to none.
However, if you fail to pay a $35 parking ticket, when you try to renew your licence, you won't be able to.
Road safety isn't important to the powers that be. They just want to make sure they get their money from you, that's all. Which is exactly the same thing as the GP claims, with law enforcement using speed traps as revenue generators.

Comment Re:Enjoy (Score 1) 361

The feds have been tagging talk radio listeners, gun enthusiasts and others as "extremists" in training material and other non-public documents for years now.

How's it feel?

The precedent is long set, but you didn't care when it started because you agreed with it at the time; "teabaggers herp derp."

Too late now, fuckers. Keep your head down.

I've never agreed with it. A gun enthusiast is no different from a racing enthusiast. A talk radio listener is no different from a /. visitor. An 'other' is no different from you or I. For the government to tag any of these as "extremists" or "needs closer monitoring" or anything else, is just wrong.

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