That seems like a fairly slim bit of legal weasel-wording given that nowhere is "your airspace" in the slices of spectrum that wifi uses. I would certainly agree that 'containment' should only be performed in 'your airspace'; but there is no such space.

In private buildings that don't offer guest services or otherwise accommodate outsiders, you can certainly disconnect anything you don't approve of from the wired LAN, and ask anyone operating a hotspot to leave or be removed for trespassing; but the notion that you enjoy preferential rights to that spectrum by virtue of owning the building is simply unsupported.

Yeah, except that doesn't work well for a service. If they have people abusing it, they fire them, and/or prosecute them. And that is what needs discussion.

Its more like if an adult got some DWIs and they took their license away. Yeah, they can't be trusted with a car, but they still need to get to work because it isn't a matter of not getting their allowance money, they need to do their job to support their family and even their job place will suffer if they can't work.

In that case, the solution is public transit, or taxis, or someone driving them. Or in lesser cases, they still let you drive with an interlock device.

You really can't just say the law enforcement can't do something like this and take it away for awhile. Otherwise, you can't enforce laws and regulations. And when that happens, people get hurt, physically and financially. They either need it or not. If they need it, they can abuse it just as well later as they can now. We need a real solution other than taking it away.

They were allowed to borrow the family car on weekends. Then one night Dad saw them drag racing and trenching yards in the family car. Now they are not allowed to borrow the family car.

This is just them whining that they can't go to work now (if they had a job, that is) or the library to study (The 4 Ds on the report card suggest that wasn't likely to happen anyway).

Perhaps one day, when they are behaving responsibly and have built up trust again, they might occasionally be allowed to borrow the car again, but they will be checked up on and it won't be this year.

All agreed, though I am increasingly of the view that systemic bias in favour of the accused is not sufficient. Merely being dragged through the legal system even if ultimately found not guilty is sure to be stressful, time-consuming, and possibly costly in more ways than one. People who have committed even quite serious crimes are sometimes released immediately after conviction on the basis that they've already served as much or more time than their sentence -- but of course, someone who was entirely innocent and not convicted in court also served that time. Right now you're unlikely to get much financial compensation for any of that, and even less any obligation for those who caused the damage to do anything else to set the record straight or otherwise make things right as much as possible.

The more I've thought about these kinds of issues as I get older, the more I think our modern "justice" systems are no longer fit for purpose, if indeed they ever were. In particular, they take an absurd amount of time and resources to deal with trivial infractions, sometimes at a cost to all involved that is far greater than any damage done by the alleged act itself. For major cases, the court proceedings can cost millions and drag on for years, and by the time they are finally over the result is no longer relevant anyway.

I think we would probably do much better if we built on the kinds of distinction we already make about severity: misdemeanour vs. felony in the US, magistrates vs. crown courts here in the UK, small claims courts with less formal procedures for minor civil disputes, and so on. For example, I don't see why any very minor offence can't be fully tried and a judgement made within a single court session and within a matter of days after the alleged infraction. Either there is clear evidence to convict, or you acquit. If you convict in a fast track procedure, you have strict limits on the level of penalty that can be imposed.

Then for repeated minor offences within some defined time period or for more serious crimes (probably anything including violence that allegedly caused significant injury and/or damage needing repairs exceeding a certain cost, for example) you can extend the timescales involved to a degree to allow for more careful preparation of the case, perhaps increase the degree of scrutiny in terms of magistrates vs. judge and jury and allow the use of expert witnesses, and so on.

Crucial to all of this, in my ideal world, would be the idea that there was also proper compensation for anyone brought through the system at any given level but not ultimately found guilty, making it not cost effective to bring cases in the first place without a reasonable expectation of a conviction. No doubt experienced lawyers could come up with much better ideas for the specific details of any such system, but I think the idea of having more well-defined tiers with strict limits on applicability and proportionate compensation arrangements is basically a sound one.

And as a direct result, Adams lost the next election and 2 of the 4 (the most egregious ones) were expired the very next year.

#insert observations/law/drferris.h

(preprocessed for your convenience)

"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted â" and you create a nation of law-breakers â" and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.â

A funny idea I had once was that after the revolution, the new government gets a 100 page blank notebook to write the laws in.

Once they fill up the last page, all of them are executed.

The next group of guys gets a 100 page blank book.

I agree with your basic point about the need for balance. Of course there are bad people in the world and of course we need police and courts and the like.

I think the problem today is that many in our current political class don't recognise that need for balance so much as they see "them and us" and even start to forget whose side they are supposed to be on. The truly evil part of the situation is that this result seems almost inevitable. The people calling the shots are exactly the people who necessarily deal with the worst of humanity as part of their job. How could this not affect their perspective? They naturally want to trust their allies, who are the people who would be empowered under all these proposed security measures and aided by restrictions on the privacy and security of others. And of course being influential figures within the government, it is highly unlikely that they will personally ever find themselves on the wrong side of a government screw-up and unable to get the problem fixed very quickly.

I don't think these people are evil. On the contrary, I suspect most people in government, including their agents in the police and security services, are probably just normal people who have a job to do and who genuinely want to do the right thing. As with any large group, there will eventually be a few bad actors included as well and it is necessary to identify and contain them, but that isn't usually the main problem.

However, I do think we're talking about people who are heavily biased, even paranoid, because it would take a superhuman level of detachment not to be when you look at the kind of people they have to deal with at times. I also think in most cases they are ignorant about the technologies they are dealing with, and therefore unable to make rational, objective judgements about the likely effects of the technical measures they propose as policy. Finally, I think that the more senior these figures get within the government and its agencies, the more detached they tend to be from reality for average citizens and the more ignorant or dismissive they can become of how things tend to play out for innocent people in less privileged positions who are nevertheless caught up by the measures the politicians propose.

As the saying goes, power corrupts. It doesn't necessarily have to be malicious or intentional. Obviously in some cases it has been, but often I think the corruption is more of a slow but almost inevitable change in perspective caused by the situations you find yourself in when you have power to wield.

And so it is necessary for those who are looking from outside, those who don't spend disproportionate amounts of their time dealing with a particularly nasty minority of the human race, those who understand the technical issues, to speak out about what is happening and where it could lead. As with any issue of civilised government, in the long run you're going to get much further by educating people about relevant issues and promoting intelligent discourse than you are with wildly exaggerated rhetoric and extreme positions backed by intimidation and ultimately violence. The latter are seductive, and often appear quite effective in the short term, but I doubt they've ever truly solved much.

If they can physically do that, then you have a problem. I hear even Windows comes with IPSEC, maybe you could do something about that.

Sure you can, just use an OTG Y-Cable.

Hmmm... *skims summary* I know, let's talk systemd!

I'm gonna insert my reply to an earlier comment of yours here to save me time and space, and because it's a good preface to my reply to this comment anyway:

No, these dodges should not exist.

Yes, you have this part right.

And now, my reply to this comment:

No, you have this badly wrong. If you make corporations pay their taxes, then the costs are passed down to the consumers of their products. But if you don't, then the costs are passed down to every citizen.

I think you have to give basically all of the credit to the people who do the interfaces. That's the only place where Apple ever seems to have a clear advantage, the very early G5 era aside.

Of course, I'm betting that if something fakes a screen locker in Windows, the user will obediently enter their user/pass to unlock it anyway. They won't press ctrl-alt-del unless instructed to by the lock screen.

If you think of the children all the time, you are probably a pedo.