yes, its very much a 2 party system. well, not true anymore. I almost can't tell the diff between the thieves in the R class and the thieves in the D class. neither follows the laws, neither represents the will of the people. they are all bought and paid for, they got theirs, now fark you (in the parlance of our times..)

neither candidate has appealed to me in decades and I have not voted in decades. to force me to pick and endorse assholes like that, that we end up having to pick from, is insulting to say the least.

now, if we could vote against people, that would be fine. it should also allow voting against them all.

then, I would show up to the polls.

I disagree; by the time the thing has been developed or invented, its already too late.

inventors HAVE to be sensitive to how their ideas will be abused.

again, because it can be done, does not mean it should be done.

I don't give inventors a pass, sorry. they need to think about their actions and they should be responsible for when bad things happen directly due to their poor choices. if no one is held responsible, then bad idea will continue to enslave us.

there was speculation that, early on, the nsa was a key funder of google. I think there was some dns registration stuff that made people do a double-take (long time ago, when google first started).

could google have gotton so far without nsa's help? one wonders. and one will never actually know, either.

on really BAD ideas and freedom-killing ideas?

you don't think this will be mostly used against us, one way or another?

do no evil? yeah, right. I have this bridge here I can sell you...

yet another example of 'lets plow ahead and not care about social blowback from our research'. scientists and engineers really need to go back to school and take an ETHICS course or two. maybe they'd realize that 'because you can, does not mean you should'.

I see nothing good coming from this. nothing at all. just pure evil to be used against people.

it takes a wise person to realize that some things should not be done. of course, google has geniuses but those geniuses have no idea at all how they are being played and how their work will be used to reduce freedom and privacy. sad that smart people can be conned into working against their own best interests ;(

old parallel scsi drives has write-protect jumpers.

never saw that in ide or sata, though.

and a jumper or switch is 90% of the time, just a software bit that can be read and ignored.

the wifi switches on some laptops, they don't stop rf or turn the power off to the wifi system. the 'switch' to a camera does not power it down, either.

more than that, we need open source bios, and full disclosure of ALL info about intel and amd chips.

lets just say, there are rumors about intel holding back design docs (so called 'yellow books') and you won't know ALL there is to know about your computer unless you get inside info about hidden cpu modes and such.

the chain of trust has so many broken links, we'd have to reinvent computers from the ground up, at this point, to be truly secure. sucks, huh?

I know, licensing has a bit of a reason behind it, but still, I can't help feel that its the established players who want to kill any newcoming competition. that - in itself - really annoys me.

I wonder if this will backfire and people will want to support the underdog.

you are 1000% wrong.

here's why: corporate america and windows or mac pre-installs by corp IT.

yes, they install their own fake certs. did you know that?

and did you know that when you get a lock icon on your browser, that you are authenticating with the firewall at your company and NOT the end IP ??

companies have been doing this for about 10 yrs. I interviewed at a company (yes, bluecoat..) a long time ago and they told me straight out that their software does (did) that and that they were proud of how they could pull the wool over corp citizens' eyes! ;( (no I did not take that job. it depressed me to think they took glee in such things).

almost every networking company is into data interception (calea or whatever). but you have to be more careful about what you do with corp built laptops! that's the #1 offender.

forget the gov. there's much corp america whores who will do whatever their big bosses say, and if that means preinstalling fake certs, they'll do it. anyone who says no loses their job.

welcome to america. your right to privacy is zero while at work, and we're all working to make sure it stays zero, even when you leave work. sigh ;( ;( ;(

plus, once you run https, bad fuckers like comcast and verizon won't be able to INSERT ADS into your web stream!

so, its not just about privacy. its also wanting to know that no data is modified en-route and that what you see IS what you got, and not some ISP modified stream that they THINK you wanted, instead.

if you don't want the privacy argument, at least you (in general) should agree that https keeps your data stream from being modified on-the-fly by isps!

I spent MANY posts trying to convince one of the big electronics (diy style) forums to convert over to https and the admins there either dont get it or simply don't care. its very sad ;(

eevblog - we're WAITING for you to join the rest of the modern world by turning on https. many of us ask for it but you don't seem to care. I hope you care sooner rather than later.

those who think the true power browers will ALLOW a 3rd party candidate - you assholes are so out of touch with reality, you are helping to ruin things by giving people false hope.

the only way to fix this is to totally break it and reinvent it.

the current US system WILL NOT ALLOW FOR 3RD PARTY CANDIDATES. how long will it take you numbskulls to get this into your heads? america is NOT a free nation and those who run things alternate parties to keep us thinking we have a choice.

the last few decades have been mostly the same, only with some minor details as differences, to give us the impression that we have a choice.

we have NO CHOICE. we have not had a choice for decades; maybe not ever.

"but I voted independant!" you say. yeah, how much good did that do? seriously? what did it accomplish?

I wish you guys were right, but you are simply out of touch. the big guys control things and its a grand distraction to think that voting A or B (or C!) will have any meaningful impact.

the sooner we all admit voting and 2party system is fully broken, the sooner we can get real change. until then, your cute 'vote for indie' does nothing at all but make you think you are superior, all the while, still playing the game set out for you by the real power brokers.

and btw, you will never know the names of the real power brokers. the figureheads are just that; there to give you a reason to rally and fight 'the othe guy' over. but the real purse strings are held by those who are not elected and who are plutocrats, ultra rich who truly control how things go.

I wish I was wrong! but experience shows that 'voting' has not done a damned thing to restore rights to the people and over time, things continue to get worse for us, not better, no matter WHO we 'vote' for.

sigh - wish people would see this and stop believing in the fairy tale.

I didn't believe a single thing he said.

I knew he would be essentially like a republican, just less 'christ-y' (at least in public). the war on non-christians and women and minorities did take a bit of a back seat the last 2 terms. it would have been much worse under R guidance, I'm quite sure of that.

but as for the hope and change, I didn't believe that. its impossible since the system is broken and cannot be fixed without a total re-do (which no one seems to want in their lifetimes).

you can be sure that the medical MJ movement would have been totally stalled if an R was in office, 'leading' the country. obama has not helped much, but he has not actively done too much to stand in the way of progress, on this front, at least.

so, we have a mostly useless guy in office, but I'm quite sure it would have been worse the other way.

I have an evil-genius 2-step plan on how to fight this.

first, you need to have a small a/v player. hey, smart phones can play audio and video! now, we need a reducer so that we can 'pipe' the video into the camera, optically, to create the illusion that the car is empty (or in any state we want). easy to pipe in audio, simply by putting the phone spkr near the mic.

2nd part of the plan is to edit the contract (adding a section) that says you may, at your option, provide 'performance art' inside the car. something to that effect.

now that you've set it up, have some fun! what could you record that would be great for playback, for them to see? fake a murder? fake a corporate take-over? fake a plot of some kind? some other kind of intentional mis-direction?

you already covered yourself by the performance-art clause. you can laugh it off when you sign their contract and just make a joke about the camera. if done properly, they won't know what you have in mind.

the rest, as they say: 'hillarity will ensue'.

and unless its illegal (its not) to pipe in any video stream you want in front of a spycam, you can do this and mess with their data collection while having some well-earned laughs at their expense.

they said 'no CURRENT plans'.

isn't that enough wiggle room to create NEW plans, later?

what this will mean is that the 'field test' shows we are not passive enough to accept this surveillance. they'll try again in n+1 units of time and see if we've become more passive and are willing to tolerate it.

if that fails, there's always hiding mics and cameras inside the dash. I'm sure they have spent some time in boardrooms discussing exactly that, too.

cops are stupid. they'll just double-down on the derp (using the parlance of our times..)

they don't care anymore if they have our respect. they now have our FEAR and they love that even more.

look, you have to have a thug mentality to be an american cop. its not about justice, its about beating people up and getting away with it. there's a famous 'cartoon' where this phrase is used and its very commonly brought out each time a cop goes out of control and it reaches the news.

it reminds me of the clockwork orange movie. alex's 'droogs' end up being cops when they grow up. thugs as teens become thugs as cops; they just get 'permission' to knock heads and they get their victims from car radio calls.

I wonder if all countries are having the problems with local cops that the US now has? is this an US phenom or is this a problem that is being seen world-wide? the violence in the US social system (we glorify it, sadly) seems to encourage cops to be brutal and violent. is this culture the same in other countries? I suspect its worse here, at least in terms of 1st and 2nd world countries.