This is incoherent.

Your first point is that it is worse if the car's location is not private than if "everything that happens in and outside your car" is not private. That's just obvious rubbish.

The remainder of your comment is just saying repeatedly that "the government should not be tracking people". First, this is a strawman - there is a difference between vehicle-to-vehicle communication and centralised tracking. Second, it's not an argument, it's just a soundbite. You aren't engaging with the issue: how much erosion of your privacy would be a reasonable price to pay to make safe, driverless cars a reality?

Government is the source of your land rights - you have rights to control what happens with your land because of the laws enacted by society, through the Government. Your whole point here is incredibly wrong-headed.

And - really? Assuming you can get around the whole rights-without-Government issue, you don't think there are any other obstacles to monetizing that airspace? Or do you just prefer to blame "government" for every perceived ill, because you don't really understand?

Will they? There are a lot of advantages to running this in Ireland: low tax rates without the negative publicity of operating in a tax haven, other favourable financial and tax rules that allow foreign companies to book their profits there to further reduce their tax bills, a skilled workforce, good infrastructure, and all the up-front costs that come from building and equipping the data centre in the first place have been paid already. Call me cynical, but I'm not convinced that many data centres will move if Irish law allows the authorities to get this data.

Do you have a source for that malaria fact? I just wonder whether there's maybe more to it than just its effectiveness in newborns.

First, it's pretty obvious that jeffmeden was talking about privacy in terms of the car's location, not "everything that happens in and outside your car". Your comment doesn't show that his point is "absolutely false" unless you completely misread what he said.

Second, everything you do involves a tradeoff of privacy, safety, freedom and a dozen other things. If you go outside you lose some privacy; if you get in a car and drive in public you lose some privacy and some safety. The idea that you can be some sort of privacy and freedom absolutist who never trades either of them for anything is just nonsense.

There are plenty of solutions to this problem that only marginally reduce security. For example, keep copies of the encryption keys on index cards in a safe at the Ministry of Justice head office. An attacker would need both the backup hard drive and the key, and they are now in separate, secure locations.

As for why not move the backups off-site too - it sounds like that is the long-term plan, and this is just the stop-gap for prisons that haven't moved over to it yet.

Don't understand evolution in what way? Why do you think it's just "pseudo scientific hand waving"? The GP's point (which I understood to be that there are reasons why evolutionary pressures might push in favour of a longer life expectancy than required just to reproduce) sounds reasonable to me - I'm genuinely curious to know what the misunderstanding is.

I don't think the GP is saying that at all.

It would just be nice to have a bit of balance. I don't think we should scrap online anonymity because some of its uses, in opposing tyrannical powers, whistleblowing and similar, are too important.

But we should still recognise that it has costs. Anonymous online abuse can and does have very serious consequences, including depression and suicides. Too often the argument is presented as one-sided.

That's a pretty naive view of what lawyers do and when they're needed. A lawyer is just an expert in certain things, and they assist people who need to do something they aren't themselves an expert at:
- If you want to present a persuasive case in court, you want someone who is an expert in reviewing and presenting evidence. A lawyer can be that person
    You also want someone who can explain the case to the court in a persuasive way. A lawyer can be that person.
- If you want to prepare a contract that does what it's meant to you need someone who is an expert in precise writing. A lawyer can be that person.

Moreover your points about society are just flat-out wrong. If you look back at the societies of history you will almost always find lawyers, or people offering an equivalent service. I say "almost" because I'm sure there will prove to be an exception, but after a flick through the Wikipedia entries for the major historical civilisations I couldn't find any.

And the idea that laws are complicated because lawyers want them to be complicated is a nice soundbite with no substance. Laws are complicated because the world is complicated. They are an attempt to make clear rules in a world that isn't made up of simple black-and-white issues. They're full of political compromises. And they're drafted by human beings who make mistakes. If the only thing keeping laws complicated was that it was being done deliberately, don't you think we would have fixed that by now?

The sweeping statement was that Greenpeace "don't give a flying fuck about the environment". That the CEO flies to work seems pretty hypocritical to me, I just don't think it means that the whole organisation is ambivalent about the environment.

That article only mentions the word Marx once and doesn't use it to describe the founder's views - not really sure what you were trying to prove with it?

Maybe you could point me to Greenpeace's campaign to stop you driving a car. Their website specifically says they aren't anti car, and they are campaigning for cleaner cars (which isn't really consistent with not wanting any cars at all) but I suppose you'd say that that's what they would say...

When I think of products derived from animals I tend to think of things like milk and eggs - both sources of B12, both things that vegetarians eat - not "shit and fur".

I think you've managed the trifecta there:
1. Sweeping statements without any explanation or evidence.
2. Use of the word "marxism" in a way that means nothing at all.
3. Claim that those on the left are just trying to oppress you (again without any explanation or evidence, obviously).

Some people would think that you put "every man" in quotation marks because it's a quotation, but it isn't. Brianna Wu does not use the phrase "every man" a single time. She doesn't claim that all men are sexist, or say anything like it, so you can safely put your righteous indignation aside.

The biggest generalisation that she does make is saying that "it’s telling that men in the gaming industry, or simply commentators, refuse to listen to the reality of these situations and try to help" - which seems borne out by reactions like assuming her article is a sexist overgeneralisation when you clearly haven't read it.

The court actually took a pretty sensible view on this, I think.

The judge's reasoning was that the use of data that was recovered and stored was (as a matter of law) subject to the same test of reasonableness as what could be recovered in the first place. He considered trying to decide how long was reasonable now, but decided that he wasn't in a position to do so, since he didn't know how the investigation would go. Better for a later court, looking back on all the facts, to decide whether what was done was reasonable, than for him to try to decide what would be reasonable based on a guess as to what would happen.

In other words, there are limits on storage and use of the data, although they aren't rigid, and a court may be called on to decide whether they have been breached at a later date.

"No difference"?

Yep, exactly the same...