Considering that the FAA recently lost a Federal lawsuit over this very thing, I would think they would be the ones backing down. The judge ruled that it was legal.

I think you missed the whole point. The bill wouldn't stop them from doing the research. It would simply stop them from SELLING the results to other government agencies.

I mean come on, think about how ridiculous that is. The research was done with taxpayer dollars. Then they sell that research to other government agencies for more taxpayer dollars?

I do think it's a good idea to account for which government agencies use the service, and how much. But selling? Too far.

Amazing. All I did was post a comment about OP that, to the best of my knowledge, is impersonal, factual, and true.

While all you've done is track me down in order to be personal, rude and insulting. But then you were before, too.

And somehow *I* am supposed to be the psychopath? How do you figure?

I've had to put up with lots of people before who couldn't stand being shown they were wrong. But this comment I think is the best yet.

Listen up, man. If you are the same Anonymous Coward I think you are, the very first comment you made to me was rude, personal, and insulting (saying a comment of mine you took out of context was "dumb", as I recall), and it only got worse from there.

I do my best to stay impersonal and simply discuss the subject at hand. But you weren't satisfied with that, and kept trying to make it personal. Well, too bad. This being the internet, your words don't have any weight to throw around. When someone is rude to me first, I'll be damned if I'm going to apologize for putting them in their place.

I haven't done anything wrong, so you can take your rudeness and bullying elsewhere. Maybe if you try to be polite and refrain from insulting others, they will respond in kind. But I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to happen. Evidence so far says I'd be waiting or a very long time.

Since you apparently flunked logic 101: no, it isn't.

"Appeal to authority" is a logical fallacy when someones says an argument is true because an authority said it. That is a flawed argument. The whole point is that it doesn't matter what an authority says, they have to prove it just like everybody else.

Example: You say "Phil Plait (Bad Astronomer) says it is so; therefore it is so." That is an example of the Appeal to Authority fallacy. Plait is a noted authority on some subjects. But that does not automatically make him correct if evidence says otherwise.

Counterexample: "Phil Plait demonstrated it in an experiment, and the results were published in June 2012." That is not "appeal to authority", because it relies on the evidence of the experiment that was performed, not Phil Plait's word.

Third example: "Bob Jones performed an experiment that demonstrated X. But Phil Plait, Bad Astronomer, says it's not so, so I believe Phil Plait."

Again this is the "appeal to authority" fallacy, because the actual evidence indicates X, while the counterargument merely relies on the word of the supposed "authority".

Pardon me. In those particular instances,, I was wrong. Those are not firmware. BUT... and here is the main thing... that is completely irrelevant to the discussion that was taking place.

There are 2 points that are relevant here:

First, you took my comment out of context, and then called it dumb. Well, guess what? Lots of things are dumb when taken out of context. The context was: GP said "back doors" in cell phone conversations (that is the context) are in hardware (GP's comment). I said no, it isn't. If you want to argue about something else, you're going to have to argue with yourself.

The second point, related to the first, is: you didn't make any specific arguments against what I said, instead you just called it dumb. That's called an "ad-hominem", and in any kind of logical debate not only does it carry no weight, it can get you kicked out.

It might have been appropriate to ask me how I knew the back doors (if any) are not in hardware. But you didn't do that.

I have news for you: you aren't always the smartest person in the room. But more to the point: even if you are the smartest person in the room, there might be somebody there who knows something you don't.

So be careful about calling people stupid, lest you end up looking stupid.

I would have explained to you how I knew that back doors in cell phones aren't in hardware, if you had only asked politely. But since you didn't, I'm not going to bother.

That's not "a fine and wavering line", at all. That's firmware, a third category.

That's moving the goalposts. It's a different subject from the one under discussion.

Since it is in the general field in which I make my living, I think I had the general qualifications to reply to GP.

The point here, which you seem to have missed, is: properly written software can make hardware (or even firmware) "back doors" irrelevant, unless your hardware has a complete second voice channel connected to the microphone that it's sending its data through. And I think it's pretty damned obvious that cell phone carriers aren't assigning 2 separate voice channels in realtime to U.S. cell phones.

Look up RedPhone. Go ahead, look it up.

Your own comment proves that it's software, not hardware. If it was correctable via a software update, then it isn't the hardware's fault.

Most likely the "service" has very little if anything to do with the security, since in order to be secure, it HAS TO be encrypted on the phone prior to sending.

It is the software that needs to be evaluated, not the service. If the software on the phone doesn't allow a back door, then "the service" has no way to access the content, and it is secure. Otherwise it is not. There are few if any plausible alternative situations.

I'm not the one who needs education here. I knew what you meant by Megyn Kelly (or however her name is spelled). The fact that I've only seen her once or twice does not mean I do not know who she is. I asked what she had to do with this. You tried to pass it off as my ignorance, but in fact what you were trying to do was imply that I made this whole argument because I am a conservative. You are wrong.

That's just laughable. Of course it is. And you can see that it is, in the very sentence you wrote: "... social action against someone".

I repeat: coercion and bullying are not just violence. They are threats of negative consequences. "social action against someone" is a negative consequence. Therefore social action against someone -- over the way they vote -- is an attempt to coerce people (not necessarily him, but perhaps others) into not voting that way.

Come on, use that logic you claim you possess. "Social action against someone" because of how they voted is a threat against someone because of how they voted. And it is also an implied threat against others that they should not vote that way.

This isn't frigging rocket science, man. It's simple if-then.

No, bullying is intimidation and coercion, which are threats of negative consequences. Those negative consequences do not have to be violence.

If you said to an employee, "Give me sexual favors or I won't pay you", that is sexual harassment, which is one form of bullying. But there is no violence involved.

You can justify this kind of nonsense to yourself all you want, but at the end of the day what you are doing, in simple terms, is rationalizing the action of coercing people to vote a certain way. That is an un-American activity. Period. End of story.

Have a nice day.

was then modded down. What a hilarious proof of my point. These folks can pretend it's about the science all they want, but what it's really about for them is stifling dissent.

Since we know what's happening to weather, we have a pretty good idea.

Speak for yourself. I don't know any such thing, and I've seen A LOT of data that say it isn't so.

My "denialist microquibble" was about why a politician who was asking perfectly legitimate questions about things that are in fact questionable, is being labeled stupid for doing so. Calling people stupid for asking questions is not the way science works.

That's the most hilarious comment you've made yet. And you call ME "denialist". Wow. I must remember to inquire about what brand of blinders you're using, because they seem to be good ones.