Sometimes possible, when a study is small enough that the bulk statistics of the population are not sufficient to hide the participants. Yes, when "people who live in Small Town, Alabama who are 43 years old and have the extremely rare disease 'fortunabulosis'" is data in the study, then yeah, you can probably identify the person. But "10000 smokers from the states of Alabama, Florida and Georgia ranging in ages from 30 to 50", no, you are not going to identify the people in the study.

If the EPA is making regulations based on such small sets of data, they need to stop. The problem is not as significant as it is being made out to be.

First you claim that the EPA will have to reproduce the data or it will be illegal, and now this. No, the law doesn't say they have to publish your SSN, and at worst only those parts of your history that are relevant to the study might need to be online. If you think your SSN is somehow relevant to a medical study, you're wrong. And if you think your specific DOB is necessary and not just an approximate age, then you must believe in astrology. I know of no medical issues that depend on a specific age down to a specific day in history. (Were you a Hiroshima survivor?)

No, it does not. It says that the data used to make a decision (not all data ever provided to EPA) must be "publicly available online in a manner that is sufficient for independent analysis and substantial reproduction of research results." All the EPA has to do is make sure the data is publicly available so that someone who DOES want to try reproducing it can. It doesn't even require the EPA to be the data warehouse.

And now you ignore the word "substantial". If the EPA is basing regulatory decisions on one study with one result and this law stops it, that's a good thing. One study does not science make, and one unpublished study with secret data makes for even less valid science.

Yeah, an impossible hurdle of letting the public know the science that is being used to create regulations they have to obey or have the weight of the federal government crash down on them. If the science cannot survive the scrutiny, then it's isn't valid science and shouldn't be used to make regulations.

Did you read the bills? Where does it say this? I didn't see any such requirement.

If the EPA is making decisions based on "overwhelming scientific evidence", what exactly is the problem with requiring that that evidence be available to the public, and that people who advise the EPA not base those decisions on unpublished personal research? That's what these bills require.

The only argument I can see that is valid deals with studies including personally identifiable medical information. Those kind of studies should already be required to remove PII prior to use by the government, and the limited number of such datasets shows that this is another case of the perfect being the enemy of the reasonable. Legislation that covers every possible eventuality is going to be overly complex and still have loopholes based on interpretations.

This is insightful? The FAA has no ability to stop another 9/11. They can't reach out from their radar facilities and stop a nut in a plane from flying into a building. They can issue instructions, but have no way of forcing them to be followed. The controllers who had the flights of 9/11 on radar didn't "let" it happen, they watched it unfold without a way of stopping it.

What DOES happen now is that anything that is deviating in a significant way from ATC instructions is handed to the Air Force for an intercept mission. The Air Force has the authority to shoot down threats, and they practice this mission on a regular basis. But actually doing that means shooting down a planeload of mostly innocent civilians -- an act that cannot be taken lightly.

And YOU missed the point that those who are speaking ot are doing so voluntarily, not as the result of a "loser edit" of their lives, and those who do find themselves in the limelight because of such edits are rarely happier or living better lives.

The statement you replied to referred to people who had committed fraud and cost others lots of money, and YOU chose to claim that had they thought they'd been able to maintain anonymity you doubted they would have done that. They didn't have anonymity to start with, so your statement is patent nonsense. They knew they didn't have anonymity and they did it anyway. And they weren't all "banksters".

What arrogance. Better for you, perhaps, but not always better for those who are outed against their will. It's not your right to decide for anyone but yourself, and that makes defending the outing through "loser edits" using that argument pure arrogance.

You've just demonstrated ad hominem. You're paying attention to who says something, not what has been said. Most people consider that a vice, not a virtue. More people, I dare say, value the ideas over the identity, and the more the better

Does the name "Thomas Paine" ring a bell? Obviously someone whose ideas are not worth listening to, because:

He published Common Sense anonymously because of its treasonable content. ... Paine wanted to remain anonymous for as long as possible and felt that even such a general phrase as Bell's addition would take attention away from the ideas in his pamphlet.

Obviously those ideas were the fiction of a madman, irrelevant to anyone and unworthy of publication. And yet:

As of 2006, it remains the all-time best selling American title.

Perhaps others are more aware that staying alive to write another day is more valuable in the long run than becoming an immediate, little known and unheard martyr for a cause? Like those who would stand up against an, e.g., Islamic government and say "you really ought not treat women that way." Perhaps you think that "Deep Throat" had nothing of value to say, either.

Yeah, thank God that /. vets the identities of people who post under other than "Anonymous Coward" names, so we know that you are the one, true Barbara Hudson (I'm sorry, BarbaraHudson) on the planet and that is your true, real meatspace name.

There's nothing YOU fear, maybe, but it's arrogance to project that lack of concern over your own safety onto others and tell them how they should behave. Or to defend things like "loser edits" because you have no fear and forcing other people into the open will only prove you are right.

Exactly what steps did Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, Dean Buntrock, Bernie Ebbers, Dennis Kozlowski, Mark Swartz, Richard Scrushy, David Glenn, Leland Brendsel, Vaughn Clarke, Robert Dean, Nazir Dossani, Hank Greenberg, Bernie Madoff, David Friehling, Frank DePascalli, and Ramalinga Raju take to remain anonymous? They were named officers of corporations that committed financial fraud and cost many people billions of dollars, and there was no way any of them thought they'd have anonymity as a shield.

It's a shame that there are people on this planet who think they know better than the people who have something they want to hide for social reasons.

It isn't your responsibility to make that decision for them, nor should you be using this as an excuse to defend those who do "loser edits" of people who want to keep their private lives somewhat private. Your example of people who speak out about their rape experiences living happier lives than those who don't missed one critical factor: they are speaking out VOLUNTARILY, not as the result of some arrogant know-it-all who decided they'd be happier if their lives were made public.

A "rubber duck" is not a 5/8 wave antenna. It is, sometimes, a helical antenna, sometimes not. I use some ducks that are basically nothing more than stiff wire. "Rubber duck" implies nothing about the construction OR length of the antenna other than it has a rubber (usually) coating and is shorter than optimal.

If you think that 6" or 8" is 5/8 wave on 2m, then I'm sorry. And apparently you have way too much invested in this topic to discuss it in civil manner. Good day.

And the CU ruling grants neither citizenship nor humanity to corporations. It reaffirms that corporations have many of the same rights as persons, such as free speech, because corporations are made up of persons. It created nothing new.

I'm construing nothing. I referred you to a source which happens to agree with other sources as to the actual effect of CU. It does happen to disagree with the biases of people who hate corporations.

"Natural citizens" is a red herring.

Show me where I said it does or admit that you lied. I never said did. I've told I never said it did. Yet you keep on...

The SOLE thing I replied to was the comment about getting the FCC to deal with federal use of this. That's the ONLY issue I replied to.

You are free to rant on about the government, but stop deliberately misinterpreting what I've said.

A rubber duck antenna is not 5/8 wave. It is an intentionally shortened antenna used only because it is inconvenient to have a real, resonant antenna on a handheld.

A 5/8 wave antenna for 2m is (936/144)*(5/8) feet, or 49 inches long, and I doubt that you have such a length of wire on your HT. At 70cm, it's 936/440 * (5/8) or 15.9 inches long.

A 5.8 wave 2m will actually not work as well at 70cm as at 2m even though one is the third harmonic (almost) of the other, because at 70cm the antenna becomes 15/8 wave (I have no idea where you got 23/8 wave), or almost 2 full wavelengths long. A 1/4 wave 2m antenna will be about 3/4 wave at 70cm, which is about the same impedance.

Your telephone is not an antenna on a cell system. I could have been more explicit by saying "the antenna on a cell system tower", but I assumed most people would know what I was talking about when I referred to plural antennas.

You cell phone is half the connection, and while it is approximately omnidirectional, the antennas at the other, higher power transmitter end, are not.

You missed the critical word "phased". Please refer to here, here, or here for more info. Suffice to say, your hyperbole that one would need tens of thousands of antennas on gimbals to provide directional access to multiple users is quite hilarious.

Your low powered transmitter on your handheld device is not going to be a source of interference to anyone. First, it's low powered. Second, it transmits on the handset side of the frequencies, so even of you are standing next to another cell phone it won't be received by that phone, which is receiving on the tower frequencies. Third, a major design criterion of the cell system is the reuse of frequencies and the allocation of a specific set to cover a certain area. If a StingRay comes to town, it will use a different set of frequencies. It isn't trying to overpower another cell on the same frequencies, it is using its own set at higher power. The phones preferentially connect to the higher power signal. Why? Because it is more likely they can use lower power to communicate and thus save battery life.

I have said no such thing. In fact, whenever people like you try to twist what I've actually said into this lie, I've corrected you in public.

Once again, I find myself wasting time responding to people who either cannot understand the difference between "not subject to FCC rules" and "not subject to any rules", or who deliberately ignore the difference so they can lie about what I've said.

That's especially stupid to try, given that you have just let slip that I've actually said they are subject to NTIA rules.

Given that you've repeatedly, deliberately misrepresented what I've said, I'd have to ask you if you are being paid by someone.

You referring to Citizen's United here? Try this:

The ruling is also often incorrectly characterized as creating the idea that corporations may exercise speech rights, and that "corporations are people." Both notions are also incorrect. The Supreme Court has recognized that corporations, as associations of people, may exercise many of the rights of natural persons at least since Dartmouth College v. Woodward in 1819, and has recognized that corporations are protected under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment since Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway was decided in 1886.

In 1819, the members of SCOTUS and the party of the President that appointed them were:

• John Marshal (Chief Justice), Federalist
• Bushrod Washington, Federalist
• Henry Brockholst Livingston, Democratic-Republican Party
• Gabriel Duvall, Democratic-Republican Party
• William Johnson, Democratic-Republican Party
• Thomas Todd, Democratic-Republican Party
• Joseph Story, Federalist

Now, you might try to claim that four of the seven were "Democratic-Republicans", but keep in mind that they were appointed by Thomas Jefferson, and the other three by James Madison (the Federalist). Both were pretty familiar with both the intent and the language of the Constitution, so they undoubtedly appointed people who held the same knowledge and views.

By the way, many of the people who make up a corporation are "real citizens", as real as you are, and certainly all of them who formed Citizen's United were "real citizens," with all the rights you claim for yourself.