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Comment Re:Document escrow is not new. (Score 1) 208

How about you just give the document escrow folks a one time use pad cypher and simply keep your "secure" documents encrypted using that pad. You can then "update" everybody electronically with an encrypted document that they cannot decrypt until they can obtain the one time pad from escrow.

While you are alive, you need to protect your copy of the pad, but its not hard to invent some classy way to do that given that the pad has absolutely no useful information in it...Like using a your favorite MP3 or something...

I think that using the one-time-pad to encrypt multiple items ends up leaking information if someone gets their hands on those multiple updates. Since you are sending out those updates to "everyone", that doesn't sound optimal. I don't know that this "attack" is particularly feasible however.

Comment Re:Lawyer (Score 1) 208

This sounds good in theory, but most law firms do not use any form of encryption for their email or data storage, so it is not that difficult for a hacker to get into your lawyers server and steal your information.

You would have the data on a drive unconnected to the network, and of course the password for the encryption is given to them on paper. If you are trying to guard against a dedicated group targeting you specifically, then of course more paranoia would be appropriate. The rest of us are not important enough to worry about that.

Comment Re:Encryption (Score 1) 208

I thought about that, but my daughter classically can't remember passwords she uses every day; there's no way she's going to remember a password she'll only need once.

Then you WRITE IT DOWN. Then give her the piece of paper with it written down upon. Or give the encrypted files and/or paper with the password to one or more lawyer types to do the holding on for, if you want to really have it properly curated.

Comment Re:Democrats voted (Score 1) 932

What's wrong is to have state-sponsored open primaries. That's fundamentally anti-democratic. Why should the state organize primaries for only 2 parties? There are dozens of small parties out there which would like to receive the same treatment.
Parties should organize primaries themselves.

Why is it set up this way? If we start the Slashdot Party and it gets really really popular, will we displace one of the two? Are the Dems and Reps actually enshrined by name in legislation?

Comment Re:Democrats voted (Score 2) 932

Yeah.. THIS!! I'm an Independent voter in Nevada, up until the middle of BushyJr's second term I was a life-long Republican.. The Republican party has gotten so FAR from its roots, I couldn't remain a "member"... Since I am no longer a Republican, I'm prohibited from voting for ANY candidate in our primary yesterday other than the non-partisan races, like Judge, Sheriff, etc.. This is a crock of SHIT, so I now do not vote in primary elections.. There were several Republican candidates for state and national office that I'd loved to have voted for, but the State of Nevada has seen fit to prohibit me from voting for them, unless I attach a label to my name.. I'M NOT A REPUBLICAN NOR A DEMOCRAT, I'M AN AMERICAN....

The USA is the only place I am aware of where the "public" has any say in how a political party decides who will run under their banner. In most places I am familiar with, only the card-carrying members of "Party X" get to decide who will be running. Since I am not a member of Party X, I don't pay membership dues or attend conventions, why should I have any say in what Party X does in terms of putting people on the ballot?

Similarly, why is "the state" running (and paying for running) these primary elections? Shouldn't that be something that the political parties run and fund themselves? Do only the Dems and the Reps get this treatment, or does the US Libertarian Party, and the US Communist Party also get their candidate selection process funded by the public?

Comment Re:hahaha! (Score 1) 932

"The forced movement to the right is only going to mean less compromise..."

Exactly. Because the Democrats never see the need to compromise. They will plow ahead with their agenda (as always) and the media will spin it in their favor.

I was very disappointed that the Democrats did try to compromise on health care reform back when they had the votes to push through whatever they wanted. The removal of the public payer option (ie let people pay into the medicare system if they wanted) was an error. Instead they compromised and passed a marginal reform that still has "the other side" out of their minds with woe. If the other side is going to piss and moan about socialized medicine no matter what, why didn't they actually pass a socialized medicine bill?

Anyhow, from my viewpoint, the Dems have done a lot of compromising, to little effect. Probably however, I am viewing the world through a biased filter. I do feel that pretty much everyone is being pretty ineffective in actually working towards reasonable solutions to problems rather than spending all their efforts demonizing the "other side".

Comment Re:naive and fatuous (Score 1) 507

Anyone who makes a business of organising a carpool is a taxi dispach service. Anyone who drives a carpool 8+h a day is a taxi driver.

Don't' like it? Don't make a business of it.

How about 4 hours per day? 1? What if I do it once? What if I pick up a hich-hiker and he offers me some cash? To pay for gas? A doughnut? Where-ever you draw the line, the position is arbitrary as all of this exists on a continuum.

Comment Re:Disruptive technology (Score 1) 507

Commercial insurance doesn't offer any more protection or security than personal insurance does. They charge more because they can, not because it conveys any real benefit.

In a competitive market, the differences in price between "personal" and "commercial" insurance prices would depend primarily on the statistics - I would not be surprised to find that for a taxi-like business there are more insurance claims per policy per year than for personal insurance claims, if only due to the greater number of miles driven.

Comment Re:Every country should do this (Score 1) 76

I wish countries would use public money to produce some ebooks for their schools. They could distribute it free as an epub file and there would be no royalties or copyright to care about, no heavy schoolbags, or parents / schools who have to buy them. Just some epubs on the end of a link, free to download and use on any tablet or ereader that supports the format.

It seems beyond bizarre that countries are able to specify in exacting detail what content books should contain and are able to write examination papers that test those subjects but they outsource the actual production (and copyright) of textbooks to somebody else.

Hear, hear! (or is that "Here, here!", or maybe "Hear, here!". Certainly not "Here, hear!", yes?)

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