Of course not. Did you even read the message you are replying to?

Me to. Now the way that politics and law generally work is that less intrusive solutions are tried first. That is what DNT was. Now the road is clear for some real regulations.

You don't understand politics I see. I was like you 10 years ago. I learnt the hard way that nifty tech solutions are cute, but to get them actually working in the real world, some politics can be extraordinarily useful.

A lot of ideas died in the halls of parliament not because they were stupid, on the contrary, a lot of them were brilliant. They died because those who proposed and supported them didn't understand how to convince people. If your target audience doesn't understand the technical details, the brilliance of your solution will be lost to them. Your persuasion skills - or lack thereof - however, will not.

DNT was a brilliant display of the advertisement industries unwillingness to regulate itself and respect such wishes. Now they cannot make those claims anymore, and there is evidence on record that actual regulation is required.

Without DNT, they would always have claimed they're good guys. Now the mask is off.

Wrong.

It is because you don't prevent it. At least legally, that is a very big difference. If I allow you to hit me in the face, e.g. by participating in a boxing match, then I can't later sue you for bodily harm. If you do it without my permission and I just fail to prevent it, then all the guilt falls on you anyway and I can sue you, plus you have committed a crime. That's quite a big difference there between those two words.

Yes, but not in the way you think.

DNT is useless technologically. But it is a gem when it comes to providing evidence that actual regulations and penalties are required, because the industry is unwilling to regulate itself and respect customer requests.

There's a tradition in law and law-making that you need to at least try the less intrusive choices first. Now we satisfy that, and we can move on to really stop the parasites.

First of all, America has a pretty low violent crime rate. We have a high homicide rate, but I think I can safely say that is because we are uniquely flooded with cheap handguns. But I digress...

The main point I wanted to make is that sure, making a single-offender a felon is not a great policy. Kids make mistakes and it would be a shame to ruin their lives (even though they are risking others' lives). That said, repeat offenders should be in prison. If you are caught drunk behind the wheel with a license that was suspended because you were previously caught drunk behind the wheel, you are a continuing threat to public safety. In no way should that person be allowed to get behind the wheel of a vehicle.

That you keep arguing the facts of specific cases seems to indicate that you are missing the point. People aren't in the streets protesting - let alone rioting - because one, or even 5, guys were killed by the police. There is a long, long history of police not being terribly respectful of the community that they "serve". These recent cases are the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. The cases are not perfect - there is no Rosa Parks - but you can't necessarily plan exactly when the powder keg will explode. While your advice to cooperate with the police is sound, it is a bit terrifying. Local cops are supposed to be serving the community, not doing a bunch of crap that the community doesn't want. Why is a beat cop enforcing a state cigarette tax? Is that really what the local community is clamoring for?

Of course, if you seriously advocate that people take responsibility for their networks, their equipment, and their decisions and realize the part they play in enabling the problems they complain about, you'll be accused of "blaming the victim".

Still, unlike the harsher laws that vary by jurisdiction (of which some have no extradition treaties), this actually stands a chance of working. On a hostile network like the Internet, nothing other than hardening the targets is going to actually improve security. It would also be nice for the rest of us not to have to contend with botnets and other problems made possible entirely by the clueless who want all the benefits of a general-purpose global network but don't want to put forth the effort to learn how it works and how to use it responsibly.

They strongly resemble the child who wants a pet cat but doesn't want to feed it and change its litter box because that part isn't fun.

That last sentence is false and shows you don't fully understand what you're discussing. The merchant is charged a fee, usually a small percentage of the transaction, each time you use your credit card. Even if you never personally pay interest because you pay in full each month, the bank issuing the credit card is making money from your use of that card.

Incidentally, this is also why some small, local, mom-and-pop stores won't accept a credit card unless your total purchase exceeds a certain amount. The fee they must pay isn't worthwhile to them if the transaction is too small. Larger stores are better able to absorb it and just consider it a cost of doing business.

The list of sites alone is clear enough on that, even if you know nothing about them. Someone just had a little lolz with the botnet he owns anyways. TFA advise is totally bogus: They don't post the list of sites to advise people to check their accounts, they do it because it's their excuse for posting a list of x-rated stuff on a non-x-rated site. Pure sensationalism.

Or which desktop dancing nude woman they installed, or old version of flash player they use, or any other of a thousand possible problems.

Most people don't realize just how many (usually windows) PCs out there are owned by hackers. When some botnet runs an attack, we don't realize because the numbers are so big its just a statistic.

"(emphasis mine). Can you explain the difference?"

Sure, it's called 'nuance'. You are inferring that I am making a statement about Republicans, because republicans are more likely to hold conservative ideals than non-republicans. But I am not saying that any specific Republican is racist. I am saying that of a random sampling of self-identifying conservatives, you will find more people with racist opinions than in random samplings of non-self-identifying conservatives.

My entire argument apparently boils down to your woefully inadequate reading comprehension ability and failure to recognize nuance.

"That means that if you take a random sampling of people who identify as having conservative ideologies, they will be statistically more likely to also hold racist beliefs...If you would like some actual scientific reading on the association between ideology, intelligence, and race views, might I recommend:"

This is two sentences. The first is a logical argument, one which you still have not put forth any evidence to counter. The second is a recommendation to read some scientific studies on the matter, which you openly dismissed. You then doubled down by reading mass media summaries of the studies which you completely misinterpreted and have also failed to account for.

The only thing I'm going to look like a moron for is spending my time attempting to debate with you. My bad.

-Rick

I wrote advisories on that more than 10 years ago, so please go ahead and lecture me.

Your home network should not allow a request with an IP that doesn't belong to it out. If I'm the router that connects 1.2.3.0/24 to the Internet, I shouldn't put a packet that claims it originates from 5.6.7.8 on the wire.

The only places where a package that isn't part of my network should be routed through is when my network is a transit network.

I know from my own experience how right you are, but that, exactly, is the problem. This "it didn't crash in 10 minutes, ship it" approach is utterly horrible. It's become industry standard instead of being taken out back to be shot, and that is a really serious problem.

People shouldn't be used to computers crashing - they should demand that they don't do so.

Absolutely.

Where I work now there are 4 classifications of employees, progressing in pay level, but all assigned to the same software development services efforts.

My jaw hit the floor when my boss told me that anyone at level 4 is expected to perform project management duties.

So now I have a couple of rock solid level-3 developers that are on track to move into a true software architecture style role. I look at these fine developers and think, you know, it would be great if I could put together a training plan for them to really take their design approach to the next level and put goals together around their technical skill set, technical leadership, and continuing education with a prize at the end of the road of a nice shiny new title and pay bump.

But nope. If I want to promote these guys, I have to send them to project management 101. They need to go back and learn a whole new skillset, change over from dealing with code to dealing with people, and take on a whole new style of work.

What sense does that make? It's like someone is running an experiment to see if the Peter Principle is real.

-Rick

"Again, we're talking about a Democrat who said something racist."

Incorrect. Someone made a ridiculous statement: "EVERYONE WHO SAYS ANYTHING RACIST IS A REPUBLICAN."

Which I rebutted. Pointing out that it was not correct.

"about how Republicans are "statistically more likely to be racist." (You're lying about that by the way.)"

And you're creating an argument where there isn't one. I never said "Republicans are statistically more likely to be racist". What you did there was take my statement, out of context, and wrapped it in your own straw man. This would be what we laymen call "lying". Now, you may disagree with me over the statistics, and that's fine. But to call me a liar because you constructed your own argument to take apart is intellectually dishonest.

"One of the biggest pushers of the second idea in the Democratic Party is Al Sharpton"

In the same way that one of the biggest pushers of the 2nd idea in the GOP is Rush Limbaugh.

In either case, the existence of Rush and Al do not refute my statistic. As individuals, they are accounted for in the minority/majority of each quantification.

"You're lying about the contents of the Furugson study. "

Seeing as how I didn't say ANYTHING about the context of the Furugson study, it's kinda hard to imagine how I would be lying about it.

Also, are you sure you read the links you posted? Including these snippets:

"Hodson and Busseri (2012) found in a correlational study that lower intelligence in childhood is predictive of greater racism in adulthood, with this effect being mediated (partially explained) through conservative ideology."

"Taken together, what do these studies suggest? Excessive exposure to news coverage could be toxic as is avoidance of open-minded attitudes and ideals."

" Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found."

The reason I didn't bother linking to specific news articles about these two studies is because they are so contentious. You can find the summaries of them on Huffpo or Breitbart. LiveScience or Christian Monitor. CNN or FOX. Each with significantly different spins as they attempt to describe the studies in ways that either flatters or infuriates their viewers. So yeah, I recommend reading the articles instead of some ad man's rendition of it looking for some eye bleeding headlines to drive his click-bait.

Seriously though, you are calling me a liar though you've offered no proof. You've built straw men that you have excellently destroyed. You have attempted to switch the topic, and I'm actually expecting a goal post maneuver next.

So, if you would like to debate, lets debate. If you want to parrot talking points you learnt from reading Breitbart, I'll be moving along and you can enjoy the echo chamber.

-Rick