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Comment Open Source just can't keep up (Score 4, Insightful) 82

Once again, Open Source is embarrassed and left behind.

mplayer and mpv still, after all these years, don't have a way to prevent things from working if the content origin happens to be Netflix. It just plays on, stupidly Just Working, instead of breaking the way that Netflix realized their users want it to break.

Comment Re:Not for long they don't (Score 1) 217

To be fair your link does say "designed to bypass internet filtering mechanisms or content restrictions", so it sounds like SSH, work VPNs, banking etc. don't count because they aren't designed to get around the porn filters.

You make sense, but there is nothing that is "designed to bypass internet filtering mechanisms or content restrictions" more than SSH and VPNs bypass internet filtering mechanisms or content restrictions, is there? Why would anyone ever design a tool to get around filtering and restrictions, when they can already do that with established mainstream tools such as SSH or VPNs?

I can't believe the bill is intended to never be applied to anything. If we do think it's written in such a way that it never applies, I don't think it'll be litigated that way. Once it's enacted, they're going to say it applies to something, and that something is going to be anything that is secure.

Comment Re:Not for long they don't (Score 1) 217

You didn't read the bill very closely.

I think I read it much more closely than you did.

Sec 2(a):

"Circumvention tools" means any software, hardware, or service designed to bypass internet filtering mechanisms or content restrictions including virtual private networks, proxy servers, and encrypted tunneling methods to evade content restrictions.

This is either intended to apply to something or never apply to anything. Do we agree that the text is intended to do something, to somehow cover some possible situation which might realistically come up? You don't think they just put this in there, but with the begrudging admission that it could not ever possibly apply, do you?

Assuming you're still with me there, please give an example of what kind of tool this defines as a circumvention tool. Surely you have something in mind.

The bill is about outlawing the distribution of p0rn, and a VPN is merely listed as an unlawful circumvention tool.

That might have possibly been the original intent several years of editing ago, but I do not see anything in the definition of "circumvention tools" which even tangentially relates to porn. Do you? I think porn is 100% irrelevant in this discussion.

What I'm getting at, is that there isn't a "porn version" of Wireguard or SSH or HTTPS. They're all the same, content-neutral. The bill either bans them all, or doesn't ban anything. If you take my above bolded challenge to name a circumvention tool that this bill does address, I'm going to take all of your arguments that you give for why the law does apply to your circumvention tool example, and I am going to successfully apply them to SSH and HTTPS. And I'll be exactly as correct as you.

The only way this bill doesn't restrict SSH and HTTPS, is if it doesn't restrict anything at all. Don't agree? Then name something it does restrict.

Comment You can never be sure something isn't partisan (Score 0) 20

This isn't a partisan issue

Sorry, but no one can ever really say something like that these days, and be believable. While it's true there's no classical left/right split on this issue, our classical left/right days are long over.

If Trump decides he opposes this, then you're going to see 90% of Republicans suddenly oppose it, and it'll become partisan.

So, before you tell me this is non-partisan, please explain how regulating AI will help criminals steal, preferably from the US Treasury. Because if this does not aid crime, then Republicans will be against it. They might not be against it now, but they're going to be.

Comment Re:Not for long they don't (Score 1) 217

Sorry, everyone. My mistake. An ISP which tolerates its users using ssh or https would be liable for $250,000 per day, not $125,000 per day. I realize that in the time since I posted, many of you made the determination "oh, it's not so bad" and bought houses in Michigan, now to be blindsided by that fact that I negligently underestimated the cost by a factor of two. I apologize for the error.

Comment Re:Not for long they don't (Score 4, Informative) 217

Michigan has a bill to ban VPNs where SSH is just another "circumvention tool" that must be blocked too. If SSH works, then your ISP is liable for $125,000 per day until they break it.

No more ports 22 or 443 in Michigan if this passes. No more e-commerce. No more banking. No more encrypted internet for anyone, of any age. Telnet and http-no-s are coming back! (Until someone tunnels through them; then ISPs will have to block those too.)

Comment Re: We're in the group (Score 0, Troll) 214

So many logical fallacies in there, buddy.

If you want these things, then you will pay for a good public education.

This presumes that "good public education" is being funded with tax money. It is, conclusively, not. It has in fact been getting significantly worse - which is why people are opting out of it.

Do you want educated neighbors?

No formal education is, in most cases, better than bad formal education. I'd rather my neighbors not be stupid but think they know something, which is what the last 50 years has produced.

Who you can hire for your business? Who will have enough income to purchase your product? Who will be employed and can adapt their skills to a rapidly changing environment?

There's no evidence that education can elevate someone over their inborn genetic potential. You've either got the building blocks for intelligence or you don't. See also the last several centuries of 3rd world "enrichment" that's been carried out by one means or another - education, charity, etc. - of places like India and Africa. I'm sure you can look up average IQs if it's of interest.

Who will be employed and can adapt their skills to a rapidly changing environment?

I can hire a home schooled person, then? Because this criteria definitely doesn't fit your average public schooled individual.

Who will know how to make healthy choices for themselves and for their neighbors (you)?

Yes, the Food Pyramid, D.A.R.E., and "Sex Ed" had a fantastic impact on society's wellness trajectory - I'm sure we can all agree on that, right? (This is sarcasm.)

Who will carefully consider and thinking critically about public issues and use that knowledge when they vote?

OK, now I know you were being facetious. There's no way you're talking about state schooled kids here.

Comment Too little, too late (Score 1) 52

This is the wrong approach. Perhaps it'd have been accepted earlier, but they've shot themselves in the foot due to their inaction over the grooming pedophilia groups that were operating with impunity - and seemingly, protection! - on their platform. It was brought to their attention repeatedly, publicly, and they did all the wrong things and did not address the issue.

Fuck them.

Comment Re:Good luck with that (Score 1) 13

The NVidia cloud isn't new. It's been around for 3-4 years now at this point and seems pretty mature. It also works far better than Stadia ever dreamed.

I was able to play through multiple games I'd purchased specifically for the purposes of playing them on Nvidia Now, because I didn't have a gaming computer but wanted to complete the titles (Cyberpunk 2077 and Mechwarrior 5). The 'free' tier was irritating with wait times, but was playable. The higher tiers were far better and other than a rare ISP-related stutter (at 80ms or so, no less), and it ran great.

This means it's definitely playable at the 30-40ms that a person would get on Starlink (which I later got, and tested, and it worked even better). $10/mo for a couple months seemed like a pretty fair price for something that enables gaming. It wasn't a great experience on hotel wireless, but that's barely ever usable for much more than email. Keep in mind, I'm not a 'gaming snob' focused on FPS or graphics so much as the gameplay and experience, so I'm sure there's some aspect there that I overlooked, but $30-50 for a winter of gaming beats $500+ for the computer to do so. I just used a Macbook Air.

And it doesn't work the way you think it does. It's basically like, from what I can tell, RDP specialized for gaming. You can play it from anything that can support basic framerates and uses remote rendering. The game dispatches and loads onto a 'thin' Windows client of some sort, and it integrates with GoG, Steam, and a number of other gaming services.

Comment Why is CDC still helping? (Score 4, Interesting) 292

...officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed to state health departments that the ongoing measles outbreak at the border of Arizona and Utah is a continuation of the explosive outbreak in West Texas...

Why are there still competent people at CDC who are able to do this? Anyone who knows anything about anything, was supposed to have been fired months ago and replaced by incompetent flunkies.

Commander Putin's orders have been very clear about completely disarming all American capability, whether it's in our health systems, military, or infrastructure. Who is the pro-American traitor in our midst, disobeying orders to destroy the USA?

If we're going to disobey Putin's orders, then won't he kill or embarrass our president? That must not be allowed to happen!!

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