No archives on this rant, please...
> > > Do you really believe that the average user, who won't even install a
> > > Netscape plugin, will actually make the effort to obtain, install, and
> > > test whatever that tool is???
> > >
> > > I, for one, doubt it. MS seems to believe the average user is either
> > > a moron, or too pre-occupied with other aspects of his or her life to
> > > realize what they are doing. And I fear they may be right.
> Just had a conversation about this (win98/p3) with a couple developers
> here. Big question - where's the outrage? This is Orwellian _1984_ all
> dressed up in "corporate" clothes.
What's what really gets me -- folks just don't seem to care. Just
l-l-let me keep my j-j-job. I'll lie, cheat and steal for you, j-j-just
let me keep working for you! You only hear complaints when they put
video cameras in the lady's room!
> We reached no consensus -- is it apathy, is it a lack of technical
> understanding, is it a lack of understanding of the larger privacy
> issues?
> Is it lack of *media* outrage? Government official outrage? EFF doesn't
> seem to be getting very far with the P3 boycott ...Wall Street's not
> punishing Intel. So the world shrugs.
The media is owned by the advertisers. We see all kinds of specials
done for heavy advertisers, according to one ad salesman who was a
neighbor of mine. Our local paper use to have a cheap cars section that
started growing and growing, $5 or $9 for one week's ad. Then BOOM! It
was gone! Why? Couldn't be for lack of ads. The regular ($20 - $50)
section didn't pick up the slack. Bet the auto dealers complained big
time about too many cheap ads making their same vintage used cars look
Very over priced!
I just looked at WebDeveloper.com. What do they say, Unix has over a
hundred KNOWN exploits.... with the growth of NT, hackers will inevitably
find some weaknesses. Inevitably??? Why do you think some clients of
mine hold it a firing offense to run MS apps on networked computers!?!?!
Netscape has a security flaw, and it is all over the news. MS has dozens,
and it hardly makes the news.
> BTW, the *reason* you get a recall notice -- the *reason* the MPG is on
> the price sticker -- is NOT because auto comanies are "good guys." It's
> cause the government said "thou shalt."
And backed it up with a LOT of HEFTY fines! Yet even then, many
recalls are fought tooth and nail.
> Where's the consumer protection in the computing industry?
People get killed in auto accidents. Baby cribs and bad toys kill
innocent children. Who gets killed by security? No one. Not directly. I
can just hear what's her name say "We is grown folks who has not been
adequately maimed by the industry to develop a hefty FEAR of them.
(Suspicious we already iz!)"
When I bought my first few PCs, I paid cash and didn't turn in the
warranty. Why? I was afraid the government might require licensing. You
can steal hundreds, if not thousand of times more money with a PC, than
with a hand gun, and inconvenience, even kill far, far more people. (It's
easier than earning the money, except for the part about getting aids
while being gang raped prison afterwards.) (Of course, there are lots of
ways of doing things like that without "High Tech".) It is impressive and
heartening to see how much more honest most of us become the more we
understand technical things in depth. And frightening to some of us, how
vulnerable we are making our general infrastructure under the guise of
economics.
I just wish our government would convene a panel of bright
imaginative guys, some of whom would be technologists, and some science
fiction writers, to review and prevent some of the missing barn doors
terrorists can walk through. I have no doubt that I could shake some of
them to their boots with what I know. (They probably already know it;
just don't want to believe anyone can put two and two together yet.) I'd
love to write some science fiction stories based on some of these ideas;
but I would feel like committing suicide if anyone ever used them!
(Remember, Billy Mitchell was court marshalled for predicting Perl Harbor.
They didn't rehabilitate him till after it actually happened exactly as he
predicted.)
But it does not take terrorists. Look at what some corporations are
doing with their contracts regarding those non-split pea tests. The
contracts are worded such that NO ONE can be sued if you flunk, and the
results are recorded in national databases, sent to your non-surance
companies, even published in the New York Times! Did you know that
twenty percent of the govt's random quality assurance tests of these labs
come back as false positives?!!! The ACLU will tell you it is more like
30 percent, with vegetarians having a higher level of false failures
because they are low in homocystine. And if you are high in that, well
gee, your insurance company sure would like to know, because it indicates
you are a heart attack risk.
Then there are the databases on workman's comp. Sixty Minutes or one
of the other news services did a piece on that some years back, showing
that information from some national database company is used to
"pre-screen" people who have filed claims in the past. Their changes of
ever getting another job is much lower. Yet I know a lot of people who
have had to apply for that due to sick building problems due to excess
airborne formaldehyde, carpet fumes, etc. (I run some chat pages for
those folks.)
I had a lot of trouble getting health insurance some years back. Why?
I live near San Faultosis, Aids capital of America, am a self employed
person, and am not married. (I later got married and divorced.) One of my
apartment neighbors was an insurance agent specializing in health
insurance. He couldn't get me a policy. It got so bad, that he couldn't
make his minimum for the constant risk profile rejections, and had to
leave the profession. A few years later, those practices became illegal;
but it was too late for him.
Then Aunty Hilly's and Unckle Billy's health care plan that called
for 15 year jail terms for asking or giving health care other than exactly
as per some government book, with a national database and even
something about "life styles" that are bad for society...
It isn't the neighborhood busy body who is prying into our lives, it
is our insurers and our employers. While twenty years ago, you would stay
with an employer long enough that he knew who you were, and accepted some
risk; today, they won't!!! I got booted out of one consulting job because
I was so thin, someone commented that I must have aids. (I was recovering
from a lack of intestinal juices that caused me to nearly starve to
death.) I said give me an aids test, I don't care, I'll even pay for it.
No, they said they couldn't trust the results, and testing was too
political; so I was given the boot. Another employment agent at that time
said I was too pale and thin, and accused me of being a convict lying
about my background. They never checked the numerous excellent references
I had, all from out of state. I had just come to California for
treatment. I look normal now, but for others, I think the discrimination
is getting worse.
Then there is the age discrimination -- young managers don't want
someone smarter than them working for them. The last one was nervous
enough, but he was young enough that he kept asking me how he could
improve his management skills. Also, he hadn't hired me, he'd inherited me
when the previous manager quit, thinking our project was impossible. (I
love impossible projects. The folks are so scared they are actually
willing to listen to reason.)
Heck I've always wanted the best and brightest working for me! Why
should I hire you if you AREN'T smarter than me??? (Well, it takes more
than smartness. You have to be able to discuss alternatives and lay out a
good rational for and against most of the alternatives, etc.)
Frustration!
But you know, air pollution is way down from what it was when I was
young, fish are found in streams where the acids and other crud were
beginning to dissolve bedrock. (Till it reached the rubber factory and
started to be rubber coated.) The cold war ended, and a lot of things are
getting better and better. Sad they just don't seem to want us older and
smarter folks participating in that life.
My father kept telling me to look for a rich wife. I prefer smart,
but would probably settle for rich. Just as long as she didn't inherit it
from her last husband. My last wife tried that trick on me, but she'd
forgotten to check my bank balance first.
Oh life, yet how we cling to it.
Just another loon, howling at the moon.
-J- ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --------------------------www.mall-net.com/javilk
One slightly used ex-husband, good condition, likes thinking, walking ---
Sitting forlornly in Hecate's Used Husband Lot, The Moonlight Zone. -----
E-mail me for info on how to preview this Fine Classical Merchandise. ---
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