Wal-Mart Online Music Store -- WMA, $0.88 for every song

[Agathon]

Bizarre.

[Q Classic]

well, of course uncle boris misrepresents the entire argument i've been putting forth.

then again, i'm not surprised that he can't seem to get his brain around the notion that while i'm not saying we should trust microsoft, we really shouldn't trust the government when it comes to the digital frontier.

truly bizarre.

then again, i don't think i've ever had a constructive debate with him, seeing as he just doesn't seem to have half a clue what he's talking about, nor does he seem to really understand what anybody else is pointing out.

===

Well, you can get a copy of American laws, can't you? If you are unfairly treated by the government, you still can, AFAIK, ask for compensation in court? So what wrong would there be in modifying the law to make some forms of monitoring illegal?

nowhere have i said that i have a problem with making some forms of monitoring illegal. rather, i've merely pointed out that trusting the government to do a good job of it is like trusting a blind person with cerebral palsy to give you a close shave with a straight razor. sure, you might get a close shave, but odds are you're going to be missing a bit of your jugular, too.

Again, you are mistaking regulation and control. Obviously, that the government regulates what private companies can do with your personal information (like in the financial sector), doesn't mean they have been nationalized or that they are controlled by the government.

regulation is control. sorry, i don't see much of a difference there, perhaps because there really isn't one. allowing the government to regulate what is and isn't in the os is allowing them to control its development and design. with that kind of control in software development and design, you're going to have much worse ****ware when it comes to the os than microsoft and apple during their worst periods combined.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

then again, i'm not surprised that he can't seem to get his brain around the notion that while i'm not saying we should trust microsoft, we really shouldn't trust the government when it comes to the digital frontier.

truly bizarre.

So who should we trust? On the balance of the evidence democratically elected governments, although they are not perfect, do a much better job at protecting fundamental rights and freedoms than private capital does.

[Asher]

I'm just as perplexed as Q³ that anyone can say private corporations, hellbent on profit which means making consumers buy their product which means giving them what they want, are more apt to abuse freedoms than a government who has consistently denied people basic rights (gay marriage, DMCA -- how ironic, btw, patriot act, etc).

[Fake Boris]

Asher, this is your last chance: my point is that monopolies would make it more easier for the government to monitor people, because they obviously would have a hard time programming and imposing their own OS.

Going through a company is the best and easiest path.

[Asher]

The problem is, once you willingly use an OS to spy on people, it will no longer be a monopoly as many citizens would then feel the motivation to switch.

And then you've got all of the people who are perhaps worth monitoring switching to alternative OSes, so then what was the point in the first place?

Did you think this through?

[Fake Boris]

Of course.

There's always the option of making Palladium or the next-gen (possibly Internet-enabled) TCPA chips mandatory. It's not totally absurd to fear it, because there have beens some law projects made in this sense. They may have been rejected for now, but they do exist, and some people are pushing for it. That's enough to scare me.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Asher
I'm just as perplexed as Q³ that anyone can say private corporations, hellbent on profit which means making consumers buy their product which means giving them what they want, are more apt to abuse freedoms than a government who has consistently denied people basic rights (gay marriage, DMCA -- how ironic, btw, patriot act, etc).

Don't be such a cretin. Who do you think generally opposes consumer rights legislation? Who do you think enforces privacy legislation?

Who the **** was behind the DCMA? The ACLU?

[Q Classic]

So who should we trust? On the balance of the evidence democratically elected governments, although they are not perfect, do a much better job at protecting fundamental rights and freedoms than private capital does.

the entire point of the internet is that it is distributed, it is anarchic, and it is academic (bollocks to the commercial side of it, i say).
therefore, we put our trust in the corporations that manufacture the hardware, the switches, that they will refuse to allow snooping to be easier (else, other corporations will refuse to buy their products~). we put our trust in the people who use the internet for their livelihoods--in other words, the open source movement. should there ever be a threat of some external observation, we put our faith in the alternative systems built by those who refuse to kowtow to either apple's or microsoft's domination.

the true benefit of open source isn't that the code is free, or any **** like that. the true benefit of open source is that it's open--and anybody is able to take it and run with it if they're dissatisfied with the way things are going.

government regulation will kill OSS. government support, on the other hand, will not. government funding gave us ReiserFS; but government regulation will kill the creativity.

===

Who the **** was behind the DCMA?

please, agathon, tell me you're not this... misguided... when it comes to the DMCA.

the DMCA is a piece of pure ****. it's the same thing that Diebold wanted to hide behind after it was revealed that diebold's software sucked total ass. it's the same thing lexmark tried to use to kill off third-party ink refillers.

the DMCA was the government's baby, and it clearly shows that they haven't the foggiest ****ing clue how to use the new digital world.

and we're somehow supposed to put our faith in them doing the right thing?