I often feel this CA discussion stopped some time some years ago.
While there is no good solution to replace the whole CA system yet there are actually pretty nice workarounds for a large number of problems. They are called HTTP Public Key Pinning and Certificate Transparency.
You can start adding Key Pinning to your site today. Chrome supports it, Firefox and IE work on it, it will improve your security a lot and it'll make CA compromises much less of an issue.
All these high quality audio formats are largely voodoo anyway. Why? Because if you have a mp3 with some decent bitrate (for mp3 it's said to be around 192 kb/s) and a good encoder, you already have what is called audio transparency. That means a human ear cannot hear the quality loss due to the compression. (and mp3 is mostly an outdated technology, with modern codec technology - aka opus - you can get it with even lower bitrates)
There are lots of people out there claiming that they can hear the compression artifacts compared to a "lossless" file or even a 24 bit file. But they can only do so as long as they know which file is the lossless one and which not. In a blinded test you cannot separate them.
Codec-developer Monty has written about that a while back in detail:
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
One more thing that makes this argument absurd: He seems to assume that if you pay, privacy issues get better. That doesn't pass a test of reality.
The worst I can think of at all when it comes to privacy handling are the various DRM systems used by the gaming industry. The EFF has once called "Warden" (system of WoW) Spyware, which is an accurate description of what most DRM systems by computer games today are. And they are amongst the best payed computer services today.
I'm from Germany and we have this debate for quite a while. Our government wants to create a so-called "Leistungsschutzrecht", which should force google to pay for indexing news content (although not for "normal" search content, which is kinda strange, but it indicates that people at least understood that they cannot forbid search engines at all). It's outright stupid and lots of people fear the implications might me damning, making every link someone sets a possible risk.
What they always fail to mention: They can opt out of google indexing them, but that's not what they want. Once someone said something wise: Every article about the "Leistungsschutzrecht" without the mentioning "robots.txt" should not be considered serious.
What I find frightening is that although this is so crazy it shouldn't be worth a serious discussion, this debate seems to go international now. Recently France announced similar plans.
Last thing they protested was Tanooki Mario in Super Mario 3D Land which originates from age old Super Mario Bros. 3.
Even if you take fake fur in a video game as a serious problem: I never considered that costume something "fur", but a costume.
Funny enough when I clicked the first gangnam video link I saw I got a message that I can't see it due to the GEMA not allowing me to see it in Germany. (however it wasn't the original, but some live recording - I think the original is available)
I seem to live in a country that's especially crappy when it comes to copyright issues...
Just recently new research results likely indicate that calorie restriction probably won't prolong live in monkeys, making it likely that it won't work in humans as well.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/aug/29/calorie-restriction-ageing-monkey-study
Which is kind of sad, as I was about to jump on and try it out. Still there's nothing wrong with calorie restriction, as the monkeys in the study seemed to live healthier than the control group - and obesity is definitely a risk of dying unneccessary early. But it probably won't prolong your life as it does in rats and worms.
What's currently gaining a lot of attention in Germany is the technology to transform electricity into hydrogen or methane.
The advantage: It can be put into the natural gas grid which is already there with lots of storage facilities. It can take up to 5 percent hydrogen (and there are discussions if it could be much more with slight technology changes). Methane can be put into the grid in an unlimited amount.
The disadvantage: It's relatively expensive and inefficient.
Enertrag, one of the companies engaged in it, has some english info:
https://www.enertrag.com/en/project-development/hybrid-power-plant.html
Hi, I completely agree with what you wrote and I sometimes think it was the biggest mistake of the free culture movement to accept the cc licensing concept of restrictions.
However, I would go one step further: I'd like to free culture even more and reject any restrictions like (legally required) attribution and share-alike. The reason? I could name a couple, but my main one would be: The freedom to mix. If you have two licenses that anyone would consider free in terms of the four freedoms (e. g. FDL and cc-by-sa, or GPL2 + GPL3), it can still be forbidden to create something new out of two "free" things. I find that very non-free. Thus I mainly release under CC-zero (which is, for those who don't know, a legal text for public domain-alike licensing).
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by hanno.
Key Pinning and CT
I often feel this CA discussion stopped some time some years ago.
While there is no good solution to replace the whole CA system yet there are actually pretty nice workarounds for a large number of problems. They are called HTTP Public Key Pinning and Certificate Transparency.
You can start adding Key Pinning to your site today. Chrome supports it, Firefox and IE work on it, it will improve your security a lot and it'll make CA compromises much less of an issue.
This is largely voodoo
All these high quality audio formats are largely voodoo anyway. Why? Because if you have a mp3 with some decent bitrate (for mp3 it's said to be around 192 kb/s) and a good encoder, you already have what is called audio transparency. That means a human ear cannot hear the quality loss due to the compression. (and mp3 is mostly an outdated technology, with modern codec technology - aka opus - you can get it with even lower bitrates)
There are lots of people out there claiming that they can hear the compression artifacts compared to a "lossless" file or even a 24 bit file. But they can only do so as long as they know which file is the lossless one and which not. In a blinded test you cannot separate them.
Codec-developer Monty has written about that a while back in detail:
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
And if you pay it gets worse (?)
One more thing that makes this argument absurd: He seems to assume that if you pay, privacy issues get better. That doesn't pass a test of reality.
The worst I can think of at all when it comes to privacy handling are the various DRM systems used by the gaming industry. The EFF has once called "Warden" (system of WoW) Spyware, which is an accurate description of what most DRM systems by computer games today are. And they are amongst the best payed computer services today.
In Germany, this debate is running for a while
I'm from Germany and we have this debate for quite a while. Our government wants to create a so-called "Leistungsschutzrecht", which should force google to pay for indexing news content (although not for "normal" search content, which is kinda strange, but it indicates that people at least understood that they cannot forbid search engines at all). It's outright stupid and lots of people fear the implications might me damning, making every link someone sets a possible risk.
What they always fail to mention: They can opt out of google indexing them, but that's not what they want. Once someone said something wise: Every article about the "Leistungsschutzrecht" without the mentioning "robots.txt" should not be considered serious.
What I find frightening is that although this is so crazy it shouldn't be worth a serious discussion, this debate seems to go international now. Recently France announced similar plans.
Tanooki Mario
Last thing they protested was Tanooki Mario in Super Mario 3D Land which originates from age old Super Mario Bros. 3.
Even if you take fake fur in a video game as a serious problem: I never considered that costume something "fur", but a costume.
Gangnam and region blocking
Funny enough when I clicked the first gangnam video link I saw I got a message that I can't see it due to the GEMA not allowing me to see it in Germany. (however it wasn't the original, but some live recording - I think the original is available)
I seem to live in a country that's especially crappy when it comes to copyright issues...
Calorie restriction likely doesn't prolong life
Just recently new research results likely indicate that calorie restriction probably won't prolong live in monkeys, making it likely that it won't work in humans as well.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/aug/29/calorie-restriction-ageing-monkey-study
Which is kind of sad, as I was about to jump on and try it out. Still there's nothing wrong with calorie restriction, as the monkeys in the study seemed to live healthier than the control group - and obesity is definitely a risk of dying unneccessary early. But it probably won't prolong your life as it does in rats and worms.
Love that Douglas Adams quote
Do you have the original source of the D. Adams quote? Didn't find it on a first try on google.
Although.. I'm already 31... Have to think which technology from the last 1,5 years I find introducing the end of civilization ;-)
Hydrogen and Methane
What's currently gaining a lot of attention in Germany is the technology to transform electricity into hydrogen or methane.
The advantage: It can be put into the natural gas grid which is already there with lots of storage facilities. It can take up to 5 percent hydrogen (and there are discussions if it could be much more with slight technology changes). Methane can be put into the grid in an unlimited amount.
The disadvantage: It's relatively expensive and inefficient.
Enertrag, one of the companies engaged in it, has some english info:
https://www.enertrag.com/en/project-development/hybrid-power-plant.html
Agree, but addition
Hi, I completely agree with what you wrote and I sometimes think it was the biggest mistake of the free culture movement to accept the cc licensing concept of restrictions.
However, I would go one step further: I'd like to free culture even more and reject any restrictions like (legally required) attribution and share-alike. The reason? I could name a couple, but my main one would be: The freedom to mix. If you have two licenses that anyone would consider free in terms of the four freedoms (e. g. FDL and cc-by-sa, or GPL2 + GPL3), it can still be forbidden to create something new out of two "free" things. I find that very non-free. Thus I mainly release under CC-zero (which is, for those who don't know, a legal text for public domain-alike licensing).