Government in Exile

Hi-Tech Dilemma

"Legion" has some thoughts on the hi-tech dilemma.

I heard on the radio just yesterday that Tennessee is expected to lose a million jobs over the next 5 years. And it's not to immigrant labor, companies leaving the state, or collapse of the economy system. No, it's due to advanced technology taking over jobs that have always been done by humans. This report corresponded with a video I had seen on email about the same subject, but multiplied by 49 other states.

We see the beginnings of this everywhere. Self operated check-out lines at numerous stores, ATM's, increased shopping on the net, robots manning assembly lines, even cars that can drive themselves. We already have planes that can land themselves, trains and subways that can operate by themselves, and on and on and on. Even wars are now being fought by computers. I'm not going to go into all the ways technology has taken jobs from humans because quite frankly I don't have enough room here. I would like to comment on what a near complete takeover of jobs by robots could mean to our way of life.

The reasons industry is rapidly spending big money developing this system of labor are obvious. No unions, no salaries, no health benefits, no human error, increased productivity, huge decrease in fixed and variable costs, and most of all, increased profits. That's great. The stockholders will love it. The only problem is, if people aren't working and earning money, who's going to buy stock? Who's going to buy their products? Is the government going to assure every adult a fixed income? If so, will we no longer need cash or will we have an EBT-type card that charges all purchases back to our personal, federally managed income account? Is that the left calls utopia?
How will manufacturers get their goods to people? By self operating rail, truck and planes? If so we won't need any humans in the transportation industry. Amazon is already talking about making home deliveries of retail purchases by drones. That ought to work. Hundreds of drones flying helter skelter all over city skies.

But you say a robot can't replace the human mind. Really? The big push by high tech companies is developing just such robots. They will know more, store more, and recall more in mere seconds. And companies won't need a cadre of high salaried management personnel to explore, discuss and finalize decisions. Robby Robot can do all that while you're getting a cup of coffee.
There is a bright side. Having fewer and fewer jobs will cut down on illegal's swarming across the border seeking employment. Unless of course, our liberal politicians decide they too deserve a guaranteed fixed income. We'll have no need for politicians so that should take the crime, corruption and worthless waste out of D.C.

There are still many jobs that will require humans for the foreseeable future. Law enforcement, fire fighters, emergency first responders, people to repair broken robots, people to design new robots to replace the human robot repairmen, age old human reproduction, and of course prostitutes. Maybe we'll have virtual call girls instead.

At what point does technology replace the need for humans at all? How do you stop, and should we stop, this hi-tech explosion? How is the government going to guarantee incomes for each and every person if no one's earning a living and paying taxes? That's simple, the government will own all the businesses and pocket all the profits. There's no other way.

What will millions of people do all day, every day, who are no longer needed in the work force? How many Andy Griffith reruns are there? The ones who really will see no difference are the millennial's still living in their room upstairs at mommy's house. They have neither the desire nor the intelligence to hold a meaningful job anyway.

Who Should Control the Internet?

"Legion" has some thoughts on the Internet.

 What's with this Obama regime?   First they want to do away with religion (except Islam);  then the best health care system in the world;  then republicans;  then our military supremacy;  then the constitution;  then American exceptionalism;  then the free market;  then freedom of speech;  on and on and on.  Now they want to give over control of the internet to some yet-to-be-named international organization?  Does Al Gore know about this?  And just what is this int'l organization, who belongs to it, and who'll be in charge of it?  The United Nations and its hate-America crowd?  Might want to check out the members of their human rights committee.

 

     It seems to me that very few of the 3rd world countries could be members cause to have computers you first have to have electricity.  Second, you have to know how to read and write.  Course, if it's run by the same group of geniuses that run the UN, the only criteria for being a member would be to love Marxism and and hate democracy.   

 

     It's scary to think what an international agency could do to the I-net and this country.  Just some possibilities:  

 

1.    An international user fee (tax) is the first to come to mind.  Who would benefit from this income and what would it be used for?  

 

2.    A group of non-English speaking bureaucrats to determine who gets approved and who gets booted off. 

 

3.    Hefty fines or other punishment for non-acceptable communications such as news, opinions, blogs, critical reviews, etc.   In other words, things Obama wants to do but can't under our system.

 

4.    Int'l monitoring and gathering system for all communications whether business, personal, political or whatever.  No more personal privacy.

 

5.    Possibly each country who participates would be allowed to charge a user fee to its citizens.  Libs do love taxes.

 

6.    And worst of all our I-net usage would be under the thumb and governess of the UN or some other such entity, giving up even more of our freedoms and liberties. 

 

7.    It would redistribute the wealth, power and influence of the USA.

 

     Why Obama would even consider gifting the world with something that was born in America and belongs to Americans is beyond rational thought.  What right does he have to make such a decision?  Oh that's right, he's the president so he can do whatever he wants to do.  Who needs laws and a constitution when you have him at the helm.   Who knows, maybe next he'll give up control of our educational system to the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

 

 

 

Privacy What Privacy?

"Rook" has some thoughts on privacy.  

 

Verizon Announces Privacy Updates | TheBlaze.com

 

Verizon informed me that it will now start selling the data of the websites I visit, the apps and device features I use, my device location, demographic information gleaned from other companies, as well as the amount of time I use certain products.

 

Follow-Up Study of Website Info Leakage Finds 61% Release Usernames | TheBlaze.com

 

    * Reviewing 185 largest websites, 61 percent release usernames.

    * Previous study found 56 percent of 120 websites reviewed released some sort of information.

    * Usernames, thanks to social networks, give people easy access to full names, photo and other information.

    * Just by clicking on a Home Depot ad, 13 different sites received user first name and email address.

    * Expert says this study isn’t indicative of lack of anonymity on the web, but identifying technical issues.

 

        * Viewing a local ad on the Home Depot website sent the user’s first name and email address to 13 companies.

        * Entering the wrong password on the Wall Street Journal website sent the user’s email address to 7 companies. [...]We identified the Wall Street Journal leak in a different browsing session from the one reported in the spreadsheet – and by accident. In the interest of consistency – we did not test logging out and logging back in on other sites, nor logging in with the wrong password – we decided to discuss the leak in our post but not our spreadsheet.

        * Changing user settings on the video sharing site Metacafe sent first name, last name, birthday, email address, physical address, and phone numbers to 2 companies.

        * Signing up on the NBC website sent the user’s email address to 7 companies.

        * Signing up on Weather Underground sent the user’s email address to 22 companies.

        * The mandatory mailing list page during CNBC signup sent the user’s email address to 2 companies.

        * Clicking the validation link in the Reuters signup email sent the user’s email address to 5 companies.

        * Interacting with Bleacher Report sent the user’s first and last names to 15 companies.

        * Interacting with classmates.com sent the user’s first and last names to 22 companies.

 

Who's Reading Your Emails?

NSA allies with Internet carriers to thwart cyber attacks against defense firms - The Washington Post

 

"Rook" has some thoughts on who's reading your emails.

 

“We hope the . . . cyber pilot can be the beginning of something bigger,” Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III said at a global security conference in Paris on Thursday. “It could serve as a model that can be transported to other critical infrastructure sectors, under the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security.”

 

The prospect of a role for the NSA, the nation’s largest spy agency and a part of the Defense Department, in helping Internet service providers filter domestic Web traffic already had sparked concerns among privacy activists. Lynn’s suggestion that the program might be extended beyond the work of defense contractors threatened to raise the stakes.

 

The excuse: foreigners hacking into DoD and contractor sites in attempts to steal defense secrets.

The "solution:" filtering internet traffic to look for "malicious code" and "suspicious patterns of internet behavior."

 

No matter how they try to explain this away with techno-babble gibberish - that this is not and will never amount to domestic spying - the fact is that:

1. It is technically impossible to look for "malicious code" without actually reading and analyzing the CONTENTS of your messages, postings and the sites you visit, and 

2. It is technically impossible to look for "suspicious patterns of internet behavior" without actually reading and analyzing your CONTACT LIST, your browser's search HISTORY and any other records of your activities that our own computer or some spy MALWARE might record, such as your keystrokes.

3. It is technically impossible to limit these intrusive activities to foreigners and collaborators in this country without profiling (which in this Administration is a dirty word) and therefore EVERYBODY's internet activities will be monitored. Therefore, this program is INDEED universal domestic spying.

 

In fact the first time we have ever seen any mention of it in the media was during the Clinton years (mid-90's) when all the privacy-rights brouhaha was about an NSA program called Majestic or Magellan or something like that. At that time the NSA was said to be monitoring ALL cell phone traffic in the US and eventually world wide, by actually routing all calls through the NSA's computers. Maybe that is too much to be believable in view of the volume of traffic, but with this new program between the NSA and internet service providers, obviously they keep trying.

 

Now remember that today Sheila Jackson Lee (are there enough idiots in TEXAS to keep re-electing HER?) called for investigating domesticCHRISTIAN terrorists (like, when is the last time you heard of Christian suicide bombers?), and you have a LOT to be concerned about... Such as, how long before the DHS turns into a modern-day Gestapo, Stasi, KGB / GRU, Tonton Macoutes, etc., and this time with all the hi tech tools for monitoring the masses that petty Middle East dictators could only salivate over in their wildest dreams.

 

 

 

Proposed Legislation Regulating the Internet

"Rook" has some thoughts on proposed legislation regulating the Internet.  "

"I seriously doubt that Senators Lieberman and Collins understand the internet at all. Yet in their lawyerly arrogance they presume to write laws governing it. The excuse they are using is that hackers could wreak havoc with our infrastructure in case of a national emergency.

 

"If they were serious, and if they had even an elementary understanding of the design and the history of the internet, the law they would propose would be one that specifically instructs the operators of key infrastructure elements to disconnect their local area networksfrom the internet. They would write their proposed laws in view of answers to questions such as:

 

"* Why must any of the following be connected to the internet?

        hospital

        power distribution station 

        power generation plant

        gas and oil pipeline

        water pumping station 

        dam 

        police station

        military base

 

"* What part of their operation must be safeguarded from access?

        patient / customer records

        security protocols

        surveillance cameras

        physical control of machinery (HVAC, pumps, switches, etc.)

        physical control of doors and gates

        communications with off-site personnel

        communications with other agencies and facilities

 

"The real answer is that none of these things are public facilities and there is no good reason why any of these things should be accessible from the outside. There is no engineering reason why each facility should not be limited to its own local area network, with no physical connection to the outside. Without a physical connection -- wired or wireless -- there is no way an intruder can gain access. The only way anyone could gain unauthorized access would be by 1920's style wire-tapping, which is difficult to do and easy to detect and remedy. And if the facility has on-site power generators, they will stay up even if the rest of the world goes down. 

 

"On the other hand, commercial and social sites do have a legitimate reason to be connected to the internet at all times, but their relative importance, and therefore their need for security or immunity to hacker attacks, do not rise to the level of those of infrastructure, utilities, defense and public safety agencies. 

 

"The two systems (infrastructure/security and email/commercial) could be on completely separate networks, just as they were before the www part of the internet was opened to the public. Indeed about a year ago there was talk of building a separate "internet 2" or "www2" specifically for government use only, but then the story line went quiet.

 

"But by deliberately ignoring the details and writing blanket rules, the proponents of this legislation are once again advancing the agenda to put in place the tools of totalitarian control over a nation supposedly based on and dedicated to individual freedoms guaranteed by theConstitution. (PLEASE do not make the argument that our freedom of travel is limited to walking, and our freedom of communication is limited to writing letters... The Constitution is not a contract to restrict us to the technology of the 1700's)."

 

 

Obama Moves to Control Internet

What is going on with Obama and his latest move to monitor what Americans are doing in cyberspace?  Internet monitoring has moved a bit closer to reality, as President Barack Obama announces plans to hand over authority to create an Internet ID for all Americans to the U.S. Commerce Department, a White House official told CBS News.

The plan is touted as the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, is raising eyebrows about privacy issues over concerns that creating a centralized database is an infringement on Americans’ rights. The White House expects to roll it out within the next few months.  The White House is calling it an “absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to create an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said last Friday during a business and academics forum at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.   They supposedly issue digital identities for web usage to all Americans that will reduce cybersecurity vulnerabilities and improve online privacy protections.

 

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke insists this is not the act of Big Brother keeping tabs on its citizens. "We are not talking about a national ID card,” Locke said at the Stanford forum. “We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities."

Schmidt added that his office will work with the Department of Homeland Security and the General Services Administration to implement the Internet ID strategy.

 

What is the real reason behind this move?  Is it merely a move to enhance our safety or something more sinister?

 

The FCC Seizes Control of the Internet

Americans knew, at some point, that Obama would make a move to take over the Internet.  FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski, announced this week that the FCC would assume control of the Internet before the end of this year.  The reason?  Genachowski says it is to assure “net neutrality,” whatever that means.

Not surprisingly, the Democratic support the new takeover and the Republicans oppose it. 

Up to know the Internet has been unregulated, so what’s going on?   It looks rather benign at this point, but the FCC grabbing control could lead to some nasty surprises to Americans. 

1)     Assuming control could lead to Congress taxing Internet use. 

2)     Buyers currently pay no taxes for online purchases; this could change. 

3)     The FCC could decide that fair practices doctrine applies when it comes to blogs like this one.  The possibilities are endless.

The big questions are:  Where is Obama and the Congress going with “net neutrality.”  How will this affect free speech?

 

Will the U.S. Government Prosecute WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange?

WikiLeaks has just released thousands of secret documents – yet again – that threaten the security of the United States.  The question of the extent of the damage is not yet known, because WikiLeaks is releasing the secret documents in increments that will cover several months. 

WikiLeaks’ founder, 39 year-old Julian Paul Assange, has a rather, shall we say, a colorful background.  He was reportedly born in Australia.  He reportedly studied math and physics, but he apparently decided to become a hacker, instead.  He is an open advocate of transparency of government communications.  Sound familiar?  Apparently Assange and George Soros have something in common.

The first major dissemination of leaked material was documents pertaining to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.   Left leaning organizations were quick to bestow “journalism awards” on Assange.

Assange is a shadowy figure, who is constantly on the move, appearing at a moment’s notice to make a speech or to accept yet another reward.

Assange was a member of a hacker group named “International Subversives,” and some of his activities earned him a visit to his Melbourne home from the Australian Federal Police.  In 1992, Assange pleaded guilty to 24 counts of hacking.  He was fined AU$2100.

His champions include Daniel Ellsberg, who is best known for leaking the Pentagon Papers.  Ellsberg said, “He [Assange] is serving our [American] democracy and serving our rule of law precisely by challenging the secrecy regulations, which are not laws in most cases, in this country…Any serious risk to that national security is extremely low. There may be 260,000 diplomatic cables. It's very hard to think of any of that which could be plausibly described as a national security risk. Will it embarrass diplomatic relationships? Sure, very likely--all to the good of our democratic functioning."

This year, Swedish authorities charged Assange with rape.  Assange claimed it was a trumped up charge, but Assange didn’t stick around long enough to have the matter decided.  He currently is thought to be seeking political asylum in Switzerland. 

It appears Assange may be one of those well-intentioned fools who seek to make the world a better place by revealing confidential communiqués.  However, Assange is failing to take into consideration the fact that many countries, including Russia, China, and others who would not hesitate to order a hit on the king of transparency.  The big question is what will Attorney General Eric Holder do about Mr. Assange’s latest caper?

And, could this be an elaborate remake of the old British intelligence's "planted briefcase" trick?