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A federal appeals court is upholding lifetime G.P.S. monitoring of a convicted felon, in this instance a Wisconsin pedophile who served time for sexually assaulting a boy and a girl. The court upheld the constitutionality of a Wisconsin law that, beginning in 2008, requires convicted pedophiles to wear GPS ankle devices for the rest of their lives.
Opinion:
I can't imagine this not going to the US Supreme Court and, if upheld, steadily being expanded to everyone "for the public good". Though my soul is set ablaze with rage at this, I can't help but think this overall has little impact on the populous in general as we all carry tracking devices willingly for the convenience of contacting loved ones and business associates anywhere. Do you believe there will come a day when everyone's positions will be monitored at all times by law? Do you have an alternative to cellphones that don't track your position?
(Score: 1) by Capt. Obvious on Thursday February 04 2016, @09:06AM
I don't think it's defeatism, because I don't believe your mesh system is a superior solution. It seems to have higher upfront costs for individuals, higher coordination costs for the mesh hardware, lower reliability. All of which may be worth it, but I don't see how to get to the benefits you claim. If I want to send you an e-mail/text, in your scenario how does it work?
I say this as someone who tried several times with paper to sketch it out (although years ago). I'm really excited by the idea.
But yes, airways are a limited resource. Even if everything worked perfectly, if only 3% want it, and 97% want the current system, I'm not sure why the 3% (even if I'm part of it) gets to impose its will on the group.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Arik on Thursday February 04 2016, @10:03AM
Essentially the same way as it does now, since it's all IP already. You prepare your payload, chop it into packets, mark the recipient address on each one, and hand it to a router. The router looks at the address and looks up a delivery path (the next router) - possibly more than one - to which the packet is then transmitted, and at which the process repeats until either the packet reaches its final destination or it gets dumped as undeliverable.
That mechanic is not any different. The difference is that now the #2 (or even #1!!!) router in most peoples chains belongs to a big ISP that has a lot of competing interests besides providing internet service, and then invariably directed to one of a handful of major 'backbone' routes. If just a portion of those were taken out tomorrow 'the internet' would grind to a halt for a lot of people - all the packets would start getting dumped as undeliverable. And if instead of damaging the backbone and taking it offline, the attackers quietly plant a bug, a huge number of people are placed under surveillance simultaneously.
With a mesh network you don't have a single point of failure. You can use a backbone when it's available (and if you choose to trust it) and that can certainly improve performance, but your network continues to function even if all the backbones are unavailable for some reason. 'The internet was designed to route around damage' but as the architecture grows more centralized it is less and less possible for it to succeed in this.
"Even if everything worked perfectly, if only 3% want it, and 97% want the current system, I'm not sure why the 3% (even if I'm part of it) gets to impose its will on the group."
Let's be real, 97% don't understand it well enough to have any idea what they want. They will buy just about anything that is promoted competently.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 05 2016, @12:05AM
But in your situation, those "next addresses" are places with a known physical location, that gets closer and closer to the actual person. So I'm confused as to how anonymity is added.
If you say the mesh network is just for redundancy, fine. But that wasn't the original reason given.
Well, they know some of what they want. They want it to be turnkey (0 configuration). They tend to want it to be fast, instead of reliable. They want to spread the payments for hardware over a 2 year contract. They want to know that if something goes wrong Someone(tm) is on the case.
And frankly, those ideas compete with a mesh network. Reliability usually comes at the cost of something, dollars or performance To say nothing of speed usually means fiber to fiber points, which seem to be impossible in your situation.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Friday February 05 2016, @01:41AM
There's actually no guarantee that each step takes you physically closer - but obviously that's going to be the most typical trajectory.
"So I'm confused as to how anonymity is added."
With a centralized system one tap on a backbone catches all the traffic. With a mesh network, while it's possible to pick up bits and pieces of anyones conversation just about anywhere, if you actually want to capture the full traffic instead of just a bit here and there, you can't just drop one bug in a central location and catch everyone with it. You have to target specific people, which incidentally is what our laws say should be done anyway. Without in any way granting *anonymity* (which is not the point and not even always desirable) it would still create a situation much more conducive to *privacy* (which is a different thing, and roundly beneficial.)
"And frankly, those ideas compete with a mesh network. "
And frankly, those ideas just reflect people without any understanding of reality. You want it all, yesterday, for free eh? You'll keep right on wanting.
And there will be no shortage of people ready to take your money, of course, but don't kid yourself they will do this by creating the impossible.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 05 2016, @07:39PM
Those ideas don't compete with reality. The current system is better at implementing the ideas than a mesh network. They are reality./p.