mhays

Your edit is essentially the point of my original post. Yes, if we can get 100mbps for the vast majority of Americans, that would be awesome. But, if the vast majority of Americans would be fine right now with 10-15-20mbps, wouldn't it be better to analyze our national broadband capabilities based on that benchmark? From what I understand, 100mbps is overkill, so why use that as a benchmark?

I come at this with the thinking that, it's not "us" that's building out the infrastructure, but the telco companies. So, really what we are doing is analyzing the build-outs telcos are doing, and judging whether it is good enough or not. Is it really fair to say that, if there aren't 3+ telcos providing 100mbps, but there are 3+ providing 15mbps, that's not good enough?

Yea, certainly wasn't trying to call you out or anything :)

And yes, I remember when there was only one or two TVs in the house. Then there was 56k, where only one person could be online, and it took up the phone line. That's not to say we shouldn't strive to greatness, but it's amazing how far we've come.

Which leads to another line of thinking: If a family does only have a 5mbps connection, and is thus forced to share their streaming, maybe by forcing them to all watch the same thing in a room together like we once watched TV, is this so much of a bad thing? Are there other ways to mitigate a low mbps so that you can still experience a 2018 Internet?

This makes me sound like a telco shill, but the 1gbps/100mbps/Xmbps-or-bust arguments, I think, are sometimes utopian in nature and often discount how much people can do without such high-powered Internet. Yes, of course more speed is good, but are those with only 15 or 10mbps really in the stone age?

However, I say this while living in Seattle, where we both have amazing choices and speed, so I am definitely one of the fortunate ones.

I'm curious why you think 25 mbps is what you'd need for a family of four? Is there some sort of data out there for this?

Netflix states you need 3.5 mbps for SD, 5.0 mbps for HD.[0] With a family of four, does this means everyone could be watching HD Netflix, and do various other browsing simultaneously, and still be under 25mbps? If so, wouldn't 25mbps be far above what a family of four would need "without being bandwidth crunched all the time"? (Assuming that HD video would be the most data-intensive thing) Especially since, likely more often than not, everyone in the house will not be streaming HD video simultaneously.

The reason why I state this is because, while I get more speed is always better, we seem to often state X mbps is the bare minimum that should be achieved, but never say why. It makes it seem we are letting the perfect, or great, be the enemy of the good in some scenarios. For instance, if 10, 15, or 20 mbps is perfectly fine for most households, then shouldn't we use those numbers instead?

[0]: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306

The Donald has easier access to data abroad than data in the US :)

In the US, unless we are talking about a border search, LEO will still need a warrant to search your phone. I'm unsure if this is what you meant by "pants down" tho :)

The US isn't. The City of Seattle is. This is an important distinction.

Pricing as a result of market conditions does not make the pricing arbitrary. The price could be affected by lack of competition, but it could also be because of a number of other economic reasons. Limited competition itself could result from any number of economic reasons (expensive build out costs, restrictive regulatory regimes, etc).

Understanding the various factors involved in building infrastructure, and how they differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, is huge because it plays a huge role in how companies invest, build out, and price. Comparing two different cities' prices, without any more information, is completely useless.

Suing companies for this sort of thing isn't as easy as you'd think. One of the issues is damages, as in, you need to prove you incurred some sort of tangible harm or damage. This is usually calculated in financial damage. Currently there is a big split in the legal community about whether having your password or other info stolen, without any thing else happening (such as leveraging that information to get inside bank accounts and stealing money) is enough harm to satisfy the damages requirement because there was no financial damage done. Not saying I agree, but it's an issue.

If you can prove financial or other harm resulted from this, then yes, you'd might have a case.

Another avenue you could take is breach of contract or some similar claim. As in, you paid them and formed a contract according to their ToS, and their ToS (I assume) states they use at least reasonable security. Yet they didn't, which would be a breach of contract.

This is not a ddos attack. More like ddos mistake or accident.

>Only 15% of American believe that Snowden is a hero, 30% call him a traitor outright and only 25% of them believe that he should be offered any type of deal/pardon.

According to that poll. I think it's a reasonable possibility that one of those buckets is shortchanged by the way polls are conducted.

You can ascertain information pointing towards specific IoT devices from things like HTTP header information. I saw an blogpost a couple months ago detailing how the author ID'd an IoT DDOS botnet, which I can't find now, but here is a similar one: https://blog.sucuri.net/2016/06/large-cctv-botnet-leveraged-...

The only thing stopping me from getting an arm sleeve is knowing it will be there forever, and during future times when I can't have one.

Though if it lasts 12 months, by month 8 will I have a half-faded looking thing that I either have to retouch, or deal with until it fades completely?

Would you rather no borders exist, and a Brazilian judge ruling against WhatsApp taking out service worldwide, instead?

Thank you!

Except he did go to Congress, and came back with nothing, forcing him to use the AWA.

So who is pushing who exactly? And who has a louder voice in criminal justice matters than the FBI?

I think that's the joke.

What you were witnessing was not debate. Speaking to a largely empty chamber is the norm, and serves a different purpose.

Debate and discussion of legislation happens in the discourse Senate members have with each other, with their staff, between their staffs, with committee staffs, and with private industry and other lobbyists. These discussions are happening all the time, just not usually on the Senate floor. So while it does seem weird that Senators orate to an empty chamber, that doesn't mean that the other Senators aren't hearing the arguments.

Whether they are hearing the right arguments, however, is a different issue.

>And yet, programmers, with far less forgiving requirements, manage to accomplish as much against far more objective requirements.

I am unsure what you mean by "far less forgiving requirements." My client may go to jail, or have something else taken from them with the force of law. The stakes are very serious.

I'm also unsure how one can calculate who accomplishes more, since the two professions accomplish very different things. Does your sentiment stem from a distaste for lawyers, or for our legal system more broadly?

>Your comment seems to convey your field is riddled with political bullshit.

I'm sorry that I gave that impression, and I'm sorry you feel that way. Participating in a system that imprisons people and forcefully takes away assets by court order is inherently political. I suppose if you took to studying law and our legal system, you would soon see that as much is it is "riddled with political bullshit," it is also riddled with people trying to make the right decisions.

I understand all the negative feelings our society has towards lawyers, and I don't blame anyone for having them. But there are a lot of us who are entering the profession because we have a sincere desire to do good.

I also think that if you talk to those interested in justice equity, especially public defenders, they will tell you that, while there may be too many lawyers in some places, there are many, many underprivileged communities that are underserved by our legal system.

>There is zero reason why entry needs to be mediated through expensive academic institutions staffed by professors who are generally not practitioners. If people want to go to law school as a luxury, that is fine, but it should not be required to participate in the justice system.

I would have agreed with you before I came to law school, but now I see why having intense legal training before being able to practice is required.

Being an attorney requires a very specific type of thinking which is somewhat different from normal human reasoning. It is less about understanding what is wrong or right morally, and more about knowing who or what sources have power, what laws and rules are relevant, and which levers should be pulled to argue for your desired outcome. It is this "thinking like a lawyer" that law school purports to teach, maybe even more so than the actual law itself.

Being an attorney is a huge responsibility, and I think the American Bar Association is right to set the bar high for prospective attorneys. My only gripe is that this bar seems to be not only ability and knowledge based, but also intensely financial as well.

To cite my own experience, I pay around $30,000 a year for my instate J.D. program. My school-appointed mentor, who graduated in 2004, paid $4,000 a year.

I see this as unfair, not only in the sense that my generation has to take out extraordinary loans to access education, but also in the sense that I am forced to pay $100,000 just to participate in our justice system. And I am one of the lucky ones benefiting from a lowered in-state tuition.

But I am not worried about me. I am worried about my friends who have accrued crippling debt in their quest to be a high school teacher, or some other valid, yet low paying, profession. I am afraid these people will never pay their debt off.

Just another chapter in the arms race between marketers and consumers.