Jun 29, 2010 -- 10:57AM, Marcion wrote:

Look at all the political hoopla and funding that went to DARPA for Neural Net research in the 80's; it turned out to be nothing but a lot of fluff.

Politics and funding do not guarantee success, that comes from hard work by committed scientists like the UCLA team.

Not disputing any of that but funding helps a great deal.

Ah, now I get it. Partisan spite.

Jun 30, 2010 -- 3:08PM, Hatman wrote:

Given the USG's proven propensity to engage in "false flag" ops, giving the USG the power to selectively terminate or delete websites due to some trumped-up(or actual) "emergency" is extremely stupid, and i hope that any and every internet user works with enough IT professionals to be able to almost immediately circumvent this "law," should it become one.

Hat, just need to correct a misconception here. What they're talking about is not removing individual websites (there's already a procedure for doing that if they break the law). What's being discussed is the power to shut off internet access for the United States, probably through some kind of national content filter of the kind China currently uses.

And that's why it likely wouldn't work. China's firewall is under attack pretty much constantly. Hackers are a mischevous bunch and they/we don't like censorship. It's probably academic anyway. The client-server model of distributed computing has gone almost as far as it can. Within a few years, we'll have reconfigured the network in such a way that any attempt to shut off The Signal is doomed to failure.

Jun 30, 2010 -- 10:50PM, Ebon wrote:

Jun 30, 2010 -- 3:08PM, Hatman wrote:

Given the USG's proven propensity to engage in "false flag" ops, giving the USG the power to selectively terminate or delete websites due to some trumped-up(or actual) "emergency" is extremely stupid, and i hope that any and every internet user works with enough IT professionals to be able to almost immediately circumvent this "law," should it become one.

Hat, just need to correct a misconception here. What they're talking about is not removing individual websites (there's already a procedure for doing that if they break the law). What's being discussed is the power to shut off internet access for the United States, probably through some kind of national content filter of the kind China currently uses.

And that's why it likely wouldn't work. China's firewall is under attack pretty much constantly. Hackers are a mischevous bunch and they/we don't like censorship. It's probably academic anyway. The client-server model of distributed computing has gone almost as far as it can. Within a few years, we'll have reconfigured the network in such a way that any attempt to shut off The Signal is doomed to failure.

Thanks for the additional info, Ebon.
So the ostensible purpose of this bill is to prevent anyone outside America from contacting websites/sending-receiving emails to and from any sites physically located within America?

Basically, throwing up a firewall around CONUS, Hawaii, and Alaska?  So Americans would still have access to sites situated in any of the States of the Union, but not outside?

If so, i apologize for my misunderstanding, but even so, i don't trust the pinheads and beancounting knuckledraggers of the USG as far as i can heave the Jefferson Memorial.

Especially given info received recently from the DVD "Police State IV: The Rise of FEMA."

Once the switchover to digital teevee took place, i've grown rather fond of most of the news coverage from Al Jazeera, as they seem far more balanced and inclined to give more pertinent detail/honest background than the current corporate teevee infotainment sludge presently being ladled out for mass consumption by US media conglomerates; in the event of any declared "emergency," terminating access to ALL outside CONUS news sources seems tyrannical and despotic in the extreme, but maybe that's just me; after all, gov't politicians and allied corporate slugs can be trusted to protect America, 'cuz they've always done so...

With goodwill to all the People-

Hatman