Hacktivism: Good, Bad, Ugly?

[dneal]

You can pose a thought-experiment, which is what dneal seems to have done in his thread.

and

However, dneal's thought experiment has nothing to do with Covid, anti-Covid vaccines, or governments.

So you get the point, but you can't contemplate the reality of it. Hmmm. That would explain why you feel it necessary to distract on pedantic side-points rather than address the problem as presented.

p.s.: you forgot to add 'utilitarianism' to your obviously wrong list of things that "dneal's post has nothing to do with..."

--edit--

Hey, wait a minute.

Lives in NYC
Lies about things demonstrably proven otherwise
Tries counterpunches when on the ropes

Hmmm, I think I see a trend here.

welch, do you use spray tan (the orange kind)? Do you have a ridiculous combover? Just wondering if it's a one-off, or more prevalent in that part of the country.


See Chip, I do have a sense of humor! heh heh...

[Chip]

One aspect of the problem as epidemiology (as opposed to abstract thought or politics) is the fact that a person who refuses vaccination or masks, or other precautions, is not only far more likely to be infected, get seriously ill, and die, but also that in the process they are likely to infect others, thus depriving them of an important freedom—wellness— and perhaps causing their deaths.

That biological problem – a virus— is not isolated to the individual making the decision (not to get a vaccine or mask). Thus, rules or mandates seem necessary to counteract the ill effects of misjudgement, misunderstanding, and irresponsibility.

[dneal]

thus depriving them of an important freedom—wellness— and perhaps causing their deaths.

Is an "important freedom", and the potential deprivation of that, an epidemiological problem or an ethical one? Who protects those freedoms, and how (i.e. the "rules" and "mandates" you later mention)? Is that not a political problem?

You are using abstract thought to connect pure epidemiology with the other ideas that revolve around ethics and politics.

[welch]

and

However, dneal's thought experiment has nothing to do with Covid, anti-Covid vaccines, or governments.

So you get the point, but you can't contemplate the reality of it. Hmmm. That would explain why you feel it necessary to distract on pedantic side-points rather than address the problem as presented.

p.s.: you forgot to add 'utilitarianism' to your obviously wrong list of things that "dneal's post has nothing to do with..."

--edit--

Hey, wait a minute.

Lives in NYC
Lies about things demonstrably proven otherwise
Tries counterpunches when on the ropes

Hmmm, I think I see a trend here.

welch, do you use spray tan (the orange kind)? Do you have a ridiculous combover? Just wondering if it's a one-off, or more prevalent in that part of the country.

dneal insults anyone who dares to think through his arguments, and especially anyone who looks for his references. Saving myself the trouble of arguing with his non-arguments in two places:

So dneal says he argued the Trolley Problem without knowing it, hugs the "post hoc" fallacy, avoids the evidence in any of the statements posted by the CDC about risk from different anti-Covid vaccines, and repeats that his post is all about Covid and vaccines but not really about data from Covid.

dneal still has not noticed that the one and only study he claims to have read based itself on VAERS data that ended on January 8, 2021. That is about a month after anyone began getting the vaccines.

To save dneal the bother of doing arithmetic, the CDC says that six (6) people might have died because of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, out of nearly 15 million who have received it. That looks like one death for every 2.7 million doses. That looks like a death rate of 0.0000004.

[dneal]

and

However, dneal's thought experiment has nothing to do with Covid, anti-Covid vaccines, or governments.

So you get the point, but you can't contemplate the reality of it. Hmmm. That would explain why you feel it necessary to distract on pedantic side-points rather than address the problem as presented.

p.s.: you forgot to add 'utilitarianism' to your obviously wrong list of things that "dneal's post has nothing to do with..."

--edit--

Hey, wait a minute.

Lives in NYC
Lies about things demonstrably proven otherwise
Tries counterpunches when on the ropes

Hmmm, I think I see a trend here.

welch, do you use spray tan (the orange kind)? Do you have a ridiculous combover? Just wondering if it's a one-off, or more prevalent in that part of the country.

dneal insults anyone who dares to think through his arguments, and especially anyone who looks for his references. Saving myself the trouble of arguing with his non-arguments in two places:

So dneal says he argued the Trolley Problem without knowing it, hugs the "post hoc" fallacy, avoids the evidence in any of the statements posted by the CDC about risk from different anti-Covid vaccines, and repeats that his post is all about Covid and vaccines but not really about data from Covid.

dneal still has not noticed that the one and only study he claims to have read based itself on VAERS data that ended on January 8, 2021. That is about a month after anyone began getting the vaccines.

To save dneal the bother of doing arithmetic, the CDC says that six (6) people might have died because of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, out of nearly 15 million who have received it. That looks like one death for every 2.7 million doses. That looks like a death rate of 0.0000004.

So what you're saying.jpeg

[Chuck Naill]

One aspect of the problem as epidemiology (as opposed to abstract thought or politics) is the fact that a person who refuses vaccination or masks, or other precautions, is not only far more likely to be infected, get seriously ill, and die, but also that in the process they are likely to infect others, thus depriving them of an important freedom—wellness— and perhaps causing their deaths.

That biological problem – a virus— is not isolated to the individual making the decision (not to get a vaccine or mask). Thus, rules or mandates seem necessary to counteract the ill effects of misjudgement, misunderstanding, and irresponsibility.

I saw a photo of fans invading the field at the Michigan game last Saturday and read an article from an ER doctor there saying the hospital beds are filled with non vaccinated patients in Michagan. I am not saying the beds are filled because of the game, but that some just don't seem to take the virus seriously.

[Chip]

This— the opposite of abstract thinking— might be the piece you read:

"I often feel full of trauma, guilt and despair. I’m mad at the Fox News personalities and the Republican politicians who downplay vaccination. I’m frustrated with people who aren’t doing more to protect themselves and their loved ones. Sometimes, I’m just mad with a kind of seething aimless anger. But even on the hardest days I box my emotions and get back to the work of caring for patients because I made a commitment to heal people, not hold grudges.

On some shifts, the stress in the air is palpable. My colleagues and I know the patients are piling up, but there just are not enough nurses to properly triage everyone. A patient experiencing heart failure waits in an emergency room because inpatient rooms upstairs are all occupied. Patients who need surgery can’t be transferred because nearly every hospital within a two-hour drive is near or at capacity, too.

Nurses in my emergency department work double duty, checking on admitted patients and tending to new ones streaming in seemingly every hour. They’ve done this shift after shift for at least a month with no end in sight. And they did it during the last surge, in the spring, and the one before that, last winter. One of the best emergency nurses I’ve ever worked with told me that she cries on her drive home after every shift."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/o...e=articleShare

What price the egocentric delusion of freedom?

[Chip]

Here's another piece on foolish madness. Or mad foolishness.

A deadly virus can’t be ignored, jailed, exiled or co-opted — nor can it be locked down without great economic cost. That puts President Vladimir Putin of Russia in a bind. The pandemic, perhaps his hardiest foe to date, has starkly revealed the limits of his power.

The past several weeks have been especially painful. Daily infections in the country have hovered around 35,000 — while the official figures, probably undercounted, record over a thousand deaths each day. (And that’s before the Omicron variant, newly found in Russia, circulates widely.) The misery is largely due to the low vaccination rate in the country: After a nearly yearlong campaign, only 41 percent of the country’s people are fully vaccinated, a lower number than in Laos or Cape Verde.

The Kremlin has itself to blame. Given Russia’s intellectual, administrative and technological capacities, a successful vaccine rollout should have been possible. Instead, the authorities fatally eroded the public’s trust with conflicting messaging — oscillating between triumphalism and scaremongering — and haphazardly applied containment measures.

The result is a mistrustful, skeptical public — the latest poll from the Levada Center, an independent polling company, puts vaccine hesitancy at 36 percent — and a growing anti-vaccine movement that, headed by previously regime-friendly figures, is stirring up trouble. It’s not clear that Mr. Putin, usually adept at quashing sentiments not to his liking, can do much about it.

The anti-vaccine movement uses lines first delivered by the authorities. In March 2020, a leading Russian physician, Leonid Roshal, claimed that the new coronavirus was no more dangerous than ordinary flu and even demanded prosecution for those who said otherwise. As the true scope of the pandemic became apparent and European capitals went into lockdowns, state media and officials downplayed or ignored reports of disastrous outbreaks in several regions, lauding Moscow’s 'openness.'"

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/o...e=articleShare

[dneal]

Is that the same NYT as this one?

New York Times Retracts Massive Exaggeration of Children Hospitalized by COVID-19

[Chip]

As usual, you didn't bother to read either piece before crapping on the doorstep. Do you enjoy appearing idiotic? Vicious? Ignorant? Detached from reality? Contemptible?

[dneal]

I just asked a question revolving around credibility. Struck a nerve, apparently.

The first articles of yours I bothered to read undercut rather than reinforced your point (i.e.: Kant responsible for Nazis), and you did that very thing a second time.

It seems to me that you aren't even bothering to read the articles, so why should I?

It's one thing to cite a news article to comment on (see: Conspiracy Theories redux, for example). It's quite another to use it to present an article in lieu of formulating your own.

If I just post a bunch of Fox or Newsmax or whatever source I assume you would object to, would that be persuasive to you? or would you just harrumph and horselaugh your incredulity? "Glenn Beck!?!" or something similar, I seem to remember your response being; when it was simply offered as an opportunity to hear Eric Weinstein present his case (whether one agreed with it or not).

p.s.: Is that picture supposed to represent you blowing smoke up someone's ass? I'd note how you tend to project in your selections, but some folks get tired of me pointing that sort of thing out. I think it works better as the NYT blowing smoke up yours, and you just trumpeting it.

[Chip]

Sorry to get annoyed with you. I know you can't help acting as you do.

Consider yourself forgiven.

[Chip]

Any further thoughts on the original topic: hacktivism?

Does the wholesale appropriation and for-profit use of personal data by platforms such as FaceBook (recalling the Cambridge Analytica scandal) constitute a seizure or theft? Compared to which, a bit of website doxing and public exposure is pretty small spuds.

[pajaro]

I am a retired IT manager. I view hacking as dangerous, and hacking into US systems by foreigners as an act of war, whether foreign government sanctioned or whether the foreign governments just let it go on. I believe it is one of the few crimes worthy of a death penalty.

In the early years of this century the systems I worked were victims of at least a thousand attempted hacks per day, mostly from Russia. We surmised they had nothing better or more challenging to do. They didn't break in. At least we couldn't find any evidence of it.

[Chip]

I am a retired IT manager. I view hacking as dangerous, and hacking into US systems by foreigners as an act of war, whether foreign government sanctioned or whether the foreign governments just let it go on. I believe it is one of the few crimes worthy of a death penalty.

A question: you seem to focus on hacks aimed at national security or vital systems (pipeline, electrical grids, etc.) as deserving the death penalty. Although the means of doing that internationally might be a problem. What about a hack exposing corporate e-mails that document liability under environmental regulations or pollution laws? Or a hack that published the membership list and finances of a subsversive group, such as the National Socialist Movement, Vanguard America, the Ku Klux Klan, Oathkeepers, the Proud Boys, Sons of the Confederacy, et al.? Or the sources of dark money contributions to political campaigns?

Death penalty for those as well?

[kazoolaw]

Speaking of what-abouts:
-what about a hack of your account information, disclosing your purchase history and bank account information
-what about a hack of your personal emails disclosing your personal history, your political leanings,
-what about a hack of your medical documents, including history, SS number, insurance information, DOB, address, all of which facilitate identity theft
-what about a hack of your library "card" account, and movie rentals
-what about hacking that results in doxxing, marching and threatening violence outside your house

Do you agree that there is a right to privacy at any level?

[Chuck Naill]

How many ever really experience that level of privacy invasion?

Best to live life not engaged in anything you’d be embarrassed for someone to see.

[kazoolaw]

How many ever really experience that level of privacy invasion?

Best to live life not engaged in anything you’d be embarrassed for someone to see.

If it's you, isn't one enough?

How about 45 million? 70 million? 500 million ought to do it, right?
https://losspreventionmedia.com/less...ks-in-history/

You need to become informed about medical record hacking:
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/securit...k-web-n1256887
https://www.chartrequest.com/medical-record-hackers/

Kroger hacked:
https://www.bluefin.com/bluefin-news...eaches-so-far/

Can't buy groceries because the store was hacked
https://www.theguardian.com/business...ers-frustrated

Warning about your TV watching you
https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/01/fb...t-tv-security/

Is being a customer of Planned Parenthood private? Something to be embarrassed about? How about being an employee and being afraid of being targeted? (No, I disapprove of publicizing such information)
https://apnews.com/article/technolog...a205a7bb53bce6

Not convinced yet, I can tell. How about just taking the money from your bank account?
https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/opini...ity/ar-AAROfQj

You should take the issue seriously.

[Chuck Naill]

Sorry, too busy living.

[kazoolaw]

Sorry, too busy living.

Not too busy for post 77 apparently: priorities, Chuck, priorities.