> When we got back, we watched as the laser engraving technician printed out a copy of our alignment template, deleted all of the guide lines from the file, imported the legends into the laser engraving software, and proceeded to try to eyeball the correct label placement.
> Going in, we were annoyed at how far off the legends were. In retrospect, it’s astonishing how good his manual placement was.
...the primary effect of which is that fewer than 4% of criminal cases go to trial, and our prison, parole, and probation systems are full of people who pled to crimes they did not commit, and poison trees of evidence are intentionally and ruthlessly planted without challenge or consideration by a jurist.
It unquestionably does - it turns out destroying your job prospects for life, removing a major contributor to a household for years, and destroying family relations in the process lends itself to continuing having strife in your life, or having strife when you previously had none
> The majority of cases don’t go to trial because the majority of cases are hopeless for the defendants.
...but are the lion's share of these hopeless on the basis of the evidence, combined with a fair process and a just, civically-informed legal framework?
A person who is searched pursuant to a prompted canine indication, and found to be in possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine has a "hopeless" case, but they have committed no offense to society that I can recognize, and their inclination to plea to a lesser charge means that the particulars of the search will never be heard by a jurist.
> Law-abiding citizens wouldn’t have a 50% recidivism rate.
This seems like a testable hypothesis, albeit only after a successful completion of the abolitionist movement. I'll bet that, in a society focused on restorative justice and no dependence on a slave economy dressed up as incarceration, that nobody will have a 50% recidivism rate.
> While it’s admirable to push back against the state, not all defendants earn our sympathy in their plight.
Agreed, of course. But there's no justice in taking even the worst in society forcing them to be laborers to make Starbucks packaging. Let's remove the incentive structure first, and decide how to distribute our sympathies second.
The estimated innocent population is around 9%. A far cry from the majority. This is just populist trash.
Now if you want to make a majority claim about those incarcerated being incarcerated for something which a rich person would go free, that’s something else
...of course not. But dramatically less chargeable conduct, dramatically more robust protections against search and seizure, and the complete removal of the slave labor incentive inherent in prisons might just remove it without further ado.
This is going to be hard to sell. "dramatically" sounds like >50%, and I assume not just old laws on the books that aren't in-forced. So you want to remove >50% of chargeable offenses? What else besides drugs?
Are you in a contractual relationship with the federal government that involves handling federal data?
Alternatively, do you deal with HIPAA PHI (FIPS is—unless an update since the last time I checked has changed this—part of the HITECH Act guidance specification of whether PHI is secured or unsecured, and so is a factor in whether, legally, a breach has occurred.)
Approval involves an assessment of security features, but it doesn’t change them, so the approval itself doesn't not have security value. Using it as part of a filter before choosing a solution may have efficiency benefits, though (assuming you are doing your own security assessment that has non-zero cost after the filter.)
I think we just fundamentally disagree about the quality of the “assessment” FIPS is doing.
Choosing to use FIPS is basically choosing to tether yourself to the finest decision-making that government agencies could muster based on the technology that existed decades ago.
You’re choosing to ride a horse to work because somebody whacked an “approved” brand on it. I’m sure it’s a very reliable horse, but unless somebody is paying me a lot of money to hold the reins, I’m going to opt to use the advances we’ve made as an industry since then
> I think we just fundamentally disagree about the quality of the “assessment” FIPS is doing.
I haven't said anything about the quality of the assessment done as part of FIPS approval. I think you are straining for things to disagree with.
> Choosing to use FIPS is basically choosing to tether yourself to the finest decision-making that government agencies could muster based on the technology that existed decades ago.
The current FIPS encryption standards and criteria were not decided decades ago, or based on technology adopted decades ago (FIPS 140-3 is 2019, SP 800-40 is 2023, etc.)
Beyond the basic idea of “Let’s have NIST establish standards in this area”, almost nothing is from “decades ago”.
I went looking to refresh my memory, and Wikipedia reminded me about the brief window where ESR lent his voice to the Great Slate and helped raise money for progressive campaigns.
Notably:
> When we got back, we watched as the laser engraving technician printed out a copy of our alignment template, deleted all of the guide lines from the file, imported the legends into the laser engraving software, and proceeded to try to eyeball the correct label placement.
> Going in, we were annoyed at how far off the legends were. In retrospect, it’s astonishing how good his manual placement was.
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