First Short Quiz Suggested Answers

[johnkarls]

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Question 1

Does the internet foster democracy by enabling citizens and groups such as Reading Liberally to break through the monopoly that 3-4 news organizations used to have in determining what events are “news” and how we should view the events they select?

Answer 1

Yes.

Question 2

Will access to the internet in jurisdictions with repressive regimes ever be unfettered? Or will access always be a Cat And Mouse game as possession of Smart Phones (with internet access) is criminalized and transmitters to which Smart Phones are tethered are programmed to block internet access?

Answer 2

Probably not. Probably.

Question 3

Will the Smart Phones of the future operate directly off satellites rather than transmitters so that anyone with the courage to keep in her/his possession a smuggled-in illegal Satellite Smart Phone will have internet access (subject to the repressive regime’s ability to jam satellite reception)?

Answer 3

The kind of small TV satellite dishes in use in the U.S. during the last decade (Dish TV and Direct TV) have been in use in Japan for more than half a century because Japan is so mountainous. [Transmission towers were impractical and cable was too expensive outside Japanese metropolitan areas.]

So why don’t we (not just Japan) already have Smart Phones that also operate directly off satellites rather than transmission towers???

Question 4

Will so-called Crowd Funding of start-ups via the internet create scandals because, in reality, Crowd Funding is nothing more than an end run on all of the Securities Laws so carefully crafted in the 1930’s to prevent fraud and abuse?

Answer 4

Of course!!!

And the U.S. Attorney General should encourage all U.S. attorneys to institute such prosecutions ASAP to publicize the fact that Crowd Funding violates the Securities Laws!!!

Question 5

The news has been full of reports recently about how a University of Texas law student up-loaded 3-D printing instructions for the creation from standard blocks of plastic of a pistol which was fired in a video clip on the PBS Newshour (the instructions were down-loaded more than 100,000 times before the student voluntarily took down the website at the request of the FBI) -- so does 3-D Printing mean that any future terrorist can simply download 3-D printing instructions for Weapons of Mass Destruction?

Answer 5

Probably.

Though for suitcase-size atomic bombs and/or dirty bombs, terrorists will still have to obtain enriched uranium or plutonium.

Though that shouldn’t be too difficult considering the facts that: (1) 178 Soviet suitcase-size nuclear weapons went missing long ago and have long-since been assumed by experts to be in the hands of terrorist organizations, and/or (2) it shouldn’t be too difficult for terrorists to purchase weapons-grade uranium on the “black market” from North Korean, Pakistani or Iranian sources.

Question 6

Is the Common Wisdom correct that in order to maintain cyber security, it is only necessary to have two computers, one of which is NOT connected to the internet and data transmission between the two is ONE WAY ONLY with the CD’s used for one-way transmission destroyed afterwards (or donated to charity)?

Answer 6

Yours Truly had to employ the common wisdom during the three years he was suing by himself 15 of the world’s largest financial institutions for $84 billion on behalf of 10 million inner-city children (please see the third and fourth sections of this Bulletin Board for details about those lawsuits).

Yours Truly always had to smile when his main computer always took several minutes while shutting down while it vainly tried to transmit all of his key strokes to the law firms of the financial institutions while displaying a message that said “Downloading (X number) of Microsoft (Windows, Office, Whatever) Updates”!!! Even though it hadn’t been connected to the Internet to receive any updates!!!

However, please see Q&A-7.

Question 7

Or has Scorpion/Thresher technology already made it possible for super-thieves to take a picture of your hard drive from miles away with no connectivity (like a Paparazzi) in order to replicate all of your computer files?

Answer 7

The Thresher was a U.S. Nuclear-Powered Submarine that sank in the North Atlantic about 220 miles east of Boston on 4/10/1963 with a loss of all 129 personnel.

The Scorpion was a U.S. Nuclear-Powered Submarine that sank in the North Atlantic about 400 miles southwest of the Azores between 5/21/1968 and 6/5/1968 with a loss of all 99 personnel.

During Jan 1968 – Oct 1969, Yours Truly served as a U.S. Naval Officer on board a command, to which one of the attached aircraft squadrons was skippered by a member of the official U.S. Navy Board of Inquiry regarding the loss of the Scorpion.

During that period, Yours Truly’s staff included a Senior Chief who had a family living in Navy Housing at the Newport RI Naval Base which he visited whenever possible.

After one visit, the Senior Chief returned with a copy of the main Newport RI civilian newspaper which contained an article describing how a high-ranking Soviet scientist had recently defected and had claimed that both the Thresher and the Scorpion had been killed by a Soviet anti-submarine weapon (1) that he and his group of Soviet scientists had developed and perfected, (2) that was capable of disabling all underwater electrical systems within a radius of several miles, and (3) that was tested against the Thresher in 1963 and against the Scorpion in 1968.

Yours Truly showed the article to the aircraft-squadron skipper who was on the Official Scorpion Board of Inquiry. He appeared incredibly shocked, but was able to regain his composure and refused to comment. However, he also refused to return the newspaper. My interpretation of his reaction and action was a confirmation of the contents of the article.

A second Straw In The Wind is that during the period that Yours Truly served in the Navy 1967-1969, it was common wisdom that U.S. Spy Satellites were capable of taking pictures from orbit that were able to distinguish the grain of railroad ties on the earth’s surface.

Accordingly, should we be surprised to learn in the future that the U.S. government has long-since combined the principles of these two technologies to develop an instrument that can take a “picture” of your computer hard drive from a distance of several miles with no connectivity in order to replicate all of your computer files???

Question 8

Has the essential hardware comprising the internet already been located in jurisdictions whose laws, current and future, will permit the internet to operate in an unfettered manner? As distinguished from, say, U.S. connectivity to the essential hardware located “on Mars” so that U.S. law can only address U.S. connectivity rather than how the internet itself operates? Does this mean, to wallow momentarily in the mundane, that the U.S. Congress will never succeed in requiring state sales taxes to be imposed on internet sales?

Answer 8

Probably. Probably. Probably.

Question 9

If the essential hardware comprising the internet (vs. connectivity to it) has been located in jurisdictions with favorable legal systems, do those jurisdictions have sufficient military power to ward off hostile regimes? Or even Somali pirates?

Answer 9

Who knows??? Who knows???

Question 10

If the U.S. can’t control access to terrorist websites, how important is it for the U.S. to be able to monitor the websites its citizens/residents visit? Or would it suffice for anti-terrorist organizations to create the most-enticing terrorist websites and then see who logs on?

Answer 10

Monitoring terrorist websites to ascertain which citizens/residents visit is probably essential to preventing terrorist attacks.

However, fake-terrorist-website sting operations may be the best we can manage, whether for practical or legal reasons. Even though this may mean more dead Americans than if terrorist websites themselves were monitored.

Question 11

Is there any chance that false or hateful content can be kept off the internet?

Answer 11

Probably not.

Question 12

And, to finish on a light-hearted note (pun intended), do Schmidt and Cohen hold out any hope for classical-music lovers that the LOW FIDELITY AUDIO that has plagued the world to this day and is an ABOMINATION when contrasted with the HI FI(delity) that we used to enjoy during the analog/vinyl era -- will ever be rectified???

Answer 12

Short answer = no!!!

Background information =

During the analog/vinyl era, the Gold Standard for Hi Fi was 10 Hertz to 20,000 Hertz.

Legend has it that the first commercial audio compact disc was designed to contain all of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony -- the most popular piece of classical music by far!!!

The reason why Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is/was so popular is also legendary!!! Beethoven lived 1770-1827. In 1832, shortly after Beethoven’s death, Samuel Morse turned his attention from a career in painting to inventing the telegraph [his famous first message "What hath God wrought?" was sent 5/24/1844.] Samuel Morse was an admirer of Beethoven and, on a whim, decided to represent the letter V in his Morse Code with dit-dit-dit-dah in honor of the incessant motif of the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony because the letter V stands for the Roman Numeral for five. However, the letter V can also stand for Victory, as a result of which virtually every concert in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II featured Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as a gesture of protest!!! Yes, the orchestras of occupied Europe were playing V for Victory for the entire first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth!!! But how could the Nazis object since Beethoven was German!!! And the popularity of Beethoven’s Fifth has never faded since World War II!!!

Unfortunately, the engineers who were tasked with putting Beethoven’s entire Fifth Symphony on the first commercial audio compact disc found they could not include 10 Hertz to 20,000 Hetrz.

So they made the decision, WHICH SHOULD BE CRIMINAL WITH NO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS, to omit everything above 10,000 Hertz on the assumption that most human beings cannot hear frequencies above 10,000 Hertz.

[The reason why instruments playing the same pitch sound different from each other is that every instrument, including the human voice, is simultaneously sounding harmonic frequencies above and below the primary frequency.]

And classical music lovers, as a class, do tend to be able to hear the harmonics between 10,000 Hertz and 20,000 Hertz.

Which is why classical music lovers find digital recordings such an ABOMINATION compared to live performances.

And why classical music lovers will probably never have their needs met.

After all, symphony orchestras and opera companies hardly have any incentive to lobby for recording technology that will equal their live performances and leave classical music lovers with little incentive for attending live performances.

Enough said!!!

Before my blood boils!!!