URLs du Jour (6/15/2005)

  • In my job, I've been involved in writing, commenting on, and enforcing "Acceptable Use Policies" for UNH computers. Without naming names, I would hope that anyone blithely prohibiting "unauthorized access" in such documents, as if that phrase meant something, would read this paper by Orin Kerr. Key quote from abstract:

    No one knows what it means to access a computer, however, nor when access becomes unauthorized. The few courts that have construed these terms have offered divergent interpretations, and no scholars have yet addressed the problem.

    (Via Bruce Schneier.)

  • Will Wilkinson shows how incoherent the "Social Security is insurance" position is.

    Anyway, what is it that we're doing with "our" money? Well, we're sending over 90% of it back to the same income bracket from whence it came, that's what! Now why would we be doing that if what we wanted to be doing was "protecting the unlucky against immiseration in old age"? (Not to sustain the illusion that our payroll taxes do in fact belong to us as individuals, for sure!) I mean, wouldn't it be silly to pretend to "insure" people by taking money away from them (thereby increasing their exposure to risk!), and then simply replacing it later? That sure would be silly! Schwartz gestures toward the redistributive function of the program, but . . . there is almost no redistribution! And . . . it isn't progressive!


Last Modified 2012-10-26 12:22 PM EDT