Re: Well, d'oh!

[Gadi Evron <ge () linuxbox org>]

On Fri, 11 Aug 2006, der Mouse wrote:
> > With security in mind, the difference between a democracy and a
> > dictatorship is that in a democracy you blacklist, saying what is not
> > allowed and allow everything else.  In a dictatorship you whitelist
> > and disallow everything else.
>
> Actually, the difference between a dictatorship and a democracy is who
> decides whether you whitelist or blacklist, and what's on the list
> either way (the dictator, or the populace).

Another fine point. I believe it is recursive to mine. Nothing is ever
black and white, but it is far easier to make a point that way, isn't it?

> This may correlate well with deciding to whitelist or blacklist (ie,
> allow by default or deny by default) in some field you happen to care
> about, but there is nothing inherent to dictatorships or democracies
> requiring or compelling that.  It's easy enough to name instances where
> democracies blacklist by default (at least if you count North America
> and most of western Europe as democracies) and while the only example I
> know of offhand of a dictatorship that allows by default is online, I
> expect that reflects more my lack of knowledge of meatspace
> dictatorships than anything inherent in them.  Indeed, I fully expect
> that all practical instances of either system allow by default in some
> areas and deny by default in others - certainly all instances I know of
> do.

In democracies, or at least what we have today which is as close as
possible (=for us to make it work so far), I suppose... we have a lot of
different types of behaviours. That said, you are right and I look at your statement more as
a refinement and clarification of mine.. as..

Guns don't kill people, kids playing video games kill people!
Err..

Guns don't kill people, people kill people.
That statement too is incorrect, as if I kill somebody with a table, the
table will be considered the weapon of choice.

As Aryeh mentioned today over lunch.. the difference between today's
computers and guns is that guns are single-purpose machines.

^^ I am REALLY abusing and changing what he said for my own purposes in
illustrating my point.

        Gadi.

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