Re: Well, d'oh!

[der Mouse <mouse () rodents montreal qc ca>]

> 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).

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.

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