Slashdot Mirror

... you're getting a "virtual bobblehead" added to your "Ethereum wallet", whatever the fuck that is?

Perhaps you haven't heard of things like Cryptokitties and that People have spent over $1M buying virtual cats on the Ethereum blockchain -- oh, and that people are stupid.

Can we please stop using the words "disrupt" and "disruptive" once and for all? Nowadays in absolute most cases they are egregiously misused.

Twitter IS suspending millions of accounts...of bots!

https://techcrunch.com/2018/07...

Ummm, my head of state is a hereditary ruler, I live in a representational constitutional monarchy. So democratic, but not in exactly the same way that the USA is (assuming you're there because you mentioned midterm elections).

That said, yes, I read the Guardian. And the BBC and other new sites, unlike apparently most of the US, according to that link - Facebook is not my main source of news, it's not a news site...

I can certainly see that there are issues, but... as some posters have pointed out in other articles (https://politics.slashdot.org/story/18/08/24/1845257/trump-accuses-social-media-firms-of-silencing-millions) they're not being silenced, they're being told to move. Which might amount to the same thing if followers can't search the internet to find them again, on brietbart or stormfront, whatever.

I choose not to worry about such, since I can't do anything about it (like vote against it). I'm more concerned about climate change, frankly.

There is also this article from yesterday:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/08...

Oops, slashdot link is here:

https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...

So, there are issues, certainly. But the answer doesn't seem to be unfettered access to everything for everyone.

Apparently they're only cool with censoring their own conservative employees.

and its still a insecure piece of shit.

Prove it.

"The Fappening" was not the result of bad security; just stupid Passwords.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/03...

But just keep on spreadin' the Hate...

...you should also remember they were sued, successfully, by the patent troll that claimed to own the protocol...

Which would make them not patent trolls. They defended their patents against the most well-funded legal team in existence, and showed that the protocol used their invention. They most certainly did not claim to own the protocol.

They were/are Patent Trolls. First it was FaceTime, then it was iMessage. I didn't call them Patent Trolls, the entire Tech-Press did:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/...

https://www.engadget.com/2017/...

https://gizmodo.com/apple-orde...

https://techcrunch.com/2016/02...

http://fortune.com/2016/02/03/...

https://www.cultofmac.com/4302...

https://www.macrumors.com/2018...

Oh, and this Discussion Thread EXACTLY addresses the original question:

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple...

etc. etc...

VirnetX patented something fairly obvious that they had no intention of ever bringing to market, which, after all, is the entire reason behind the Patent system, and simply lay-in-wait for someone with deep pockets to accidentally trip-into their patent-trap.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Significantly helped along by:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I mean, the obvious corruption got so bad that the Supremes had to put a stop to it!

https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...

So, don't paint Apple as the bad guy here.

I'm on the fence here. I do think Oracle is in the right (Obi Wan's "from a certain point of view.") Such a 10B monopoly cannot be allowed to happen.

AWS and Azure each do over $20B a year (and growing), adding $1B a year more to either one will not create a monopoly.

I am talking about a cloud infrastructure monopoly when serving and creating a private, sec-cleared cloud infrastructure for the DoD. Once you (the generic "you") get an exclusive contract to create it all, that is, in effect, a monopoly in that space.

I'm on the fence here. I do think Oracle is in the right (Obi Wan's "from a certain point of view.") Such a 10B monopoly cannot be allowed to happen.

AWS and Azure each do over $20B a year (and growing), adding $1B a year more to either one will not create a monopoly.

Whoever is funding this takeover had better have deep pockets as the Tesla car company has been burning some serious dollars https://techcrunch.com/2018/05... each year just to keep going.
It could just be the case where Elon knows it is about to suddenly start making a profit real soon.

According to Techcrunch the TSMC virus episode was a vicious attack from China

Not quite right. According to Techcrunch, cyber attacks from China have been increasing. Not a surprise. But Techcrunch did not directly finger China for this one. Even if the Chinese government did it, which seems totally plausible, TSMC shares part of the blame for allowing Windows machines get on their network. Totally unbelievable for IT to be unaware that Windows is the primary attack surface.

To be sure, many or most of those IT guys are Windows sysadmins with a vested interest in keeping the status quo no matter what the cost to the company. Execs should get out of bed and show those guys the door immediately. (Google let them stay and retrain after the Chinese gov got caught penetrating Googleplex by way of Windows. Now you have to get approval from a VP to put a Windows machine on the network. Google does their business on Ubuntu and MacOS now.)

According to Techcrunch the TSMC virus episode was a vicious attack from China

Security company Armis has found a collection of eight exploits, collectively called BlueBorne, that can allow an attacker access to your phone without touching it. The attack can allow access to computers and phones, as well as IoT devices.

“Armis believes many more vulnerabilities await discovery in the various platforms using Bluetooth. These vulnerabilities are fully operational, and can be successfully exploited, as demonstrated in our research. The BlueBorne attack vector can be used to conduct a large range of offenses, including remote code execution as well as Man-in-The-Middle attacks.

“BlueBorne affects pretty much every device we use. Turns that Bluetooth into a rotten black one. Don’t be surprised if you have to go see your security dentist on this one,” said Ralph Echemendia, CEO of Seguru.

As you can see from this video, the vector allows the hacker to identify a device, connect to it via Bluetooth, and then begin controlling the screen and apps. It’s not completely secretive, however, because in activating the exploits you “wake up” the device.

The complex vector begins by finding a device to hack. This includes forcing the device to give up information about itself and then, ultimately, release keys and passwords “in an attack that very much resembles heartbleed,” the exploit that forced many web servers to display passwords and other keys remotely.

The next step is a set of code executions that allows for full control of the device. “This vulnerability resides in the Bluetooth Network Encapsulation Protocol (BNEP) service, which enables internet sharing over a Bluetooth connection (tethering). Due to a flaw in the BNEP service, a hacker can trigger a surgical memory corruption, which is easy to exploit and enables him to run code on the device, effectively granting him complete control,” write the researchers.

Finally, when the hacker has access they are able to begin streaming data from the device in a “man-in-the-middle” attack. “The vulnerability resides in the PAN profile of the Bluetooth stack, and enables the attacker to create a malicious network interface on the victim’s device, re-configure IP routing and force the device to transmit all communication through the malicious network interface. This attack does not require any user interaction, authentication or pairing, making it practically invisible.”

Windows and iOS phones are protected and Google users are receiving a patch today. Other devices running older versions of Android and Linux could be vulnerable.

How do you stay safe? Keep all of your devices updated regularly and be wary of older IoT devices. In most cases the problems associated with BlueBorne vectors should be patched by major players in the electronics space but less popular devices could still be vulnerable to attack.

“New solutions are needed to address the new airborne attack vector, especially those that make air gapping irrelevant. Additionally, there will need to be more attention and research as new protocols are using for consumers and businesses alike. With the large number of desktop, mobile, and IoT devices only increasing, it is critical we can ensure these types of vulnerabilities are not exploited,” wrote Armis.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/09...

You think you're just joking.

Facebook, Microsoft, Uber, Twitter, Google, and Amazon have all released "lite" apps (they usually have fewer features, but are comparatively less resource intensive) for these markets

Both India and Slashdot soundly denounced Facebook's earlier attempts to give a limited "Internet-lite" to users in poor countries for free. Because "net neutrality".

Now they are trying again with a (slightly) different twist... Let's see...

I mean.... it really doesn't take much. A phone and some lenses. Aligning them so things are in focus is a bit of a bitch.

What is of more concern to me is how carefully AV1 has been constructed in terms of its coding tools to avoid patent trolling and patent submarining

I don't think you need to worry. When Google announced VP8, MPEG-LA publicly announced that they were setting up a patent pool for it; they encouraged all the patent holders who VP8 infringed to step forward and add their patents to the pool.

Nobody ever came up with anything, and after over a year, MPEG-LA accepted a small amount of money from Google in exchange for a promise to never sue over VP8. No patents, no royalties, just a one-time payment; that was pretty much unconditional victory for Google and VP8. The news coverage called this a "licensing agreement" but it was more like "here, take a small amount of money and go away forever."

https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/07/google-and-mpeg-la-sign-licensing-agreement-covering-googles-vp8-video-codec-clearing-the-way-for-wider-adoption/

When VP8 was first announced, many self-appointed experts here on Slashdot declared confidently that it just had to infringe on H.264 patents, as a reading of the standard revealed numerous similarities. I am not a patent expert but I was pretty sure they were mistaken about this... Google spent something like a year after they licensed the technology before they released the open-source VP8, and I assumed that they had paid patent lawyers to go over the standard and make sure it didn't infringe on anything. Also, it looked to me like the original developers of the code had deliberately studied the existing patents and implemented something just different enough not to infringe.

It may be possible that a patent could pop up from seemingly nowhere, some weird patent nobody was paying attention to, and AV1 would be found to infringe upon it. If this scenario is possible for AV1, what makes it impossible for H.265? In fact, I'd argue it might be more likely for H.265, which is a complicated thing to which many companies tried to contribute (so they could get a share of royalties). I would be interested to hear an expert's opinion on whether AV1 is less complex than H.265... I bet that it is. And more complexity would suggest greater danger from overlooked patents.

As for submarine patents, again I am not very worried. The USA changed its patent laws between 1995 through 2000 to prevent abuses like submarine patents. Patents are 20 years from the date of filing, so playing games with paperwork extensions can't keep a patent alive forever anymore; and since 2000 patent filings are public, so the secrecy needed for submarine patents is gone.

So unless someone has a suitable patent application, filed before the year 1995, that they have kept alive with paperwork wizardry in the patent office, and nobody knows about it, and they get it granted... unless all of that is true, it shouldn't be possible for a submarine patent to torpedo AV1.

2019

... Linux is also taking over the world of IoT.

I don't think that there has ever been another operating system that has been used across such a wide range of systems with such a range of scales.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04...

Yes... but actually they're putting their efforts into crossovers (hybrids) and SUVs instead.

And that's only Ford in North America

Plus "pulling out" means they'll only sell 6 million such cars this year. Aw. Diddums. About 60 times more than anything Tesla have ever produced in total. In one year.

What profits??? Tesla has NO PROFITS.

Wow, this isn't the first time you have said this right here on Slashdot. I remember you saying it, and I remember the flurry of posts trying to educate you as to why you were mistaken on this point. I guess you just didn't learn anything. Or maybe you prefer alternate facts?

Tesla is believed to make over $20K per Model S and Model X. https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/27/how-tesla-motors-could-be-profitable-if-it-wanted.aspx

Tesla is expected to make about a 25% profit margin on each Model 3 once they hit the production rate of 5000 cars per month. https://cleantechnica.com/2018/05/14/tesla-model-3-gross-margins/

It's dishonest to take all the money they make on car sales, then divide it by all the expenses they have (R&D, building out the Supercharger network, etc.) and claim that they are losing money on each car sold. No, they are making money on each car sold, and then spending it all, plus more money they borrowed, on all their growth plans. https://cleantechnica.com/2018/05/13/why-tesla-is-a-very-profitable-company-tesla-bankwuptcy-explained-part-2/

Note that GM is believed to lose about $9K per Chevy Bolt sold; the car only pencils out because of EV credits. Tesla is on track to make more money per Model 3 than GM loses. If GM wants to get serious about EVs, then GM needs to invest heavily in battery technology the way Tesla did. https://cleantechnica.com/2018/04/02/tesla-model-3-competitive-advantage-costs-10000-less-to-make-than-chevy-bolt/

Not only is Tesla now very cost-efficient on battery cells due to having their own factory, they have developed their own next-generation battery pack technology. According to this teardown the Tesla Model 3 battery pack contains advanced technology unlike anything that came before. If you like geeky discussions of technology, you will enjoy reading this link: http://evtv.me/2018/05/tesla-model-3-gone-battshit/

Elon Musk has said that 2018 is going to be the year where Tesla starts making money. He has a simple plan: cut any excessive expenses (such as contractors that hire subcontractors that hire subcontractors; Musk compared this to a "Russian Doll") and get Model 3 production above 5000 per month. You will only have to wait a few months to see if he was correct in this prediction. https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/13/elon-musk-says-tesla-will-be-profitable-in-q3-and-q4/

Yep, it's clearly the superior option. Good luck.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/11...

And because the topic is about imgur, here's a reaction to this piece of news:

https://i.imgur.com/WrKPhfd.gi...

Talked to a friend the other day about Moviepass & how they hope to leverage their users habits and GPS data to make money... got a "so what?

They claim that's a potential future development, not something they do. I got a 1-yr subscription as a Christmas gift and don't sweat using it. I wouldn't trade my entire location history, but I'm fine telling them that I'm in the parking lot or letting them pull up listings for the closest theater.

Hope you didn't order any of these. https://techcrunch.com/2018/05...

LOL

Looks like computerworld was trying to stay off apples blacklist.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/the-downfall-of-the-walled-garden-heres-why-iad-failed/

Maybe get your head out of apple ass and read more then the pro-apple stories to better educate yourself.

You are correct that most smartphones are Android, however you are gravely mistaken about mobile economies. Apple accounts for over 65% of all mobile revenue in the world, the reason is simple, Android users are poorer, and more likely to root their device and steal everything. I'm not saying this is good or bad, they are simply facts.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/01...

Facebook users have already granted Facebook access to their life, and even parts of the lives of people around who are trying to stay out of its clutches, to boot. There is very little Facebook does not collect about you.

  Why the crocodile tears when Facebook users are the ones who have voted in surveillance clusterfuck?

How about this instead: https://techcrunch.com/2018/01...

The reviews so far have been favorable:

"The headset manages to feel more high quality than the Rift in a lot of ways. Comfort-wise, I would say the Oculus Go bests even the first-gen Google Daydream View headset." https://techcrunch.com/2018/03...

"The visuals far exceed those on a phone powered headset. This is due in part to the new LCD display which boasts a 2560 x 1440 resolution and some very well designed lenses. Content looked crystal clear and pin sharp, instantly impressing." https://www.vrfocus.com/2018/0...

Here's more proof: iOS continues to lose market share and even in the US, all iOS devices now number about the same as just Samsung, one of multiple Android players. Was that from the headphone jack, or the general slide in iOS quality overall? I tend to think it's both, given the headphone market is continuing to explode and Apple basically locked themselves out of a vast majority of it.

So where's your proof?

The problem with that figure is that includes ALL Samsung phones; not just those that compete head-to-head against Apple's models. When you start breaking it out by model, an entirely different picture emerges, with Apple holding the first AND second place, in terms of units sold, with a low-end Samsung phone in third place (and no other Samsung models in the top 5) :

https://www.bbva.com/en/top-se...

In fact, it is really hard to figure out exactly what Samsung is selling significant numbers of, with THIRTY ONE NEW models of Samsung phones INTRODUCED in 2016 alone! But I bet my bottom dollar that the vast majority of 2017's UNIT sales figures for Samsung are actually cheap-shit "giveaway" phones. :

http://www.businessinsider.com...

Samsung is still selling phones with a 5 MP back camera and 4 GB of storage, FFS!

https://www.gsmarena.com/samsu...

Or how about this beauty? Released in 2014 (!!!) and Still available! 2 MP main camera, 4 GB. Looks like it came straight from 1999:

https://www.gsmarena.com/samsu...

You may laugh: But every one of those phones counts as Samsung's UNIT Sales:

https://www.gsmarena.com/samsu...

And, although Apple's unit sales were down 1.3% year-over-year in 2017, Samsung's unit sales were down a whopping 4% in the same time period. Plus, despite the somewhat lower-than-expected sales of the iPhone X, Apple bested Samsung in unit sales in Q4 of 2017.

https://www.idc.com/promo/smar...

But we can go back and forth with statistics all night long. Both companies are doing quite well, and neither has any real signs of drying up and blowing away any time soon. Can we just agree that's the REAL answer to all this?

So where's your proof?

He [James Comey] goes on to lament the lack of "true listening" between tech and law enforcement, saying that "the leaders of the tech companies don't see the darkness the FBI sees,"

Similarly, the FBI appears to be not listening to the tech companies and not seeing the darkness they see. Things such state secrets repeatedly escaping (Snoden, Reality Winner, TSA keys), a perception that when a secret is shared with somebody else, it no longer is a secret and a belief that if one person can "break" encryption, so can somebody else.

Despite/after years and years of all kinds of fuckery, Facebook is still increasing in popularity/usage. Clearly the general public is dim enough.

Wrap another layer of tinfoil on that hat, buddy

How dark and dank a world you must live in, where everything is a conspiracy, and all people and corporations have no other motivation other than to see how much money and information and advantage they can gain on you.

June 2, 2015: Apple's Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech On Encryption, Privacy - "Cook lost no time in directing comments at companies (obviously, though not explicitly) like Facebook and Google, which rely on advertising to users based on the data they collect from them for a portion, if not a majority, of their income."

https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/02/apples-tim-cook-delivers-blistering-speech-on-encryption-privacy/

January 22, 2016: Google Paid Apple $1 Billion To Keep Search Bar On Iphone - Secret Sum Surfaced in Transcript of Court Proceedings From Oracle Corp.'s Copyright Lawsuit Against Google

http://adage.com/article/digital/google-paid-apple-1-billion-search-bar-iphone/302287/

Google Being the default search engine (which you can change) is a FAR CRY from Apple handing over data THEY collect to them.

So, is that the best you can do? Change your search to use DuckDuckGo, and STFU, Hater. You can do that in iOS and macOS.

Wrap another layer of tinfoil on that hat, buddy

How dark and dank a world you must live in, where everything is a conspiracy, and all people and corporations have no other motivation other than to see how much money and information and advantage they can gain on you.

June 2, 2015: Apple's Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech On Encryption, Privacy - "Cook lost no time in directing comments at companies (obviously, though not explicitly) like Facebook and Google, which rely on advertising to users based on the data they collect from them for a portion, if not a majority, of their income."
https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/02/apples-tim-cook-delivers-blistering-speech-on-encryption-privacy/

January 22, 2016: Google Paid Apple $1 Billion To Keep Search Bar On Iphone - Secret Sum Surfaced in Transcript of Court Proceedings From Oracle Corp.'s Copyright Lawsuit Against Google
http://adage.com/article/digital/google-paid-apple-1-billion-search-bar-iphone/302287/

Monopoly power? Where do you people imagine Amazon has a monopoly? It's not in retail sales, where they do only about a quarter of the business that Walmart does:

https://www.statista.com/stati...

Cloud services? Nope. They're at 31-35%, with both Google and Microsoft growing more rapidly:

https://techcrunch.com/2017/10...

They're a big player, to be sure. But that's because they have their fingers in a lot of pies; not because they're the only game in town for any particular one of them. Apparently you don't remember the mid-1990's, when Microsoft had a 97% share of the desktop market. And, even though a trial was held for the show of it, that wasn't considered enough of a monopoly to be actionable and result in a breakup.

This is not about any monopoly. This is nothing more than your dear leader being butthurt that Jeff Bezos doesn't think highly him. And Bezos is right not to.

It also has (had? I don't know) a shitty CEO who modified users' posts.

He said he was sorry 60 billion times. Give the guy a tax break already.

Signal only uses servers for relaying encrypted messages, which are no more or less secure there than they are in-transit, where they could be captured just as easily, if not more so. Public keys are also stored on their servers, but you can (and should) always validate public keys face-to-face or through side channels, at least for communications you care about. You will also receive a warning if someone's public key changes.

Also, since it leverages the same encryption, WhatsApp is pretty secure for user-to-user chats (but less so for group chats), as long as you don't backup to iCloud, where it stores your history in unencrypted form.

Original post by Puffin Fitness: https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/85p30j/deletefacebook_movement_gains_steam_after_50/dvz4y6o/

* * *

In 2009, Russian social-media mogul Yuri Milner invested $200 million into Facebook at a valuation of $10 billion dollars without voting rights or a seat on the board. To understand this investment, at the time the world was going through a global recession and Facebook's general valuation had dropped from the $15 billion from the year prior to $4-$6 billion in 2009.

https://www.cnet.com/news/facebooks-valuation-the-cheat-sheet/

One company did offer a valuation of $8 billion, but with a seat on the board, which Zuckerberg was strongly against. In other words, Yuri Milner invested in Facebook when they were strapped for cash and at an inflated price without voting rights or a seat on the board. That's an amazing deal for Zuckerberg!

Here's Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg hanging out for an interview: https://techcrunch.com/2009/05/26/mark-zuckerberg-and-yuri-milner-talk-about-facebooks-new-investment-video/

The deal was coordinated by Alisher B. Usmanov, a Russian oligarch that earned his fortune managing steel mill subsidiaries for Gazprom.

Usmanov spent six years in prison for fraud and embezzlement in the 80's.

In 2008, Usmanov fired a publisher and editor at one of Russia's most respected news paper after it published detailed accounts of Russian election fraud.

It is said, "His ties to the Kremlin and Facebook have stirred concerns that he might influence the companyâ(TM)s policies in subtle ways to appease governments in markets where Facebook is also an important tool of political dissent, such as Russia." This was in 2009.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/technology/a-russian-facebook-bet-pays-off-big.html

Usmanov is close friends with Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alisher_Usmanov

Ivanka Trump and Wendi Deng are good friends with Abramovich's then wife, Dasha Zhoukova. Here they are watching a tennis match.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3784716/Ivanka-Trump-Karlie-Kloss-Wendi-Deng-Murdoch-watch-Open.html

The leak of the Paradise Papers revealed the money Yuri Milner used to invest into Facebook came from Gazprom, a US sanctioned Russian oil and gas company, at one point owning 9% of the company.

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/what-is-the-paradise-papers-leak-facebook-yuri-milner-facebook-twitter-russia

Soon after, Zuckerberg and Milner became friends, meeting monthly:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/zuckerberg-got-early-business-advice-194957335.html

And even spoke together in November 2015 at the 2016 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony.

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/what-is-the-paradise-papers-leak-facebook-yuri-milner-facebook-twitter-russia

In May 2012, Milner attended Zuckerberg's wedding. In 2014, Milner moved to California home he paid 100% above value on.

http://time.com/5011000/paradise-papers-tax-ha

People are indeed studying this.

The Alaska Permanent fund also does this on a larger scale, although the amounts of money involved there are probably not enough to make a living except in the Alaskan backcountry, which has limited (but not no) use for money. The Alaska fund is also funded by a severance tax on oil, not a progressive income tax, which seems far less likely to lead to unsustainable fiscal situations or perverse incentives.

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I'm sorry, but I do not recall Amazon ever doing that.

Consider their regional warehouses like a giant edge cache. They pre-buffer likely products into that cache.

San Francisco has some of the strongest rent controls in the US, and the required affordable housing distorts incentives. This piece does a pretty good job of explaining it.

Some things are really boring in and of themselves, but don't change because they fill a necessary niche.

Article is worth a read:

https://beta.techcrunch.com/20...

They can do, yes. The article links to a piece about a so-called dolphin attack, that gets voice assistants to respond to ultrasonic signals.

The only assets it has is an app and a brand name

A) You are greatly discounting the incredible value a world-wide brand name has.

B) If they have "no assets" just where are all those Uber self driving trucks coming from? What about the self driving car assets which they have been working on for years? You seem to be totally ignoring very real office space, equipment and R&D expenses that have been incurred over the years and give the company real value.

C) I also find it laughable that someone on Slashdot, of all places, would claim "no assets" when they have a vast database of ride habits of hundreds of millions of users.

D) I find it more understandable but still sad you do not recognize the assets Uber has in operating agreements with cities all around the world. Contracts are indeed assets.

No, assets, my asset.

Apparently they're up to 360 terabytes on a 3.75 inch disk.

Ol Musky put one in the glovebox of his roadster!

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02...

Cities are centrally controlled and can just decide to stop growing in part through zoning restrictions.

Yea, that's working out great for San Fransisco, isn't it?