CyanogenMod is not Google. They're still young, and they built their whole company based on the idea that they're not like Google. It would be pretty unrealistic to just throw that all away, then expect to get anywhere.
"You don't have to brick it. Other countries use a blacklist of IMEI numbers. Phone theft has decreased because stolen phones won't be able to connect to any mobile networks. Yeah, there are various workarounds and hacks but it's not intended to stop smart people."
But that's a completely different subject. Blocking an IMEI number has nothing to do with a "remotely programmable" device.
It's YOUR phone. You should be able to do anything you want with it, and use it with any carrier of your choice. I see no justifiable reason why "someone else" should have control over ANY kind of "remote" control over it.
As I wrote to someone else: that's trading freedom for a little bit of convenience. In the long run, that will turn out to be a bad trade almost every time.
"And why would law enforcement want to kill your phone?"
Are you SERIOUS??? Government has been pushing for a government-controlled "kill switch" for years. I am sure you can think of some reasons why they might want it... but regardless of what reasons YOU think are reasonable, the fact is they've wanted it.
"... the phone calls home to authenticate on its home telco's Home Location Register."
Unless it's an unlocked phone, in which case it can be made to show anywhere as it's "home location".
GSM phones were intended to be international in nature. All you need is a local SIM card and some service software for the phone, which is available online.
"Oh, you found your missing phone, which you thought was stolen, so we bricked it. Certainly we can unbrick it - for a modest fee of $85 - MUAH HA HA HA HAAAAAAH! Oh, pardon I dribbled a bit at the thought of extracting this fee for 5 seconds work. Excuse me while I get a mop and a bucket.""
That might be their ideal intent, but it ain't gonna happen.
The reason is this: the only way to do a "kill switch" reliably, which can't be bypassed, is to truly brick the phone, beyond repair. Anything else, and hack solutions to un-brick would be available for free in 2 weeks.
Aaaaaannnddd... to illustrate the true idiocy of this idea: if they do implement "remote kill", hacks to do THAT will also be available soon for free. So thousands if not millions will be able to kiss their phones goodbye because someone who doesn't like them pulls a malicious prank.
"I'd say it is not needed. Because anything described as "remotely programmable" means "remotely abuse-able". Botnet operators will love it."
My thoughts exactly.
If I buy a phone, I want it to be MY phone. I don't want or need "remotely programmable" bullshit. I am so tired of this kind of garbage I can hardly put it into words.
"It's not. From skimming the same article about him I see no reason that his opinion on bitcoins should carry any more weight than mine, or anyone elses. An we all know how much my opinion on bitcoins mean, jack and shit."
He is also hopelessly naive about both economics and politics.
Just for example, he missed these points (although he is correct that Libartarians love this stuff):
First: yes, Bitcoin is deflationary, but deflation is not the bugaboo mainstream economists make it out to be. U.S. (proto-United States, that is, and even after the revolution) survived quite successfully without significant inflation for 300 years. Objective data show the current "inflation is good" policy to be economically destructive. (But politicians, bankers, and Wall Street love it because it gives THEM more money and power.) Healthy markets do not need inflation. Just look at computers for example. More bang for your buck every year. (Hint: that's a "deflationary" market.)
Second: no, it is not "designed for tax evasion". It is designed to make income tax impractical. Two very different things, and from Stross' viewpoint the latter is worse than the former. But he missed it completely.
Third: I think it's stupidly funny that he used the old "child pornography" . Jesus Christ, hasn't anybody had enough of that bullshit yet? "It's for the children!" Yeah, right. [/sarcasm] Well, guess what, Sherlock Stross? CASH can be used for those things too. I don't see you railing against cash.
Stross' rant is motivated by politics. Plain and simple.
But I was specifically referring to her reference to Rosa Parks. (And my "Godwin" comment might have been a bit displaced, but reading that was a "WTF?" moment for me.)
You (and someone else here) have made a good point. Godwin's Law does not apply to just any mention of Nazis.
"It's amazing (and scary) that so many people in the US take that sludge seriously. If you don't start doing anything about it, you're heading straight back into the Middle Ages. "
Is it scary, really?
Now, don't misunderstand me. I haven't been defending Fox News here, I was just saying they're raking in the ratings. But if you look at their actual credibility scores (Pew research), that has also followed its ratings pretty closely.
Meanwhile, MSNBC (which used to be more popular) has the lowest credibility score of all. Personally, I consider the news source with least credibility to be "scarier", in the sense you mean.
"The GP never said anything about ratings or popularity, he made a observation about changing their stance, on the border of hypocricy. As for popularity, billions of flies eat shit. Does that mean that you start thinking eating shit is good for you too?"
I never said anything about thinking Fox News was good for me. I only mentioned ratings.
But since you brought it up: Who knows? If they started watching TV and offering political opinions, I might prefer their brand of shit to yours.
"By definition it's only "terrorism" if its done for political or social objectives http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Political+terrorism. Threats of force to coerce desired behavior on an individual basis or to coerce desired behavior for personal objectives are simply threats of force."
The problem is that real terrorists almost never actually want to achieve political or social objectives. They just say they do. So that definition fails. (Similar to the way police "stated objective" is to protect and serve, but individual police motivations might be otherwise.)
See What Terrorists Really Want by M. Abrahms. If you don't have access to the MIT site you can find it online if you look around a bit.
"Fox news? You mean the same people who complain about too much government involvement until it's their kind of government involvement?"
Well, apparently the majority of the public very much disagrees with you, because just lately Fox News has been absolutely stomping both MSNBC and CNN in the ratings.
Slashdot Mirror
Meh. I think it takes more than a name.
CyanogenMod is not Google. They're still young, and they built their whole company based on the idea that they're not like Google. It would be pretty unrealistic to just throw that all away, then expect to get anywhere.
"You don't have to brick it. Other countries use a blacklist of IMEI numbers. Phone theft has decreased because stolen phones won't be able to connect to any mobile networks. Yeah, there are various workarounds and hacks but it's not intended to stop smart people."
But that's a completely different subject. Blocking an IMEI number has nothing to do with a "remotely programmable" device.
"that's very short sighted and technically ignorant."
Would you care to enlighten us as to WHY you think that's "short sighted and technically ignorant"? Or would you rather just troll?
I knew IMSI could be overridden, but I didn't know IMEI.
"Not every giant, successful tech company that displaces competition will immediately start advertising."
I doubt they'll go the Google route, because their very reason for existence -- and why people use it at all -- is to bypass all that Google garbage.
If they just copy Google's business model, why would anybody want CyanogenMod?
"What else would your motorcycle use? Parking meters? Your burglar / fire alarm?"
... WiFi? Bluetooth? Maybe via YOUR PHONE?
Bit of an edit blip there. But I think what I meant was clear enough.
True, there's not much you can do about IMEI. But "other identifiers" can be flashed to different values.
This.
It's YOUR phone. You should be able to do anything you want with it, and use it with any carrier of your choice. I see no justifiable reason why "someone else" should have control over ANY kind of "remote" control over it.
As I wrote to someone else: that's trading freedom for a little bit of convenience. In the long run, that will turn out to be a bad trade almost every time.
"Did you even RTFA? This is for the 'internet of things'"
Even worse... they want to apply it to a vast range of things besides phones. Everything I said about phones, I will say about those other things.
Further, why would you want your "internet of things" to operate via telephone towers and telephone carriers? Very inefficient.
You're trading freedom for convenience. Good luck with that. Like it's worked in so many other areas of life, eh?
"And why would law enforcement want to kill your phone?"
Are you SERIOUS??? Government has been pushing for a government-controlled "kill switch" for years. I am sure you can think of some reasons why they might want it... but regardless of what reasons YOU think are reasonable, the fact is they've wanted it.
"... the phone calls home to authenticate on its home telco's Home Location Register."
Unless it's an unlocked phone, in which case it can be made to show anywhere as it's "home location".
GSM phones were intended to be international in nature. All you need is a local SIM card and some service software for the phone, which is available online.
"Oh, you found your missing phone, which you thought was stolen, so we bricked it. Certainly we can unbrick it - for a modest fee of $85 - MUAH HA HA HA HAAAAAAH! Oh, pardon I dribbled a bit at the thought of extracting this fee for 5 seconds work. Excuse me while I get a mop and a bucket.""
That might be their ideal intent, but it ain't gonna happen.
The reason is this: the only way to do a "kill switch" reliably, which can't be bypassed, is to truly brick the phone, beyond repair. Anything else, and hack solutions to un-brick would be available for free in 2 weeks.
Aaaaaannnddd... to illustrate the true idiocy of this idea: if they do implement "remote kill", hacks to do THAT will also be available soon for free. So thousands if not millions will be able to kiss their phones goodbye because someone who doesn't like them pulls a malicious prank.
"I'd say it is not needed. Because anything described as "remotely programmable" means "remotely abuse-able". Botnet operators will love it."
My thoughts exactly.
If I buy a phone, I want it to be MY phone. I don't want or need "remotely programmable" bullshit. I am so tired of this kind of garbage I can hardly put it into words.
"It's not. From skimming the same article about him I see no reason that his opinion on bitcoins should carry any more weight than mine, or anyone elses. An we all know how much my opinion on bitcoins mean, jack and shit."
He is also hopelessly naive about both economics and politics.
Just for example, he missed these points (although he is correct that Libartarians love this stuff):
First: yes, Bitcoin is deflationary, but deflation is not the bugaboo mainstream economists make it out to be. U.S. (proto-United States, that is, and even after the revolution) survived quite successfully without significant inflation for 300 years. Objective data show the current "inflation is good" policy to be economically destructive. (But politicians, bankers, and Wall Street love it because it gives THEM more money and power.) Healthy markets do not need inflation. Just look at computers for example. More bang for your buck every year. (Hint: that's a "deflationary" market.)
Second: no, it is not "designed for tax evasion". It is designed to make income tax impractical. Two very different things, and from Stross' viewpoint the latter is worse than the former. But he missed it completely.
Third: I think it's stupidly funny that he used the old "child pornography" . Jesus Christ, hasn't anybody had enough of that bullshit yet? "It's for the children!" Yeah, right. [/sarcasm] Well, guess what, Sherlock Stross? CASH can be used for those things too. I don't see you railing against cash.
Stross' rant is motivated by politics. Plain and simple.
But I was specifically referring to her reference to Rosa Parks. (And my "Godwin" comment might have been a bit displaced, but reading that was a "WTF?" moment for me.)
You (and someone else here) have made a good point. Godwin's Law does not apply to just any mention of Nazis.
Yeah, as I wrote up above, it was just a "WTF?" for me, reading that. It wasn't the best analogy to use.
BUT... comparing Snowden to Rosa Parks was still a Godwin-LIKE move, if you ask me. Just as weird.
"Only the majority of cable news watching segment..."
Cable AND satellite. Which together are by far the largest segment of the viewing public.
"The total cable news viewership counts aren't anywhere near total public numbers."
True. But they are still the majority of people who watch the news.
The fact that a simple statement of truth, including a citation, get marked as "flamebait" speaks volumes about certain modders at Slashdot.
Just an observation.
"It's amazing (and scary) that so many people in the US take that sludge seriously. If you don't start doing anything about it, you're heading straight back into the Middle Ages. "
Is it scary, really?
Now, don't misunderstand me. I haven't been defending Fox News here, I was just saying they're raking in the ratings. But if you look at their actual credibility scores (Pew research), that has also followed its ratings pretty closely.
Meanwhile, MSNBC (which used to be more popular) has the lowest credibility score of all. Personally, I consider the news source with least credibility to be "scarier", in the sense you mean.
"That just means people who don't watch FNC have better things to do with their time."
No, what it means is that more people are watching Fox News than MSNBC, CNN, and HLN combined.
"The GP never said anything about ratings or popularity, he made a observation about changing their stance, on the border of hypocricy. As for popularity, billions of flies eat shit. Does that mean that you start thinking eating shit is good for you too?"
I never said anything about thinking Fox News was good for me. I only mentioned ratings.
But since you brought it up: Who knows? If they started watching TV and offering political opinions, I might prefer their brand of shit to yours.
"By definition it's only "terrorism" if its done for political or social objectives http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Political+terrorism. Threats of force to coerce desired behavior on an individual basis or to coerce desired behavior for personal objectives are simply threats of force."
The problem is that real terrorists almost never actually want to achieve political or social objectives. They just say they do. So that definition fails. (Similar to the way police "stated objective" is to protect and serve, but individual police motivations might be otherwise.)
See What Terrorists Really Want by M. Abrahms. If you don't have access to the MIT site you can find it online if you look around a bit.
"I notice it says the goal is to "protect democracy*", but doesn't seem to mention the Bill of Rights or, specifically, the 4th amendment."
The following really isn't a troll. It is a sincere and serious comment.
After some discussion with others about this issue, it appears to me that Mr. Obama genuinely thinks anything HE does is "democracy".
"Fox news? You mean the same people who complain about too much government involvement until it's their kind of government involvement?"
Well, apparently the majority of the public very much disagrees with you, because just lately Fox News has been absolutely stomping both MSNBC and CNN in the ratings.