I switched over from Chromium to Firefox mainly because of how Firefox Sync worked back then - in the way that it encrypted your sync data with a secret that Mozilla would never know. Now, with the new sync that just requires a tuple of email address and password, I wonder what - if anything - they use to encrypt the data so they cannot know what I store there (which is a strict requirement for me to even consider any kind of "cloud"-y offering). Given that email/password is used for authentication and authorization only (I'm pretty certain they'll have a routine for users to "reset" their password...), I'm worried they'd left out the one thing that made Firefox Sync usable for folk concerned with privacy...
I have the same general concerns you did but am less trusting, so I set up my own sync server. Check out Run your own Sync Server at mozilla.com.
If you're technically inclined, familiar with general LAMP server management and have a personal linux server handy, it isn't that hard. There's a time investment up front, but once I got it running, it's been working flawlessly across several platforms and multiple browser profiles. I hope they deprecate the old sync behavior but keep it in place for awhile to give time to migrate to the new sync behavior. It's been working so well it's been "set it (up) and forget it" since I first got it running, so it will take a little time just to remember the details so I can migrate to the new server code (assuming there is even a viable migration pathway).
That said, the old sync that required the code to add new browser instances (ie. Firefox on another device or OS) was a little cumbersome, so making that a little simpler would be welcome. That would make it easier for other members of the household to manage their own devices without requiring me to set up and manage it for them.
Not to defend him by any means, but in this instance his statement is no more stupid than invoking 1984 or other dystopian works of fiction as the reason the Snooper's Charter is to be avoided. Fiction they may be, but these works portray possibilities that inform how things might turn out in reality given a course of action, even if the actual outcome resembles the fictional scenario only in kind, not in actual detail. The ability to gain insight into ourselves is one of the many reasons we find works of art valuable in the first place. The key is not to confuse fiction with reality which admittedly many do.
Here's another timeline that's even more interesting because it interleaves the NWS advisories with the actions of various government/municipal entities and school officials:
you fucking shut your city down when the forecast calls for 2 inches
"We don't want to be accused of crying wolf," said Gov. Nathan Deal, who pointed out that the storm had been forecast to just brush the south side of the city.
That was part of the problem. The forecast didn't call for 2 inches, it predicted that the ice/snow would miss Atlanta, though not by much.
Not true. *Early* forecasts suggested that, but subsequent updates by the National Weather Service *did* call for several inches of snow, and *did* include metro Atlanta in the impacted area, well in advance of the actual storm (by early Monday morning). There was plenty of time to prepare, had officials been paying more attention to the forecasts and less to the political impact of "crying wolf".
First winter storm watch issued for Tuesday morning through Wednesday afternoon.
Includes south metro Atlanta counties Fayette, Coweta, Clayton, Henry, Rockdale into central Georgia.
Impacts: Snow accumulations of two or more inches. Sleet accumulations of a half inch or more.
Monday 4:54 a.m.
Winter storm watch now includes much of north and south metro Atlanta for Tuesday morning through Wednesday afternoon.
Impacts: Snow accumulations of 1/2 to 2 inches. Snow-covered roads could make travel difficult.
Monday 3:22 p.m.
Winter storm watch upgraded to a winter storm warning for south metro Atlanta into central Georgia. Winter storm watch remains posted for north metro Atlanta for Tuesday morning through Wednesday afternoon.
Impacts: Snow accumulations of 1 to 2 inches with locally higher amounts. Sleet accumulations around a half inch. Snow and ice covered roads will make travel difficult or impossible.
Monday 9:36 p.m.
Winter storm watch changed to a winter weather advisory for north metro Atlanta for Tuesday morning through Wednesday morning.
National weather service notes: Please understand that even a slight shift in the moisture could result in significant differences in snow amounts and may require an upgrade to warning.
Tuesday 3:38 a.m.
All metro Atlanta under a winter storm warning starting 9 a.m. Tuesday
Impacts: 1 to 2 inches of snow. Snow expected to begin mid-morning and last into Tuesday night. Snow-covered roads will make for hazardous driving conditions through Wednesday morning.
What do you possibly have in your house that it's worth somebody's time to hack your thermostat?
The concern isn't necessarily about what's in the house (though putting the pets at risk due to extreme heat/cold could result from a hack). It's the information gathered by the thermostat(s) that has value. There's the usual metadata that can be added to your "profile" for purposes of advertisement. The Nest and similar devices can also reveal information about your habits, like when you are present/absent from the house, how long, time spent in each room (the Nest has a motion sensor). That could be useful for thieves, govt or law enforcement officials interested in knowing when the house is unoccupied or where you are likely to be should they wish to find you.
You have to get out of orbit...you need to get to the moon....you need to get into lunar orbit and then land....successfully. Read the history of the Ranger Program to see how much work this took the US, and they were crashing onto the moon, not trying to land a working Rover. Getting the insertions correct is not easy. China has done something difficult and laudable.
While I'm sure they had the full data from the US program, and the USSR program, making this happen is still a great achievement.
I have noticed how the US media is paying little attention to this......
Just as I was reading this (8:10am Eastern time, 12/16/13), the chinese rover was prominently mentioned on the Today show (NBC). They discussed the rover, made a quick reference to the manned moon landings of the US and finished with a summary of the future plans of the chinese for the moon. The segment ended with a round of "that's cool" from all the hosts. So it's certainly not being ignored and the achievement does seem to be acknowledged for what it is, not belittled or downplayed.
We have hundreds of thousands of family pictures and videos we're trying to save using this advice. But in some sparse searching of our archives, we're seeing bitrot destroying our memories. With the quantity of data (~2 TB at present),
As the proud owner of dozens of family photo albums, a stack of PhotoCDs etc which rarely see the light of day, the bigger challenge is whether anyone will ever voluntarily look at those terabytes of photos. Having been the victim of excruciating vacation slide shows that only consisted of 40-50 images on a number of occasions (not to mention the more modern version involving a phone/tablet waving in my face), I can only imagine the pain you could inflict on someone with the arsenal you are amassing.
Bingo. That's exactly what I was thinking. Instead of "ha, ha, you are all delusional", people in non-US countries should be lamenting the fact that the US has become demonstrably less free, so that a higher standard to aspire (whether real or an ideal) to no longer exists. Or, create the higher standard as an example to the rest of the world. To laugh as we all race toward the bottom strikes me as the pinnacle of nihilistic cynicism.
Surveillance so intrusive it is putting certain subjects out of bounds would seem like cause for alarm in a country that prides itself as the world's most free
Continuing to believe that is a sign you're delusional, not 'free'.
Ah, but they have the freedom to be delusional in any way they wish...
So, which country do you live in that is more free? Or have you just given up and all you have left to offer is snarky cynicism?
3. Go to the POTS/landline phone in the house. 4. Report power outage.
Already doing it wrong. If you were in Chattanooga, the fiber optic system would have already reported the outage. The electric company has saved $12mil and the local economy about an additional $54mil from their new fiber system just in power related issues alone. With a fiber optic system, the power company is able to detect and route power around bad areas and identify the bad areas and who is all affected.
Yeah, well. Job required us to move to an underdeveloped, uncivilized part of the country (New England). We don't have those fancy modern gewgaws y'all have down south. They can barely keep the roads fixed so the heating oil trucks and snow plows can get around. But they do teach evolution in the schools by candlelight, so there's that at least.:-)
Yep. Same experience here. No power for 7 days (we live in luxury compared to your 12... sorry). The landline was on the entire time.
We also experience frequent power outages (non-storm related) here in the lovely northeast US, and the typical routine is this:
1. Find flashlight. 2. Find the electric bill with the customer service number on it. 3. Go to the POTS/landline phone in the house. 4. Report power outage. 5. Marvel at how every other damned thing in the house doesn't work, but the "old" landline survives just about anything.
because they are crazy busy doing their best to provide quality software to you for nothing.
And if making distros is a thankless job, maybe he should have some respect for others doing it? The guy behaved badly, end of story.
Exactly. "The guy behaved badly..." . The guy - singular. It takes the contribution of a lot of people, both "employed" and volunteers to make a Linux distribution happen. Rejecting the good work of all those people merely because the public nature of FL/OSS development allows the comments of a vocal minority to be blown out of proportion because it serves the needs of those who need to make newsworthy headlines by creating false controversy strikes me as ill-advised and narrow-minded. Judge the work on its technical merits, not on irrelevancies resulting from humans being human.
Fair enough. Been using Linux for many years myself. But part of the FL/OSS model is to do things in public, because that's considered superior to face-saving-do-it-all-in-secret approach that hides all the actual work behind a veneer of congeniality. So don't 'get over it'.
With all due respect, working on Linux distributions is, for the most part, a thankless job. People certainly aren't doing it for the money - they are doing it because they passionately care about what they are doing. Aaaand... passionate people sometimes react before they think, sometimes they are misinformed, because they are crazy busy doing their best to provide quality software to you for nothing. Because they care enough to do what they are doing when few others do. And they do it all in public for all to see... and are judged for it, quite often by those who don't participate or understand. I'd ask you to take that into account before you dismiss passionate outbursts as "pissing matches" with a wave of the hand - you're just getting a glimpse into "how the sausage is made". Get over it. That's how humans operate. The beauty of the FL/OSS ecosystem is that you don't have to listen to the discussions that create your software for you - just use what you like based on its technical merits. Maybe if you feel gratitude for the gift you've been given you might even say "thank you" now and then. But if you're making your technical decisions based solely on what you misperceive as "politics", you are doing it wrong.
What a fascinating example of unintentional self-referential criticism. Your comments seem more applicable to your own post than that of the submitter.
You have no sense of humor. Why am I not surprised.
My humor detector alerted me to the presence of funny (Category: Schoolyard Humor, Subclass: Rhymes). I mentally completed the rhyme from memory ("Nose as long as a telephone wire") and was amused for a brief moment as I reminisced about the old schoolyard days. Thanks for that. Then it occurred to me that implying someone was a liar wasn't very cool, so I clarified. Humor shouldn't take precedence over civility.
Would you care to list those games so we can get an accurate count? (Not a troll - I'm genuinely curious about how many Steam games Humble Bundle has offered in it's history).
By my very quick and informal count (a single pass through that page counting the games listed as having Steam keys), there are around 107 Steam games total, including the latest bundles from this week. Humble Bundles often include games that were offered in previous bundles (eg. Osmos), so dupes probably pull that number down to around 100 or less. So the GP was close to right if granted poetic license.
No, what I meant to say was exactly what I said. Just because I haven't been slavishly following all the Humble Bundles doesn't mean GP was wrong. That just seemed like a lot of Steam games, since many of the bundles I purchased didn't have Steam versions. Doesn't mean there aren't over a hundred that are.
Slashdot Mirror
I switched over from Chromium to Firefox mainly because of how Firefox Sync worked back then - in the way that it encrypted your sync data with a secret that Mozilla would never know. Now, with the new sync that just requires a tuple of email address and password, I wonder what - if anything - they use to encrypt the data so they cannot know what I store there (which is a strict requirement for me to even consider any kind of "cloud"-y offering). Given that email/password is used for authentication and authorization only (I'm pretty certain they'll have a routine for users to "reset" their password...), I'm worried they'd left out the one thing that made Firefox Sync usable for folk concerned with privacy...
I have the same general concerns you did but am less trusting, so I set up my own sync server. Check out Run your own Sync Server at mozilla.com.
If you're technically inclined, familiar with general LAMP server management and have a personal linux server handy, it isn't that hard. There's a time investment up front, but once I got it running, it's been working flawlessly across several platforms and multiple browser profiles. I hope they deprecate the old sync behavior but keep it in place for awhile to give time to migrate to the new sync behavior. It's been working so well it's been "set it (up) and forget it" since I first got it running, so it will take a little time just to remember the details so I can migrate to the new server code (assuming there is even a viable migration pathway).
That said, the old sync that required the code to add new browser instances (ie. Firefox on another device or OS) was a little cumbersome, so making that a little simpler would be welcome. That would make it easier for other members of the household to manage their own devices without requiring me to set up and manage it for them.
Not to defend him by any means, but in this instance his statement is no more stupid than invoking 1984 or other dystopian works of fiction as the reason the Snooper's Charter is to be avoided. Fiction they may be, but these works portray possibilities that inform how things might turn out in reality given a course of action, even if the actual outcome resembles the fictional scenario only in kind, not in actual detail. The ability to gain insight into ourselves is one of the many reasons we find works of art valuable in the first place. The key is not to confuse fiction with reality which admittedly many do.
Here's another timeline that's even more interesting because it interleaves the NWS advisories with the actions of various government/municipal entities and school officials:
Winter Storm 2014 Timeline (from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
you fucking shut your city down when the forecast calls for 2 inches
"We don't want to be accused of crying wolf," said Gov. Nathan Deal, who pointed out that the storm had been forecast to just brush the south side of the city.
That was part of the problem. The forecast didn't call for 2 inches, it predicted that the ice/snow would miss Atlanta, though not by much.
Not true. *Early* forecasts suggested that, but subsequent updates by the National Weather Service *did* call for several inches of snow, and *did* include metro Atlanta in the impacted area, well in advance of the actual storm (by early Monday morning). There was plenty of time to prepare, had officials been paying more attention to the forecasts and less to the political impact of "crying wolf".
From The Weather Channel (emphasis mine):
Sunday 3:12 p.m.
First winter storm watch issued for Tuesday morning through Wednesday afternoon.
Includes south metro Atlanta counties Fayette, Coweta, Clayton, Henry, Rockdale into central Georgia.
Impacts: Snow accumulations of two or more inches. Sleet accumulations of a half inch or more.
Monday 4:54 a.m.
Winter storm watch now includes much of north and south metro Atlanta for Tuesday morning through Wednesday afternoon.
Impacts: Snow accumulations of 1/2 to 2 inches. Snow-covered roads could make travel difficult.
Monday 3:22 p.m.
Winter storm watch upgraded to a winter storm warning for south metro Atlanta into central Georgia. Winter storm watch remains posted for north metro Atlanta for Tuesday morning through Wednesday afternoon.
Impacts: Snow accumulations of 1 to 2 inches with locally higher amounts. Sleet accumulations around a half inch. Snow and ice covered roads will make travel difficult or impossible.
Monday 9:36 p.m.
Winter storm watch changed to a winter weather advisory for north metro Atlanta for Tuesday morning through Wednesday morning.
National weather service notes: Please understand that even a slight shift in the moisture could result in significant differences in snow amounts and may require an upgrade to warning.
Tuesday 3:38 a.m.
All metro Atlanta under a winter storm warning starting 9 a.m. Tuesday
Impacts: 1 to 2 inches of snow. Snow expected to begin mid-morning and last into Tuesday night. Snow-covered roads will make for hazardous driving conditions through Wednesday morning.
What did the fox say?
What do you possibly have in your house that it's worth somebody's time to hack your thermostat?
The concern isn't necessarily about what's in the house (though putting the pets at risk due to extreme heat/cold could result from a hack). It's the information gathered by the thermostat(s) that has value. There's the usual metadata that can be added to your "profile" for purposes of advertisement. The Nest and similar devices can also reveal information about your habits, like when you are present/absent from the house, how long, time spent in each room (the Nest has a motion sensor). That could be useful for thieves, govt or law enforcement officials interested in knowing when the house is unoccupied or where you are likely to be should they wish to find you.
You have to get out of orbit...you need to get to the moon....you need to get into lunar orbit and then land....successfully. Read the history of the Ranger Program to see how much work this took the US, and they were crashing onto the moon, not trying to land a working Rover. Getting the insertions correct is not easy. China has done something difficult and laudable.
While I'm sure they had the full data from the US program, and the USSR program, making this happen is still a great achievement.
I have noticed how the US media is paying little attention to this......
Just as I was reading this (8:10am Eastern time, 12/16/13), the chinese rover was prominently mentioned on the Today show (NBC). They discussed the rover, made a quick reference to the manned moon landings of the US and finished with a summary of the future plans of the chinese for the moon. The segment ended with a round of "that's cool" from all the hosts. So it's certainly not being ignored and the achievement does seem to be acknowledged for what it is, not belittled or downplayed.
We have hundreds of thousands of family pictures and videos we're trying to save using this advice. But in some sparse searching of our archives, we're seeing bitrot destroying our memories. With the quantity of data (~2 TB at present),
As the proud owner of dozens of family photo albums, a stack of PhotoCDs etc which rarely see the light of day, the bigger challenge is whether anyone will ever voluntarily look at those terabytes of photos. Having been the victim of excruciating vacation slide shows that only consisted of 40-50 images on a number of occasions (not to mention the more modern version involving a phone/tablet waving in my face), I can only imagine the pain you could inflict on someone with the arsenal you are amassing.
the NSA would never abuse all that personal data it's hovering up.
Or Hoovering up, even.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hoover_Company
Bingo. That's exactly what I was thinking. Instead of "ha, ha, you are all delusional", people in non-US countries should be lamenting the fact that the US has become demonstrably less free, so that a higher standard to aspire (whether real or an ideal) to no longer exists. Or, create the higher standard as an example to the rest of the world. To laugh as we all race toward the bottom strikes me as the pinnacle of nihilistic cynicism.
Continuing to believe that is a sign you're delusional, not 'free'.
Ah, but they have the freedom to be delusional in any way they wish...
So, which country do you live in that is more free? Or have you just given up and all you have left to offer is snarky cynicism?
3. Go to the POTS/landline phone in the house.
4. Report power outage.
Already doing it wrong. If you were in Chattanooga, the fiber optic system would have already reported the outage. The electric company has saved $12mil and the local economy about an additional $54mil from their new fiber system just in power related issues alone. With a fiber optic system, the power company is able to detect and route power around bad areas and identify the bad areas and who is all affected.
Yeah, well. Job required us to move to an underdeveloped, uncivilized part of the country (New England). We don't have those fancy modern gewgaws y'all have down south. They can barely keep the roads fixed so the heating oil trucks and snow plows can get around. But they do teach evolution in the schools by candlelight, so there's that at least. :-)
Yep. Same experience here. No power for 7 days (we live in luxury compared to your 12 ... sorry). The landline was on the entire time.
We also experience frequent power outages (non-storm related) here in the lovely northeast US, and the typical routine is this:
1. Find flashlight.
2. Find the electric bill with the customer service number on it.
3. Go to the POTS/landline phone in the house.
4. Report power outage.
5. Marvel at how every other damned thing in the house doesn't work, but the "old" landline survives just about anything.
because they are crazy busy doing their best to provide quality software to you for nothing.
And if making distros is a thankless job, maybe he should have some respect for others doing it? The guy behaved badly, end of story.
Exactly. "The guy behaved badly ..." . The guy - singular. It takes the contribution of a lot of people, both "employed" and volunteers to make a Linux distribution happen. Rejecting the good work of all those people merely because the public nature of FL/OSS development allows the comments of a vocal minority to be blown out of proportion because it serves the needs of those who need to make newsworthy headlines by creating false controversy strikes me as ill-advised and narrow-minded. Judge the work on its technical merits, not on irrelevancies resulting from humans being human.
Fair enough. Been using Linux for many years myself. But part of the FL/OSS model is to do things in public, because that's considered superior to face-saving-do-it-all-in-secret approach that hides all the actual work behind a veneer of congeniality. So don't 'get over it'.
With all due respect, working on Linux distributions is, for the most part, a thankless job. People certainly aren't doing it for the money - they are doing it because they passionately care about what they are doing. Aaaand ... passionate people sometimes react before they think, sometimes they are misinformed, because they are crazy busy doing their best to provide quality software to you for nothing. Because they care enough to do what they are doing when few others do. And they do it all in public for all to see ... and are judged for it, quite often by those who don't participate or understand. I'd ask you to take that into account before you dismiss passionate outbursts as "pissing matches" with a wave of the hand - you're just getting a glimpse into "how the sausage is made". Get over it. That's how humans operate. The beauty of the FL/OSS ecosystem is that you don't have to listen to the discussions that create your software for you - just use what you like based on its technical merits. Maybe if you feel gratitude for the gift you've been given you might even say "thank you" now and then. But if you're making your technical decisions based solely on what you misperceive as "politics", you are doing it wrong.
This calls for the Slashdot Summary Corollary to Betteridge's Law of Headlines. Then mythosaz is entirely correct.
This wasn't the headline. Duh.
No.
... if it were FLOSS!
Let's do the FLOSS dance!
http://suitelife.wikia.com/wiki/Floss_Dance
Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8JPDg3DkSM
What a fascinating example of unintentional self-referential criticism. Your comments seem more applicable to your own post than that of the submitter.
You have no sense of humor. Why am I not surprised.
My humor detector alerted me to the presence of funny (Category: Schoolyard Humor, Subclass: Rhymes). I mentally completed the rhyme from memory ("Nose as long as a telephone wire") and was amused for a brief moment as I reminisced about the old schoolyard days. Thanks for that. Then it occurred to me that implying someone was a liar wasn't very cool, so I clarified. Humor shouldn't take precedence over civility.
Why? That's what the lazyweb is for.
Would you care to list those games so we can get an accurate count? (Not a troll - I'm genuinely curious about how many Steam games Humble Bundle has offered in it's history).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Humble_Bundles
By my very quick and informal count (a single pass through that page counting the games listed as having Steam keys), there are around 107 Steam games total, including the latest bundles from this week. Humble Bundles often include games that were offered in previous bundles (eg. Osmos), so dupes probably pull that number down to around 100 or less. So the GP was close to right if granted poetic license.
No, what I meant to say was exactly what I said. Just because I haven't been slavishly following all the Humble Bundles doesn't mean GP was wrong. That just seemed like a lot of Steam games, since many of the bundles I purchased didn't have Steam versions. Doesn't mean there aren't over a hundred that are.