There is always the Armageddon option. Say Windows Phone 9 becomes such a best seller that everyone (ZTE, Huawei, the people who make Blu phones, and Samsung) join the bandwagon. Android will still have a future and a guarenteed roadmap.
For consumers who just want the coolest thing, this isn't a big deal. However, for the enterprise where they want to know that a device investment won't result in useless items, this is important. Android developers are also assured that there is a future for the OS, no matter what the whims are for the hardware makers.
The key to success or fail are the app makers. This is why even though Windows Phone 8 has a lot of solid features, it is lagging behind. Chicken and egg scenario.
I wouldn't call MS a patent troll, as they have a number of valid patents, and are willing to license for a reasonable fee.
Apple is not a troll either, but (IMHO), they seem to be all about scorched-earth tactics, so it is either the patent courts, or a bankruptcy court. Had they done like MS and said "we have patents and will sue to defend against them... but for $3/device, we will show you our patent portfolio, you take your pick, and we wish you the best", there would be a lot more innovation in the field. I'd probably go out on a limb and say that the residuals earned from Apple licensing in this manner would help their stock value, as it is money coming in even if they don't bother introducing an iPhone 5s or 6 this year.
Also, Motorola isn't just deadweight. They actually are the only phone maker which has file based encryption for SD cards. Yes, 4.0 and newer encrypt the/data partition with dm-crypt, and a lot of devices don't use a SD card, but there are some (the Samsung Galaxy S4) that have a good amount of onboard storage and a MicroSD card slot... and the data on the SD card needs some protection, even if it is using an EncFS-like filesystem which is on a file level (as opposed to filesystem/image like dm-crypt or LUKS.)
Motorola devices also have very good radios. I have a number of different brands of Android phones, and in general, Motorola's reception tends to be a notch above everyone else, and on par with whatever iPhone I am using.
Of course, there are killed technologies, such as the ability to attach a keyboard and monitor to an Atrix or Atrix 2, that would come in handy big time, especially with Citrix or other remote screen software.
Motorola has a lot of cool stuff... I just hope Google can get them off the encrypted bootloader kick. The locked bootloaders is the only reason I don't darken Moto's door when I look for a new Android phone.
Actually, it would be a third right: The right to have data destroyed.
Right now, it is almost a mandate for businesses to keep as much data as possible indefinitely.
What is needed is a discard date, just like with HIPAA patient records. For example:
Camera footage has to be chucked after 30 days unless there is an active investigation (civil/criminal) in progress.
Browsing records also get chucked after 30 days. This is long enough for a party to do a motion of discovery.
These dates do not reset when the info is rented or sold, so an ad company with browser data has to purge it or else.
Finally, information should have a copyright belonging to the person it is about. That copyright begins the day after the info expires. This way, if someone has expired camera footage, a simple DMCA takedown request will purge it.
I've seen people around Austin run around with plug in Priuses or Nissan Leafs that have a cargo rack and a Honda 2000 watt generator sitting in it.
There are other ways too. An genset can be mounted under the vehicle with a gas tank. When the battery dips below a certain voltage, it fires up.
I agree -- focus on building a top notch electric vehicle, and build in a electric generator, such as an offering from Onan or Kohler. A Honda inverter would be the ideal, because it runs at a variable RPM, letting the inverter make clean power, as opposed to having the engine have to run exactly at 3600 RPM (3000 if in Europe) to have usable power.
This concerns me as well, but there is one advantage of using aluminum: The fact that aluminum is portable.
In a place that has ample hydroelectric or solar power that can easily power a smelting plant, aluminum can be refined from aluminum oxide. Then, the metal can be hauled to wherever it is needed. This way, the impact of the high energy usage can be minimized.
There is a misnomer: These are not batteries but fuel cells. The way the aluminum is "recharged" is by hauling the alumina (aluminum oxide) back to a smelting place and spending 15,000 watts per kilo of aluminum made in electricity.
My concern about this type of battery is the fact that it requires so much energy to "recycle". Already, 1/20 of all US electric output goes to smelt aluminum, and going with aluminum/air fuel cells would add to something that is a ferocious energy user. (Not to knock the aluminum business -- it is a very useful and vital metal, but it is highly dependent on electricity.)
Just was in the process of downloading a beta client for their new online backup system to fiddle around with on a virtual machine (it is similar to Mozy/Carbonite.)
I can see these being a step between supercaps and slow charging, but high energy density per volume batteries.
For example, when it comes to solar, you want a charge controller that can get as much energy as possible. Then once the fast charging elements near 100%, start charging slower, but more energy dense batteries. This will help to maximize what comes from the panels for user during the night.
The 2014 Sprinter [1] has this technology. It not just auto-brakes when someone tried a swoop and squat (easy insurance money in most states), but can compensate for wind, alerts the driver if there is someone in a blind spot, and can automatically follow in a lane. IIRC, there is even an adaptive cruise control which doesn't just follow by speed, but also automatically keeps a distance from the car in front, so cruise control can be used safely in more places.
[1]: Sprinters are weird beasts. Stick a Freightliner logo on the back of a new one, and the local homeowner's association starts sending notices that "company vehicles" are prohibited in driveways unless active work is being done. Pull two torx screws out of the flap between the double doors and attach a Mercedes logo, and the same HOA types now consider the vehicle an asset to the neighborhood due to the make.
MS already had success with this method. Back in the XP days, MS needed to drag developers into modern days using a decent security model, which required a rewrite of drivers. So, Vista came out which resulted in vendors writing alpha quality code, and blaming the breaks on MS's new OS.
By the time Windows 7 got out the door, third parties finally got the concept of not having admin rights for every single executable, so it was painless.
Windows 9 is when people will say that MS has it "right"... and the cycle will begin anew.
I looked at their appliances... nothing really special that I can't buy from IBM or HP, except IBM has the HSM for keys on a PCI-E card -- no rack space needed.
I remember in a previous life working for one company. A vendor approached us for a backup solution that was this magic black-box appliance that stored an encryption key for every tape. As the company I worked for had tens of thousands of LTO-4 and LTO-5 tapes, that was a concern. I asked the sales rep how to back up the keys. His reply, "the device can mirror to another device". I asked him how I back up the keys just in case the site was down. His reply: "Buy another device." I just logged on the web server of the tape silo, set a respectable passphrase for encryption of tapes, copied the passphrase to some 3x5 cards which went to different managers around the globe to keep safely via registered mail, and called it done.
I have also pondered making my own HSM appliances. It would be on an x86 platform with the usual TPM chip, but the "trusted" stuff would be mainly to ensure the HDD was encrypted from the beginning of the boot cycle. It would do the usual signing/decrypting of stuff as everything else does, with various users/groups/roles allowing what keys at what times, and storing audit logs.
For backups of keys, there was a dedicated USB flash drive port, and there was the option of using the protected storage space on a SD card (each SD card has an additional 20% of usable storage on it, but you have to be part of the SD group to get access to the APIs using it.) That way, the backup private keys would not be physically accessible to the run of the mill SD card reader.
I even made a prototype appliance of storing username/password tuples in a secure case, just to prevent an intruder from grabbing hashed passwords used for Web users. This device only allowed access via a few commands (none of which allowed a complete database dump), and someone trying to guess the password of a user would get locked out quickly. Of course, one could take a backup via the USB or a SATA port, but that required physical access, and the master encryption key.
Trick is making an appliance that honestly works, and not trying to sell it by smoke and mirrors.
You can script it so the machine reboots (to clean the gunk off), updates, then reboots back frozen. You can also script it to grab updates and move them to a non-frozen partition, reboot, suck 'em in, then boot back locked down.
I actually bothered with a license for DeepFreeze for the one box that I allow guests to use. That, a Kensington lock, BitLocker and proper password protection of the BIOS and the HDD is good enough.
That way, the DeepFreeze-protected machine is one reboot away from getting cleaned up from whatever ails it. Especially with the fact that the guest user has no administrator rights, so malware would have to find a hole to get to a Windows admin context, then find a way to attack the DeepFreeze driver in order to stay on the box.
The process of refining bauxite to get aluminum is extremely energy intensive. Other than having a pure oxide to put in, it almost is pointless to bother recycling the "battery".
This is one of the last things I want to see in widespread use, unless we have modern nuclear plants, fusion, or some other next gen energy source, just because turning aluminum oxide back to a usable metal uses so much electricity.
Things didn't burst, they changed. In 2010-2011, when Apple started allowing in-app purchases, the fundamental nature of apps changed.
Before that, an app could cost 99 cents, additional levels and such would be in another app.
In-app purchases changed games fundamentally, just like DLC changed the console. Now, games are free. However, if one wants levels, additional items, or other things, there is the store, and prices for in-game things can even go to C-note level or higher. Games went from having a difficulty level that was meant for most people to complete to one that was noticably harder, in order to force people to buy some in-game currency or items to make it easier.
Take the average tower defense game. A couple bucks got you a decent shooter. Now, it might be free, but each tower now costs 1-2 bucks to unlock, each additional level might cost something, another powerup to help with getting currency is a few bucks, and the level difficulty is scaled where someone has to buy the "uber-nuke" one-time use item in order to win a level.
Utilities have followed this path. In the past, you bought a photo editing program (for example). Now, the program is free, but each tool costs a buck. Want a yellow filter? 99 cents. Want crop capability? 99 cents. Ability to save? $4.99.
I just snap them in half. Bent one way, they will shatter, the other way, they will just bend.
This won't be useful for top secret data where someone might have a custom jig to read tracks on pieces of CD/DVD media, but for almost everyone else, tossing the shattered media into multiple piles and tossing each pile in a separate wastebin is good enough.
I don't know what rad-hardened storage is out there that can be used, but if security is critical, there is always the good old fashioned one time pad.
OTPs could be consumed directly for maximum security commands, or used as a way to encrypt a Diffie-Hellman session key generation for stuff that needs less security. The session key can be used without drawing down the random number pool.
Of course the ultimate downside of OTPs are that when the number pool is exhausted, you are fscked, so trying to use the pool as little as possible is important.
If one is needing energy for the BitCoin mining computers, might as well get panels up and running, which helps things regardless of how many coins are available. Then, when the CPU cost of mining goes out of the realm of possibility, one still has a set of panels reducing the electric bill.
If one has the ability, what about going for a solar array on the roof? A lot of office buildings are flat and are in direct sunlight, so why not add a passive [1] solar array facing south at the right angle, with the right power and battery bank?
With this in place, it won't make a company completely off-grid, but it will offset the higher power used for Bitcoin generating, as well as give positive PR.
[1]: As opposed to an array that actively tracks the sun.
The trick is making DRM a speed-bump big enough to deter, but not so annoying that people go fetch a patch or make a "warez-ed" version that has a permanent home as a seed on TPB.
An example of decent DRM is NWN1. Just CD keys were used, although they were needed to get onto multiplayer items, such as persistent worlds.
These days, with the advent of good online stores, why even bother with DRM in the first place? Just stick the application on Steam, or the platform store of one's choice and let them do the work.
Perhaps the next EA CEO might see about some of the IP they are sitting on and make something decent that isn't just the same junk over and over.
Wing Commander, Ultima (I know there is are games in the works, but it would be nice to see Ultima 8 stricken off the books, and a "real" 8 and 9 made. Heck, I'd love to see a modern rendition of "Cybermage" just for the surreal aspect that mixes magic and technology, and not being Shadowrun or steampunk.
What would be ideal is a combination of the above. The telco could provided a hashed/salted [1] value from existing ESN/IMEI numbers, then combined with a rough box handed from ISPs or the telco.
That way, one must have an IMEI in the area in order to affect data. Of course, someone can always have their device state that a jam is happening, but it can be "modded down" by other devices.
[1]: The salt changes every 5 minutes, so Google knows a number for just that long and no longer. Of course, things can be traced, but this would definitely lower any window of attac
Correction: Not yellow/green for "oh crap", yellow or red. Of course, with how people drive, all greens would last about 2-3 seconds before the wreck that happens stops traffic completely for an indefinite time anyway.
AFAIK, lights have two sets of circuits in them to prevent a change to greens in more than one direction. If it does happen, the light switches to "oh crap" mode and starts flashing yellow or green.
Of course, I've seen a traffic signal flashing green before all ways, but that was only once.
Slashdot Mirror
There is always the Armageddon option. Say Windows Phone 9 becomes such a best seller that everyone (ZTE, Huawei, the people who make Blu phones, and Samsung) join the bandwagon. Android will still have a future and a guarenteed roadmap.
For consumers who just want the coolest thing, this isn't a big deal. However, for the enterprise where they want to know that a device investment won't result in useless items, this is important. Android developers are also assured that there is a future for the OS, no matter what the whims are for the hardware makers.
The key to success or fail are the app makers. This is why even though Windows Phone 8 has a lot of solid features, it is lagging behind. Chicken and egg scenario.
I wouldn't call MS a patent troll, as they have a number of valid patents, and are willing to license for a reasonable fee.
Apple is not a troll either, but (IMHO), they seem to be all about scorched-earth tactics, so it is either the patent courts, or a bankruptcy court. Had they done like MS and said "we have patents and will sue to defend against them... but for $3/device, we will show you our patent portfolio, you take your pick, and we wish you the best", there would be a lot more innovation in the field. I'd probably go out on a limb and say that the residuals earned from Apple licensing in this manner would help their stock value, as it is money coming in even if they don't bother introducing an iPhone 5s or 6 this year.
Also, Motorola isn't just deadweight. They actually are the only phone maker which has file based encryption for SD cards. Yes, 4.0 and newer encrypt the /data partition with dm-crypt, and a lot of devices don't use a SD card, but there are some (the Samsung Galaxy S4) that have a good amount of onboard storage and a MicroSD card slot... and the data on the SD card needs some protection, even if it is using an EncFS-like filesystem which is on a file level (as opposed to filesystem/image like dm-crypt or LUKS.)
Motorola devices also have very good radios. I have a number of different brands of Android phones, and in general, Motorola's reception tends to be a notch above everyone else, and on par with whatever iPhone I am using.
Of course, there are killed technologies, such as the ability to attach a keyboard and monitor to an Atrix or Atrix 2, that would come in handy big time, especially with Citrix or other remote screen software.
Motorola has a lot of cool stuff... I just hope Google can get them off the encrypted bootloader kick. The locked bootloaders is the only reason I don't darken Moto's door when I look for a new Android phone.
Actually, it would be a third right: The right to have data destroyed.
Right now, it is almost a mandate for businesses to keep as much data as possible indefinitely.
What is needed is a discard date, just like with HIPAA patient records. For example:
Camera footage has to be chucked after 30 days unless there is an active investigation (civil/criminal) in progress.
Browsing records also get chucked after 30 days. This is long enough for a party to do a motion of discovery.
These dates do not reset when the info is rented or sold, so an ad company with browser data has to purge it or else.
Finally, information should have a copyright belonging to the person it is about. That copyright begins the day after the info expires. This way, if someone has expired camera footage, a simple DMCA takedown request will purge it.
I've seen people around Austin run around with plug in Priuses or Nissan Leafs that have a cargo rack and a Honda 2000 watt generator sitting in it.
There are other ways too. An genset can be mounted under the vehicle with a gas tank. When the battery dips below a certain voltage, it fires up.
I agree -- focus on building a top notch electric vehicle, and build in a electric generator, such as an offering from Onan or Kohler. A Honda inverter would be the ideal, because it runs at a variable RPM, letting the inverter make clean power, as opposed to having the engine have to run exactly at 3600 RPM (3000 if in Europe) to have usable power.
This concerns me as well, but there is one advantage of using aluminum: The fact that aluminum is portable.
In a place that has ample hydroelectric or solar power that can easily power a smelting plant, aluminum can be refined from aluminum oxide. Then, the metal can be hauled to wherever it is needed. This way, the impact of the high energy usage can be minimized.
There is a misnomer: These are not batteries but fuel cells. The way the aluminum is "recharged" is by hauling the alumina (aluminum oxide) back to a smelting place and spending 15,000 watts per kilo of aluminum made in electricity.
My concern about this type of battery is the fact that it requires so much energy to "recycle". Already, 1/20 of all US electric output goes to smelt aluminum, and going with aluminum/air fuel cells would add to something that is a ferocious energy user. (Not to knock the aluminum business -- it is a very useful and vital metal, but it is highly dependent on electricity.)
Just was in the process of downloading a beta client for their new online backup system to fiddle around with on a virtual machine (it is similar to Mozy/Carbonite.)
I can see these being a step between supercaps and slow charging, but high energy density per volume batteries.
For example, when it comes to solar, you want a charge controller that can get as much energy as possible. Then once the fast charging elements near 100%, start charging slower, but more energy dense batteries. This will help to maximize what comes from the panels for user during the night.
The 2014 Sprinter [1] has this technology. It not just auto-brakes when someone tried a swoop and squat (easy insurance money in most states), but can compensate for wind, alerts the driver if there is someone in a blind spot, and can automatically follow in a lane. IIRC, there is even an adaptive cruise control which doesn't just follow by speed, but also automatically keeps a distance from the car in front, so cruise control can be used safely in more places.
[1]: Sprinters are weird beasts. Stick a Freightliner logo on the back of a new one, and the local homeowner's association starts sending notices that "company vehicles" are prohibited in driveways unless active work is being done. Pull two torx screws out of the flap between the double doors and attach a Mercedes logo, and the same HOA types now consider the vehicle an asset to the neighborhood due to the make.
MS already had success with this method. Back in the XP days, MS needed to drag developers into modern days using a decent security model, which required a rewrite of drivers. So, Vista came out which resulted in vendors writing alpha quality code, and blaming the breaks on MS's new OS.
By the time Windows 7 got out the door, third parties finally got the concept of not having admin rights for every single executable, so it was painless.
Windows 9 is when people will say that MS has it "right"... and the cycle will begin anew.
I looked at their appliances... nothing really special that I can't buy from IBM or HP, except IBM has the HSM for keys on a PCI-E card -- no rack space needed.
I remember in a previous life working for one company. A vendor approached us for a backup solution that was this magic black-box appliance that stored an encryption key for every tape. As the company I worked for had tens of thousands of LTO-4 and LTO-5 tapes, that was a concern. I asked the sales rep how to back up the keys. His reply, "the device can mirror to another device". I asked him how I back up the keys just in case the site was down. His reply: "Buy another device." I just logged on the web server of the tape silo, set a respectable passphrase for encryption of tapes, copied the passphrase to some 3x5 cards which went to different managers around the globe to keep safely via registered mail, and called it done.
I have also pondered making my own HSM appliances. It would be on an x86 platform with the usual TPM chip, but the "trusted" stuff would be mainly to ensure the HDD was encrypted from the beginning of the boot cycle. It would do the usual signing/decrypting of stuff as everything else does, with various users/groups/roles allowing what keys at what times, and storing audit logs.
For backups of keys, there was a dedicated USB flash drive port, and there was the option of using the protected storage space on a SD card (each SD card has an additional 20% of usable storage on it, but you have to be part of the SD group to get access to the APIs using it.) That way, the backup private keys would not be physically accessible to the run of the mill SD card reader.
I even made a prototype appliance of storing username/password tuples in a secure case, just to prevent an intruder from grabbing hashed passwords used for Web users. This device only allowed access via a few commands (none of which allowed a complete database dump), and someone trying to guess the password of a user would get locked out quickly. Of course, one could take a backup via the USB or a SATA port, but that required physical access, and the master encryption key.
Trick is making an appliance that honestly works, and not trying to sell it by smoke and mirrors.
You can script it so the machine reboots (to clean the gunk off), updates, then reboots back frozen. You can also script it to grab updates and move them to a non-frozen partition, reboot, suck 'em in, then boot back locked down.
You can "thaw" DeepFreeze protected volumes so when you do patches, they stay in place.
I actually bothered with a license for DeepFreeze for the one box that I allow guests to use. That, a Kensington lock, BitLocker and proper password protection of the BIOS and the HDD is good enough.
That way, the DeepFreeze-protected machine is one reboot away from getting cleaned up from whatever ails it. Especially with the fact that the guest user has no administrator rights, so malware would have to find a hole to get to a Windows admin context, then find a way to attack the DeepFreeze driver in order to stay on the box.
The process of refining bauxite to get aluminum is extremely energy intensive. Other than having a pure oxide to put in, it almost is pointless to bother recycling the "battery".
This is one of the last things I want to see in widespread use, unless we have modern nuclear plants, fusion, or some other next gen energy source, just because turning aluminum oxide back to a usable metal uses so much electricity.
Things didn't burst, they changed. In 2010-2011, when Apple started allowing in-app purchases, the fundamental nature of apps changed.
Before that, an app could cost 99 cents, additional levels and such would be in another app.
In-app purchases changed games fundamentally, just like DLC changed the console. Now, games are free. However, if one wants levels, additional items, or other things, there is the store, and prices for in-game things can even go to C-note level or higher. Games went from having a difficulty level that was meant for most people to complete to one that was noticably harder, in order to force people to buy some in-game currency or items to make it easier.
Take the average tower defense game. A couple bucks got you a decent shooter. Now, it might be free, but each tower now costs 1-2 bucks to unlock, each additional level might cost something, another powerup to help with getting currency is a few bucks, and the level difficulty is scaled where someone has to buy the "uber-nuke" one-time use item in order to win a level.
Utilities have followed this path. In the past, you bought a photo editing program (for example). Now, the program is free, but each tool costs a buck. Want a yellow filter? 99 cents. Want crop capability? 99 cents. Ability to save? $4.99.
I just snap them in half. Bent one way, they will shatter, the other way, they will just bend.
This won't be useful for top secret data where someone might have a custom jig to read tracks on pieces of CD/DVD media, but for almost everyone else, tossing the shattered media into multiple piles and tossing each pile in a separate wastebin is good enough.
I don't know what rad-hardened storage is out there that can be used, but if security is critical, there is always the good old fashioned one time pad.
OTPs could be consumed directly for maximum security commands, or used as a way to encrypt a Diffie-Hellman session key generation for stuff that needs less security. The session key can be used without drawing down the random number pool.
Of course the ultimate downside of OTPs are that when the number pool is exhausted, you are fscked, so trying to use the pool as little as possible is important.
Agreed.
If one is needing energy for the BitCoin mining computers, might as well get panels up and running, which helps things regardless of how many coins are available. Then, when the CPU cost of mining goes out of the realm of possibility, one still has a set of panels reducing the electric bill.
If one has the ability, what about going for a solar array on the roof? A lot of office buildings are flat and are in direct sunlight, so why not add a passive [1] solar array facing south at the right angle, with the right power and battery bank?
With this in place, it won't make a company completely off-grid, but it will offset the higher power used for Bitcoin generating, as well as give positive PR.
[1]: As opposed to an array that actively tracks the sun.
The trick is making DRM a speed-bump big enough to deter, but not so annoying that people go fetch a patch or make a "warez-ed" version that has a permanent home as a seed on TPB.
An example of decent DRM is NWN1. Just CD keys were used, although they were needed to get onto multiplayer items, such as persistent worlds.
These days, with the advent of good online stores, why even bother with DRM in the first place? Just stick the application on Steam, or the platform store of one's choice and let them do the work.
Perhaps the next EA CEO might see about some of the IP they are sitting on and make something decent that isn't just the same junk over and over.
Wing Commander, Ultima (I know there is are games in the works, but it would be nice to see Ultima 8 stricken off the books, and a "real" 8 and 9 made. Heck, I'd love to see a modern rendition of "Cybermage" just for the surreal aspect that mixes magic and technology, and not being Shadowrun or steampunk.
What would be ideal is a combination of the above. The telco could provided a hashed/salted [1] value from existing ESN/IMEI numbers, then combined with a rough box handed from ISPs or the telco.
That way, one must have an IMEI in the area in order to affect data. Of course, someone can always have their device state that a jam is happening, but it can be "modded down" by other devices.
[1]: The salt changes every 5 minutes, so Google knows a number for just that long and no longer. Of course, things can be traced, but this would definitely lower any window of attac
Correction: Not yellow/green for "oh crap", yellow or red. Of course, with how people drive, all greens would last about 2-3 seconds before the wreck that happens stops traffic completely for an indefinite time anyway.
AFAIK, lights have two sets of circuits in them to prevent a change to greens in more than one direction. If it does happen, the light switches to "oh crap" mode and starts flashing yellow or green.
Of course, I've seen a traffic signal flashing green before all ways, but that was only once.