I guess if they want to drive themselves out of business, they'd be free to do so. Other companies would pop up offering more choices, for (initially) cheaper prices, and people would flock to them.
Oh, you mean like cellular companies that "pop up", only to be bought out and collapsed into the collusive environment of mega-corps that dominate all?
That's the problem we face today; as much as we want to convince ourselves that true competition still lives and breathes, the reality is a world full of multi-billion dollar corporations that collude to control the entire fucking market.
Wal-Mart started this trend of moving into a town to destroy small business. Now watch and see how Amazon works to dismantle the concept of a shopping mall within the next decade.
Now show me how mathematical biology can showcase its benefit.
I might note that over the last 60 years, we've seen everything from AIDS to Zika attack mankind, so pardon me if I'm skeptical as hell as to it's ability to predict or avert pandemics. Sadly, even Ebola enjoyed a fashionable resurgence after a 20-year hiatus.
It's also rather obvious that great financial benefit stems from perpetually treating issues rather than curing them, proving that the ultimate virus that has yet to be eradicated is Greed.
I'd be happy to pay by the GB - no caps, no throttles, no BS. I pay for the rest of my utilities that way.
You know what else you would soon not have?
No options.
If all ISPs charged by the GB, you would soon see all of them petitioning and lobbying to do away with SD-quality streams, and all other forms of bandwidth-saving features in order to ensure they "throttle" your wallet every month, with you doing nothing more than using your service. They would strive for this under the guise of a "premium quality internet experience", but we all would know it would be to push for the most bandwidth consumed per customer.
Soon after, they would start doing away with offering cable channels via the cable box, and only offer channels via streaming, as another way to bolster bandwidth usage.
Yes, users should have complex (high entropy) passwords. No, requiring one digit and special character does not accomplish that. And no, requiring regular password changes does not accomplish that.
I would agree. This is exactly why we should start insisting on passphrases, as increased length has the same if not better benefits as password complexity, and when mnemonics are involved, it can help mitigate the risk of a user forgetting their passphrase, or having to write it down.
There is now a mountain of evidence that those ideas do the exact opposite.
The mountain of evidence that users will pick shitty passwords whenever the system allows it has existed for literally decades. What hasn't existed for that long are the threats caused by fixed hashes, rainbow tables, and faster systems that can crack passwords quickly. When the risks change, so should the system to adopt. If the user cannot adopt, then they are expendable. Skills users may bring to an organization are worthless if they also bring an equal amount of risk.
I fail to see how the growth metrics around a streaming service has anything to do with people sharing passwords. I can assure you that as long as the service technically allows it, password and account sharing will continue.
Given the growth, I seriously doubt they really give a shit. Some things are worth business focus. Some are not.
The problem with passphrases is systems that can't handle the length, or worse silently truncate after x characters.
I've created countless very long and very complex passwords for my personal accounts, and 98% of the systems I've interacted with handle it just fine. I'm not seeing how this issue is that prevalent. If a corporation does happen to have a limiting authentication system, then I'm willing to bet it's also in dire need of an upgrade, so the solution is rather clear.
Also, typing on a phone can be a PITA.
Usually only once. Then the user or the app unfortunately caches the credentials.
If you want to know what will happen if you don't force users to change passwords, just look on Facebook for their pets/kids name. I'm certain you won't find 80% of your passwords there or anything...
You have things switched around. You can have a complex password that takes 3 months to learn, or you can require changing the password to a new version of "June2017" every couple of months.
If a user takes 3 months to learn a password they created, then fire them. They're incompetent of operating something as complex as an authentication mechanism.
Passphrases are only as hard to memorize as the person creating them. They are often proven to be easier to remember, and good password length well above and beyond the average tends to help mitigate the risk of compromise created by online password hash databases and compromised lists of passwords.
As of NIST 800-63-3 forced password changes based solely on time interval is no longer a 'Best Practice'. Now the Best Practice is to expire passwords only when there is suspicion of account or system compromise.
Sadly it will take some time before the many organizations who copied the old best practice into their own documentation can step up to current best practice.
I'm assuming you're referring to this stupidity found in DRAFT NIST SP 800-63-3B:
"Verifiers SHOULD NOT impose other composition rules (e.g., mixtures of different character types) on memorized secrets. Verifiers SHOULD NOT require memorized secrets to be changed arbitrarily (e.g., periodically) and SHOULD only require a change if the subscriber requests a change or there is evidence of compromise of the authenticator."
I've read through the DRAFT publications, deal with 27001/CSC/NIST standards on a daily basis, and this is the one of the dumbest recommendations I've ever read when it comes to password policy and system security.
Unless you enforce it, users WILL NOT choose complex passwords. If you need further evidence of this, take a look at those Top 10 Worst Passwords lists that have been published over the last 20 years. They fucking never change. This also validates how human behavior has not changed in decades, no matter how many compromised systems, accounts, or identities happened because of shitty passwords.
Users WILL NOT change their shitty passwords. Ever.
Users WILL recycle shitty passwords they use elsewhere. That means their shitty Yahoo password will now be recycled and used to secure your corporate data. And no, the SysAdmin won't take the time to go check dozens of online databases every day to look for "evidence of compromise".
Let's hope this stupidity doesn't make it into the final draft, only to conflict with many other accepted standards in use and enforced today.
Forced password changes every X days. This just leads to people picking really shitty passwords. At one company I worked at for a while, they mitigated this by simply doing "simple word" + month + year. TOTALLY hard to figure out!
If you want to know what will happen if you don't force users to change passwords, just look on Facebook for their pets/kids name. I'm certain you won't find 80% of your passwords there or anything...
(Oh, and don't forget to keep that a secret. We wouldn't want hackers to TOTALLY figure that out!)
The proliferation of IoT in damn near every device around you is exactly why this whole story is NOT bullshit.
You like being afraid, eh? I can't say I get it, but it seems popular these days...I blackhole most ad networks, noscript and purge cookies. I use an RSS reader instead of visiting websites, facebook, or twitter. I log into gmail on Firefox, and chrome gets a different google account associated with it. I have a name_phone@gmail.com address for my Android, which doesn't connect to my other google shit...
Ironically, you've certainly gone to some rather extreme measures to avoid "bullshit".
Regarding partial data sets, voids and outliers are often far more valuable and interesting to some than others. One mans trash is another mans treasure.
you WILL become part of the bigger monitored world, whether you like it or not.
And that's the biggest pile of bullshit yet. BET ME. You will NOT take away what little privacy I have left. You WILL have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers, and I WILL make a LOT OF NOISE in the process. I do not participate in so-called 'social media'. I am weaning myself off paying with plastic and going back to cash. Might even start writing paper checks for my bills again. I do not have and will not have a smartphone. I use Tor as much as I can (that, they're making hard to do). I do not have 'IoT' devices nor will I buy them. I do not have or want a 'smart TV'. My pickup has no GPS or any other wireless connectivity. I ride a bike, a LOT; try tracking me or surveilling me in the middle of nowhere. They can TRY to surveil me all they want. They'll find out little. They can datamine me all they want; they'll find nothing of interest. If we actually come to the point where someone like me, who just wants to be left the hell alone gets arrested on 'suspicion of being suspicious', held without charge, bail, or representation, and so on, then I, you, and everyone else is totally screwed anyway and I'll make them kill me, there won't be anything left to save. But we are not at that point, privacy still means something, and I'm not going to lie down and take it just because you or people like you have given up and ARE lying down and taking it.
Ironically you've proven my point as to just how much of an outlier you will become in the future society. They make look to dig deeper into your affairs simply because you've chosen to live your life like a wanted felon. Yes, privacy still means something. I agree with many of your points, and despise a lot of what is coming. That doesn't remove the fact that it is inevitable. Your "dumb" truck still has a license plate that is read by dozens of traffic cameras every time you use it. Your "dumb" phone still has to connect to it's network to function as a cellular device, which pretty much tracks your location at all times, and likely with 3-meter GPS accuracy. That paper check you're going to use to secure your payment to your electric company? Yeah, you're paying a service provider that's likely monitoring your hourly electric use and reporting it to a master database, which is then sifted through by law enforcement running algorithms looking for people running illegal grow houses. Paying cash at the grocery store? Comparing the cash register history to video surveillance footage is not hard to do to determine what YOU, the outlier, buys. And this is the world you live in today. They don't TRY and surveil you; they DO surveil you. I can't imagine how bad it will become once law enforcement drone clusters start becoming the norm, innocently accepted into society as an "extended police force, on constant watch to "protect citizens".
Privacy is still worth fighting for. It's simply going to become much harder to maintain than you could ever assume. If you want to defend it to your literal death, go right ahead. To each their own. At least there's peace knowing you'll be left alone in the grave, or at least until someone steals your identity.
It's not 'unavoidable' in any way shape or form and this whole story is complete and utter BULLSHIT. You do not have to BUY ANY 'IoT' things AT ALL to start with, and you do not HAVE to use them, either.
The proliferation of IoT in damn near every device around you is exactly why this whole story is NOT bullshit. Even if YOU choose to not to participate, you WILL become part of the bigger monitored world, whether you like it or not.
And the more YOU choose not to participate in a society that desires and demands interconnected citizens, the more YOU will become a monitored anomaly. The analogy today would be refusing to wash your body or wear deodorant on a regular basis; certain actions make it rather easy to find the outlier.
How the fuck does a new hire have that kind of access? that's not even enough time for on-boarding.
This has little to do with noob status as an employee, or even technical experience. The real question is why the fuck a developer has access to the Production system. We call the Non-Production environment Development for a fucking reason.
The CTO should definitely get the shitcan, as should anyone in HR involved in that debacle.
The CTO should get the shitcan for not ensuring backups were working, as well as not implementing proper security policy that prevents developers from fucking around in the Production system without assistance and a documented approval process.
Regarding HR, they're fucking clueless at this technical level, so don't even really know what could be pinned on them. Their involvement started with processing payroll and ended with him signing the HR handbook, which probably doesn't have jack shit to address this particular fuck-up. That would be IT policy and procedure.
" After scanning for RPis with an open (and default) SSH port, the "pi" user is logged into (if the password is left default), and the password is subsequently changed...The ultimate goal of Linux.MulDrop.14 is to make digital money for someone else, namely the author of the malware, using your Raspberry Pi."
Oh, so this is about cryptocurrency mining? That's a laugh, especially on Pi-ware.
Sure as hell sounds like the real ultimate goal here is to demonstrate how utterly fucking stupid (by default) some admins can actually be.
give consumers a removable battery so phones could last a hell of a lot longer.
You can get your iPhone battery replaced for $79. If you need a "spare battery" get yourself a USB battery pack that can power or charge ALL of your devices, rather than carrying around 6 vendor- and model-specific battery packs for each device you own and carry with you daily. This is simply not a "green" issue, it's a "waaaah, I don't like things that change" issue.
Wrong. It is a green issue. I can still buy a brand new Apple iPhone 6S today, proving that a shitload of excess inventory is created every year. Phones should not need to be replaced every 2-3 years, and yet consumers simply expect this and are willing to pay $600 - 700 for it on top of that. Would you buy a $700 TV, laptop, or appliance if the vendor told you to expect to replace it in 2 years? Hell no. It makes no sense whatsoever The end result is way more manufacturing than necessary every year, and hardware not being properly recycled filling landfills even faster.
As far as complaining about change, there wasn't a single fucking consumer who asked for a non-removable battery. Stop ignorantly assuming they did.
Provide a good amount of memory for all models up front.
32 GB is standard on the iPhone 7. How much memory is a "good" amount? And why should Apple give it away for free?
They charge hundreds of dollars for their hardware, which the profit margins are no secret. Nothing is "free" about any of it.
And a good amount is figuring out what the average user will consume in space + iOS upgrades for the next 5 - 7 years which is how long phone hardware should be supported for.
Help stop the stupidity of making something we humans carry around daily out of glass.
What the fuck SHOULD they make it out of? A solid steel block? Jesus christ. I'm typing this from my office, where I'm sitting on an office chair, which sits in turn on a fucking sheet of glass. Yes, a glass chair mat. The Tianmen Mountain walkway in China is made of glass, and it supports hundreds of peoples' weight. Glass can be made strong these days, if you can't be bothered to take care of your daily carry items, that's on YOU, not on Apple.
If glass was made so strong, then we would not continue to see drop tests being done on the latest all-glass models. I don't give a shit if you brand your glass steel-glass, humans still manage to break it. It's also pointless to create edge-to-edge screens when most of us are forced to hide that feature as we wrap the phone in a case to avoid breaking the fucking thing.
A phone doesn't have to weigh 3 pounds to be rugged, reliable, and not riddled with pointless design features consumers never asked for.
Apple is always striving to be different. If they want to truly demonstrate that, then put upgrades over greed.
Actually put green initiatives first and give consumers a removable battery so phones could last a hell of a lot longer. Provide a good amount of memory for all models up front. Help stop the stupidity of making something we humans carry around daily out of glass.
We're sure as hell not going to be maxing out that pointless ludicrous-speed modem anytime soon, since US carriers are addicted to throttling consumers.
"removing the warranty voiding stickers on the backside of the logic board"
We've got case law that explicitly forbids this. Quit spreading this fucking rumor.
Buying lawyers to fight Apple is cheaper than buying new hardware? Quit spreading this fucking rumor.
Consumer laws hardly mean shit anymore. Even a class-action suit would be pocket change for Apple to pay, and would result in you getting pocket change as a reward years from now.
Yup, as predicted, there's a comment whining about Apple's significant upgrades to the iMac line. Grow up, kiddies.
Enough with the childish references. Finding 5400RPM spinning rust in 2017 Apple hardware is like buying a million dollar home and finding vinyl flooring. There is simply no other excuse other than being very cheap. I also wouldn't call 8GB worth of memory a 2017 "wow" factor either.
The actual significant event here was finding that Apple managed to get help for their solder addiction to revert back to the old way of building hardware. One hell of an "upgrade" path.
And everyone should be thankful Apple did this, for I can assure you the amount of obscene profit Apple was demonstrating with a sealed-box design full of solder was moving to become the standard for every other maker of hardware.
Now let's hope they continue to downgrade their laptops.
Translation: The quality of the bachelors degree is defined by the fact that it is now the new high school diploma.
Oh, you wanted a quality education instead of just a piece of paper to hang on the wall? Then shell out another $100K for the masters degree.
Gotta love capitalism.
How the hell is this capitalism? State universities have the prices set by the government, which is the total opposite of capitalism. Only private universities that set their own prices would count as capitalist.
Obviously your degree is a paper one.
And when exactly did I exclude private universities in my statement? Perhaps we should look to see what your degree is printed on.
I'm looking at the entire business of higher education. Society practically now demands every job require a 4-year degree, which pumps a metric fuckton of money into that business. And now that everyone has a bachelors, it's really no more of a "wow" factor than a high-school diploma. This, along with a constricting job market, pushes employers to be even more selective, which allows them to consider and select those with a masters degree, which demands those "average" bachelors degree holders to pump another metric fuckton of money into the business of higher education. Talk about capitalizing on manufactured demand...
I could put myself at risk for many or all of these identified risks, or I could simply not drink.
You could also stop wildly exaggerating the risks associated with light to moderate alcohol consumption, while completely ignoring the very real benefits, both socially and verified healthwise.
Just don't drink then, but there is no reason to be running a while misinformation campaign because you think the rest of us are horrible sinners and addicts and whatever else you accuse people of being.
A misinformation campaign? Ironically, I would expect nothing less coming from a multi-billion dollar industry who would be impacted greatly if further studies were to actually prove that their product is not really good for you at all. History has shown that repeatedly, and between researchers and the Alcohol Industrial Complex, it's rather obvious who stands to lose the most.
Take any business concept and there are duopolies. What happens is that two large companies take about 90% of the market share and the other 10% is split among a bunch of other smaller companies.
Target/Walmart -> smaller versions like your corner store that sells movies, food and random electronics like USB chargers
Lowes/Home Depot -> smaller versions exist all over the place and some are regional
iOS/Android -> BB10, Windows and maybe a few others
Even airlines are slowly consolidating. That's what happens when there are to many players. Consolidation happens till you have 1 or 2 major players and a few outliers.
This guy is an idiot if he thinks that he can displace Samsung. He'll just get like 0.1% of the Android market if he is lucky.
You've pointed out that industries are ultimately collapse into one or two mega-corps these days. This doesn't mean it's a good thing for consumers or small business. Amazon is destroying the shopping mall, and providing 10% of the jobs previously available. How long before straight-to-streaming contracts allow Netflix to destroy the concept of a movie theater, and that entire related job market?
Government doesn't like a monopoly, but they welcome a duopoly, which is a rather fucked mentality. There really isn't a difference between the two because both tend to dominate and collude to destroy true competition.
Wiping user data after six months is a landmark for the industry!
Too bad the user community has already proven they don't give a shit about privacy, so this means nothing to them, other than the fact that a security-enhanced product doesn't work as well as the competition who remembers you forever.
Create a demand for good security and privacy? Now THAT would be a landmark for the industry. Hell, that would be a landmark for humanity.
"more than 100 previous studies have shown that a light to moderate intake of alcohol – up to seven standard drinks per week for women and 14 standard drinks per week for men – can actually be good for some people, and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, more specifically coronary artery disease."
It's right there, in your own link.
And reading further into the article reveals the following:
"However, the authors found that this is not the case when it comes to an irregular heartbeat, and note that many people who are consuming one to two glasses of alcohol per day may not realize they are putting themselves at risk for AFib.
The authors conclude that moving forward, more research is needed to determine the specific causes responsible for the relationship between alcohol and AFib. Researchers believe they may include direct toxicity and alcohol’s contribution to obesity, sleep disordered breathing and hypertension. Further, more research is also needed to determine whether avoiding alcohol completely is required for patients who have irregular heartbeats."
I could put myself at risk for many or all of these identified risks, or I could simply not drink. Given the fact that alcohol is a multi-billion dollar industry, I would also question a lot of results that tend to diminish or outright deny the negative aspects of consuming alcohol. Half a century ago your doctor was sponsoring cigarettes, so we've already proven Greed knows no bounds.
Risk vs. reward. Humans take part in risky activities every single day of their lives. To each their own, but given the controversy, sometimes it's far easier and healthier to simply avoid alcohol altogether, as I wouldn't be surprised if future studies determine this poison was never good for you, in any way.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess if they want to drive themselves out of business, they'd be free to do so. Other companies would pop up offering more choices, for (initially) cheaper prices, and people would flock to them.
Oh, you mean like cellular companies that "pop up", only to be bought out and collapsed into the collusive environment of mega-corps that dominate all?
That's the problem we face today; as much as we want to convince ourselves that true competition still lives and breathes, the reality is a world full of multi-billion dollar corporations that collude to control the entire fucking market.
Wal-Mart started this trend of moving into a town to destroy small business. Now watch and see how Amazon works to dismantle the concept of a shopping mall within the next decade.
TFS was a fantastic sales pitch.
Now show me how mathematical biology can showcase its benefit.
I might note that over the last 60 years, we've seen everything from AIDS to Zika attack mankind, so pardon me if I'm skeptical as hell as to it's ability to predict or avert pandemics. Sadly, even Ebola enjoyed a fashionable resurgence after a 20-year hiatus.
It's also rather obvious that great financial benefit stems from perpetually treating issues rather than curing them, proving that the ultimate virus that has yet to be eradicated is Greed.
I'd be happy to pay by the GB - no caps, no throttles, no BS. I pay for the rest of my utilities that way.
You know what else you would soon not have?
No options.
If all ISPs charged by the GB, you would soon see all of them petitioning and lobbying to do away with SD-quality streams, and all other forms of bandwidth-saving features in order to ensure they "throttle" your wallet every month, with you doing nothing more than using your service. They would strive for this under the guise of a "premium quality internet experience", but we all would know it would be to push for the most bandwidth consumed per customer.
Soon after, they would start doing away with offering cable channels via the cable box, and only offer channels via streaming, as another way to bolster bandwidth usage.
But these issues are not logically related.
Yes, users should have complex (high entropy) passwords. No, requiring one digit and special character does not accomplish that. And no, requiring regular password changes does not accomplish that.
I would agree. This is exactly why we should start insisting on passphrases, as increased length has the same if not better benefits as password complexity, and when mnemonics are involved, it can help mitigate the risk of a user forgetting their passphrase, or having to write it down.
There is now a mountain of evidence that those ideas do the exact opposite.
The mountain of evidence that users will pick shitty passwords whenever the system allows it has existed for literally decades. What hasn't existed for that long are the threats caused by fixed hashes, rainbow tables, and faster systems that can crack passwords quickly. When the risks change, so should the system to adopt. If the user cannot adopt, then they are expendable. Skills users may bring to an organization are worthless if they also bring an equal amount of risk.
There goes the accusation that people are sharing accounts
https://slashdot.org/story/326...
I fail to see how the growth metrics around a streaming service has anything to do with people sharing passwords. I can assure you that as long as the service technically allows it, password and account sharing will continue.
Given the growth, I seriously doubt they really give a shit. Some things are worth business focus. Some are not.
The problem with passphrases is systems that can't handle the length, or worse silently truncate after x characters.
I've created countless very long and very complex passwords for my personal accounts, and 98% of the systems I've interacted with handle it just fine. I'm not seeing how this issue is that prevalent. If a corporation does happen to have a limiting authentication system, then I'm willing to bet it's also in dire need of an upgrade, so the solution is rather clear.
Also, typing on a phone can be a PITA.
Usually only once. Then the user or the app unfortunately caches the credentials.
If you want to know what will happen if you don't force users to change passwords, just look on Facebook for their pets/kids name. I'm certain you won't find 80% of your passwords there or anything...
You have things switched around. You can have a complex password that takes 3 months to learn, or you can require changing the password to a new version of "June2017" every couple of months.
If a user takes 3 months to learn a password they created, then fire them. They're incompetent of operating something as complex as an authentication mechanism.
Passphrases are only as hard to memorize as the person creating them. They are often proven to be easier to remember, and good password length well above and beyond the average tends to help mitigate the risk of compromise created by online password hash databases and compromised lists of passwords.
As of NIST 800-63-3 forced password changes based solely on time interval is no longer a 'Best Practice'. Now the Best Practice is to expire passwords only when there is suspicion of account or system compromise.
Sadly it will take some time before the many organizations who copied the old best practice into their own documentation can step up to current best practice.
I'm assuming you're referring to this stupidity found in DRAFT NIST SP 800-63-3B:
"Verifiers SHOULD NOT impose other composition rules (e.g., mixtures of different character types) on memorized secrets. Verifiers SHOULD NOT require memorized secrets to be changed arbitrarily (e.g., periodically) and SHOULD only require a change if the subscriber requests a change or there is evidence of compromise of the authenticator."
I've read through the DRAFT publications, deal with 27001/CSC/NIST standards on a daily basis, and this is the one of the dumbest recommendations I've ever read when it comes to password policy and system security.
Unless you enforce it, users WILL NOT choose complex passwords. If you need further evidence of this, take a look at those Top 10 Worst Passwords lists that have been published over the last 20 years. They fucking never change. This also validates how human behavior has not changed in decades, no matter how many compromised systems, accounts, or identities happened because of shitty passwords.
Users WILL NOT change their shitty passwords. Ever.
Users WILL recycle shitty passwords they use elsewhere. That means their shitty Yahoo password will now be recycled and used to secure your corporate data. And no, the SysAdmin won't take the time to go check dozens of online databases every day to look for "evidence of compromise".
Let's hope this stupidity doesn't make it into the final draft, only to conflict with many other accepted standards in use and enforced today.
Forced password changes every X days. This just leads to people picking really shitty passwords. At one company I worked at for a while, they mitigated this by simply doing "simple word" + month + year. TOTALLY hard to figure out!
If you want to know what will happen if you don't force users to change passwords, just look on Facebook for their pets/kids name. I'm certain you won't find 80% of your passwords there or anything...
(Oh, and don't forget to keep that a secret. We wouldn't want hackers to TOTALLY figure that out!)
The proliferation of IoT in damn near every device around you is exactly why this whole story is NOT bullshit.
You like being afraid, eh? I can't say I get it, but it seems popular these days...I blackhole most ad networks, noscript and purge cookies. I use an RSS reader instead of visiting websites, facebook, or twitter. I log into gmail on Firefox, and chrome gets a different google account associated with it. I have a name_phone@gmail.com address for my Android, which doesn't connect to my other google shit...
Ironically, you've certainly gone to some rather extreme measures to avoid "bullshit".
Regarding partial data sets, voids and outliers are often far more valuable and interesting to some than others. One mans trash is another mans treasure.
you WILL become part of the bigger monitored world, whether you like it or not.
And that's the biggest pile of bullshit yet. BET ME. You will NOT take away what little privacy I have left. You WILL have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers, and I WILL make a LOT OF NOISE in the process. I do not participate in so-called 'social media'. I am weaning myself off paying with plastic and going back to cash. Might even start writing paper checks for my bills again. I do not have and will not have a smartphone. I use Tor as much as I can (that, they're making hard to do). I do not have 'IoT' devices nor will I buy them. I do not have or want a 'smart TV'. My pickup has no GPS or any other wireless connectivity. I ride a bike, a LOT; try tracking me or surveilling me in the middle of nowhere. They can TRY to surveil me all they want. They'll find out little. They can datamine me all they want; they'll find nothing of interest. If we actually come to the point where someone like me, who just wants to be left the hell alone gets arrested on 'suspicion of being suspicious', held without charge, bail, or representation, and so on, then I, you, and everyone else is totally screwed anyway and I'll make them kill me, there won't be anything left to save. But we are not at that point, privacy still means something, and I'm not going to lie down and take it just because you or people like you have given up and ARE lying down and taking it.
Ironically you've proven my point as to just how much of an outlier you will become in the future society. They make look to dig deeper into your affairs simply because you've chosen to live your life like a wanted felon. Yes, privacy still means something. I agree with many of your points, and despise a lot of what is coming. That doesn't remove the fact that it is inevitable. Your "dumb" truck still has a license plate that is read by dozens of traffic cameras every time you use it. Your "dumb" phone still has to connect to it's network to function as a cellular device, which pretty much tracks your location at all times, and likely with 3-meter GPS accuracy. That paper check you're going to use to secure your payment to your electric company? Yeah, you're paying a service provider that's likely monitoring your hourly electric use and reporting it to a master database, which is then sifted through by law enforcement running algorithms looking for people running illegal grow houses. Paying cash at the grocery store? Comparing the cash register history to video surveillance footage is not hard to do to determine what YOU, the outlier, buys. And this is the world you live in today. They don't TRY and surveil you; they DO surveil you. I can't imagine how bad it will become once law enforcement drone clusters start becoming the norm, innocently accepted into society as an "extended police force, on constant watch to "protect citizens".
Privacy is still worth fighting for. It's simply going to become much harder to maintain than you could ever assume. If you want to defend it to your literal death, go right ahead. To each their own. At least there's peace knowing you'll be left alone in the grave, or at least until someone steals your identity.
It's not 'unavoidable' in any way shape or form and this whole story is complete and utter BULLSHIT. You do not have to BUY ANY 'IoT' things AT ALL to start with, and you do not HAVE to use them, either.
The proliferation of IoT in damn near every device around you is exactly why this whole story is NOT bullshit. Even if YOU choose to not to participate, you WILL become part of the bigger monitored world, whether you like it or not.
And the more YOU choose not to participate in a society that desires and demands interconnected citizens, the more YOU will become a monitored anomaly. The analogy today would be refusing to wash your body or wear deodorant on a regular basis; certain actions make it rather easy to find the outlier.
...Nobody wants to build anything from parts anymore...
You're speaking to the generation who made the creator of Minecraft a billionaire.
"Last year Lego sold 75bn bricks."
Sure as hell sounds like a lot of parts to me.
How the fuck does a new hire have that kind of access? that's not even enough time for on-boarding.
This has little to do with noob status as an employee, or even technical experience. The real question is why the fuck a developer has access to the Production system. We call the Non-Production environment Development for a fucking reason.
The CTO should definitely get the shitcan, as should anyone in HR involved in that debacle.
The CTO should get the shitcan for not ensuring backups were working, as well as not implementing proper security policy that prevents developers from fucking around in the Production system without assistance and a documented approval process.
Regarding HR, they're fucking clueless at this technical level, so don't even really know what could be pinned on them. Their involvement started with processing payroll and ended with him signing the HR handbook, which probably doesn't have jack shit to address this particular fuck-up. That would be IT policy and procedure.
" After scanning for RPis with an open (and default) SSH port, the "pi" user is logged into (if the password is left default), and the password is subsequently changed...The ultimate goal of Linux.MulDrop.14 is to make digital money for someone else, namely the author of the malware, using your Raspberry Pi."
Oh, so this is about cryptocurrency mining? That's a laugh, especially on Pi-ware.
Sure as hell sounds like the real ultimate goal here is to demonstrate how utterly fucking stupid (by default) some admins can actually be.
give consumers a removable battery so phones could last a hell of a lot longer.
You can get your iPhone battery replaced for $79. If you need a "spare battery" get yourself a USB battery pack that can power or charge ALL of your devices, rather than carrying around 6 vendor- and model-specific battery packs for each device you own and carry with you daily. This is simply not a "green" issue, it's a "waaaah, I don't like things that change" issue.
Wrong. It is a green issue. I can still buy a brand new Apple iPhone 6S today, proving that a shitload of excess inventory is created every year. Phones should not need to be replaced every 2-3 years, and yet consumers simply expect this and are willing to pay $600 - 700 for it on top of that. Would you buy a $700 TV, laptop, or appliance if the vendor told you to expect to replace it in 2 years? Hell no. It makes no sense whatsoever The end result is way more manufacturing than necessary every year, and hardware not being properly recycled filling landfills even faster.
As far as complaining about change, there wasn't a single fucking consumer who asked for a non-removable battery. Stop ignorantly assuming they did.
Provide a good amount of memory for all models up front.
32 GB is standard on the iPhone 7. How much memory is a "good" amount? And why should Apple give it away for free?
They charge hundreds of dollars for their hardware, which the profit margins are no secret. Nothing is "free" about any of it.
And a good amount is figuring out what the average user will consume in space + iOS upgrades for the next 5 - 7 years which is how long phone hardware should be supported for.
Help stop the stupidity of making something we humans carry around daily out of glass.
What the fuck SHOULD they make it out of? A solid steel block? Jesus christ. I'm typing this from my office, where I'm sitting on an office chair, which sits in turn on a fucking sheet of glass. Yes, a glass chair mat. The Tianmen Mountain walkway in China is made of glass, and it supports hundreds of peoples' weight. Glass can be made strong these days, if you can't be bothered to take care of your daily carry items, that's on YOU, not on Apple.
If glass was made so strong, then we would not continue to see drop tests being done on the latest all-glass models. I don't give a shit if you brand your glass steel-glass, humans still manage to break it. It's also pointless to create edge-to-edge screens when most of us are forced to hide that feature as we wrap the phone in a case to avoid breaking the fucking thing.
A phone doesn't have to weigh 3 pounds to be rugged, reliable, and not riddled with pointless design features consumers never asked for.
Apple is always striving to be different. If they want to truly demonstrate that, then put upgrades over greed.
Actually put green initiatives first and give consumers a removable battery so phones could last a hell of a lot longer. Provide a good amount of memory for all models up front. Help stop the stupidity of making something we humans carry around daily out of glass.
We're sure as hell not going to be maxing out that pointless ludicrous-speed modem anytime soon, since US carriers are addicted to throttling consumers.
"removing the warranty voiding stickers on the backside of the logic board"
We've got case law that explicitly forbids this. Quit spreading this fucking rumor.
Buying lawyers to fight Apple is cheaper than buying new hardware? Quit spreading this fucking rumor.
Consumer laws hardly mean shit anymore. Even a class-action suit would be pocket change for Apple to pay, and would result in you getting pocket change as a reward years from now.
Yup, as predicted, there's a comment whining about Apple's significant upgrades to the iMac line. Grow up, kiddies.
Enough with the childish references. Finding 5400RPM spinning rust in 2017 Apple hardware is like buying a million dollar home and finding vinyl flooring. There is simply no other excuse other than being very cheap. I also wouldn't call 8GB worth of memory a 2017 "wow" factor either.
The actual significant event here was finding that Apple managed to get help for their solder addiction to revert back to the old way of building hardware. One hell of an "upgrade" path.
And everyone should be thankful Apple did this, for I can assure you the amount of obscene profit Apple was demonstrating with a sealed-box design full of solder was moving to become the standard for every other maker of hardware.
Now let's hope they continue to downgrade their laptops.
Translation: The quality of the bachelors degree is defined by the fact that it is now the new high school diploma.
Oh, you wanted a quality education instead of just a piece of paper to hang on the wall? Then shell out another $100K for the masters degree.
Gotta love capitalism.
How the hell is this capitalism? State universities have the prices set by the government, which is the total opposite of capitalism. Only private universities that set their own prices would count as capitalist.
Obviously your degree is a paper one.
And when exactly did I exclude private universities in my statement? Perhaps we should look to see what your degree is printed on.
I'm looking at the entire business of higher education. Society practically now demands every job require a 4-year degree, which pumps a metric fuckton of money into that business. And now that everyone has a bachelors, it's really no more of a "wow" factor than a high-school diploma. This, along with a constricting job market, pushes employers to be even more selective, which allows them to consider and select those with a masters degree, which demands those "average" bachelors degree holders to pump another metric fuckton of money into the business of higher education. Talk about capitalizing on manufactured demand...
I could put myself at risk for many or all of these identified risks, or I could simply not drink.
You could also stop wildly exaggerating the risks associated with light to moderate alcohol consumption, while completely ignoring the very real benefits, both socially and verified healthwise.
Just don't drink then, but there is no reason to be running a while misinformation campaign because you think the rest of us are horrible sinners and addicts and whatever else you accuse people of being.
A misinformation campaign? Ironically, I would expect nothing less coming from a multi-billion dollar industry who would be impacted greatly if further studies were to actually prove that their product is not really good for you at all. History has shown that repeatedly, and between researchers and the Alcohol Industrial Complex, it's rather obvious who stands to lose the most.
Cheers.
Take any business concept and there are duopolies. What happens is that two large companies take about 90% of the market share and the other 10% is split among a bunch of other smaller companies. Target/Walmart -> smaller versions like your corner store that sells movies, food and random electronics like USB chargers Lowes/Home Depot -> smaller versions exist all over the place and some are regional iOS/Android -> BB10, Windows and maybe a few others Even airlines are slowly consolidating. That's what happens when there are to many players. Consolidation happens till you have 1 or 2 major players and a few outliers. This guy is an idiot if he thinks that he can displace Samsung. He'll just get like 0.1% of the Android market if he is lucky.
You've pointed out that industries are ultimately collapse into one or two mega-corps these days. This doesn't mean it's a good thing for consumers or small business. Amazon is destroying the shopping mall, and providing 10% of the jobs previously available. How long before straight-to-streaming contracts allow Netflix to destroy the concept of a movie theater, and that entire related job market?
Government doesn't like a monopoly, but they welcome a duopoly, which is a rather fucked mentality. There really isn't a difference between the two because both tend to dominate and collude to destroy true competition.
Make the whole thing user-programmable, and you will win.
Sorry, but consumers are too damn lazy to make the effort to do anything with whatever "user-programmable" would translate to be.
They barely care enough to learn everything their phones do by default.
Wiping user data after six months is a landmark for the industry!
Too bad the user community has already proven they don't give a shit about privacy, so this means nothing to them, other than the fact that a security-enhanced product doesn't work as well as the competition who remembers you forever.
Create a demand for good security and privacy? Now THAT would be a landmark for the industry. Hell, that would be a landmark for humanity.
As I already replied in another comment:
"more than 100 previous studies have shown that a light to moderate intake of alcohol – up to seven standard drinks per week for women and 14 standard drinks per week for men – can actually be good for some people, and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, more specifically coronary artery disease."
It's right there, in your own link.
And reading further into the article reveals the following:
"However, the authors found that this is not the case when it comes to an irregular heartbeat, and note that many people who are consuming one to two glasses of alcohol per day may not realize they are putting themselves at risk for AFib. The authors conclude that moving forward, more research is needed to determine the specific causes responsible for the relationship between alcohol and AFib. Researchers believe they may include direct toxicity and alcohol’s contribution to obesity, sleep disordered breathing and hypertension. Further, more research is also needed to determine whether avoiding alcohol completely is required for patients who have irregular heartbeats."
I could put myself at risk for many or all of these identified risks, or I could simply not drink. Given the fact that alcohol is a multi-billion dollar industry, I would also question a lot of results that tend to diminish or outright deny the negative aspects of consuming alcohol. Half a century ago your doctor was sponsoring cigarettes, so we've already proven Greed knows no bounds.
Risk vs. reward. Humans take part in risky activities every single day of their lives. To each their own, but given the controversy, sometimes it's far easier and healthier to simply avoid alcohol altogether, as I wouldn't be surprised if future studies determine this poison was never good for you, in any way.