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User: Coward+Anonymous

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  1. Re:Order of operations is important on Researchers Find Major Keychain Vulnerability in iOS and OS X · · Score: 1

    Not quite. The attack is easily extensible so that the attackers can "run before" the target app at any time by simply deleting the keychain entry and recreating it with a new ACL that permits the target app and themselves access to the entry. From the user's perspective, they see an unexplained repeat prompt to enter their password which they'll gladly do and from there on, the attackers have access to the password.

    These security holes are quite awful.

  2. Latency and bandwidth on Ask Slashdot: What's the Future of Desktop Applications? · · Score: 2

    Anywhere that latency is not adequately met by "cloud apps" will require desktop apps.

    Over time, bandwidth will become less of an issue as it continues to improve but latency is governed by the speed of light and light ain't getting any faster.

    Conversely, if a "cloud app" is a huge pile of JavaScript that does everything locally on your machine, it is arguable that it is really a desktop app.

  3. Trouble for Google on Report: Samsung Replacing Its Apps With Microsoft's For Galaxy S6 · · Score: 1

    This is the beginning of Microsoft creating a competing ecosystem on Android. At some point in the not so distant future it will be entirely feasible for an Android manufacturer to dump Google's software stack in favor of Microsoft's. Unlike Samsung and many other handset manufacturers, Microsoft has the know how and capability to create and maintain a viable alternative to Google's ecosystem.

  4. Locked down panic button app on old smartphone on Ask Slashdot: Panic Button a Very Young Child Can Use · · Score: 0

    Roll your own app on an old iPhone/iPod/iPad. Use iOS's triple home button press (aka Guided Access - http://support.apple.com/en-us...) to lock the iDevice to the one app.

    That button press can do anything from sending an e-mail to a tweet to your own custom web service (automatic SMS and phone calls are out if you stick to official iOS APIs).

  5. Re:Confirms that Apple's strategy is correct on How Apple Watch Is Really a Regression In Watchmaking · · Score: 1

    Learn to read.

  6. Confirms that Apple's strategy is correct on How Apple Watch Is Really a Regression In Watchmaking · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mechanical watches were so ridiculously convenient and useful that people would gladly wind their watches once a day. Similarly, if the Apple Watch proves convenient and useful, people will gladly charge it once a day.

    Of course, the most myopic aspect of these articles is the unwritten presumption that today's state of the art will never improve. Yes, Apple Watch will need to be charged once a day for the next couple of years, but charge times are going to improve tremendously as Moore's Law continues to plug along. The Apple Watch will improve in a way analogous to the way mechanical and later quartz watches improved far beyond the limitations of the original pocket watches and wristwatches.

  7. My experience with hiring Ph.Ds on Ask Slashdot: Finding a Job After Completing Computer Science Ph.D? · · Score: 1

    Most feel they can hand wave through their technical interviews by citing some abstraction that while possibly correct doesn't actually solve the problem presented. If you are interviewing for a software position, hand waving doesn't write code.
    Many others feel the technical questions are beneath them and refuse to answer very basic questions that are used to simply weed out the vast sea of know nothings.

    If you fall into either of these camps, you have a problem. Your response to the STL question hints you may be suffering from the latter problem.

    The question about the STL containers is not "overly technical". It's just stupid.

  8. Jailbroken iPhone 4s git SCM on Slashdot Asks: What's In Your Home Datacenter? · · Score: 1

    I currently have a retired iPhone 4s serving primarily as a git server. Also useful as an SSH tunnel into the home network; to view IP cameras remotely without exposing them to the outside world, for example.

    The 4s replaced a 3Gs that replaced a 3G that replaced a long serving, flash only, nslu2 running CVS and later SVN.

    Of the bunch, the 4s is the first device that is indistinguishable over the network, performance wise, from PC workstations I've worked with. I imagine the 5, 5s and 6/6+ must be fantastic.

    It is available, compact, mobile, has a built in screen and keyboard, and 24 hour UPS battery backup with plenty of oomph and storage for a git server and much more. What's not to love?

  9. Re:My uninformed guess on Google Shifts Editing From Drive to Docs and Sheets In 'Confusing' Switch · · Score: 2

    De-coupling code is great. However, code refactoring should have no detrimental effects on end user experience. If it does, you are doing it wrong.

    Your explanation implies a tail wagging the dog.

  10. Corporate Lobbying and reform sabotage? on Why US Gov't Retirement Involves a Hole in the Ground Near Pittsburgh · · Score: 1

    The reason this relic still exists is likely explained at 0:41 into the video where you can see the words "Iron Mountain" above the entrance. What can be processed with a few low power computers in a rack for a few hundred dollars a year is generating a mountain of cash for Iron Mountain in rental and consulting "fees".

    Follow the money.

  11. The Pirate Bay on How Do You Backup 20TB of Data? · · Score: 1

    All your friend's music and movies are already there.

  12. Tesla will not cave on this on Ohio Attempting To Stop Tesla From Selling Cars, Again · · Score: 2

    It is not a coincidence that Tesla has no dealerships. It likely never will.

    This strong-arming is a perfect example for the reason. Dealerships wield in an inordinate amount of political power in their regions. The result hash been that once a manufacturer grants a dealership license to a dealership in a certain area, it is perpetual, geographically exclusive and irrevocable by the manufacturer. Unheard of conditions in practically any other business.

    Tesla will sooner open its own dealerships across Ohio's state lines. The lost sales taxes will eventually prove irresistible to the coin operated legislature.

  13. Wild exaggeration on VC Likens Google Bus Backlash To Nazi Rampage · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The comparison is inappropriate.

    At the same time, I do understand the disgust with the neo-luddites of SF and their alarming witch hunt - it is a mob.

  14. Obligatory not xkcd on If I Had a Hammer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There are two basic approaches to handle this:

    http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

  15. Problem in Europe? on Death to the Trapezoid... Next USB Connector Will Be Reversible · · Score: 1

    Now that Europe is mandating the existing micro-USB for all phones are they going to modify the mandate to include this connector or is it too late for that and Europeans will not be able to enjoy this marvelous new connector?

  16. Re:This issue was solved years ago on Online Car Retailer Launching Nation's First Car "Vending Machine" · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No, the real reason the whole car buying experience is horrific is that there is no competition, by law. Car dealerships have indefinite, irrevocable monopolies in the regions they cover due to historical events that occurred 90 years ago. The real solution is to erase outdated laws, break the monopolies and open the market to real competition.

    Here is a podcast about it:

    http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/19/172402376/why-buying-a-car-never-changes

  17. Drive it in Belgium on Google: Our Robot Cars Are Better Drivers Than You · · Score: 1

    I propose Google set their cars free in Belgium. If they can prove that they drive safely through Belgium I'll be somewhat convinced.

    Why Belgium you ask? Belgium has a very extreme interpretation of yielding right of way at intersections to traffic coming from your right. So extreme that it often extends to blind intersections where you might not even be able to see there is a road intersecting on your right (think alleys in towns). You need to be familiar with the roads in question to know where to yield, otherwise there is no way for you to know what to do.

  18. Classic EU bureaucracy on Nokia Design Guru Urges Apple To End Cable Chaos · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Let's mandate an inferior standard and kill a superior standard so everyone can be the same on paper.

    If you bothered to ask iPhone owners, you would find three things:

    1. They enjoyed the same 30-pin connector for nearly a decade (a decade!) while other handset makers changed their connector and chargers for every new handset. They will likely enjoy the clearly superior Lightning connector for another decade.
    2. They have no beef with their connector, or the cable - it works really well.
    3. They don't care what Android is using or dream of having a compatible connector because they don't have an Android handset.

    It's uniformity for the sake of a pencil pusher's concept of uniformity - not for consumers.

  19. FISA most be abolished on Senators Push To Preserve NSA Phone Surveillance · · Score: 2

    It's too convenient an escape hatch for anything the government wants to sweep under the rug.

  20. Re:I still want... on US, Russia Agree On Plan To Dispose of Syria's Chemical Weapons · · Score: 1

    Scalability.

    The chemical weapons attack in Syria was a small one. It included a relatively small number of rockets with a small total payload on a single night. It managed
    to kill ~1.5% of those killed in the Syrian civil war. In one night. It killed at 10x the rate of the rest of the war.

    The Syrian population is largely defenseless against it (unlike a prepared military in WWI, for example) as nobody has supplies of gas masks and related protective gear. This was a small attack. Full scale attacks could wipe out entire rebel held cities of largely unprotected civilians overnight.

  21. IRS is next on Other Agencies Clamor For Data NSA Compiles · · Score: 2

    It's only natural.

  22. Re:Commercial activities on domestic levels on Welcome To the 'Sharing Economy' · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At some point you have to stop living in fear.
    Stuff can go wrong - that's life. The correct thing to do is to go on with life, not find someone to blame so you can sue them. Somewhere this simple concept has been lost on a great too many.

  23. David Karp oops on Yahoo Censors Tumblr Porn · · Score: 1
  24. Backwards attitude on Android Co-Founder: Fragmentation "an Overblown Issue" · · Score: 1

    Most RAZR users in 2005 were perfectly content with their phones and didn't notice the difference between what they had in their hands and what was possible when Apple was hatching the iPhone.
    Users should not be expected to "know the difference" as that is not their job. It's your job, as the technologist, to know the difference and improve the user's experience. The user's sole task is to reap the benefits and reward those who provide the most benefits.

  25. This could be good on Cockroaches Evolving To Avoid Roach Motels · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Part of the roach's success stems from its omnivorous diet. Removing glucose from its diet is likely a considerable hit on its caloric intake. If the aversion to glucose can be maintained while developing aversions to other abundant and nutritious food stuffs, like meat protein, we could bio-engineer cockroaches to become specialized eaters.

    Specialized eaters are easier to control and eradicate. Furthermore, if they over specialize to the degree of Pandas and Koalas they may be bio-engineered out of existence. Personally, I wouldn't mind never seeing another cockroach again.