While solid fuel is not normally considered a good propellant for commercial launch operations, it is very good in case you ever have to field your own ICBM's. With The Donald talking about shaking things up with our allies (saying Japan and South Korea should have their own nukes), this is good expertise to have experience with.
With the new administration getting appointments with folks who support mass surveillance and a CIC who stated he wanted to be able to spy on his political enemies, you have to wonder who will be in his crosshairs over the next 4 years. Things in this area are probably not going to get better. Best to assume any Skype communication will be stored by government forever, for future use and decide if you want to use this product from this company - whatever the "features" are.
I believe scraping the locks is considered a sign of bad luck for the ship. You really don't want a warship that has intermittent power.
Brings to mind an old story I heard from some airline pilots as FMS Flight Management Systems (very non user friendly) were integrated into airliners. Previously if something went wrong on an aircraft in flight one or both of the pilots would say something to the effect of "Oh $^it we've got to.....", but now its "Why'd it just do that?"
Sounds like it applies to the Zumwalt as well. Hopefully they're not running Windows on it.
Microsoft probably works with every government they sell their software into as far as spying on their citizens etc. (it only makes business sense since these guys control market access and Microsoft has never been a company to quibble over morals) - so I'm sure Microsoft and Mr. Putin's Russia were great partners up till now.
Now Putin may be wary that Microsoft gives preferential treatment to the NSA (since we know they worked closely with them before thanks to Snowden) etc. or he may just be doing this for domestic consumption (he appears to do alot of this) since their economy is in a tailspin.
If you're running Windows 7 & 8.x and you have kept Microsoft's backported Win 10 monitoring updates out etc., be sure and backup your machines drives with a good imaging utility now - before we see what happens in October (so you have control and can restore).
If you're wanting to setup new Windows VM's, move to 8.x (supposedly security updates through 2023, at least before all this) or do fresh installs of 7, do them now (and make backup images) before October while you still have access to the hotfix's, remember Microsoft is going to gradually roll old hotfixes into the big update blobs and presumably they'll go away.
Long term though - the writing has been on the wall since 10 came out - Microsoft is a tyrant and you need to make a plan to move off of them if you don't want your PC (and all your data and communications on it) to be Microsoft's 8itch. Moving to a multiboot Linux and Windows setup - planning on a Windows VM in Linux for most Windows only needs with direct booting for games.
While Microsoft's PR group would agree with what you said, if you look at most other PC OS's it doesn't work this way. Over on Apple in Mac OS X, they separate their security updates out from their other patches (and they don't have back ported data monitoring patches from Windows 10 in there). Over in OS X there isn't data monitoring to begin with. And the stuff that goes up to the cloud can be turned off with 2 checkboxes. Over in Linux you can do whatever you want.
The other side of this is that Microsoft will still have to test each fix individually prior to them going into a monthly lump - this is why they got rid of the service pack because of the double testing - in the end there will be little reduction in testing costs.
This is all about turning personal PC's into Microsoft's data monitoring tool which is worth alot of money to Microsoft for each personal PC every year - giving them control over your PC's data like an Android smartphone. As someone else noted the user data monitoring in Windows 10 and backported to Windows 7 & 8 in prior hotfixes (which could be avoided) is worth alot of money every year and after the October takeover Microsoft is gradually going to roll in the old hotfixes into the monthly updates over time and eliminate them. Microsoft's recent history requires no paranoia at all - they actively choose this for their customers:
This avenue won't be available via Windows Update & us a PR cover - most folks won't be able to do it. You have to go to a Microsoft website that consists of an empty page and a search bar and enter the security only patch you want to download. I'll do this, but most users would never what to put in to start with.
If you read the announcement you'll see that the old hotfixes (including the user data monitoring ones, if they aren't in the October push already) will get backported, over time, into the massive monthly update. The obvious consequence of this is that those old hotfixes will go away as they are backported and no longer be available to users.
I wouldn't count on those hotfixes being around, better create reference Win 7 / 8 images with updates prior to the October takeover for all your machines, turn off WU and back them up. As we've seen Microsoft's condensed Windows 7 up to date patch includes the user data monitoring updates, no reason to expect they'll stop that after they make everyone's PC's their 8itches next month.
Not noted in the Slashdot entry is that after the October takeover of PC ownership via Windows Update is that Microsoft is going to backport the hotfixes into the mass monthly updates (and presumably remove those hotfixes from availability afterwards).
The consequence of this is that soon you will not be able to do a fresh install of 7 or 8.x and install only the hotfixes you want to get them up to (pre Oct 2016) as the old hot-fixes are going away too. If you're stuck using Windows better get your all your systems that you want to use imaged with all versions of pre Win 10 and updated (with the bad data monitoring hotfixes kept out) prior to the October updated. Windows 7 security updates were to go through 2020 and 8.1 through 2023.
It also appears there might be a method going forward for the true nutwads (like myself - I want the gaming - Linux partitions now though) and that will be to turn off Windows Update and use the Windows Update catalog site (a horrible MS site - at this point its a screen with a search window in it) to get security only updates...no details on how that will work, other than its mentioned in Microsoft's official announcement. For the general public though, Microsoft takes over control of their computers and will install user monitoring in the next months if they use Windows Update.
Many of these planes also have Stingray's (cell site simulators) so they ID everyone they fly over by their smartphones, they don't need to visually ID the people with the camera's. I am a pilot and saw one of these planes orbiting the Gurnee Mills Mall (Northern Chicago suburbs - could tell as it had the odd ball (where the camera is) sticking out behind one the main wheels on the 182), just cruising around and around at low altitude a couple of months ago. Felt very disconcerting to know my and my wife's phone ID had probably been swept up in that - turned them off but was obviously too late. Land of the free...
Just to point out, Zack Whittacker who wrote the ZDNet article mis-typed, as iMessage and WhatsApp are encrypted by default. His following sentence appears to show he actually meant they were automatically encrypted. The opt-in encryption that Facebook and Google are providing will also be the preferred option of the govts / 3 letter agencies that want to keep everything for future use. Its crazy to have Facebook's app on your smartphone anyways...and tracking bracelet with a microphone and camera.
Of course this makes all our systems vulnerable to attack by foreigners as well, but the NSA seems comfortable with that world - the country they're supposed to protect is compromised by design as long as they can spy on everyone they're okay with foreign governments being able to do that too. I would expect Microsoft's Visual Studio to be compromised by design as well.
And don't forget that they can no longer raise the prices of stamps....the guys that saddled the Post Office with that giant instant Pension Obligation also made it so they couldn't raise their prices to cover extra cost at the same time. Almost as if they wanted to insure they would fail. I'm sure the UPS / Fedex lobbyists loved it...
This "proposal" is open to public comment folks, so be sure to go add your voice to whether you think the FBI creating another secret database of your information, which you can't correct or update, is a good idea or not.
Applying for nearly any corporate job in the U.S. these days requires having a "normal" Facebook and LinkedIn account page (with activity, showing you aren't a shut in) and checked by the HR people prior to phone-interviews. Guess you could go to water color on the photos, although that won't work well on LinkedIn.
Quite the audacious plan, be interesting to see how it rolls out.
Wondering if we'll see the end of cash / anonymous / private purchases in our lifetime? I don't want that, but boy are the banks & governments ready to log and track everyone together.
Its important to remember, with regards to the this administration which has been orchestrating and allowing this all along. That not outright supporting the bill (which would immediately loose a bunch GOP support - because hey, O'bama) versus saying he wouldn't sign it are 2 very different things. O'bama is no friend of public security / privacy.
XXongo, you're right, but its good some of these folks, even if from past administrations, are speaking out..especially well spoken ones like Wilkerson.
Hats off to Snowden, otherwise we'd still be thinking most of this stuff our government wouldn't even consider doing to its citizenry (just from a moral standpoint of honoring and protecting the constitution and those people that are the citizens) with only the tinfoils thinking it was possible.
Chrome is getting alot more popular with users and schools in particular, its nice to see them pushing on the security like this - up to this point it probably hasn't been worth the time of someone to compromise it (from a marketshare standpoint), but that day is coming. It's good Google is trying to stay ahead of that.
Are they crazy? Put user biometric data into companies hands (so it can be stolen like everything else) - and of course you can't change it once its been compromised - which will happen, then you're stuck (not the company that lost it of course...they'll give you a year of credit monitoring). As others have pointed out giving companies access to your biometric data, camera and microphone on your access device is wrong on a bunch of other levels (privacy, govt access via that company etc.). No fffing way.
Thank you President Obama for making govt surveillance of the citizenry the new normal, I'm sure with a history of political characters like McCarthy, Hoover, Nixon etc. that this won't be abused in the future./s
Now, now lets not have any name calling...he's just stating common sense. The other mfrs take the base Android stack and modify it (extensively at a low level) to work with their hardware and make the ROM image and with that (or the hardware itself) you can insert any backdoor you want.
An example we know about is our friend Lenovo using the PC ROM they modified to install their phone home spyware onto your PC after you do a clean install - it was Windows but something similar or worse could be done in Android if the mfrs felt they should (by govt suggestion perhaps): http://arstechnica.com/informa...
Most of the other smartphone mfrs are keeping quiet because they are friendly with their Governments - Samsung (I have a Galaxy S5) for example is very close to the South Korean Govt (who is a good partner with the USA and in particular its military and intelligence apparatus). Microsoft is very friendly with the U.S. government and a "partner" with the NSA and they certainly won't protest this either. Cause they would line up with their govts not their customers.
It's important to look at the big picture, from a business standpoint it makes sense to work with your govt and their desire to spy on their citizens as they control your market access. Frankly its odd that Apple is doing this from a purely business perspective, from a moral perspective it makes sense - but most companies don't care about moral issues and will faithfully line up with their govts surveilance apparatus when the call comes no matter the consequences for their cutsomers / citizenry. Remember all those German companies that closed up shop and moved out of country in the 30's after the Nazi's were elected? Yeah, most just shrugged and fell in line. That is exactly what is happening (and what would be expected to happen) in this fight over privacy - if the govts want to surveil the population of the planet (which they do), most smartphone companies will ask how they can help.
Slashdot Mirror
7-Eleven? This sounds like it was out of a Homer Simpson episode... (Quickie Mart of course)
While solid fuel is not normally considered a good propellant for commercial launch operations, it is very good in case you ever have to field your own ICBM's. With The Donald talking about shaking things up with our allies (saying Japan and South Korea should have their own nukes), this is good expertise to have experience with.
Don't believe Microsoft ever swore off this:
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
With the new administration getting appointments with folks who support mass surveillance and a CIC who stated he wanted to be able to spy on his political enemies, you have to wonder who will be in his crosshairs over the next 4 years. Things in this area are probably not going to get better. Best to assume any Skype communication will be stored by government forever, for future use and decide if you want to use this product from this company - whatever the "features" are.
I believe scraping the locks is considered a sign of bad luck for the ship. You really don't want a warship that has intermittent power.
Brings to mind an old story I heard from some airline pilots as FMS Flight Management Systems (very non user friendly) were integrated into airliners. Previously if something went wrong on an aircraft in flight one or both of the pilots would say something to the effect of "Oh $^it we've got to.....", but now its "Why'd it just do that?"
Sounds like it applies to the Zumwalt as well. Hopefully they're not running Windows on it.
Microsoft probably works with every government they sell their software into as far as spying on their citizens etc. (it only makes business sense since these guys control market access and Microsoft has never been a company to quibble over morals) - so I'm sure Microsoft and Mr. Putin's Russia were great partners up till now.
Now Putin may be wary that Microsoft gives preferential treatment to the NSA (since we know they worked closely with them before thanks to Snowden) etc. or he may just be doing this for domestic consumption (he appears to do alot of this) since their economy is in a tailspin.
If you're running Windows 7 & 8.x and you have kept Microsoft's backported Win 10 monitoring updates out etc., be sure and backup your machines drives with a good imaging utility now - before we see what happens in October (so you have control and can restore).
If you're wanting to setup new Windows VM's, move to 8.x (supposedly security updates through 2023, at least before all this) or do fresh installs of 7, do them now (and make backup images) before October while you still have access to the hotfix's, remember Microsoft is going to gradually roll old hotfixes into the big update blobs and presumably they'll go away.
Long term though - the writing has been on the wall since 10 came out - Microsoft is a tyrant and you need to make a plan to move off of them if you don't want your PC (and all your data and communications on it) to be Microsoft's 8itch. Moving to a multiboot Linux and Windows setup - planning on a Windows VM in Linux for most Windows only needs with direct booting for games.
While Microsoft's PR group would agree with what you said, if you look at most other PC OS's it doesn't work this way. Over on Apple in Mac OS X, they separate their security updates out from their other patches (and they don't have back ported data monitoring patches from Windows 10 in there). Over in OS X there isn't data monitoring to begin with. And the stuff that goes up to the cloud can be turned off with 2 checkboxes. Over in Linux you can do whatever you want.
The other side of this is that Microsoft will still have to test each fix individually prior to them going into a monthly lump - this is why they got rid of the service pack because of the double testing - in the end there will be little reduction in testing costs.
This is all about turning personal PC's into Microsoft's data monitoring tool which is worth alot of money to Microsoft for each personal PC every year - giving them control over your PC's data like an Android smartphone. As someone else noted the user data monitoring in Windows 10 and backported to Windows 7 & 8 in prior hotfixes (which could be avoided) is worth alot of money every year and after the October takeover Microsoft is gradually going to roll in the old hotfixes into the monthly updates over time and eliminate them. Microsoft's recent history requires no paranoia at all - they actively choose this for their customers:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
This avenue won't be available via Windows Update & us a PR cover - most folks won't be able to do it. You have to go to a Microsoft website that consists of an empty page and a search bar and enter the security only patch you want to download. I'll do this, but most users would never what to put in to start with.
If you read the announcement you'll see that the old hotfixes (including the user data monitoring ones, if they aren't in the October push already) will get backported, over time, into the massive monthly update. The obvious consequence of this is that those old hotfixes will go away as they are backported and no longer be available to users.
I wouldn't count on those hotfixes being around, better create reference Win 7 / 8 images with updates prior to the October takeover for all your machines, turn off WU and back them up. As we've seen Microsoft's condensed Windows 7 up to date patch includes the user data monitoring updates, no reason to expect they'll stop that after they make everyone's PC's their 8itches next month.
Not noted in the Slashdot entry is that after the October takeover of PC ownership via Windows Update is that Microsoft is going to backport the hotfixes into the mass monthly updates (and presumably remove those hotfixes from availability afterwards).
The consequence of this is that soon you will not be able to do a fresh install of 7 or 8.x and install only the hotfixes you want to get them up to (pre Oct 2016) as the old hot-fixes are going away too. If you're stuck using Windows better get your all your systems that you want to use imaged with all versions of pre Win 10 and updated (with the bad data monitoring hotfixes kept out) prior to the October updated. Windows 7 security updates were to go through 2020 and 8.1 through 2023.
It also appears there might be a method going forward for the true nutwads (like myself - I want the gaming - Linux partitions now though) and that will be to turn off Windows Update and use the Windows Update catalog site (a horrible MS site - at this point its a screen with a search window in it) to get security only updates...no details on how that will work, other than its mentioned in Microsoft's official announcement. For the general public though, Microsoft takes over control of their computers and will install user monitoring in the next months if they use Windows Update.
Many of these planes also have Stingray's (cell site simulators) so they ID everyone they fly over by their smartphones, they don't need to visually ID the people with the camera's. I am a pilot and saw one of these planes orbiting the Gurnee Mills Mall (Northern Chicago suburbs - could tell as it had the odd ball (where the camera is) sticking out behind one the main wheels on the 182), just cruising around and around at low altitude a couple of months ago. Felt very disconcerting to know my and my wife's phone ID had probably been swept up in that - turned them off but was obviously too late. Land of the free...
Making it in game purchase as well would take things to new heights though.
Just to point out, Zack Whittacker who wrote the ZDNet article mis-typed, as iMessage and WhatsApp are encrypted by default. His following sentence appears to show he actually meant they were automatically encrypted. The opt-in encryption that Facebook and Google are providing will also be the preferred option of the govts / 3 letter agencies that want to keep everything for future use. Its crazy to have Facebook's app on your smartphone anyways...and tracking bracelet with a microphone and camera.
Intel...although I'd guess money strained AMD is no better. With regards to Intel & backdoors in its chips its good to remember what we know:
http://www.infowars.com/intel-...
And don't forget what that guy at Google mentioned WRT Intel:
https://plus.google.com/+Theod...
Of course this makes all our systems vulnerable to attack by foreigners as well, but the NSA seems comfortable with that world - the country they're supposed to protect is compromised by design as long as they can spy on everyone they're okay with foreign governments being able to do that too. I would expect Microsoft's Visual Studio to be compromised by design as well.
Love that these folks came up with this and have it running in the U.S.:
http://arstechnica.com/informa...
And don't forget that they can no longer raise the prices of stamps....the guys that saddled the Post Office with that giant instant Pension Obligation also made it so they couldn't raise their prices to cover extra cost at the same time. Almost as if they wanted to insure they would fail. I'm sure the UPS / Fedex lobbyists loved it...
This "proposal" is open to public comment folks, so be sure to go add your voice to whether you think the FBI creating another secret database of your information, which you can't correct or update, is a good idea or not.
https://www.federalregister.go...
Applying for nearly any corporate job in the U.S. these days requires having a "normal" Facebook and LinkedIn account page (with activity, showing you aren't a shut in) and checked by the HR people prior to phone-interviews. Guess you could go to water color on the photos, although that won't work well on LinkedIn.
Quite the audacious plan, be interesting to see how it rolls out.
Wondering if we'll see the end of cash / anonymous / private purchases in our lifetime? I don't want that, but boy are the banks & governments ready to log and track everyone together.
Its important to remember, with regards to the this administration which has been orchestrating and allowing this all along. That not outright supporting the bill (which would immediately loose a bunch GOP support - because hey, O'bama) versus saying he wouldn't sign it are 2 very different things. O'bama is no friend of public security / privacy.
This was before the CA shooting: https://theintercept.com/2015/...
XXongo, you're right, but its good some of these folks, even if from past administrations, are speaking out..especially well spoken ones like Wilkerson.
Hats off to Snowden, otherwise we'd still be thinking most of this stuff our government wouldn't even consider doing to its citizenry (just from a moral standpoint of honoring and protecting the constitution and those people that are the citizens) with only the tinfoils thinking it was possible.
Chrome is getting alot more popular with users and schools in particular, its nice to see them pushing on the security like this - up to this point it probably hasn't been worth the time of someone to compromise it (from a marketshare standpoint), but that day is coming. It's good Google is trying to stay ahead of that.
Are they crazy? Put user biometric data into companies hands (so it can be stolen like everything else) - and of course you can't change it once its been compromised - which will happen, then you're stuck (not the company that lost it of course...they'll give you a year of credit monitoring). As others have pointed out giving companies access to your biometric data, camera and microphone on your access device is wrong on a bunch of other levels (privacy, govt access via that company etc.). No fffing way.
The former East German Stasi would be proud.
/s
Thank you President Obama for making govt surveillance of the citizenry the new normal, I'm sure with a history of political characters like McCarthy, Hoover, Nixon etc. that this won't be abused in the future.
Now, now lets not have any name calling...he's just stating common sense. The other mfrs take the base Android stack and modify it (extensively at a low level) to work with their hardware and make the ROM image and with that (or the hardware itself) you can insert any backdoor you want.
An example we know about is our friend Lenovo using the PC ROM they modified to install their phone home spyware onto your PC after you do a clean install - it was Windows but something similar or worse could be done in Android if the mfrs felt they should (by govt suggestion perhaps):
http://arstechnica.com/informa...
Most of the other smartphone mfrs are keeping quiet because they are friendly with their Governments - Samsung (I have a Galaxy S5) for example is very close to the South Korean Govt (who is a good partner with the USA and in particular its military and intelligence apparatus). Microsoft is very friendly with the U.S. government and a "partner" with the NSA and they certainly won't protest this either. Cause they would line up with their govts not their customers.
It's important to look at the big picture, from a business standpoint it makes sense to work with your govt and their desire to spy on their citizens as they control your market access. Frankly its odd that Apple is doing this from a purely business perspective, from a moral perspective it makes sense - but most companies don't care about moral issues and will faithfully line up with their govts surveilance apparatus when the call comes no matter the consequences for their cutsomers / citizenry. Remember all those German companies that closed up shop and moved out of country in the 30's after the Nazi's were elected? Yeah, most just shrugged and fell in line. That is exactly what is happening (and what would be expected to happen) in this fight over privacy - if the govts want to surveil the population of the planet (which they do), most smartphone companies will ask how they can help.