What the former VP says makes sense, and yet here's a case which has gone the other way: Google Calendar doesn't work so well on my Chrome 69.x on Linux (the menu doesn't work - nothing happens when you click the button - and there's this blue line at the top going from left to right kinda like a progress bar), so I turn to Firefox to use it. (And yes, I've tried hard reload)
I too started with Yggdrasil:-) but I've never really dual-booted. Instead, I've switched something like DOS -> Win 3.1 -> Yggdrasil -> OS/2 Warp -> Win NT -> Linux (1999) -> Windows 7 (~2006) -> Win 10 -> Linux (KDE in Manjaro)
Most recent switch back to Linux was driven by Win 10 forced updates. I only "need" Windows to run Microsoft Office, and that works fine in a VM under VirtualBox.
Ironically, recent voluntary Manjaro updates have broken things I rely on (copy/paste in OnlyOffice; stability of network shares in VirtualBox - in VB 6 they disappear and I need to restart VB to get them back)
So what I'd love is a distro where you can easily rollback an update made to an app and mark that app as "don't update this". Possibly you could give a reason (or select an existing reason), and be notified when it is "fixed" / prompted to allow updates to it again.
The Windows forced-updates problem motivated me to move my main machine to Linux (it had been Windows since oh 2005) - currently Manjaro/KDE - and to convert my Windows machines to VMs which I run on it via VirtualBox.
bumblebee/mhwd-gpu meant my laptop was using Intel's graphics, except when I explicitly tell it I want to use my GPU. Well, since it is always plugged in to AC power, I removed bumblebee, and now use the Nvidia GPU all the time (I've turned off integrated graphics in the BIOS).
I haven't experienced any issues updating, but just in case, if/when I do reboot, its to non-graphical mode (systemctl set-default multi-user.target). To start X then, its systemctl isolate graphical.target
Yes, because you are a commuter in a capital city. Just like our law makers... I'm advocating for higher speeds on straight rural roads where you might not see another car for 5 mins, and where you can see them kms ahead. Of course there are kangaroos - especially at certain times - so don't go fast in bad light.
Won't work so well in nanny states like Australia, where the max speed is 110 km/h on divided carriage ways, 100 for highways, but mostly 80, and increasingly 50.
It'll be interesting to see how the Aussie state goverments react (particularly Victoria), as a major source of revenue declines.
Or should we expect new car sales to fall off a cliff, as people who want to retain control hang on to their older cars?
Many people fall asleep driving on deserted roads at 100 km/h, helped no doubt by the road signs which subliminally suggest you sleep ("feeling tired?", "fatigue kills" etc). But this tech package seems to have an answer for that as well, with fatigue monitoring.
And what happens when you have a truck up your arse, sitting on your tail because your car is obeying the speed limit? Will the car speed up automatically, or not allow itself to be intimidated (with whatever consequences that may entail for the occupants)?
I wonder what role the Australian example played here?
Is it the contradiction between, on the one hand, Oz gov won't use Huawei stuff since the Chinese might be spying, but on the other, Oz gov demands the ability for itself to spy/intercept?
Looks like the 5 eyes said "you first" to Oz, and now UK and NZ are saying "on second thoughts..." (yeah, I know this particular story mentions Germany, not NZ)
Huawei should put on the Internet all the source code, microcode and whatever for each device they want to sell into the EU and to the 5-eyes, under the GPL.
That ought to be enough to quell concerns? And since they are Chinese manufacturers themselves, nobody will undercut them on price, right?;-)
Huawei could publish all their source code in git. Would that be enough to assuage US, AU 5-eye government concerns? Maybe I missed it, but I'm surprised this isn't being suggested in these comments.
I use VirtualBox to run Win7 under Linux Mint, and while some stuff works great, a lot of stuff doesn't.
For example, I can use MS Word under VirtualBox and most things work fine, but do something like update the Table of Contents and *boom* Word crashes.
That sounds odd; I open all sorts of documents in Word 2010, 2013 and 2016 in VMs (in Win 10) in VirtualBox 6 (previously 5.x) on Manjaro host (previously KDE neon) and have never had any issues at all with Word behaving differently to how it would if it wasn't in a VM.
Neurotopia. Cyberpunk techno thriller. Started yesterday, I'm 40% of the way through. A well written page turner.
The Amazon blurb:
The government can read your thoughts. Improve them too. War, poverty, and crime are history. If you don’t like it, you can always try your luck on that orbiting stateless superpower known as Apollo (formerly The Moon).
When Earth’s neuronet is hacked with a suicide virus, a reclusive thought-scanner, Sky Marion, finds her mother slitting her own wrists. Her mom is not alone – over a million Earth citizens are infected.
Who is to blame? The usual suspects – synthetic telepath hackers hiding on Apollo.
With no known remedy on Earth and less than a week before the virus shuts down victims’ brains, phobia-ridden Sky must risk her life and sanity to infiltrate the lawless lunar colonies if she is to find a cure.
But in doing so, Sky will find herself in the middle of a hidden war, fought for ultimate control over our minds.
Windows 10 forced updates motivated me to move my main dev box back to Linux 18 months ago. My Windows machines became vm's under VirtualBox. I have no complaints about it. The Windows VMs are quick, and shared folders, networking and shared clipboard all work great. I can resize a Windows vm as I wish. The only limitation (wish list really) is with 2 virtual displays: with a Windows guest, you can't control which display an app launches in, making the 2nd virtual display pretty much useless. Even though VirtualBox comes from Oracle, it is a nice thing for the World to have. And to me, open source even from Oracle, beats closed source from someone else.
The sledgehammer is a "technical capability notice (TCN)": The company must build a new function to help police get at a suspect's data, or face fines.
I guess they tell Apple (ios) and Google (android) to add keystroke loggers and/or the equivalent at the other end when the E2E encrypted message is displayed on the screen. Job done.
Ultimate target of this isn't "dumb terrorists" like the clowns who tried to smuggle a "bomb" onto a plane in Melbourne but forgot to check their luggage limits, or paedophiles (think of the children), but the war on drugs (message to small time dealer "can i get a couple of pills for Saturday"), and later, everyone.
Politicians are either gutless (who wants to be told by the security agencies that we would have prevented a stabbing/shooting/drug deal but you didn't pass an enabling law) or ignorant (haven't read 1984, aren't aware of what's happening in China) or not ignorant but power hungry (have read 1984 and are watching China, and love it). But the security agency submissions aren't public, so who knows what story they were told.
Yes, I'm surprised how limited Google Home is when it comes to answering questions. You'd think that with Google web search as a resource, it'd be able to answer a wide variety of questions. Sadly not, not yet at least.
The analogy breaks down, but in a good way: You can't virtualise a car, but you can virtualise Windows.
And then, in VirtualBox, you can choose to disconnect the network adaptor. No network = no Windows updates. Or leave it connected, and let it update, while you keep working without interruption in your host OS.
This is a submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) review of the Telecommunication and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018 [0].
Chinese surveillance society [1] offers a chilling vision of a society I never want to live in.
Just as Apple differentiates itself [2] clearly from Google and Facebook by saying we will never sell your data (you aren't the product), I think Western democracies ought to clearly differentiate themselves from China.
Currently we're heading towards a local optima that will look more and more like China. Because of certain problems (paedophiles, drug dealers, terrorists), government wants weak encryption. Then in large part because of weak encryption, we can't use Chinese components in our networks [3].
Well, the truth is that paedophiles/drug dealers/terrorists will all wake up to the fact that comms on common services can be intercepted, and will use their own encryption (routed over TOR or similar, so you can't tell who the endpoints are). Phantom Secure is evidence that this horse has already bolted[4]. Though I guess you might make any private encryption technology illegal? Why not?!!
The net result being that only people with "nothing to hide" will be using services that you can surveil.
Thinking more broadly, if drugs such as marijuana and MDMA were legal, then probably 95% of the so-called encryption problem goes away. And lots of other problems as well... Count on certain relatively benign recreational drugs being legalized soon after self-driving cars become common.
And then I'd argue that you catch the paedophiles and terrorists with creative policing[5]. You don't absolutely need this kind of legislation to then get into their phones [6].
In summary, a much better approach would be to support strong encryption (the global optimum), and say clearly we don't want to follow China. With strong encyption right across our telecomms networks, we'd be able to source equipment from Huwaie and ZTE... Of course, there's the additional concern that the Chinese could stop packet transmission entirely (ie a kill switch), or make it unreliable, but that's a different problem to "they might read our stuff".
The real concern would then be any laptop server[7] or phone made in China (ie most of them) - the terminal devices where stuff must be decrypted for the user to see.
Of course, the problem is that embracing "strong encryption" is anathema to the received wisdom from the rest of the Five Eyes [8], and you need to take a broader perspective to realise it is the right choice for an open society.
This is what 40+ years of technical debt looks like.
Another symptom of this underlying issue at NAB: My NAB debit card simply doesn't work in London, in any ATM. It works everywhere else I've travelled in Europe and Asia. (Oh, except for 1 trip to Helsinki)
NAB has no idea why, and can't offer a solution (no, its not flagged/blocked, yes, its compatible with the ATM, yes, the network seems OK). But then, they have bigger fish to fry...
Developers developers developers! So you're a developer (maybe a web developer or full stack dev) who has always used Windows, and need to do something that requires Linux. If you install Linux (eg dual boot) rather than in a VM, you're "at risk" of defecting entirely to Linux...especially when you find the freedom which is no forced updates This must be intended to help to address that leakage.
Slashdot Mirror
What the former VP says makes sense, and yet here's a case which has gone the other way: Google Calendar doesn't work so well on my Chrome 69.x on Linux (the menu doesn't work - nothing happens when you click the button - and there's this blue line at the top going from left to right kinda like a progress bar), so I turn to Firefox to use it. (And yes, I've tried hard reload)
Just wait til they get to the point where maps says "I can see you want to buy gizmo xyz. Here are bids for your business from nearby retailers."
You'd expect some of the further away retailers to bid cheaper prices to entice you.
I'm surprised they didn't do this years ago...
I too started with Yggdrasil :-) but I've never really dual-booted. Instead, I've switched something like DOS -> Win 3.1 -> Yggdrasil -> OS/2 Warp -> Win NT -> Linux (1999) -> Windows 7 (~2006) -> Win 10 -> Linux (KDE in Manjaro)
Most recent switch back to Linux was driven by Win 10 forced updates. I only "need" Windows to run Microsoft Office, and that works fine in a VM under VirtualBox.
Ironically, recent voluntary Manjaro updates have broken things I rely on (copy/paste in OnlyOffice; stability of network shares in VirtualBox - in VB 6 they disappear and I need to restart VB to get them back)
So what I'd love is a distro where you can easily rollback an update made to an app and mark that app as "don't update this". Possibly you could give a reason (or select an existing reason), and be notified when it is "fixed" / prompted to allow updates to it again.
I feel your pain.. what brand is your laptop? Mine's a Dell; I do run an external monitor :-)
The Windows forced-updates problem motivated me to move my main machine to Linux (it had been Windows since oh 2005) - currently Manjaro/KDE - and to convert my Windows machines to VMs which I run on it via VirtualBox.
bumblebee/mhwd-gpu meant my laptop was using Intel's graphics, except when I explicitly tell it I want to use my GPU. Well, since it is always plugged in to AC power, I removed bumblebee, and now use the Nvidia GPU all the time (I've turned off integrated graphics in the BIOS).
I haven't experienced any issues updating, but just in case, if/when I do reboot, its to non-graphical mode (systemctl set-default multi-user.target). To start X then, its systemctl isolate graphical.target
Yes, because you are a commuter in a capital city. Just like our law makers... I'm advocating for higher speeds on straight rural roads where you might not see another car for 5 mins, and where you can see them kms ahead. Of course there are kangaroos - especially at certain times - so don't go fast in bad light.
Trucks often seem to go a little faster than their speed-limiter might allow.
Won't work so well in nanny states like Australia, where the max speed is 110 km/h on divided carriage ways, 100 for highways, but mostly 80, and increasingly 50.
It'll be interesting to see how the Aussie state goverments react (particularly Victoria), as a major source of revenue declines.
Or should we expect new car sales to fall off a cliff, as people who want to retain control hang on to their older cars?
Many people fall asleep driving on deserted roads at 100 km/h, helped no doubt by the road signs which subliminally suggest you sleep ("feeling tired?", "fatigue kills" etc). But this tech package seems to have an answer for that as well, with fatigue monitoring.
And what happens when you have a truck up your arse, sitting on your tail because your car is obeying the speed limit? Will the car speed up automatically, or not allow itself to be intimidated (with whatever consequences that may entail for the occupants)?
Is it the contradiction between, on the one hand, Oz gov won't use Huawei stuff since the Chinese might be spying, but on the other, Oz gov demands the ability for itself to spy/intercept?
Or is it examples of what retaliation might look like, for example https://www.abc.net.au/news/20...
Looks like the 5 eyes said "you first" to Oz, and now UK and NZ are saying "on second thoughts..." (yeah, I know this particular story mentions Germany, not NZ)
Huawei should put on the Internet all the source code, microcode and whatever for each device they want to sell into the EU and to the 5-eyes, under the GPL.
That ought to be enough to quell concerns? And since they are Chinese manufacturers themselves, nobody will undercut them on price, right? ;-)
Huawei could publish all their source code in git. Would that be enough to assuage US, AU 5-eye government concerns? Maybe I missed it, but I'm surprised this isn't being suggested in these comments.
I use VirtualBox to run Win7 under Linux Mint, and while some stuff works great, a lot of stuff doesn't.
For example, I can use MS Word under VirtualBox and most things work fine, but do something like update the Table of Contents and *boom* Word crashes.
That sounds odd; I open all sorts of documents in Word 2010, 2013 and 2016 in VMs (in Win 10) in VirtualBox 6 (previously 5.x) on Manjaro host (previously KDE neon) and have never had any issues at all with Word behaving differently to how it would if it wasn't in a VM.
The Amazon blurb:
The government can read your thoughts. Improve them too. War, poverty, and crime are history. If you don’t like it, you can always try your luck on that orbiting stateless superpower known as Apollo (formerly The Moon).
When Earth’s neuronet is hacked with a suicide virus, a reclusive thought-scanner, Sky Marion, finds her mother slitting her own wrists. Her mom is not alone – over a million Earth citizens are infected.
Who is to blame? The usual suspects – synthetic telepath hackers hiding on Apollo.
With no known remedy on Earth and less than a week before the virus shuts down victims’ brains, phobia-ridden Sky must risk her life and sanity to infiltrate the lawless lunar colonies if she is to find a cure.
But in doing so, Sky will find herself in the middle of a hidden war, fought for ultimate control over our minds.
Windows 10 forced updates motivated me to move my main dev box back to Linux 18 months ago. My Windows machines became vm's under VirtualBox. I have no complaints about it. The Windows VMs are quick, and shared folders, networking and shared clipboard all work great. I can resize a Windows vm as I wish. The only limitation (wish list really) is with 2 virtual displays: with a Windows guest, you can't control which display an app launches in, making the 2nd virtual display pretty much useless. Even though VirtualBox comes from Oracle, it is a nice thing for the World to have. And to me, open source even from Oracle, beats closed source from someone else.
Really? That's not my experience. I run it in Chrome on Manjaro/KDE.
The sledgehammer is a "technical capability notice (TCN)": The company must build a new function to help police get at a suspect's data, or face fines.
I guess they tell Apple (ios) and Google (android) to add keystroke loggers and/or the equivalent at the other end when the E2E encrypted message is displayed on the screen. Job done.
Ultimate target of this isn't "dumb terrorists" like the clowns who tried to smuggle a "bomb" onto a plane in Melbourne but forgot to check their luggage limits, or paedophiles (think of the children), but the war on drugs (message to small time dealer "can i get a couple of pills for Saturday"), and later, everyone.
Politicians are either gutless (who wants to be told by the security agencies that we would have prevented a stabbing/shooting/drug deal but you didn't pass an enabling law) or ignorant (haven't read 1984, aren't aware of what's happening in China) or not ignorant but power hungry (have read 1984 and are watching China, and love it). But the security agency submissions aren't public, so who knows what story they were told.
Yes, I'm surprised how limited Google Home is when it comes to answering questions. You'd think that with Google web search as a resource, it'd be able to answer a wide variety of questions. Sadly not, not yet at least.
Yeah me too, Ubuntu to KDE Neon, to now, KDE on Manjaro.
A couple of hackathon participants did this back in 2014: https://www.koding.com/blog/20... And I'm pretty sure it was news again earlier this year.
And the linked article isn't news. It is now October, but this was news in 8 months ago: https://mashable.com/2018/02/2...
The analogy breaks down, but in a good way: You can't virtualise a car, but you can virtualise Windows.
And then, in VirtualBox, you can choose to disconnect the network adaptor. No network = no Windows updates. Or leave it connected, and let it update, while you keep working without interruption in your host OS.
Here is mine... pity I sent it before Krebs wrote https://krebsonsecurity.com/20...
This is a submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) review of the Telecommunication and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018 [0].
Chinese surveillance society [1] offers a chilling vision of a society I never want to live in.
Just as Apple differentiates itself [2] clearly from Google and Facebook by saying we will never sell your data (you aren't the product), I think Western democracies ought to clearly differentiate themselves from China.
Currently we're heading towards a local optima that will look more and more like China. Because of certain problems (paedophiles, drug dealers, terrorists), government wants weak encryption. Then in large part because of weak encryption, we can't use Chinese components in our networks [3].
Well, the truth is that paedophiles/drug dealers/terrorists will all wake up to the fact that comms on common services can be intercepted, and will use their own encryption (routed over TOR or similar, so you can't tell who the endpoints are). Phantom Secure is evidence that this horse has already bolted[4]. Though I guess you might make any private encryption technology illegal? Why not?!!
The net result being that only people with "nothing to hide" will be using services that you can surveil.
Thinking more broadly, if drugs such as marijuana and MDMA were legal, then probably 95% of the so-called encryption problem goes away. And lots of other problems as well... Count on certain relatively benign recreational drugs being legalized soon after self-driving cars become common.
And then I'd argue that you catch the paedophiles and terrorists with creative policing[5]. You don't absolutely need this kind of legislation to then get into their phones [6].
In summary, a much better approach would be to support strong encryption (the global optimum), and say clearly we don't want to follow China. With strong encyption right across our telecomms networks, we'd be able to source equipment from Huwaie and ZTE ... Of course, there's the additional concern that the Chinese could stop packet transmission entirely (ie a kill switch), or make it unreliable, but that's a different problem to "they might read our stuff".
The real concern would then be any laptop server[7] or phone made in China (ie most of them) - the terminal devices where stuff must be decrypted for the user to see.
Of course, the problem is that embracing "strong encryption" is anathema to the received wisdom from the rest of the Five Eyes [8], and you need to take a broader perspective to realise it is the right choice for an open society.
[0] https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliam...
[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/201...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com...
[3] https://www.itnews.com.au/news... https://www.itnews.com.au/news...
[4] http://www.abc.net.au/news/201... https://www.theregister.co.uk/...
[5]
VirtualBox works very well, with nice support for multiple monitors.
One click to give/take away Windows VM network access as and when required.
This is what 40+ years of technical debt looks like.
Another symptom of this underlying issue at NAB: My NAB debit card simply doesn't work in London, in any ATM. It works everywhere else I've travelled in Europe and Asia. (Oh, except for 1 trip to Helsinki)
NAB has no idea why, and can't offer a solution (no, its not flagged/blocked, yes, its compatible with the ATM, yes, the network seems OK). But then, they have bigger fish to fry...
Developers developers developers! So you're a developer (maybe a web developer or full stack dev) who has always used Windows, and need to do something that requires Linux. If you install Linux (eg dual boot) rather than in a VM, you're "at risk" of defecting entirely to Linux...especially when you find the freedom which is no forced updates This must be intended to help to address that leakage.