Sure, on the surface that sounds reasonable. But, with the precedent of preserving anonymity removed, and it replaced with anonymity-unless-the-company-lawyers-up. So now when I get a pizza with rat parts in it, do I post on Yelp? If I do, I'm opening myself up to deal with some sort of legal action, and yes, with sufficient care in documenting the rat parts and recruiting reliable witnesses and upfronting the legal fees and so on, I'd probably win in court. But that begs the question, am I so infuriated over a ruined $15 pizza that I'm willing to take on all of that? Probably not - so the negative review doesn't get posted - and Yelp ends up with only stellar or near stellar reviews.
With this precedent set, Yelp transitions to a place where favourable reviews are posted and negative reviews quashed. This is about as useful as a phone book.
The reason #2 is not a common problem is because of the strong encryption -- it's a technical problem that is, for the most part, solved. If the encryption becomes easily breakable, #2 would swiftly become a problem again (think coffee-shop wifi operators, nosy employers/schools, etc.). #1 and #3 are social problems, and I agree that they need plenty of attention, however maintaining sufficient encryption to keep #2 closed is definitely not wasted effort.
I get what you're trying to say, but you're missing my point -- which is, you have to trust that Microsoft's closed source reporting tool is sending the same thing that it displays on the screen for you. Without encryption of the transmission, you can verify what it sends by local traffic snooping, and this keeps them honest. With encryption, you can't verify; the tool could send more than it displays.
On one hand, it would be rather straightforward for Microsoft to push a patch to use encryption for these reports. On the other hand, now you are running closed source software that sends a bunch of data to Microsoft -- data that you can not inspect. When it is sent in the clear, at least you could sniff your traffic and see what Microsoft is getting. So with encrypted crash reports, you need to trust Microsoft more than now.
MS Word crashed? Better send the docx file that caused the crash as well, it's not like the user(s) can call Microsoft out for it with encryption.
Before the leaks, they could say "it stops the turrurists", but after the leaks we know that it's stopped none (Boston is a prime example). Any half serious terrorist knows that the internet is heavily monitored and communicates covertly; now that it's public knowledge, the "but the turrurists will know our abilities" defense no longer carries weight. They can't justify using their overreaching surveillance apparatus against the general population of the world anymore. It's their defense to continue Orwellian surveillance that is infinitely weaker, nothing else has changed.
This particular laptop is outdated but the "it can be done" milestone is passed. Now it's just a matter of expanding the hardware compatibility list and software.
Creating free replacements for all non-free software is a monumental task that started many years ago, one that may never be complete. However, this is a milestone; the list of laptop models that are "truly free" can only expand from here, as can the includeable software. Have you seen the DD-WRT compatibility list recently? It was quite short a when that project was getting started.
The debt/exports thing sort of makes sense, if you assume they have no aspirations of becoming the next superpower. But in reality, they would gladly step into that role if they could easily pull the rug out from under the americans.
10 years is a long time to switch, I can see that being an impediment to other cities following suit. Are they sharing details of the changeover experience? It would be quite valuable to have a list of the major problems that made this take a decade rather than a year.
Verifying each line is not really a goal worth pursuing. A robust (real) simulation result will be reproducible across various numerical methods. Computers are commonplace, anybody with a computer (or a cluster) can redo your numerical experiment provided that you described what you did. Lab work is much more specialised, there aren't millions of similarly equipped labs kicking around, so the pool of people who can check your result is much smaller. In my opinion, this makes it less likely for one to report fabricated or garbage results because one can be called out pretty easily.
That seems like a terrible idea. You'd have many legit claims for new reg keys, how would you know when to deny the requests from people pirating the software? Ugh.
You might think so, but no. If the licensing check is done in the clear, one could spoof the reply and thus bypass the licensing effortlessly. More likely it's encoded/encrypted in some way that you can't (easily) fake a green light. So you may be able to identify the transmission of "very large binary" or equivalent, but differentiating between a "license check" and "tiny binary" would be tricky since you won't be reading the stream.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, on the surface that sounds reasonable. But, with the precedent of preserving anonymity removed, and it replaced with anonymity-unless-the-company-lawyers-up. So now when I get a pizza with rat parts in it, do I post on Yelp? If I do, I'm opening myself up to deal with some sort of legal action, and yes, with sufficient care in documenting the rat parts and recruiting reliable witnesses and upfronting the legal fees and so on, I'd probably win in court. But that begs the question, am I so infuriated over a ruined $15 pizza that I'm willing to take on all of that? Probably not - so the negative review doesn't get posted - and Yelp ends up with only stellar or near stellar reviews.
With this precedent set, Yelp transitions to a place where favourable reviews are posted and negative reviews quashed. This is about as useful as a phone book.
The reason #2 is not a common problem is because of the strong encryption -- it's a technical problem that is, for the most part, solved. If the encryption becomes easily breakable, #2 would swiftly become a problem again (think coffee-shop wifi operators, nosy employers/schools, etc.). #1 and #3 are social problems, and I agree that they need plenty of attention, however maintaining sufficient encryption to keep #2 closed is definitely not wasted effort.
I get what you're trying to say, but you're missing my point -- which is, you have to trust that Microsoft's closed source reporting tool is sending the same thing that it displays on the screen for you. Without encryption of the transmission, you can verify what it sends by local traffic snooping, and this keeps them honest. With encryption, you can't verify; the tool could send more than it displays.
On one hand, it would be rather straightforward for Microsoft to push a patch to use encryption for these reports. On the other hand, now you are running closed source software that sends a bunch of data to Microsoft -- data that you can not inspect. When it is sent in the clear, at least you could sniff your traffic and see what Microsoft is getting. So with encrypted crash reports, you need to trust Microsoft more than now.
MS Word crashed? Better send the docx file that caused the crash as well, it's not like the user(s) can call Microsoft out for it with encryption.
... or stolen?
Before the leaks, they could say "it stops the turrurists", but after the leaks we know that it's stopped none (Boston is a prime example). Any half serious terrorist knows that the internet is heavily monitored and communicates covertly; now that it's public knowledge, the "but the turrurists will know our abilities" defense no longer carries weight. They can't justify using their overreaching surveillance apparatus against the general population of the world anymore. It's their defense to continue Orwellian surveillance that is infinitely weaker, nothing else has changed.
If you block updates, windows particularly, then you'll have higher chances of infected systems that may be used for DDoS etc.
This particular laptop is outdated but the "it can be done" milestone is passed. Now it's just a matter of expanding the hardware compatibility list and software.
Don't like incremental progress eh, you want it all at once?
Well that's a little different, a registered user trolling an AC! What's next, cats chasing dogs?
Where did you get that idea? You can get the source via svn: http://www.dd-wrt.ca/wiki/index.php/Development#Subversion
Creating free replacements for all non-free software is a monumental task that started many years ago, one that may never be complete. However, this is a milestone; the list of laptop models that are "truly free" can only expand from here, as can the includeable software. Have you seen the DD-WRT compatibility list recently? It was quite short a when that project was getting started.
They have absolutely no way of knowing if any sensitive information was stolen from a PC that has been owned by crypto ransomware.
The debt/exports thing sort of makes sense, if you assume they have no aspirations of becoming the next superpower. But in reality, they would gladly step into that role if they could easily pull the rug out from under the americans.
Also no backdoors. This alone would justify switching.
10 years is a long time to switch, I can see that being an impediment to other cities following suit. Are they sharing details of the changeover experience? It would be quite valuable to have a list of the major problems that made this take a decade rather than a year.
They can do it with 6 but it requires the help of 294 friends
Yeah sure. How many tenured profs who notice misconduct are going to walk away from their post?
Verifying each line is not really a goal worth pursuing. A robust (real) simulation result will be reproducible across various numerical methods. Computers are commonplace, anybody with a computer (or a cluster) can redo your numerical experiment provided that you described what you did. Lab work is much more specialised, there aren't millions of similarly equipped labs kicking around, so the pool of people who can check your result is much smaller. In my opinion, this makes it less likely for one to report fabricated or garbage results because one can be called out pretty easily.
That seems like a terrible idea. You'd have many legit claims for new reg keys, how would you know when to deny the requests from people pirating the software? Ugh.
Sounds good to me, there's certainly no shortage of pigeons. It'll be good to put them to work doing something useful!
You might think so, but no. If the licensing check is done in the clear, one could spoof the reply and thus bypass the licensing effortlessly. More likely it's encoded/encrypted in some way that you can't (easily) fake a green light. So you may be able to identify the transmission of "very large binary" or equivalent, but differentiating between a "license check" and "tiny binary" would be tricky since you won't be reading the stream.
> XOWA is a free, open-source application that lets you download Wikipedia to your computer. No internet connection required!
This is supremely impressive; download Wikipedia without an internet connection!
verbal diarrhea. Is the submitter sick from eating dog food?