The analyst seems to admit that it probably wouldn't be feasible, in the same breath that he raises the possibility:
He said JavaScript Bitcoin miners like Bitcoin Plus could be also run on the TVs, though its effectiveness may be questionable.
The difficulty is so high that even if you got all 20 million of those, with no optimized hashing you would be looking at a botnet that is sill less powerful than what $1000 can get you off the shelf, and the value as a 20 million node DDoS botnet has to be a lot more than that.
Bitcoin mining is so difficult at this point (due to so much interest, and dedicated hardware designs being applied to it) that it is nearly impossible to do on "harvested" hardware like these smartTV devices. Even getting a few thousand into a mining botnet is not likely to yield any significant return compared to say, using it as a for-hire DDOS botnet, or a spam botnet.
This video reminds me that I find it distracting when people start every sentence with the word "So, "
A discourse marker like "So" is often heard when the speaker is in "dumb it down" mode and needs to structure their response carefully in order to not overwhelm the audience. The interview was done by Timothy, so you can imagine almost all of his footage turns out like this.
I see. So are you declaring that you'd be OK with a state-mandated permanent tattoo on your skin, or an RFID tag surgically implanted in your body? Mandated, as in you submit to it or are imprisoned? That's where this is going, and I and many others are not OK with it.
Not sure if "whoosh"
Or just "splat"
Eh here goes: Does everyone either have a drivers license, or live in fear of being jailed? And how is that "huge mandated database of photos and identities" working out for us? Is it the end times yet? Are dogs and cats living together? Any mass (government-induced) hysteria?
So all i need to do to get into your stuff is knock you out and touch you to it?
Seems a bit insecure.
They have this thing we call "Two factor authentication"... as long as your remembered, short-term password is not exposed before they knock you out then you are still safe (at least your deepest darkest secrets are, maybe Facebook will ignore the two factor auth requirement). Then again if they are going to knock you out why not just resort to restraining you, while awake, and forcing you to hand over your credentials at the threat of torture or death? If violence is on the table, not much will save you (except a good guy with a gun).
This would be voluntary. That is a pretty big difference.
At first. It would be voluntary at first. There are many people in power in this world today who would love to be able to tattoo some sort of ID on people from birth, or embed an RFID in their bodies at birth, and so on, so they can be tracked everywhere they go (with greater ease than we already are with goddamn fucking cameras everywhere. NO. JUST. NO. Yes, I understand the article is talking about something like a henna tattoo or a sticker you wear.. but it would set a dangerous precedent. The line has to be drawn here, no farther!
Some perspective du jour...
Rewind 50 years: "You mean those fuckers are going to require that they have my picture just so I can get a drivers license? Hell no! Let's draw the line in the sand! The MAN already knows too much about me, and it would set an unthinkable precedent!"
Fast forward 5 years (maybe less): "Oh, wait, you mean it will make my email and phone and bank account basically un-hackable in the face of wave after wave of cybertheft? Yeah, well, ok let's draw the line just a little further out"
They are stuck with a bunch of odd resolutions and encouraged developers to target them all directly, resulting in debacles like the black bars when they went widescreen.
I have to kind of chuckle because, well, Android...
You didn't really read gp's post, right?
Google told the Android developers a long time ago that they should prepare their apps for a variety of resolutions and DPIs.
Apple on the other hand told their developers that they can expect fixed resolutions, and are now struggeling with the fact that they have different resolutions, different DPIs and different aspect ratios.
Never mind that they decided their flagship (only) mid-size tablet was going to mimic the screen of the old-ass iPad, low resolution, low DPI, and 4x3 aspect ratio. If the iPad Mini had a better display it would have crushed every tablet competitor, much the same way the "new iPad" did when it was released. But heavens! We can't expect our 20 million app developers to have to wrap their head around one new set of dimensions! Better to just let them re-use code designed for a larger display, and get back to cashing app store checks.
Well that's still somewhat BS, what's wrong with running a web or game server on such line? What about personal VPN, SSHD,... That's all "server software". Hell, even if you start Skype conversation your PC becomes a "server".
Nothing really. Unless you start running 10s of terrabytes a month through it. Then you have to admit your being a bit abusive of a "Residential" plan.
Boy will you be laughing at yourself in a couple of years when you look back on how you thought a few dozen TB of data a month was like, some big deal.
Have you ever tried to unlike something? It's not easy and I'm sure it's that way by design. Feature must be there, but obscuring it makes people unlike less pages. This is profit driven decision.
Hah this was the first thought I had too. He must work for Facebook and was tasked with adding an "I want to opt in to never being able to opt out" feature. Make it too easy to use, and hey...
It sounds like the objection was that he ran servers, the bandwidth thing was merely the trigger to ask.
I'm baffled ISPs still think "servers" are something that needs banning. Reminds me of when so many clueless ISPs banned NAT (or rather connection sharing between multiple PCs in general.)
Not many providers think they need "banning" but they are a pretty easy trigger to get out of selling someone a residential service when they are clearly using it for business purposes. If you don't abuse the bandwidth, you can serve anything you want.
The contract said, no servers. He put a server up. So he violated the contract. It's that easy.
If instead he had downloaded 77 terabytes of movies, he would not have violated his contract (unless it was illegal downloads, I guess), and then FiOS would have been wrong to demand him to switch to business service.
I think the thing that stood out is that even by torrenting standards, he managed to use a metric fuckload of data. They probably can pretty easily profile torrenting users (anyone who has a consistent stream of upload going on during every big download) and he just had constant upload/download all the time, every day, nonstop. He makes torrent users look reasonable.
Reasonable, yes. Sucking down that much bandwidth is well over the usage rate for most businesses, let alone consumers.
OTOH, if Verizon advertised it as unlimited, they (barring any fine print) do have to shut up and provide it. The only loophole I think they can use is that family/friends VPN thing the dude was doing, but otherwise? They either provide it, or they shut the guy off and risk a false advertising lawsuit.
Have you read the fine print? It goes something like this "if the usage is beyond what a typical consumer can be expected to use, we reserve the right to cancel the contract immediately, without refund". Yes, that vague. There are more specific bits about what it can't be, such as servers hosting internet-facing services (which is the line he clearly crossed). But even if he didn't admit it, they have an easy out because of how vague the wording of the usage agreement is.
Yep. Running servers is against Verizon's residential ToS. Regardless of how much BW the guy is using, he's breaking the rules.
BINGO!
Another misleading Slashdot title. This is fairly run of the mill for residential ISP service. I bet it was a short conversation! They called him to try to find out if he was doing anything against their ToS, because of his bandwidth usage, and he flat out admitted it.
If he had answered "Netflix" (and that was believable), would the conversation have gone differently? Hard to say, because that conversation didn't even happen.
I can see that conversation turning out fine:
"Sir, records show you moved 77 terabytes, with a T, as in 77 thousand gigabytes" "Yeah, I don't know how to explain it, I have been watching a lot of netflix lately"
"Sir this amount of traffic is equivalent to watching netflix on 90 screens at a time, 24 hours a day, every day of the month" "Yeah, you obviously haven't gotten addicted to Breaking Bad yet"
One of the links (the "in Indiana" one) points to a datacenter installation in a former mall The other one ("in Maryland") does in fact describe a former anchor store of a still-working malll turned into a datacenter. They apparently (http://www.marleystation.com/directory) still have at least a Macy's and a J.C.Penney's.
Except neither of those is about Sears, plus: in Indiana the whole mall was bought and converted after it closed, and in Maryland I am pretty sure the store in question is not part of Marley Station, it looks a lot bigger like a standalone department store near a shopping center (but I am not from there so I don't know).
Don't listen to the Analysts. You guys are every bit as good as Amazon. But what's the one thing Amazon's got that you ain't got? DATACENTERS!"
The whole thing seems like an April Fool's joke, until you realize that these are the people who thought that buying K-Mart was a good idea.
You have that backward, K-Mart was the one who bought Sears (though it is more casually described as a merger). Sears was near bankruptcy and K-mart had the upper hand. Yes, it was a messed up world back then.
... or malls that have closed completely. But very few mall management firms would sign off on turning one of their anchor stores into a datacenter.
Wouldn't the number of firms that would turn up their nose at someone continuing to pay them rent (especially those malls that can't sustain a Sears, which are probably half empty) be far lower than those who would be grateful for the income?
It's not really in question here because Sears is doing this with standalone stores, but an anchor store is exactly like it sounds; once a mall loses its anchors, it is done for, it's not a mall any more, it is a hangout for kids who don't spend money. Mall managers will do anything to keep anchor stores in place, and I mean ANYTHING.
Here's an Idea, why not move the Scientists? Greyhound bus.
Or telecommute?
They need to get *muons* into the ring, not the scientists. And Muons only survive on their own for 2 microseconds so even telecommuting is out of the question.
It's going by barge for most of the journey. From the article: "It will float from New York Harbor in June, down the East Coast, around Florida, up the Gulf Coast and up the Mississippi River by July."
I got the barge part, but the Mississippi part was buried a bit further. I pictured a trip across the Great Lakes. Don't they know about the Erie Canal?
Brookhaven to Batavia is only about 1000 miles by even a lax road route. Where the heck is this thing going, on a national tour? The web site claims it will travel 3,200 miles. Is it going to spring break first?
I would take the 25c/day pay cut it would cost to have someone stock the fridge with sodas so that I didn't have to go to the bother. On one hand "perks" are about employers differentiating without paying more, on the other hand there are economies of scale that do your employees a lot of good, if you pick the things that a good portion of your employees partake in. Free coffee/tea is pretty standard for this reason, why shouldn't that apply to other (more modern) common consumables?
Of course, don't let your company health care provider hear that you have a fridge of 240-calorie insulin-bombs stalking the corridor...
In the animal kingdom I don't think we have seen evidence that any predator hunted its prey to extinction
That's a pretty grandiose claim and certainly false. There was still an ecosystem on this planet before we came around with thousands of species that went extinct.
In front of me sits no evidence that a predator species has hunted a prey species to extinction. So, it is true so far. If it is "certainly false", then surely you have such evidence sitting in front of you. So, out with it.
Slashdot Mirror
The analyst seems to admit that it probably wouldn't be feasible, in the same breath that he raises the possibility:
The difficulty is so high that even if you got all 20 million of those, with no optimized hashing you would be looking at a botnet that is sill less powerful than what $1000 can get you off the shelf, and the value as a 20 million node DDoS botnet has to be a lot more than that.
Bitcoin mining is so difficult at this point (due to so much interest, and dedicated hardware designs being applied to it) that it is nearly impossible to do on "harvested" hardware like these smartTV devices. Even getting a few thousand into a mining botnet is not likely to yield any significant return compared to say, using it as a for-hire DDOS botnet, or a spam botnet.
This video reminds me that I find it distracting when people start every sentence with the word "So, "
A discourse marker like "So" is often heard when the speaker is in "dumb it down" mode and needs to structure their response carefully in order to not overwhelm the audience. The interview was done by Timothy, so you can imagine almost all of his footage turns out like this.
Yea but USB devices can still provide keyboard functionality ... autorun not working is moot
So how does it install malware, send a bunch of keystrokes to open Notepad and type up a malicious BAT script?
Start key > cmd (return) > [flashdrive]:\malware.exe (return)... (yes to dialog box)... (yes to "are you SURE SURE" dialog box)...
I dunno...but how is this new exploit "news" if there's utility utilities like PairLock to prevent it?
Because you have to jailbreak in order to use PairLock? And um, jailbreaking is bad, mmkay?
I see. So are you declaring that you'd be OK with a state-mandated permanent tattoo on your skin, or an RFID tag surgically implanted in your body? Mandated, as in you submit to it or are imprisoned? That's where this is going, and I and many others are not OK with it.
Not sure if "whoosh"
Or just "splat"
Eh here goes: Does everyone either have a drivers license, or live in fear of being jailed? And how is that "huge mandated database of photos and identities" working out for us? Is it the end times yet? Are dogs and cats living together? Any mass (government-induced) hysteria?
... that the tidal gravitational wave of Earth/Moon will disrupt the small couple?
Shut it... You just gave Michael Bay a terrible idea for a disaster movie.
So all i need to do to get into your stuff is knock you out and touch you to it?
Seems a bit insecure.
They have this thing we call "Two factor authentication"... as long as your remembered, short-term password is not exposed before they knock you out then you are still safe (at least your deepest darkest secrets are, maybe Facebook will ignore the two factor auth requirement). Then again if they are going to knock you out why not just resort to restraining you, while awake, and forcing you to hand over your credentials at the threat of torture or death? If violence is on the table, not much will save you (except a good guy with a gun).
This would be voluntary. That is a pretty big difference.
At first. It would be voluntary at first.
There are many people in power in this world today who would love to be able to tattoo some sort of ID on people from birth, or embed an RFID in their bodies at birth, and so on, so they can be tracked everywhere they go (with greater ease than we already are with goddamn fucking cameras everywhere. NO. JUST. NO.
Yes, I understand the article is talking about something like a henna tattoo or a sticker you wear.. but it would set a dangerous precedent. The line has to be drawn here, no farther!
Some perspective du jour...
Rewind 50 years:
"You mean those fuckers are going to require that they have my picture just so I can get a drivers license? Hell no! Let's draw the line in the sand! The MAN already knows too much about me, and it would set an unthinkable precedent!"
Fast forward 5 years (maybe less):
"Oh, wait, you mean it will make my email and phone and bank account basically un-hackable in the face of wave after wave of cybertheft? Yeah, well, ok let's draw the line just a little further out"
They are stuck with a bunch of odd resolutions and encouraged developers to target them all directly, resulting in debacles like the black bars when they went widescreen.
I have to kind of chuckle because, well, Android...
You didn't really read gp's post, right?
Google told the Android developers a long time ago that they should prepare their apps for a variety of resolutions and DPIs.
Apple on the other hand told their developers that they can expect fixed resolutions, and are now struggeling with the fact that they have different resolutions, different DPIs and different aspect ratios.
Never mind that they decided their flagship (only) mid-size tablet was going to mimic the screen of the old-ass iPad, low resolution, low DPI, and 4x3 aspect ratio. If the iPad Mini had a better display it would have crushed every tablet competitor, much the same way the "new iPad" did when it was released. But heavens! We can't expect our 20 million app developers to have to wrap their head around one new set of dimensions! Better to just let them re-use code designed for a larger display, and get back to cashing app store checks.
Well that's still somewhat BS, what's wrong with running a web or game server on such line? What about personal VPN, SSHD, ... That's all "server software". Hell, even if you start Skype conversation your PC becomes a "server".
Nothing really. Unless you start running 10s of terrabytes a month through it. Then you have to admit your being a bit abusive of a "Residential" plan.
Boy will you be laughing at yourself in a couple of years when you look back on how you thought a few dozen TB of data a month was like, some big deal.
Have you ever tried to unlike something? It's not easy and I'm sure it's that way by design. Feature must be there, but obscuring it makes people unlike less pages. This is profit driven decision.
Hah this was the first thought I had too. He must work for Facebook and was tasked with adding an "I want to opt in to never being able to opt out" feature. Make it too easy to use, and hey...
It sounds like the objection was that he ran servers, the bandwidth thing was merely the trigger to ask.
I'm baffled ISPs still think "servers" are something that needs banning. Reminds me of when so many clueless ISPs banned NAT (or rather connection sharing between multiple PCs in general.)
Not many providers think they need "banning" but they are a pretty easy trigger to get out of selling someone a residential service when they are clearly using it for business purposes. If you don't abuse the bandwidth, you can serve anything you want.
The contract said, no servers. He put a server up. So he violated the contract. It's that easy.
If instead he had downloaded 77 terabytes of movies, he would not have violated his contract (unless it was illegal downloads, I guess), and then FiOS would have been wrong to demand him to switch to business service.
I think the thing that stood out is that even by torrenting standards, he managed to use a metric fuckload of data. They probably can pretty easily profile torrenting users (anyone who has a consistent stream of upload going on during every big download) and he just had constant upload/download all the time, every day, nonstop. He makes torrent users look reasonable.
Reasonable, yes. Sucking down that much bandwidth is well over the usage rate for most businesses, let alone consumers.
OTOH, if Verizon advertised it as unlimited, they (barring any fine print) do have to shut up and provide it. The only loophole I think they can use is that family/friends VPN thing the dude was doing, but otherwise? They either provide it, or they shut the guy off and risk a false advertising lawsuit.
Have you read the fine print? It goes something like this "if the usage is beyond what a typical consumer can be expected to use, we reserve the right to cancel the contract immediately, without refund". Yes, that vague. There are more specific bits about what it can't be, such as servers hosting internet-facing services (which is the line he clearly crossed). But even if he didn't admit it, they have an easy out because of how vague the wording of the usage agreement is.
Yep. Running servers is against Verizon's residential ToS. Regardless of how much BW the guy is using, he's breaking the rules.
BINGO!
Another misleading Slashdot title. This is fairly run of the mill for residential ISP service. I bet it was a short conversation! They called him to try to find out if he was doing anything against their ToS, because of his bandwidth usage, and he flat out admitted it.
If he had answered "Netflix" (and that was believable), would the conversation have gone differently? Hard to say, because that conversation didn't even happen.
I can see that conversation turning out fine:
"Sir, records show you moved 77 terabytes, with a T, as in 77 thousand gigabytes"
"Yeah, I don't know how to explain it, I have been watching a lot of netflix lately"
"Sir this amount of traffic is equivalent to watching netflix on 90 screens at a time, 24 hours a day, every day of the month"
"Yeah, you obviously haven't gotten addicted to Breaking Bad yet"
One of the links (the "in Indiana" one) points to a datacenter installation in a former mall The other one ("in Maryland") does in fact describe a former anchor store of a still-working malll turned into a datacenter. They apparently (http://www.marleystation.com/directory) still have at least a Macy's and a J.C.Penney's.
Except neither of those is about Sears, plus: in Indiana the whole mall was bought and converted after it closed, and in Maryland I am pretty sure the store in question is not part of Marley Station, it looks a lot bigger like a standalone department store near a shopping center (but I am not from there so I don't know).
Dunno. You might be able to get them to do it.
Don't listen to the Analysts. You guys are every bit as good as Amazon. But what's the one thing Amazon's got that you ain't got? DATACENTERS!"
The whole thing seems like an April Fool's joke, until you realize that these are the people who thought that buying K-Mart was a good idea.
You have that backward, K-Mart was the one who bought Sears (though it is more casually described as a merger). Sears was near bankruptcy and K-mart had the upper hand. Yes, it was a messed up world back then.
... or malls that have closed completely. But very few mall management firms would sign off on turning one of their anchor stores into a datacenter.
Wouldn't the number of firms that would turn up their nose at someone continuing to pay them rent (especially those malls that can't sustain a Sears, which are probably half empty) be far lower than those who would be grateful for the income?
It's not really in question here because Sears is doing this with standalone stores, but an anchor store is exactly like it sounds; once a mall loses its anchors, it is done for, it's not a mall any more, it is a hangout for kids who don't spend money. Mall managers will do anything to keep anchor stores in place, and I mean ANYTHING.
Technically the northern half of the storm does move from west to east (relatively)... So he was maybe half right? Come on, be an optimist...
Here's an Idea, why not move the Scientists? Greyhound bus.
Or telecommute?
They need to get *muons* into the ring, not the scientists. And Muons only survive on their own for 2 microseconds so even telecommuting is out of the question.
It's going by barge for most of the journey. From the article: "It will float from New York Harbor in June, down the East Coast, around Florida, up the Gulf Coast and up the Mississippi River by July."
I got the barge part, but the Mississippi part was buried a bit further. I pictured a trip across the Great Lakes. Don't they know about the Erie Canal?
Brookhaven to Batavia is only about 1000 miles by even a lax road route. Where the heck is this thing going, on a national tour? The web site claims it will travel 3,200 miles. Is it going to spring break first?
I'd rather have a larger paycheck.
I would take the 25c/day pay cut it would cost to have someone stock the fridge with sodas so that I didn't have to go to the bother. On one hand "perks" are about employers differentiating without paying more, on the other hand there are economies of scale that do your employees a lot of good, if you pick the things that a good portion of your employees partake in. Free coffee/tea is pretty standard for this reason, why shouldn't that apply to other (more modern) common consumables?
Of course, don't let your company health care provider hear that you have a fridge of 240-calorie insulin-bombs stalking the corridor...
In the animal kingdom I don't think we have seen evidence that any predator hunted its prey to extinction
That's a pretty grandiose claim and certainly false. There was still an ecosystem on this planet before we came around with thousands of species that went extinct.
In front of me sits no evidence that a predator species has hunted a prey species to extinction. So, it is true so far. If it is "certainly false", then surely you have such evidence sitting in front of you. So, out with it.