I've never come across a firmware update for any phone I've owned removing functionality either, but maybe that's because I don't buy phones from the service provider.
I'm not so sure... I think the Nokia N900 has got it beat.
Yeah, but who's heard of the Nokia N900, or even knows what that means, outside geek circles? On the other hand, billboards and TVs everywhere are blasting out "Droid does". For bringing a hackable system to the masses, Android has it beat.
Really? I come to slashdot to read about how Google is taking yet another piece of technology we have taken for granted for many years and turning it into an online, ad-based Clout 2.0 service and tunneling it through HTTP with JSON and SOAP to their servers for a nice intense data-mining session for better targeted ads and predicting future crimes one might commit.
Unbridled capitalism and the apathetic and ignorant citizens are to blame for that. Your personal data can be aggregated and monetized, and for the foreseeable future, there's very little legislation to prevent this and very little awareness of how pervasive such technology is. My whole generation is living with software riddled with government and corporations that have put back doors into everything, freely share data with each other, and those living in urban areas (the majority of the population) are rarely out of contact with some device or another wired into the global network, tracking their movements, purchases, communications, relationships, and every aspect of your life. Remotely-enabled webcams, cell phones that can be turned on silently to broadcast everything it hears and sees, and laptops and routers that can be readily converted into eavesdropping devices, just to name a few of the many things that are out there right now. And the only reason it's not all interconnected more seamlessly is because the technology is still rapidly evolving and hasn't reached a stable plateau where convergence is possible, although the internet has made a giant leap forward in enabling that future. The NSA spends billions each year trying to keep up with infrastructure changes and only is able to harness a fraction of that potential.
But I mean, comeon -- what do you expect from a world where we find it okay to setup metal fences with razor-tipped wire and cameras everywhere as "official protest zones", where we have passports, credit cards, (and soon ID cards) that can be remotely scanned to identify you... put it all together. Where do you think this all ends?
It's a real problem -- Android is easily the most hackable phone out there. And that's exactly the kind of thing cell phone manufacturers in this country don't want. It's bundled services that they make their fortunes on -- selling overpriced phones, contract cancellation fees, locking in devices, and more. Android threatens to separate the market into service providers and device providers and up until now, the service provider dictated what the device providers could do.
Imagine if you could just eject your SIM card from your phone, plug it into your computer, and browse the net, take phone calls, etc., then eject it like it's a memory card, slap it back into your phone, and go off to school, work, wherever. Or using bluetooth so that as soon as you get home, it automagically resyncs all your e-mails, text messages, and more. There's so much the technology can do -- and the only reason it's not happening is because service providers want to charge for everything, rather than simply flat-rating everything on a per minute, day, or megabyte use.
My Sidekick recently lost the ability to send files to my computer over bluetooth. Why? Because of an OTA update that disabled that. So now I can't just sit my phone near my laptop and transfer my pictures out of it, I have to open the back up, eject the little card, plug it into my system, copy the files, and then do the reverse. Very cumbersome when before it was 'click icon, drag files'.
It's complete and utter bullshit that cell phones are as powerful now as desktops were ten years ago sitting in the palm of my hand, and yet they have less than a third of the capability. And not a one of them is really interoperable with any other except on the most primitive level. Hell, the dialup days of computing offered more functionality and standardization than the cell phone market does. Why should a 14.4k modem and an antiquidated pentium 133 have more communication functionality than today's devices? Hell... it even cost less.
If you have a summary of your clients (and you should) you should send out a mass email and let them know what's going on
Or fall for the trap yourself. Find out what merchant account the money is going to, and follow the trail. The money has to get to these people somehow. Follow it, and you find the crook.
A lot of people will try to offer technical solutions to your problem. Your problem isn't technical.
You're living in Russia. Set a trap, lure them in, and then... explain the problem to them. Greed is an easy thing to manipulate in others and one is never so easily fooled as when one believes they are fooling others. Don't bother with the police, they'll only give you a pat on the head. They have more important things to do. Sorry that's the way it is, but it is what it is. Put your ear to the ground and follow the money. Don't bother with trying to sniff them out online -- follow the money. Audit trails are far harder to erase than web server records.
You know, the first thing I look at when designing IT infrastructure is where to simplify the existing process before converting it to a computer-assisted model. The IRS tax laws, exemptions, and everything else is unnecessarily complicated for what they are charged with. Don't fault the IRS for being slow and making mistakes when you've saddled them with such a dense and overly complex process that people can make a career out of gaming it.
Processing several hundred million requests is something some web servers do on a daily basis without much problem.
girl in training seems to imply to me transgender / recently entering into real life trial or recently post-operative.
*cough* Or I could have grown up in the country and don't act like a proper lady, on account of being a tomboy, and my friends have been trying to rehabilitate me from my wicked, wicked ways by assaulting me with makeup and nail polish and demanding I stop wearing t-shirts all the time.
The lesson in troubleshooting? Um... I'm not sure.
You did exactly what any computer tech should: Check the most common reasons for failure, then move to the edge cases. A faulty switch is rare. Swapping individual components out would have eventually narrowed it down to the case itself. Two hours sounds about right for a competent technician to run down the list to get to the point where that would be a likely cause of failure.
I rather doubt this will be possible. To sign up for pretty much anything online in Korea (with the exception of sites that cater to an international audience) you must enter your "resident registration number." And like wikipedia so kindly tells us, the first six digits of that number is ones date of birth.
Yeah, because registration based on a number has worked so well in other countries and systems that impliment it...
Meanwhile, as a measure of protest, hundreds of people have registered their cell phones in the name of the president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, to show how pointless is the registry.
Wow. 25.9 million cell phones get turned off, and out of all of them, only a few hundred flip the government the finger to this useless piece of legislation? I'm disappointed.
...not a clear moving violation, but something the can claim to witness happening inside a vehicle...
So (and in all seriousness here) should giving someone a blowjob while they're driving should be legal? Or smoking pot? Or any one of fifty other things I can observe people doing in their vehicles besides operating it...
we are effectively giving them a tool for racial profiling. This power seems ripe for abuse.
What the f*ck is up with this racial profiling crap? Every single time somebody proposes a law against something, some idiot's gotta stand up and yammer out "but...but... racial profiling!" Here's a fact for you: Racial profiling is a social problem, not a legal one. This law addresses distracted driving. Unless it ends with "but only for [insert race here]," your commentary has no place in this discussion.
How easy is it for a customer to obtain proof that they were or were not texting at a given time?
Look in your call log, or in your sent messages folder.
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I've never come across a firmware update for any phone I've owned removing functionality either, but maybe that's because I don't buy phones from the service provider.
You're european.
I'm not so sure... I think the Nokia N900 has got it beat.
Yeah, but who's heard of the Nokia N900, or even knows what that means, outside geek circles? On the other hand, billboards and TVs everywhere are blasting out "Droid does". For bringing a hackable system to the masses, Android has it beat.
Really? I come to slashdot to read about how Google is taking yet another piece of technology we have taken for granted for many years and turning it into an online, ad-based Clout 2.0 service and tunneling it through HTTP with JSON and SOAP to their servers for a nice intense data-mining session for better targeted ads and predicting future crimes one might commit.
Unbridled capitalism and the apathetic and ignorant citizens are to blame for that. Your personal data can be aggregated and monetized, and for the foreseeable future, there's very little legislation to prevent this and very little awareness of how pervasive such technology is. My whole generation is living with software riddled with government and corporations that have put back doors into everything, freely share data with each other, and those living in urban areas (the majority of the population) are rarely out of contact with some device or another wired into the global network, tracking their movements, purchases, communications, relationships, and every aspect of your life. Remotely-enabled webcams, cell phones that can be turned on silently to broadcast everything it hears and sees, and laptops and routers that can be readily converted into eavesdropping devices, just to name a few of the many things that are out there right now. And the only reason it's not all interconnected more seamlessly is because the technology is still rapidly evolving and hasn't reached a stable plateau where convergence is possible, although the internet has made a giant leap forward in enabling that future. The NSA spends billions each year trying to keep up with infrastructure changes and only is able to harness a fraction of that potential.
But I mean, comeon -- what do you expect from a world where we find it okay to setup metal fences with razor-tipped wire and cameras everywhere as "official protest zones", where we have passports, credit cards, (and soon ID cards) that can be remotely scanned to identify you... put it all together. Where do you think this all ends?
It's a real problem -- Android is easily the most hackable phone out there. And that's exactly the kind of thing cell phone manufacturers in this country don't want. It's bundled services that they make their fortunes on -- selling overpriced phones, contract cancellation fees, locking in devices, and more. Android threatens to separate the market into service providers and device providers and up until now, the service provider dictated what the device providers could do.
Imagine if you could just eject your SIM card from your phone, plug it into your computer, and browse the net, take phone calls, etc., then eject it like it's a memory card, slap it back into your phone, and go off to school, work, wherever. Or using bluetooth so that as soon as you get home, it automagically resyncs all your e-mails, text messages, and more. There's so much the technology can do -- and the only reason it's not happening is because service providers want to charge for everything, rather than simply flat-rating everything on a per minute, day, or megabyte use.
My Sidekick recently lost the ability to send files to my computer over bluetooth. Why? Because of an OTA update that disabled that. So now I can't just sit my phone near my laptop and transfer my pictures out of it, I have to open the back up, eject the little card, plug it into my system, copy the files, and then do the reverse. Very cumbersome when before it was 'click icon, drag files'.
It's complete and utter bullshit that cell phones are as powerful now as desktops were ten years ago sitting in the palm of my hand, and yet they have less than a third of the capability. And not a one of them is really interoperable with any other except on the most primitive level. Hell, the dialup days of computing offered more functionality and standardization than the cell phone market does. Why should a 14.4k modem and an antiquidated pentium 133 have more communication functionality than today's devices? Hell... it even cost less.
If you have a summary of your clients (and you should) you should send out a mass email and let them know what's going on
Or fall for the trap yourself. Find out what merchant account the money is going to, and follow the trail. The money has to get to these people somehow. Follow it, and you find the crook.
A lot of people will try to offer technical solutions to your problem. Your problem isn't technical.
You're living in Russia. Set a trap, lure them in, and then... explain the problem to them. Greed is an easy thing to manipulate in others and one is never so easily fooled as when one believes they are fooling others. Don't bother with the police, they'll only give you a pat on the head. They have more important things to do. Sorry that's the way it is, but it is what it is. Put your ear to the ground and follow the money. Don't bother with trying to sniff them out online -- follow the money. Audit trails are far harder to erase than web server records.
Are lives and lung health the real issue here or is nicotine addiction?
Who said it's rational and not just a "I don't like cigarette smoke, therefore anything related to that is bad" reaction?
What ever happened to backwards compatibility? Why, I remember the day when any virus, worm, or piece of malware, would run no matter what!
You know, the first thing I look at when designing IT infrastructure is where to simplify the existing process before converting it to a computer-assisted model. The IRS tax laws, exemptions, and everything else is unnecessarily complicated for what they are charged with. Don't fault the IRS for being slow and making mistakes when you've saddled them with such a dense and overly complex process that people can make a career out of gaming it.
Processing several hundred million requests is something some web servers do on a daily basis without much problem.
do they also demand you tuck your dick in between your legs?
I don't wear it in public, so no.
A little fishy, if you ask me.
My partner cleans her girl parts. There's nothing fishy about it. :P~
I'm Spartacus.
girl in training seems to imply to me transgender / recently entering into real life trial or recently post-operative.
*cough* Or I could have grown up in the country and don't act like a proper lady, on account of being a tomboy, and my friends have been trying to rehabilitate me from my wicked, wicked ways by assaulting me with makeup and nail polish and demanding I stop wearing t-shirts all the time.
Oh noes, you've set her off again ... she's going to be reminding everyone how "unique" she is all bloody day now :-(
But I am unique! Just like everybody else...
Ah, so you are a girl, but with good taste.
On slashdot, there are no girls... Didn't you get the memo? :\
Are you a girl?
No, I'm a lesbian.
I believe I speak for most geeks when I say, simply:
*facepalm*
You also often have to verify your account with an SMS message to a cellphone registered in the same name.
Hmmm. At least in the US, that's not hard. $15 buys you a prepay SIM card, which I can register under anyone's name.
The lesson in troubleshooting? Um... I'm not sure.
You did exactly what any computer tech should: Check the most common reasons for failure, then move to the edge cases. A faulty switch is rare. Swapping individual components out would have eventually narrowed it down to the case itself. Two hours sounds about right for a competent technician to run down the list to get to the point where that would be a likely cause of failure.
I rather doubt this will be possible. To sign up for pretty much anything online in Korea (with the exception of sites that cater to an international audience) you must enter your "resident registration number." And like wikipedia so kindly tells us, the first six digits of that number is ones date of birth.
Yeah, because registration based on a number has worked so well in other countries and systems that impliment it...
A lot of kids just suddenly turned 18...
We work for the corporations now, so stop deluding yourself into thinking that "your wallet" has any power whatsoever.
Your wallet also contains a voter registration card.
Anyone know a good antitrust lawyer?
Your wallet.
Meanwhile, as a measure of protest, hundreds of people have registered their cell phones in the name of the president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, to show how pointless is the registry.
Wow. 25.9 million cell phones get turned off, and out of all of them, only a few hundred flip the government the finger to this useless piece of legislation? I'm disappointed.
...not a clear moving violation, but something the can claim to witness happening inside a vehicle...
So (and in all seriousness here) should giving someone a blowjob while they're driving should be legal? Or smoking pot? Or any one of fifty other things I can observe people doing in their vehicles besides operating it...
we are effectively giving them a tool for racial profiling. This power seems ripe for abuse.
What the f*ck is up with this racial profiling crap? Every single time somebody proposes a law against something, some idiot's gotta stand up and yammer out "but...but... racial profiling!" Here's a fact for you: Racial profiling is a social problem, not a legal one. This law addresses distracted driving. Unless it ends with "but only for [insert race here]," your commentary has no place in this discussion.
How easy is it for a customer to obtain proof that they were or were not texting at a given time?
Look in your call log, or in your sent messages folder.
How easy is it for Law Enforcement?
"Hello, phone guys? We have a warrant for xyzzy."
"Sure, no problem! Fax or email?"
Is this proof permissible?
Yes.