Nevermind that in creating such a thing they've created a gigantic security hole in the hardware itself that an attacker could potentially use to make sure your computer is a permanent part of someones botnet!
Yeah sure. But there are plenty of policitians and whoever else that would just love it if there was a law mandating everyone have RFID implanted in them, but they all know it's political suicide to even discuss such a thing. All it takes is one idiot willing to take the heat for the idea and maybe it opens the door to it. No thanks.
..and that response is: Fuck you, asshole. How about we 'embed' our collective boots in your ass, jerk? Fucking politicians, why do we even tolerate them!?
The only obligation for companies are to make money in a lawful way... and lobby the law so it allows them to make more money
You, also, must be new here (Planet Earth, 21st Century, that is). We're talking corporations in a largely capitalist world, here; if they can fuck everyone, and screw the planet for gigantic profits, and get away with it, they'll do it in a heartbeat. Not spending more than they have to for their infrastructure, regardless of any 'benefit to mankind', is just SOP.
I'd like to see Coca Cola prosecuted for wilfully lying to the public like this, all to try to increase their profits. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
Let me get this straight: Another Windows service can countermand your direct action to set the Windows Update service to 'Disabled', and back to 'auto-start'? If so that's new behavior for Windows, since I know with Win2k, XP, and Win7 you can set almost any service to Disabled and it'll stay that way, even if you break something else in doing so. If so then what about disabling Windows Defender? If the Admin of the local machine can't have complete control over the OS then that's completely screwed up.
An AC in this thread suggested disabling Task Scheduler. Not having Win10 on anything, I can't check that idea out myself, but considering all that crap that Task Scheduler in Win7 is configured to run by default, I wouldn't at all be surprised if that's one place where you could control all this privacy-violating phone-home behavior.
OK, good information to have posted. Now, is Windows Update a Service like it's been in previous versions? If it is, what happens if you stop it and Disable it?
You're missing the point, I think. Malware that turns your computer into just another node on someone's botnet uses that much (or less) resources on your computer, and assuming the programmer creating the malware was posessing of even modest talent, would be well-behaved enough that it wouldn't compromise performance or stability of the OS. But I guess if you're OK with every keystroke, every website, and every document, and every move you make on your Win10 machine being logged and reported back to Redmond, 'for quality control purposes' (LOL), then nevermind, I guess. It's just Black Box code, not like you have any idea what it's really doing.
I'm an outlier; I'm on a 10-year old box I built myself (like all desktops I've ever owned) running a single-core AMD processor (Athlon 64 to be precise), 2GB of first-gen DDR, on a non-PCIe motherboard (obviously!) still running WinXP SP2, because (1) it's a pain in the ass to upgrade the OS (re-installing everything I need on the box) and (2) I'm not confident how well this platform would run Win7 anyway, and (3) I have other things I'd rather spend my money on these days than upgrading this box or building a new box, when I'm not even pushing the limits of performance on this one anymore. Whereas, apparently, Win10 would run adequately on this platform (especially with the addition of more RAM, which I believe it would accept; have to go check that) I tend to be conservative when it comes to and OS, and TFA and other things I've been reading about Win10 are leaving an evil, corrupted taste in my mouth that does the exact opposite of enticing me to want to upgrade to it. As-is I'll either keep running XP until the entire box literally can't be maintained anymore (i.e. fails catastrophically, beyond my considerable abilities to recover) or until I give up and find some flavor of Linux that I can stand to use on a daily basis. In a world apparently full of people who have been so thoroughly brainwashed (or indoctrinated, if they're young enough) to consider privacy to be abberant or the province of criminals, I am still one of those who understands it's virtue and value, and I'll be damned if I'm going to surrender it to Microsoft or anyone else; I am not a product for a corporation to sell, I am a human being, damnit.
I'd think that a device that can shoot something to entangle one or more of the propellers would be the most effective and safest method. Something that shoots a net or a string at the drone, which then fouls the props. It it was a string then it could be attached, allowing you to reel in the drone if you didn't manage to entangle a prop, but did manage to get it hooked on the chassis. Or, how about this: A super-soaker, but that's filled with something just sticky enough to foul up the propeller(s), compromise their abilty to produce lift, and then the drone falls (probably more slowly) to the ground, not even actually damaged. Better to hold for ransom, if it's undamaged. Yes, I said 'ransom'; as with so many things, hitting offending drone operators in the wallet will, in the end, probably be one of the most effective ways to get them to behave, I think.
This may cost us some amount of privacy, but we'll tend to get something in return: software that can do more things and that works better."
Bullshit. There had better be a way to turn ALL of it OFF, permanently. I don't give a fuck if you have to hack the shit out of the Registry to do it, either.
WIth regards to 'the ability to do updates OTA': I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If there is any sort of wireless access to the vehicles' systems, there needs to be a hardwired, unimpeachable switch available to the operator of the vehicle, that turns off that transceiver, preventing it from operating. When a vehicle leaves the factory, ostensibly it's doing so in a 100% operable, fully tested state. If there are updates to the firmware or software after that, the manufacturer should inform the owners of it, and allow them to decide whether or not they wish to allow it. Now, some of you are going to object, but hear me out: We've all been using computers for years and years (or decades and decades, as the case may be for some of us) and we know damned well that zero-day exploits have been, currently are, and always will be a fact of life. We're well past the point where it's just an ECS module running entirely off firmware in EPROMs. All it takes is one flaw in the code that allows an attacker to wirelessly upload new code to the vehicle, and we've got a situation where someone's car turns into a weapon under someone else's control. Physically preventing an attack vector from existing is the best, safest solution to the problem. Of course if someone gains physical access to the vehicle then all bets are off, but that's no different than it's ever been if an attacker gains physical access to any computer system, but closing the 'wireless hole' is only logical. Furthermore if people insist they want wireless internet access in their vehicles, that should be an entirely separate transceiver on a physically separate network, unassociated with vehicle control systems. If I was designing vehicles in this day and age, that's how I'd do it: critical systems on one bus, non-essential systems on a completely separate one. It's a matter of safety for the driver, passengers, and anyone else in the vicinity of the vehicle.
On a different subject: Someone above was talking about the uselessness of the emergency brake; I'd like to point out that that it's called the 'emergency' brake for a reason: It's not supposed to be an equivalent or replacement for the normal braking system in a vehicle, it's supposed to be the last-ditch backup to try to stop the vehicle in an emergency. It's not like you can open the door and drag your feet to bring it to a stop like it's a bicycle or something, damnit. If you've actually got to use the emergency brake as an emergency brake, then things have really, really gone wrong on you, but it's still better than having nothing at all; you've got a better chance of surviving a crash at 40mph than you do at 80mph (however small) for various values of the word 'survival'.
I though 'North Korea is BEST Korea', but you're letting me down, here! I'd expect you'd come up with your own complete time standard, with a different definition of what hours, minutes, and seconds are, and a different number of hours per day than all of us 'imperialist' countries! Then you could start working on a totally different definition of what a year is! Seriously dude, how are you going to keep your populace totally off-balance and disoriented unless you're continually redefining reality for them?
It isn't just drugs. Where I live, in local news, I heard about how the County board of supervisors had written and passed a rule that said vending machines in County facilities had to contain at least 50% food products that were 'healthy'. When the current contracts with vending machine operators was up, none of the companies except one bid on the contract; the one that did, said they could only provide about 25% 'healthy' snacks. The reason why: the 'healthy' snacks don't sell. At all. They'd sit in the machines until they were expired and had to be thrown out. People would just go somewhere else to get the unhealthy snacks they wanted instead, even if it was inconvenient for them. That's the sort of world we're living in: people want what they want, regardless of whether it's going to probably kill them 20 or 30 or 40 years down the road. They'd rather smoke and drink and eat shitty foods because they taste good, and never get exercise because it's less pleasant than sitting around smoking drinking and eating shitty food that tastes good. Or doing drugs. Or whatever. So of course if you try to tax something to make it less appealing people are going to turn to illegal sources to get the shitty unhealthy things they want anyway.
Just like the Internet, they're a wonderful, innovative, imaginative idea originally developed by inspired, educated minds, created with the full intention of being something helpful to mankind.. and just like the Internet, are now being twisted and perverted into something to aid and abet acts of stupidity and criminal activity.
I like these precise little drones, I think they're pretty damned cool, really, especially since I saw the earlier videos of whole fleets of them, flying in complex, dynamic, ever-changing formations, like some aerial court dance; it made me wonder what incredible things can we do with this? But then people had to get their hands on them, and do stupid things with them, and now criminal things with them. Now they're going to be on a downward slide towards being illegal for the average person to own, or at least so highly regulated that you may as well not bothers. Nice going, people, great job fucking up something cool for 99.99% of us yet again.
I couldn't make it past the first sentence without getting that look on my face. 'I have a magnet implanted in my hand', indeed! Then the sanctimonious wailing and figurative ripping of clothing over the electric grid in general.. sure, we need to move away from fossil fuels, but this guy comes off as a wacko environmentalist, and he really doesn't understand some things, and as you (the AC I'm responding to) and others are pointing out, he's just making his wastefulness indirect instead of direct, so as to keep his own hands clean. Not impressed one bit. Want to impress me? Then stop using electricity and fossil fuels entirely, both directly and indirectly, and do things with your own two hands, or just don't do them at all anymore.
Yeah, I raised an eyebrow at that, too. A properly designed switching power supply, even a small one, can be >90% efficient, as opposed to a linear supply with even an LDO linear regulator, which wastes power as heat.
..and right on cue the racist pieces of shit of/. mod me right down into the ground, how fucking predictable. Like a friend of mine says, the age of the Great White Male is coming to an end; get over it and move on or prepare to be obsoleted.
Never mind that. They'll just sooner or later be ordered by their CEOs to use those capabilities against rival companies as a business strategy. The world will turn into a Cyberpunk game.
Also it probably doesn't help that all through recorded Human history (and likely even way before that) slavery of one type or another was considered an acceptable way of life; you wage war on someone and conquer them, you enslave their people. How about during the industrial revolution? Or before women's rights? One could plausibly argue that these were forms of slavery, and there was even less excuse for it because it's not like they were 'some other race' or 'some other people', it was the same people from the same country. Even today there is slavery of various forms going on in the world, from as awful as the so-called 'islamic state' enslaving the women and children of the areas they take control of, to sex trafficking (even using children), to some countries where child labor for pitiful wages is a standard business practice. And people wonder why it is that I sometimes say 'humans are not actually civilized'; how can you say they are when there's still these sorts of things going on in the world?
I dunno about anyone else around here, but there is a big difference to me between 'believing' (i.e., 'having faith', a blind thing) in a concept (e.g., science/scientific method, 'God') and finding one or the other more plausible than the other, maintaining a healthy degree of skepticism. Furthermore, 'faith' inherently (and very often, actively) discourages questioning, whereas science/the scientific method inherently encourages questioning, and in fact can't work without questioning things.
And there's a big difference between some toy drone (I don't care HOW much it costs, it's still a goddamned toy!) and an actual aircraft.
Here, I'll upgrade my analogy: I can go down to Harbor Freight Tools at various points and get a cheap-ass styrofoam RC plane that kind of sucks but is an RC plane. Might spend all of $30 for the piece of shit. I'm flying it at a public park and some jerk shoots it down with a BB gun, they get convicted of a felony and are slapped with $250,000 fine? LOL I don't think so, Tim, it's small-claims court at best. I won't believe otherwise from anyone until I see a legit news story that a federal judge sends this guy to prison and bankrupts his family with a six-digit fine. In this case I would be utterly shocked if the jackass drone pilot could even get a judgement in his favor in small claims court for his shot-down toy.
You tell someone they're this and that and they're bad long enough, and guess what happens? They start believing it, especially when that's all you heard your entire life since you were a little kid. We see now they've started turning it around into some sort of virtue. You see a similar phenomenon in the whole fat acceptance movement, and that's fucked-up too. Us white people made black people what they are today, we're the original perpetrators of that, and now they've been told they're this-and-that-and-bad for so long that they actually believe it themselves. So they act accordingly. Which just makes racist white people feel justified in their attitudes towards black people. Which continues the whole goddamned vicious circle. What did you think was going to happen?
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Knowing Putin, this is probably just the proof-of-concept version, using Russian citizens as the beta-testers.
Nevermind that in creating such a thing they've created a gigantic security hole in the hardware itself that an attacker could potentially use to make sure your computer is a permanent part of someones botnet!
Yeah sure. But there are plenty of policitians and whoever else that would just love it if there was a law mandating everyone have RFID implanted in them, but they all know it's political suicide to even discuss such a thing. All it takes is one idiot willing to take the heat for the idea and maybe it opens the door to it. No thanks.
..and that response is: Fuck you, asshole. How about we 'embed' our collective boots in your ass, jerk? Fucking politicians, why do we even tolerate them!?
The only obligation for companies are to make money in a lawful way... and lobby the law so it allows them to make more money
You, also, must be new here (Planet Earth, 21st Century, that is). We're talking corporations in a largely capitalist world, here; if they can fuck everyone, and screw the planet for gigantic profits, and get away with it, they'll do it in a heartbeat. Not spending more than they have to for their infrastructure, regardless of any 'benefit to mankind', is just SOP.
I'd like to see Coca Cola prosecuted for wilfully lying to the public like this, all to try to increase their profits. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
Let me get this straight: Another Windows service can countermand your direct action to set the Windows Update service to 'Disabled', and back to 'auto-start'? If so that's new behavior for Windows, since I know with Win2k, XP, and Win7 you can set almost any service to Disabled and it'll stay that way, even if you break something else in doing so. If so then what about disabling Windows Defender? If the Admin of the local machine can't have complete control over the OS then that's completely screwed up.
An AC in this thread suggested disabling Task Scheduler. Not having Win10 on anything, I can't check that idea out myself, but considering all that crap that Task Scheduler in Win7 is configured to run by default, I wouldn't at all be surprised if that's one place where you could control all this privacy-violating phone-home behavior.
OK, good information to have posted. Now, is Windows Update a Service like it's been in previous versions? If it is, what happens if you stop it and Disable it?
You're missing the point, I think. Malware that turns your computer into just another node on someone's botnet uses that much (or less) resources on your computer, and assuming the programmer creating the malware was posessing of even modest talent, would be well-behaved enough that it wouldn't compromise performance or stability of the OS. But I guess if you're OK with every keystroke, every website, and every document, and every move you make on your Win10 machine being logged and reported back to Redmond, 'for quality control purposes' (LOL), then nevermind, I guess. It's just Black Box code, not like you have any idea what it's really doing.
I'm an outlier; I'm on a 10-year old box I built myself (like all desktops I've ever owned) running a single-core AMD processor (Athlon 64 to be precise), 2GB of first-gen DDR, on a non-PCIe motherboard (obviously!) still running WinXP SP2, because (1) it's a pain in the ass to upgrade the OS (re-installing everything I need on the box) and (2) I'm not confident how well this platform would run Win7 anyway, and (3) I have other things I'd rather spend my money on these days than upgrading this box or building a new box, when I'm not even pushing the limits of performance on this one anymore. Whereas, apparently, Win10 would run adequately on this platform (especially with the addition of more RAM, which I believe it would accept; have to go check that) I tend to be conservative when it comes to and OS, and TFA and other things I've been reading about Win10 are leaving an evil, corrupted taste in my mouth that does the exact opposite of enticing me to want to upgrade to it. As-is I'll either keep running XP until the entire box literally can't be maintained anymore (i.e. fails catastrophically, beyond my considerable abilities to recover) or until I give up and find some flavor of Linux that I can stand to use on a daily basis. In a world apparently full of people who have been so thoroughly brainwashed (or indoctrinated, if they're young enough) to consider privacy to be abberant or the province of criminals, I am still one of those who understands it's virtue and value, and I'll be damned if I'm going to surrender it to Microsoft or anyone else; I am not a product for a corporation to sell, I am a human being, damnit.
I'd think that a device that can shoot something to entangle one or more of the propellers would be the most effective and safest method. Something that shoots a net or a string at the drone, which then fouls the props. It it was a string then it could be attached, allowing you to reel in the drone if you didn't manage to entangle a prop, but did manage to get it hooked on the chassis. Or, how about this: A super-soaker, but that's filled with something just sticky enough to foul up the propeller(s), compromise their abilty to produce lift, and then the drone falls (probably more slowly) to the ground, not even actually damaged. Better to hold for ransom, if it's undamaged. Yes, I said 'ransom'; as with so many things, hitting offending drone operators in the wallet will, in the end, probably be one of the most effective ways to get them to behave, I think.
This may cost us some amount of privacy, but we'll tend to get something in return: software that can do more things and that works better."
Bullshit. There had better be a way to turn ALL of it OFF, permanently. I don't give a fuck if you have to hack the shit out of the Registry to do it, either.
WIth regards to 'the ability to do updates OTA':
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If there is any sort of wireless access to the vehicles' systems, there needs to be a hardwired, unimpeachable switch available to the operator of the vehicle, that turns off that transceiver, preventing it from operating. When a vehicle leaves the factory, ostensibly it's doing so in a 100% operable, fully tested state. If there are updates to the firmware or software after that, the manufacturer should inform the owners of it, and allow them to decide whether or not they wish to allow it. Now, some of you are going to object, but hear me out: We've all been using computers for years and years (or decades and decades, as the case may be for some of us) and we know damned well that zero-day exploits have been, currently are, and always will be a fact of life. We're well past the point where it's just an ECS module running entirely off firmware in EPROMs. All it takes is one flaw in the code that allows an attacker to wirelessly upload new code to the vehicle, and we've got a situation where someone's car turns into a weapon under someone else's control. Physically preventing an attack vector from existing is the best, safest solution to the problem. Of course if someone gains physical access to the vehicle then all bets are off, but that's no different than it's ever been if an attacker gains physical access to any computer system, but closing the 'wireless hole' is only logical. Furthermore if people insist they want wireless internet access in their vehicles, that should be an entirely separate transceiver on a physically separate network, unassociated with vehicle control systems. If I was designing vehicles in this day and age, that's how I'd do it: critical systems on one bus, non-essential systems on a completely separate one. It's a matter of safety for the driver, passengers, and anyone else in the vicinity of the vehicle.
On a different subject: Someone above was talking about the uselessness of the emergency brake; I'd like to point out that that it's called the 'emergency' brake for a reason: It's not supposed to be an equivalent or replacement for the normal braking system in a vehicle, it's supposed to be the last-ditch backup to try to stop the vehicle in an emergency. It's not like you can open the door and drag your feet to bring it to a stop like it's a bicycle or something, damnit. If you've actually got to use the emergency brake as an emergency brake, then things have really, really gone wrong on you, but it's still better than having nothing at all; you've got a better chance of surviving a crash at 40mph than you do at 80mph (however small) for various values of the word 'survival'.
I though 'North Korea is BEST Korea', but you're letting me down, here! I'd expect you'd come up with your own complete time standard, with a different definition of what hours, minutes, and seconds are, and a different number of hours per day than all of us 'imperialist' countries! Then you could start working on a totally different definition of what a year is! Seriously dude, how are you going to keep your populace totally off-balance and disoriented unless you're continually redefining reality for them?
It isn't just drugs. Where I live, in local news, I heard about how the County board of supervisors had written and passed a rule that said vending machines in County facilities had to contain at least 50% food products that were 'healthy'. When the current contracts with vending machine operators was up, none of the companies except one bid on the contract; the one that did, said they could only provide about 25% 'healthy' snacks. The reason why: the 'healthy' snacks don't sell. At all. They'd sit in the machines until they were expired and had to be thrown out. People would just go somewhere else to get the unhealthy snacks they wanted instead, even if it was inconvenient for them. That's the sort of world we're living in: people want what they want, regardless of whether it's going to probably kill them 20 or 30 or 40 years down the road. They'd rather smoke and drink and eat shitty foods because they taste good, and never get exercise because it's less pleasant than sitting around smoking drinking and eating shitty food that tastes good. Or doing drugs. Or whatever. So of course if you try to tax something to make it less appealing people are going to turn to illegal sources to get the shitty unhealthy things they want anyway.
Just like the Internet, they're a wonderful, innovative, imaginative idea originally developed by inspired, educated minds, created with the full intention of being something helpful to mankind.. and just like the Internet, are now being twisted and perverted into something to aid and abet acts of stupidity and criminal activity.
I like these precise little drones, I think they're pretty damned cool, really, especially since I saw the earlier videos of whole fleets of them, flying in complex, dynamic, ever-changing formations, like some aerial court dance; it made me wonder what incredible things can we do with this? But then people had to get their hands on them, and do stupid things with them, and now criminal things with them. Now they're going to be on a downward slide towards being illegal for the average person to own, or at least so highly regulated that you may as well not bothers. Nice going, people, great job fucking up something cool for 99.99% of us yet again.
I couldn't make it past the first sentence without getting that look on my face. 'I have a magnet implanted in my hand', indeed! Then the sanctimonious wailing and figurative ripping of clothing over the electric grid in general.. sure, we need to move away from fossil fuels, but this guy comes off as a wacko environmentalist, and he really doesn't understand some things, and as you (the AC I'm responding to) and others are pointing out, he's just making his wastefulness indirect instead of direct, so as to keep his own hands clean. Not impressed one bit. Want to impress me? Then stop using electricity and fossil fuels entirely, both directly and indirectly, and do things with your own two hands, or just don't do them at all anymore.
Yeah, I raised an eyebrow at that, too. A properly designed switching power supply, even a small one, can be >90% efficient, as opposed to a linear supply with even an LDO linear regulator, which wastes power as heat.
..and right on cue the racist pieces of shit of /. mod me right down into the ground, how fucking predictable. Like a friend of mine says, the age of the Great White Male is coming to an end; get over it and move on or prepare to be obsoleted.
Never mind that. They'll just sooner or later be ordered by their CEOs to use those capabilities against rival companies as a business strategy. The world will turn into a Cyberpunk game.
Also it probably doesn't help that all through recorded Human history (and likely even way before that) slavery of one type or another was considered an acceptable way of life; you wage war on someone and conquer them, you enslave their people. How about during the industrial revolution? Or before women's rights? One could plausibly argue that these were forms of slavery, and there was even less excuse for it because it's not like they were 'some other race' or 'some other people', it was the same people from the same country. Even today there is slavery of various forms going on in the world, from as awful as the so-called 'islamic state' enslaving the women and children of the areas they take control of, to sex trafficking (even using children), to some countries where child labor for pitiful wages is a standard business practice. And people wonder why it is that I sometimes say 'humans are not actually civilized'; how can you say they are when there's still these sorts of things going on in the world?
I dunno about anyone else around here, but there is a big difference to me between 'believing' (i.e., 'having faith', a blind thing) in a concept (e.g., science/scientific method, 'God') and finding one or the other more plausible than the other, maintaining a healthy degree of skepticism. Furthermore, 'faith' inherently (and very often, actively) discourages questioning, whereas science/the scientific method inherently encourages questioning, and in fact can't work without questioning things.
And there's a big difference between some toy drone (I don't care HOW much it costs, it's still a goddamned toy!) and an actual aircraft.
Here, I'll upgrade my analogy: I can go down to Harbor Freight Tools at various points and get a cheap-ass styrofoam RC plane that kind of sucks but is an RC plane. Might spend all of $30 for the piece of shit. I'm flying it at a public park and some jerk shoots it down with a BB gun, they get convicted of a felony and are slapped with $250,000 fine? LOL I don't think so, Tim, it's small-claims court at best. I won't believe otherwise from anyone until I see a legit news story that a federal judge sends this guy to prison and bankrupts his family with a six-digit fine. In this case I would be utterly shocked if the jackass drone pilot could even get a judgement in his favor in small claims court for his shot-down toy.
You tell someone they're this and that and they're bad long enough, and guess what happens? They start believing it, especially when that's all you heard your entire life since you were a little kid. We see now they've started turning it around into some sort of virtue. You see a similar phenomenon in the whole fat acceptance movement, and that's fucked-up too. Us white people made black people what they are today, we're the original perpetrators of that, and now they've been told they're this-and-that-and-bad for so long that they actually believe it themselves. So they act accordingly. Which just makes racist white people feel justified in their attitudes towards black people. Which continues the whole goddamned vicious circle. What did you think was going to happen?