I'm not really saying 'don't do this, it'll cost you your life and your immortal soul!' or anything as silly as that. If there's no chance that you're going to pay someone to repair it, and you feel capable, then sure go right ahead, but don't hold your breath waiting for a miracle to happen, either. As previously stated I think that the reason this works at all, is because BGA packaged devices (microprocessor, graphics processor, SoC, PCH, what have you), when run through reflow, had one or more solder balls that didn't make contact with the solder paste on the PCB beneath them during the IR reflow process, but that when it the whole assembly cooled, made physical contact enough to pass QC testing of the finished board, and probably helped by the fact that a heatsink assembly was pressing down on it. Over successive heating/cooling cycles of using the device, the PCB warps, pulling those balls away from the pads on the PCB, causing the unit to fail. Now, what heating it in an oven for a while would do, due to the fact that the PCB and the BGA component(s) in question expand and contract to different degrees, is re-warp the PCB back in the other direction, causing electrical contact to occur again -- temporarily. At a company I used to work at, we actually had a small-scale hot-air rework station we could use for BGA package devices, and I'd used it, with a lot of liquid solder flux, to 'float' a BGA package on it's own molten solder, then 'nudge' it ever so slightly, to cause the intermittently contacting solder balls to make full contact with the now-molten solder, 'fixing' the PCB permanently. However this device used temperature-controlled hot air both from the bottom and the top of the PCB at much higher temperatures than any oven in your kitchen is capable of. So, at best, the 'fix' described in TFA would be temporary at best, as demonstrated by the fact that it had to be done again later.
Now, if there was 100% inspection of all BGA devices on a PCB being mass-produced, then such 'defective' PCBs would never be assembled into finished products in the first place, and they'd more or less last forever. However QC inspection on that level would probably mean the finished consumer product would double or triple in price, and there'd be fewer of them leaving the factory slower, because it takes time to inspect them with the Xray machine needed to do that. Also it's not even 100% guaranteed to catch all defects of this type. So only a small percentage of a production run of PCBs asembled are inspected like this.
340 degrees fahrenheit isn't hot enough to reflow solder. The best I think that would do would to cause warpage of the board in the other direction. The fact that it failed again later, and then worked for a while after 'baking' it again, supports this.
Would not recommend, if for no other reason than the average person would either wreck something trying to get it apart, or not be able to get it all back together again afterwards.
I dunno how valid what TFA has to say, but I do know that I sleep more soundly in a room that's ~60-65F, and getting enough and high quality sleep has much bearing on your general health.
Less than 100 comments on this/. posting so far, and the signal-to-noise ratio is as low as ever..
The older I get, the more cynical, apparently. In my opinion, this is just the NSA throwing the U.S. populace a bone for Christmas. Is this redacted stuff they tossed us for real? Yes. Is it just the tiniest ice crystal from the tip of the Titantic-sinking-class iceberg? Hell, yes it is. They wouldn't dare show us the really bad stuff, which is probably closer to what The Machine (and more to the point, the other machine, 'Samaritan') from the TV show Person of Interest collects on everyone on a moment-by-moment basis, and they'd rather lose an eye than show us the really incriminating stuff; this is just meant as a distraction.
We're headed for a Federal meltdown, I think. No worries, it won't be some shooting war like you'd see in the movies, where a small but determined underground army rises up to topple the corrupt, rotting-from-within government, it'll be a slow burn, with lots of talking, and papers shuffled around, and finally, at the very end, something involving men with guns, and it probably won't happen in what's left of my lifetime, but I think it's going to happen. Call it reform, to put an appropriately pretty and benign word to it. But when it finally happens, nothing will be the same ever again, and Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and all the rest will turn over in their graves. Of course there's a still a small spark within me that believes that the system those men put in place so long ago will self-correct and prevent everything from completely falling apart. We'll see, I guess.
But I wouldn't mind sending our forces in to remove the North Korean government and return the land to South Korea...
I'm with you in spirit on that, but there's a tiny little problem with actually doing it: China actually likes North Korea for some reason, and would get very, very upset with us for even so much as supporting a South Korean invasion of the North, let alone us spearheading the removal of the (sorry, have to say it) legitimate and sovereign leadership of North Korea. In short, it would be the start of World War III (or, 'The Last War', if you prefer). I'm sure Russia would pile on, too, since they're buddies with China. Everything else would pretty much go to Hell in a handbasket pretty quickly from there.
I, too, however, am beginning to wonder if this whole incident was staged by Sony as a gigantic publicity stunt.
..with the government saying it wants to create a "family friendly" Internet free from pornography, gambling, extreme violence and other content inappropriate for children
Point #1: You do not 'own' the entire Internet Point #2: It's not up to you to 'clean up' the Internet Point #3: It has been proven over and over and over again that 'net nanny' and other censorship does not work Point #4: Governments will subvert any censorship technology for their own propaganda and agenda purposes, destroying the original (misguided) intent Point #5: Regardless of whatever you're telling your citizens, you likely will end up discriminating against people who don't want your filtering Point #6: Ultimately your efforts will fail, for reasons of Point #3, and because people will always find a way around it regardless.
..and finally, not a 'point', but just my personal opinion on the matter: I think any government that engages in censorship are a bunch of fucking assholes who don't deserve to be in power. Leave the Internet alone and let people decide for themselves what they do and do not want their families and themselves to encounter or do there. Police UK-hosted sites against outright illegal activity or content? Yes. Make moral decisions for everyone else? Hell, no.
DRM-laden toilets? v1.0: Uses proprietary toilet paper and won't allow you to flush any TP that doesn't have the manufacturer-specific RFID tag in it. v2.0: You may only eat and drink foods specified by the manufacturer, which also contain microscopid RFID tags, which are biologically inert and pass harmlessly through your digestive tract and into your feces and urine. Detection of any other waste substances will result in Failure to Flush. v3.0: All RoboToiliet users must have an RFID tag implanted in their ass; others may not use the toilet. RoboToilet must be connected to AC mains power and a broadband internet connection 24/7/365, or Failure to Flush will not occur because end-user authentication will not be possible. Naturally there is an annual subscription fee, with complimentary membership in the RoboToilet Owners Club.
I'll leave it up to you to decide what the 'owners club' is all about.
Responding to this incident with a physical attack of any kind on North Korea or it's interests
Think about what you're saying in these terms: These North Korean hackers, even if sponsored by the North Korean government (which I'll actually believe) are deliberately provoking us, hoping we'll respond with some sort of physical attack. If we (the U.S.) were stupid enough to do that, these 'GoP' fucks would just sit back and say LOL I TROL U, Y U SO MAD? while the North Korean government would cry foul to the rest of the world (we're a tiny little country being bullied by the Big Bad United States again, pity us, pity us!).. and they'd be right. Also remember that the U.S. doesn't have such a great reputation out in the world anymore, frankly we've been assholes way too much and that'll take a long time to fix.
On the other hand, here's the 'proportional response' we should take: Hack the living fuck out of everything and anything we can get at in North Korea, then when they get all butthurt over it, throw up our hands and claim to know nothing about it (kharma, bitches!).
By the way I stand by what I originally said: Sony should release the movie anyway. There is literally no point in cowering in fear over any of these 'threats' they're making of terrorist action (which is what it amounts to) because they could do whatever anyway, and if they're really capable of carrying out their threats then what could be done to stop it anyway? Being cowards about it just empowers and emboldens the little shits.
Well gee whiz then mister, they (and the U.S.) may as well just pack up and go home, sobbing, because the BIG BAD HACKERS beat us up, and now we're everybody's bitch. Great idea.
Why the hell shouldn't they in this case? As others have said no theatre is going to carry it for fear of being attacked, and releasing it to the public anyway would send a clear message that they/we aren't going to be bullied. They and everyone involved with the movie would be regarded as heroes.
They could take the loss on it and release it to the general public via bittorrent, more or less guaranteeing that it gets as widely distributed as possible.
They can compromise DNS all they want, but they can't prevent routing of packets from one numeric IP address to another numeric IP address.
If they were actually trying to mess with DNS then they should be prosecuted under hacking laws, because if you or I were to do this thing, that's what would happen to us.
Amplifying the OP here. I know people in general seem to be getting dumber and dumber with every passing decade, but have people reached the point where Google can say stupid shit like this and really expect everyone to believe it? You may as well just call the FBI, NSA, CIA, DHS, and whoever else wants to snoop on everyone, and ask them to create a share on their servers for your most-personal, most-important data, and store it in the clear, at least that way you'd save some tax dollars. For fuck's sake people, 'the cloud' is a bad joke. You want to keep your personal data safe from snooping? Do as at least one other commenter on this story has said: Put it on a storage device not connected in any way to the Internet. We do not live in a day and age where the government gives a flying fuck about your 'right to privacy', if these bastards had their way we'd all be living in a world where George Orwell's 1984 would look warm and fuzzy by comparison.
What if all vehicles were hydrogen fuel cell electric? Yes, carbon emissions would drop to nothing (for vehicles), but what about global oxygen levels? Fuel cells bind up the hydrogen with oxygen from the atmosphere to make water vapor. Has anyone run the numbers on how this would affect oxygen levels?
That's fine, they can do that. But people will know that these things exist, will assume Google is broken, and go to Yahoo, or Bing, or some other search engine to find them. If it keeps up, after a while, people will stop going to Google for anything at all, because they'll assume it's always 'broken'. Google will run itself into the ground.
Because we're living in a day and age where people are getting lazier, dumber, and less skilled. They apparently can't be bothered to learn to brew a goddamn cup of coffee themselves, or use a drip coffemaker, or any other coffeemaker for that matter, they have to have it NOW! and it has to be so simple that a 2 year old could do it without screwing it up. Furthermore it's one of the single most wasteful and expensive ways to make coffee I've ever seen, what with all these 'single use' containers that in 10 seconds flat become more plastic waste that I'm not even sure can be recycled easily (metal foil glued to it, plus the coffee waste and whatever filter it uses). I lose respect for anyone who actually buys something like this.
That only works if they don't have the information in the first place; does anyone really believe at this point that anyone actually deletes anything when you tell them to? That only works when they don't have anything of yours in the first place.
Anyone remember DivX? Not the codec, but the business model. Pay a small fee for a DVD, which you have to play in a special DivX player, and pay a 'rental' fee every time you want to watch it. Remember what happened to that? It fell on it's face to the resounding 'Hell, NO!' from the populace. That's what should happen here; people will say 'What do you mean, I have to pay Microsoft monthly to use my computer? Screw that!'. Microsoft is barking up the wrong tree.
If you can't discuss rationally, and have to resort to insults, you've lost.
Really, is that so? Then that must be the other guy (You, I think?) because I'm the one who got an insult thrown in my face to start with.
..oh, and also:
Worrying about 'winning' 'arguments' on the Internet
Seriously, this is 4chan-level bullshit. Be sure to enjoy 'winning' in this way, if you think that's what's happened here, because generally speaking someone who places so much importance on Internet arguments does so because they feel so completely irrelevant in real life.
..and, of course, that is accompanied by the need to 'have the last word'. So please, allow me to indulge you: Go ahead and have the last word. Wouldn't want to feel responsible for making you cry.
The overall point is, no matter how they get to the destination, what really matters is that they're taking the journey. Time itself will teach them when they need to blink that LED with an RPi or if they need to use a couple transistors.
If you're saying 'use these toys as a gateway to get them interested in REAL electronics' then I'm all for that. BUT: What I see all the time is a total lack of understanding or even interest in the underlying hardware that makes the toys work that they're playing with. They scoff at anything using discrete components, but are completely lost when it comes to something as simple as using a MOSFET as a power switch for something that requires more than a microcontrollers' GPIO pins can handle alone.
Oh, and you can take your 'grandpa' bullshit and shove it up your ass, motherfucker.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not really saying 'don't do this, it'll cost you your life and your immortal soul!' or anything as silly as that. If there's no chance that you're going to pay someone to repair it, and you feel capable, then sure go right ahead, but don't hold your breath waiting for a miracle to happen, either. As previously stated I think that the reason this works at all, is because BGA packaged devices (microprocessor, graphics processor, SoC, PCH, what have you), when run through reflow, had one or more solder balls that didn't make contact with the solder paste on the PCB beneath them during the IR reflow process, but that when it the whole assembly cooled, made physical contact enough to pass QC testing of the finished board, and probably helped by the fact that a heatsink assembly was pressing down on it. Over successive heating/cooling cycles of using the device, the PCB warps, pulling those balls away from the pads on the PCB, causing the unit to fail. Now, what heating it in an oven for a while would do, due to the fact that the PCB and the BGA component(s) in question expand and contract to different degrees, is re-warp the PCB back in the other direction, causing electrical contact to occur again -- temporarily. At a company I used to work at, we actually had a small-scale hot-air rework station we could use for BGA package devices, and I'd used it, with a lot of liquid solder flux, to 'float' a BGA package on it's own molten solder, then 'nudge' it ever so slightly, to cause the intermittently contacting solder balls to make full contact with the now-molten solder, 'fixing' the PCB permanently. However this device used temperature-controlled hot air both from the bottom and the top of the PCB at much higher temperatures than any oven in your kitchen is capable of. So, at best, the 'fix' described in TFA would be temporary at best, as demonstrated by the fact that it had to be done again later.
Now, if there was 100% inspection of all BGA devices on a PCB being mass-produced, then such 'defective' PCBs would never be assembled into finished products in the first place, and they'd more or less last forever. However QC inspection on that level would probably mean the finished consumer product would double or triple in price, and there'd be fewer of them leaving the factory slower, because it takes time to inspect them with the Xray machine needed to do that. Also it's not even 100% guaranteed to catch all defects of this type. So only a small percentage of a production run of PCBs asembled are inspected like this.
340 degrees fahrenheit isn't hot enough to reflow solder. The best I think that would do would to cause warpage of the board in the other direction. The fact that it failed again later, and then worked for a while after 'baking' it again, supports this.
Would not recommend, if for no other reason than the average person would either wreck something trying to get it apart, or not be able to get it all back together again afterwards.
I dunno how valid what TFA has to say, but I do know that I sleep more soundly in a room that's ~60-65F, and getting enough and high quality sleep has much bearing on your general health.
Less than 100 comments on this /. posting so far, and the signal-to-noise ratio is as low as ever..
The older I get, the more cynical, apparently. In my opinion, this is just the NSA throwing the U.S. populace a bone for Christmas. Is this redacted stuff they tossed us for real? Yes. Is it just the tiniest ice crystal from the tip of the Titantic-sinking-class iceberg? Hell, yes it is. They wouldn't dare show us the really bad stuff, which is probably closer to what The Machine (and more to the point, the other machine, 'Samaritan') from the TV show Person of Interest collects on everyone on a moment-by-moment basis, and they'd rather lose an eye than show us the really incriminating stuff; this is just meant as a distraction.
We're headed for a Federal meltdown, I think. No worries, it won't be some shooting war like you'd see in the movies, where a small but determined underground army rises up to topple the corrupt, rotting-from-within government, it'll be a slow burn, with lots of talking, and papers shuffled around, and finally, at the very end, something involving men with guns, and it probably won't happen in what's left of my lifetime, but I think it's going to happen. Call it reform, to put an appropriately pretty and benign word to it. But when it finally happens, nothing will be the same ever again, and Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and all the rest will turn over in their graves. Of course there's a still a small spark within me that believes that the system those men put in place so long ago will self-correct and prevent everything from completely falling apart. We'll see, I guess.
But I wouldn't mind sending our forces in to remove the North Korean government and return the land to South Korea...
I'm with you in spirit on that, but there's a tiny little problem with actually doing it: China actually likes North Korea for some reason, and would get very, very upset with us for even so much as supporting a South Korean invasion of the North, let alone us spearheading the removal of the (sorry, have to say it) legitimate and sovereign leadership of North Korea. In short, it would be the start of World War III (or, 'The Last War', if you prefer). I'm sure Russia would pile on, too, since they're buddies with China. Everything else would pretty much go to Hell in a handbasket pretty quickly from there.
I, too, however, am beginning to wonder if this whole incident was staged by Sony as a gigantic publicity stunt.
Anyone want to weigh in on the possibility that this entire fiasco has been an elaborate hoax from the beginning?
..with the government saying it wants to create a "family friendly" Internet free from pornography, gambling, extreme violence and other content inappropriate for children
Point #1: You do not 'own' the entire Internet
Point #2: It's not up to you to 'clean up' the Internet
Point #3: It has been proven over and over and over again that 'net nanny' and other censorship does not work
Point #4: Governments will subvert any censorship technology for their own propaganda and agenda purposes, destroying the original (misguided) intent
Point #5: Regardless of whatever you're telling your citizens, you likely will end up discriminating against people who don't want your filtering
Point #6: Ultimately your efforts will fail, for reasons of Point #3, and because people will always find a way around it regardless.
..and finally, not a 'point', but just my personal opinion on the matter: I think any government that engages in censorship are a bunch of fucking assholes who don't deserve to be in power. Leave the Internet alone and let people decide for themselves what they do and do not want their families and themselves to encounter or do there. Police UK-hosted sites against outright illegal activity or content? Yes. Make moral decisions for everyone else? Hell, no.
Nope.
You can't stop the signal, Mal.
DRM-laden toilets?
v1.0: Uses proprietary toilet paper and won't allow you to flush any TP that doesn't have the manufacturer-specific RFID tag in it.
v2.0: You may only eat and drink foods specified by the manufacturer, which also contain microscopid RFID tags, which are biologically inert and pass harmlessly through your digestive tract and into your feces and urine. Detection of any other waste substances will result in Failure to Flush.
v3.0: All RoboToiliet users must have an RFID tag implanted in their ass; others may not use the toilet. RoboToilet must be connected to AC mains power and a broadband internet connection 24/7/365, or Failure to Flush will not occur because end-user authentication will not be possible. Naturally there is an annual subscription fee, with complimentary membership in the RoboToilet Owners Club.
I'll leave it up to you to decide what the 'owners club' is all about.
I've watched the two episodes that have been produced, and liked them quite a bit, worth watching and worth supporting.
Responding to this incident with a physical attack of any kind on North Korea or it's interests
Think about what you're saying in these terms: These North Korean hackers, even if sponsored by the North Korean government (which I'll actually believe) are deliberately provoking us, hoping we'll respond with some sort of physical attack. If we (the U.S.) were stupid enough to do that, these 'GoP' fucks would just sit back and say LOL I TROL U, Y U SO MAD? while the North Korean government would cry foul to the rest of the world (we're a tiny little country being bullied by the Big Bad United States again, pity us, pity us!).. and they'd be right. Also remember that the U.S. doesn't have such a great reputation out in the world anymore, frankly we've been assholes way too much and that'll take a long time to fix.
On the other hand, here's the 'proportional response' we should take: Hack the living fuck out of everything and anything we can get at in North Korea, then when they get all butthurt over it, throw up our hands and claim to know nothing about it (kharma, bitches!).
By the way I stand by what I originally said: Sony should release the movie anyway. There is literally no point in cowering in fear over any of these 'threats' they're making of terrorist action (which is what it amounts to) because they could do whatever anyway, and if they're really capable of carrying out their threats then what could be done to stop it anyway? Being cowards about it just empowers and emboldens the little shits.
Well gee whiz then mister, they (and the U.S.) may as well just pack up and go home, sobbing, because the BIG BAD HACKERS beat us up, and now we're everybody's bitch. Great idea.
Why the hell shouldn't they in this case? As others have said no theatre is going to carry it for fear of being attacked, and releasing it to the public anyway would send a clear message that they/we aren't going to be bullied. They and everyone involved with the movie would be regarded as heroes.
They could take the loss on it and release it to the general public via bittorrent, more or less guaranteeing that it gets as widely distributed as possible.
They can compromise DNS all they want, but they can't prevent routing of packets from one numeric IP address to another numeric IP address.
If they were actually trying to mess with DNS then they should be prosecuted under hacking laws, because if you or I were to do this thing, that's what would happen to us.
Bastards.
Would you care to expand on that statement, since I don't see how it relates to what I said?
Amplifying the OP here. I know people in general seem to be getting dumber and dumber with every passing decade, but have people reached the point where Google can say stupid shit like this and really expect everyone to believe it? You may as well just call the FBI, NSA, CIA, DHS, and whoever else wants to snoop on everyone, and ask them to create a share on their servers for your most-personal, most-important data, and store it in the clear, at least that way you'd save some tax dollars. For fuck's sake people, 'the cloud' is a bad joke. You want to keep your personal data safe from snooping? Do as at least one other commenter on this story has said: Put it on a storage device not connected in any way to the Internet. We do not live in a day and age where the government gives a flying fuck about your 'right to privacy', if these bastards had their way we'd all be living in a world where George Orwell's 1984 would look warm and fuzzy by comparison.
What if all vehicles were hydrogen fuel cell electric? Yes, carbon emissions would drop to nothing (for vehicles), but what about global oxygen levels? Fuel cells bind up the hydrogen with oxygen from the atmosphere to make water vapor. Has anyone run the numbers on how this would affect oxygen levels?
That's fine, they can do that. But people will know that these things exist, will assume Google is broken, and go to Yahoo, or Bing, or some other search engine to find them. If it keeps up, after a while, people will stop going to Google for anything at all, because they'll assume it's always 'broken'. Google will run itself into the ground.
Because we're living in a day and age where people are getting lazier, dumber, and less skilled. They apparently can't be bothered to learn to brew a goddamn cup of coffee themselves, or use a drip coffemaker, or any other coffeemaker for that matter, they have to have it NOW! and it has to be so simple that a 2 year old could do it without screwing it up. Furthermore it's one of the single most wasteful and expensive ways to make coffee I've ever seen, what with all these 'single use' containers that in 10 seconds flat become more plastic waste that I'm not even sure can be recycled easily (metal foil glued to it, plus the coffee waste and whatever filter it uses). I lose respect for anyone who actually buys something like this.
Among other things it's basically giving them permission to search through my phone if they feel like it. Nope, I'll stick to a physical card.
'Opting-out'
That only works if they don't have the information in the first place; does anyone really believe at this point that anyone actually deletes anything when you tell them to? That only works when they don't have anything of yours in the first place.
Anyone remember DivX? Not the codec, but the business model. Pay a small fee for a DVD, which you have to play in a special DivX player, and pay a 'rental' fee every time you want to watch it. Remember what happened to that? It fell on it's face to the resounding 'Hell, NO!' from the populace. That's what should happen here; people will say 'What do you mean, I have to pay Microsoft monthly to use my computer? Screw that!'. Microsoft is barking up the wrong tree.
If you can't discuss rationally, and have to resort to insults, you've lost.
Really, is that so? Then that must be the other guy (You, I think?) because I'm the one who got an insult thrown in my face to start with.
..oh, and also:
Worrying about 'winning' 'arguments' on the Internet
Seriously, this is 4chan-level bullshit. Be sure to enjoy 'winning' in this way, if you think that's what's happened here, because generally speaking someone who places so much importance on Internet arguments does so because they feel so completely irrelevant in real life.
..and, of course, that is accompanied by the need to 'have the last word'. So please, allow me to indulge you: Go ahead and have the last word. Wouldn't want to feel responsible for making you cry.
The overall point is, no matter how they get to the destination, what really matters is that they're taking the journey. Time itself will teach them when they need to blink that LED with an RPi or if they need to use a couple transistors.
If you're saying 'use these toys as a gateway to get them interested in REAL electronics' then I'm all for that. BUT: What I see all the time is a total lack of understanding or even interest in the underlying hardware that makes the toys work that they're playing with. They scoff at anything using discrete components, but are completely lost when it comes to something as simple as using a MOSFET as a power switch for something that requires more than a microcontrollers' GPIO pins can handle alone.
Oh, and you can take your 'grandpa' bullshit and shove it up your ass, motherfucker.