Sharethesafety.org got me the same way. It's very slickly done, and there's nothing at all on there to hint that it's anything other than an actual NRA program.. This is way beyond parody or satire, IMHO. This is outright libel. IMHO, IANAL, OMGWTFBBQ, AEIOUandsometimesY.
So if there's an actual air gap between the device and the network, what zero-day exploits need to be patched? What did they do in Ye Olden Dayes before everyone and their toaster had to be connected to the net?
I will be shocked if there's not a web site up within 24 hours with detailed photos and pins on Google Maps showing the location of every utility pole camera in the city.
None of these always-on systems track every word you say,
YET
because this would run your battery dry in no time. They all have just a low-power minimal voice-recognition in hardware that only recognizes the keywords and only then wake up and hand over control to the SoC itself for what you're actually saying.
Keywords like "Hey, Siri", or "OK, Google". Or "bomb" or "overthrow" or "cocaine" or...
Besides, if Big Brother wants to listen to your microphone he can just do that anyway, no need for such tricks. If you don't trust your networked microphone containing device not to listen to you, don't carry it to begin with. This is true for every fucking phone or tablet or computer.
Quite right. But, even though they can key up the microphone at any time, they don't know when it's interesting to do so. That's where the keyword recognition comes in. Say the secret phrase and it surreptitiously sends a few seconds of audio to the NSA who can then decide whether or not to add you to the list of listening targets.
Okay, I say it like it's a done deal, and even I don't believe that they're doing it yet. But it'd be possible, and it allows for previously unheard-of levels of snooping. Without voice recognition it's not feasible because it'd take too much manpower to even spot-check all those microphones. But if you can enlist the aid of the device itself to secretly alert the authorities... Now you're talking! What law enforcement agency wouldn't like to have an informant in every pocket? Make the list of keywords downloadable, too. Get word of an ISIS plot? Load "ISIS" into the keyword list. Whoa, they changed their name to "Totally Without A Terrorism Scheme" this week? Update the list, let the phones alert us when someone talks about TWATS! AMBER alert? Load the kid's name into every phone in the area. Sure you'll have a ton of false positives, but Think Of The Children! Honestly, is it any more ridiculous then sending a text message with a vague description of the kid to every phone in a 100 mile radius?
The computer had no idea what it was regurgitating.
To the contrary, I think the computer knew exactly what it was doing. Look at these "seeds":
Title: Sunspring
Dialog: "It may never be forgiven, but that is just too bad."
Prop & Action: A character pulls a book from a shelf, flips through it, and puts it back.
Optional Science Idea: In a future with mass unemployment, young people are forced to sell blood.
The computer did just what a human writer would do. It said, "What is this bullshit? Okay, bitches, you want a screenplay based on nonsense, I'll give you a screenplay based on nonsense!"
Yup, a generator is the way to go. Mine starts by picking one character each from the sets of uppercase alpha, lowercase alpha, numeric, and punctuation. Then it picks from the set of all characters until the password is the desired length. Finally it shuffles the order so the first four characters aren't predictably upper, lower, numeric, and punctuation.
I'm just using Python's random module to pick the characters, so I suppose if that's flawed I might have problems. I'm not sure how it would lead to a practical attack though.
I don't want to spend time uninstalling crap. What part do they not understand?
The part where you think what you want has any bearing on what they do. That's the part they don't understand. Well, maybe they understand it, but they think it's laughably quaint.
MS has a captive audience. Business users use it because almost all businesses rely on some unique app which runs only on Windows. (Or at least think they do, which amounts to the same thing.) Non-techie home users use it because it comes bundled and they don't know any better. Gamers use it because a lot of triple-A titles only run on Windows. The Linux and Mac freaks don't use Windows and never will no matter what MS does, so they don't count.
So yeah, it doesn't matter what the user wants. They'll take the shit sandwich that MS gives them and like it, or they'll have to walk away from whatever it is they wanted to use the computer for in the first place. "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the OS company."
For a while, Comcast's "TV + Internet" bundle was actually cheaper than its "Internet only" service. Naturally we got the bundle. I think I even plugged in the set-top box once just to see if it worked.
The L CARD (which stands for Chemically Actuated Resonate Device) is essentially a modified near-field communication tag. Certain volatile organic compounds unique to the breath of lung cancer patients modify the tagâ(TM)s radio frequency identification signal. A smartphone then pings the device and determines, from the modified signal, if those volatile compounds are present.
Sounds like the thing just gives a binary yes/no reading. So why bother with the NFC and phone? Why not just have a red/green LED on the device itself?
Scientists don't yet know the mass of the planets or what they're made of.
So in other words, scientists discover three planets which are "potentially habitable" in that we don't know enough about them yet to completely rule out the possibility.
It is rigged, and it should be. Political parties are not part of the government. They're private entities. They can nominate whoever they want. I don't care how they do it, whether they poll their members or read tarot cards or have some secret shadowy figure choose from in the back of a smoke-filled room. Parties should choose their candidates in pretty much any way except via primaries. At least, any way except taxpayer-paid primaries. If the parties want to foot the bill for the time and effort expended to poll the general public, more power to them.
The appalling part isn't how the candidates are chosen by the parties. It's how the electoral system is rigged to keep the two big parties in power. The whole thing is set up to encourage an Us-versus-Them attitude. If anyone votes for a candidate without a (D) or (R) after their name they're just "throwing their vote away". There's no way in hell that any third-party presidential candidate is going to get a majority or even a plurality of votes.
That's the part that needs to be fixed. Switch to an instant run-off system or something else that encourages votes for who people really want to lead, rather than just encouraging votes against the worst guy. Change parties to an advisory system, where instead of running a candidate every party endorses one (or more) candidates. And get rid of the fscking (D) and (R) after the candidates' names, like their sole job is to represent the party's interest. We're not voting a party into the presidency, we're voting an individual in there. Let's minimize the party influence, or we're going to continue to be governed by unelected party officials who are pulling the candidates' strings.
discover their position, their speed, and so on, as well as to change some of those parameters,
In other news, did you know that you can hack into someone's computer and discover the movements of their mouse, as well as change them? If you write to/dev/mouse it'll move the physical device around on the desk! Well no, I haven't tried it, that would be irresponsible. But the theoretical things that could cause are very scary!
Yeah... I hate ads, so I block them. But I don't want my ISP making that call for me! First and foremost I pay for connectivity, which means getting to whatever content I want. I don't want my ISP deciding for me what I do and don't want. An optional ad-blocking service would be great, but a mandatory one interferes with what I pay for.
Slashdot Mirror
Sharethesafety.org got me the same way. It's very slickly done, and there's nothing at all on there to hint that it's anything other than an actual NRA program.. This is way beyond parody or satire, IMHO. This is outright libel. IMHO, IANAL, OMGWTFBBQ, AEIOUandsometimesY.
I've heard this before, but Asimov's version was more succinct and more realistic.
So if there's an actual air gap between the device and the network, what zero-day exploits need to be patched? What did they do in Ye Olden Dayes before everyone and their toaster had to be connected to the net?
You spelled it wrong in the headline, Slashdot. There's no 'r' in "daft".
Just to see how far this goes, I typed in "dipshit" and Google didn't autosuggest "Robert Epstein"! That's an omission that must be corrected!
I will be shocked if there's not a web site up within 24 hours with detailed photos and pins on Google Maps showing the location of every utility pole camera in the city.
YET
Keywords like "Hey, Siri", or "OK, Google". Or "bomb" or "overthrow" or "cocaine" or...
Quite right. But, even though they can key up the microphone at any time, they don't know when it's interesting to do so. That's where the keyword recognition comes in. Say the secret phrase and it surreptitiously sends a few seconds of audio to the NSA who can then decide whether or not to add you to the list of listening targets.
Okay, I say it like it's a done deal, and even I don't believe that they're doing it yet. But it'd be possible, and it allows for previously unheard-of levels of snooping. Without voice recognition it's not feasible because it'd take too much manpower to even spot-check all those microphones. But if you can enlist the aid of the device itself to secretly alert the authorities... Now you're talking! What law enforcement agency wouldn't like to have an informant in every pocket? Make the list of keywords downloadable, too. Get word of an ISIS plot? Load "ISIS" into the keyword list. Whoa, they changed their name to "Totally Without A Terrorism Scheme" this week? Update the list, let the phones alert us when someone talks about TWATS! AMBER alert? Load the kid's name into every phone in the area. Sure you'll have a ton of false positives, but Think Of The Children! Honestly, is it any more ridiculous then sending a text message with a vague description of the kid to every phone in a 100 mile radius?
Sure I'm paranoid. But am I paranoid enough?
To the contrary, I think the computer knew exactly what it was doing. Look at these "seeds":
Title: Sunspring
Dialog: "It may never be forgiven, but that is just too bad."
Prop & Action: A character pulls a book from a shelf, flips through it, and puts it back.
Optional Science Idea: In a future with mass unemployment, young people are forced to sell blood.
The computer did just what a human writer would do. It said, "What is this bullshit? Okay, bitches, you want a screenplay based on nonsense, I'll give you a screenplay based on nonsense!"
Aha! Solid evidence that the US military is building a time machine! I knew it!
Yup, a generator is the way to go. Mine starts by picking one character each from the sets of uppercase alpha, lowercase alpha, numeric, and punctuation. Then it picks from the set of all characters until the password is the desired length. Finally it shuffles the order so the first four characters aren't predictably upper, lower, numeric, and punctuation.
Samples:
j/72L;Wsv=xC$!Z
7M^K/1KuUtA
hW*;-4#O5|^;2kOb
yTgNS0nk|1
I'm just using Python's random module to pick the characters, so I suppose if that's flawed I might have problems. I'm not sure how it would lead to a practical attack though.
It's okay. It's all balanced because elsewhere for the first time, apples are outselling oranges.
Oh, good! That means we'll have six years to enjoy commenting with emoji before the whole site falls over due to the 32-bit time_t rollover!
The part where you think what you want has any bearing on what they do. That's the part they don't understand. Well, maybe they understand it, but they think it's laughably quaint.
MS has a captive audience. Business users use it because almost all businesses rely on some unique app which runs only on Windows. (Or at least think they do, which amounts to the same thing.) Non-techie home users use it because it comes bundled and they don't know any better. Gamers use it because a lot of triple-A titles only run on Windows. The Linux and Mac freaks don't use Windows and never will no matter what MS does, so they don't count.
So yeah, it doesn't matter what the user wants. They'll take the shit sandwich that MS gives them and like it, or they'll have to walk away from whatever it is they wanted to use the computer for in the first place. "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the OS company."
For a while, Comcast's "TV + Internet" bundle was actually cheaper than its "Internet only" service. Naturally we got the bundle. I think I even plugged in the set-top box once just to see if it worked.
Betcha the studio paid for distribution rights to the soundtrack or incidental music for theater and DVD use, but not for streaming use.
Sounds like the thing just gives a binary yes/no reading. So why bother with the NFC and phone? Why not just have a red/green LED on the device itself?
In other news, half of teens don't understand what the word "addicted" means.
More sex. It's right there in the headline!
So in other words, scientists discover three planets which are "potentially habitable" in that we don't know enough about them yet to completely rule out the possibility.
It is rigged, and it should be. Political parties are not part of the government. They're private entities. They can nominate whoever they want. I don't care how they do it, whether they poll their members or read tarot cards or have some secret shadowy figure choose from in the back of a smoke-filled room. Parties should choose their candidates in pretty much any way except via primaries. At least, any way except taxpayer-paid primaries. If the parties want to foot the bill for the time and effort expended to poll the general public, more power to them.
The appalling part isn't how the candidates are chosen by the parties. It's how the electoral system is rigged to keep the two big parties in power. The whole thing is set up to encourage an Us-versus-Them attitude. If anyone votes for a candidate without a (D) or (R) after their name they're just "throwing their vote away". There's no way in hell that any third-party presidential candidate is going to get a majority or even a plurality of votes.
That's the part that needs to be fixed. Switch to an instant run-off system or something else that encourages votes for who people really want to lead, rather than just encouraging votes against the worst guy. Change parties to an advisory system, where instead of running a candidate every party endorses one (or more) candidates. And get rid of the fscking (D) and (R) after the candidates' names, like their sole job is to represent the party's interest. We're not voting a party into the presidency, we're voting an individual in there. Let's minimize the party influence, or we're going to continue to be governed by unelected party officials who are pulling the candidates' strings.
"That robot's one bad mother--"
"Shut your mouth!"
"But I'm just talkin' bout SCHAFT!"
"Then we can dig it."
Huh. I had no idea! Thanks, that looks like it might be very useful!
Oh? Where does a technically competent but non-computer-professional find an OEM install ISO?
In other news, did you know that you can hack into someone's computer and discover the movements of their mouse, as well as change them? If you write to /dev/mouse it'll move the physical device around on the desk! Well no, I haven't tried it, that would be irresponsible. But the theoretical things that could cause are very scary!
Yeah... I hate ads, so I block them. But I don't want my ISP making that call for me! First and foremost I pay for connectivity, which means getting to whatever content I want. I don't want my ISP deciding for me what I do and don't want. An optional ad-blocking service would be great, but a mandatory one interferes with what I pay for.