Wow, what a fucking shock: a multi-billion dollar company doing business in nearly every country around the world requires more than 24 hours to make a substantive response that's been properly vetted by their legal department to a governmental order involving possible fines and other legal sanctions.
You'd think that the CEO of Microsoft could just, you know, whip up a quick 140-character tweet clearing the thing up within an hour of being notified of the legal action. I mean, it's not like you want to be very careful when punitive fines and sanctions are on the line, or anything.
Fucking retard.
You must be forgetting that Windows 10 has been out for a year and under constant public criticism about their data collection/retention/usage policies. Considering Microsoft, Google, Apple and Amazon have been under fire for the Safe Harbor agreement, Microsoft should have seen the inquiry coming a mile away. While it's true any response needs to be vetted to PR and Legal, you'd think they'd at least have some canned statements at-the-ready.
Given how public this botnet/mass surveillance/skynet of Windows 10 data collection is, I'm surprised it took this long for a Gov agency to speak up.
For some reason I never quite made the connection until today. I always knew my grandfather worked on the Apollo 11 mission, but for some reason it never clicked that it was the one that got us to the moon. While I'm not old enough to have seen it, I did see pictures of the Apollo 11 engineers and crew. Right there next to the familiar faces was my grandfather. He worked his entire career at Lockheed in CA before retiring ~25-30 years ago.
Side note, due to all the cold war paranoia none of the names were well publicized, nor did any pictures call out groups of people that did different parts of the mission, much less any names. All the pictures I saw had janitorial staff, secretaries, managers, engineers and so on.
Peoples browsing/application/usage habits are unique enough that any generated random ID will be just as good and can likely uniquely identify an individual with very high accuracy. You've swapped one identifier for another. Privacy through obscurity?
I doubt swapping a user identifier (first.last, userid, whatever...) for an advertising ID will work. After all, Facebook tracks you by generating a random ID for every visit to a page that has a like button. If you are signed in, that page visit is tracked by them. If you sign in later, that page visit is retroactively added to your history. If you create an account later, that random ID is then merged with your account.
Similarly, I almost never sign into any google stuff other than the infrequent email that for whatever reason I can't get on Thunderbird or my phone. Yet the ads I see when I do sign into gmail are for those same items I searched for days/weeks ago. Though with a phone, Google tracks your location too. I seem to remember there being a patent on location-based coupons being sent to user phones some time ago...
It is one of many reasons... of course the biggest reason we are stuck in a rut is because of a stupid two-party system, which can never change without changing to a ranked voting system... which itself can never change because the two-parties won't allow it.
So we are always stuck with voters having to pick between what they think is the lesser of two evils OR vote AGAINST the party they are most afraid of.... and usually fueled by single issues such as those I listed above.
I'd mod this up, but you're already at 5;-). This is what we need, some way to move away from this Kang vs Kodos scenario. "Either way, your planet is doomed". All we really need is for one candidate outside of the Dems and Repubs to get 5% of the popular vote. It's also why I'm voting for Gary Johnson. Not because I think he will win, but because I think he's a better candidate than either Trump or Clinton. Honestly, I had hoped for Trump to run as an Independent since I think he's got the popularity to shake out a third party. Maybe his venom on the microphone will get enough conservatives to jump ship and form another party (though I doubt that... they love their solidarity, even if the head is a crackpot).
Moving slightly offtopic, but I hope folks find it interesting and it continues your thought on gov spending. Here's a graph of the national deficit by president. Note that blue downward curve between Pres. Bush 1 and 2. While it's true that each Bush had their own tour in Iraq, they both spent money like it was going out of style despite being of the "no big government, fiscal responsiblity!" republican camp. Pres. Clinton managed to turn the tide, but is still one of the least liked, highest paid ex-Presidents. Obama, as of 2014, hasn't been doing that well either... Though the latter part of Bush II and Obama are due to the recession.
Considering how in bed the Gov't is with proprietary vendors, it's surprising how there is now this about-face regarding OSS. If you could see each services "Approved Software List", you won't see much by way of OSS. You'll see iTunes, which is funny considering there are laws against personally owned mp3's on gov't computers and remote update sites are disabled, but you won't see MySQL, MariaDB or PostGRES. If you do, then they are typically relegated to "enclaves", and not the big DoD enterprise network.
Considering there are hundreds of thousands of DoD employees with 1 or more computers each, I'm hoping this is the sign of change toward OSS alternatives. $90 for an OS and $75 for an office suite multiplied by a hundred thousand a year (guesstimating hardware/software turnaround) adds up fast.
The point I was originally trying to make is that (estimated) piracy is so high due to a multitude of reasons. Obnoxious advertising, too many commercials, too difficult to get to the actual content, too expensive to get (e.g. cable networks), take your pick. When I had cable TV some years ago my cost for basic+ went from $35 a month to near $85 in the span of 3 years. I gained a dozen channels, none of them I wanted. That barrier for entry keeps rising (best I can tell).
For broadcast networks, the "lost sales" is entirely advertising money. Fewer folks watching live and being forced to watch the latest BS add for a phone that features an action movie star on a motorcycle surrounded by explosions. For cable networks, it's part subscriber revenue and advertising. For premium channels (HBO and such) it's all subscriber revenue.
I'd argue it's not so much an entitlement issue for the masses, though there are some folks that will always go for the free (torrented or such) stuff, it's that the barrier is too high for the common person. GoT was the most pirated show, then HBO took notice and made it easier to watch legally. I no longer have to pay for cable + premium channels ($100+ a month, last I checked) and set aside time from my week (and potentially from my kids), instead I can pay the $10 a month and watch it whenever I have time.
When will the content producers realize that "Pirates" are not lost sales. They never were sales, thus estimating losses is pointless. The only way to really combat a large number of people wanting something for free is to make it accessible for a price the population is willing to pay. It also doesn't help that everybody wants such a tight grip on their own stuff that they force consumers (not pirates) to find simpler routes to the content, that don't involve first borns or animal sacrifice.
For our visual folks, this cartoon from the Oatmeal should help.
Personally, if I had to pay $10 for each of NBC, Disney, CBS, and other channel groups, I might as well just suck it up and pay for cable TV. If instead I was able to pay $1 for a channel that I actually cared about a-la carte, then I'd be much happier. Then those lesser-watched channels would fade away and content providers would actually have to work to make good stuff, not tack-on the "old lady watering her garden" channel HD. I'd be spending $15 a month and getting what I want. If the channel doesn't pull in enough, then maybe they can subsidize with some self-promotion like HBO does.
researchers at Symantec who devoted their lives to unraveling the code line by line
You know, when you "devote your life" to something it's usually for longer than a season of Game of Thrones. Mayhaps the claim is a bit hyperbolic?
just sayin'.
I think it is more in reference to their not leaving basements or showering while surviving off a healthy diet of Mountain Dew and Doritos. I am pretty sure I read a few were known to yell "Mom! Bathroom!" too.
Here's hoping at least one outsider gets enough votes to be officially recognized as a political party. I'd much rather we have a 3 or 4 way monkey shit fight during election years than the toddler-level "he pulled my hair on the playground" BS we see today.
More of the iTunes mentality: Taking something that could be implemented simply and cleanly - and using it to drag you kicking and screaming into an larger application that you hate.
Forget that "0.0% of people want this", as TFA states. We know what you want. We will help you want it.
FTFY.
Years ago iTunes was a respectable music manager and player. Now it's a bloated mess of iGadget interfaces, iCloud updates, application storefront/maintenance, digital music store/downloader, digital movie store/downloader... I feel I missed 5-6 things.
Somebody mod this guy up, he's right. Its the main reason why I switched away from the RH ecosystem. And before anybody tries to throw the "hipster" slur, I'm probably old enough to be your Dad. I've been at this for awhile, and there are good reasons to think the more traditional UNIX way was better.
That's great! If you're comfortable with the way you're accustomed to doing things, I have nothing against you. I'm just trying to figure out why so many people shit on the hard work done by FOSS developers, who spend time and money to give stuff to the world entirely for free (as in beer AND speech) and don't force you in any way to use it. I don't like GNOME Shell, but I don't anonymous shit-post every article about Linux. I just don't use it, and I don't suffer from apoplectic fits knowing that some peoples' opinions differ from mine.
What I'm trying to understand is the constant critique of others when you are free to do your own thing. Linus started developing the kernel all by himself and now there's hundreds (thousands?) of folks helping him out. Each of the distros started as an idea by a few people, then grew as more people liked what the first few were doing.
I for one don't care that my laptop uses PulseAudio, SystemD, NetworkManager, or Gnome Shell. As long as they work for what I want to do, why should I care? Sure, there are a handful of times Gnome has crashed, but it's still far fewer times than Windows XP or 7 has crashed for me.
If you don't like the way something is being done, use something that you do like. If you know enough about the internals to bitch and moan about the intricacies of SystemD vs SysVInit, you know enough to piece together something you do like. Stop bitching about RedHat and make your own.
What we really need is a pandora-like way to vote up or down on ads. True, there's going to be those people that simply vote every ad down, but I think some sort of system that could send a clear message "this ad sucks... bad" could be helpful to everybody. Consumers get a voice, advertisers get feedback on what definitely doesn't work.
There are a few ads that are funny once or twice. After the 10th time (in a row) they simply need to be voted off the island. Others are just plain terrible to begin with and should be tied to a chair and beaten with hammers.
There is an older study that looked at the environmental impact of producing a Prius versus producing a Hummer.
The answer might surprise you. According to an in-depth study by the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, hybrid cars do, in fact, require more energy to produce than conventional cars, emitting more greenhouse gases and burning more fossil fuels during the manufacturing process. The production of hybrid batteries, in particular, requires much more energy than producing a standard car battery and results in higher emission levels of gases like sulfur oxide [source: Burnham et al].
But do the environmental impacts of hybrid vehicle production outweigh the long-term benefits of driving a cleaner running automobile? That answer is a resounding "no." If you drive both a conventional and hybrid car for 160,000 miles (257,495 kilometers), the conventional vehicle requires far more energy to operate and emits far more greenhouse gases over its lifetime, significantly canceling out any imbalance during the production stage [source: Burnham et al].
Basically, to be that awesome "green citizen", you'll need to drive that electric car near 160,000 miles. Something that would take ~10 years or so to do. A more recent study looks at cost of ownership and appears to have an approximately $10k difference between gasoline and electric over 5 years.
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Wow, what a fucking shock: a multi-billion dollar company doing business in nearly every country around the world requires more than 24 hours to make a substantive response that's been properly vetted by their legal department to a governmental order involving possible fines and other legal sanctions.
You'd think that the CEO of Microsoft could just, you know, whip up a quick 140-character tweet clearing the thing up within an hour of being notified of the legal action. I mean, it's not like you want to be very careful when punitive fines and sanctions are on the line, or anything.
Fucking retard.
You must be forgetting that Windows 10 has been out for a year and under constant public criticism about their data collection/retention/usage policies. Considering Microsoft, Google, Apple and Amazon have been under fire for the Safe Harbor agreement, Microsoft should have seen the inquiry coming a mile away. While it's true any response needs to be vetted to PR and Legal, you'd think they'd at least have some canned statements at-the-ready.
Given how public this botnet/mass surveillance/skynet of Windows 10 data collection is, I'm surprised it took this long for a Gov agency to speak up.
For some reason I never quite made the connection until today. I always knew my grandfather worked on the Apollo 11 mission, but for some reason it never clicked that it was the one that got us to the moon. While I'm not old enough to have seen it, I did see pictures of the Apollo 11 engineers and crew. Right there next to the familiar faces was my grandfather. He worked his entire career at Lockheed in CA before retiring ~25-30 years ago.
Side note, due to all the cold war paranoia none of the names were well publicized, nor did any pictures call out groups of people that did different parts of the mission, much less any names. All the pictures I saw had janitorial staff, secretaries, managers, engineers and so on.
Peoples browsing/application/usage habits are unique enough that any generated random ID will be just as good and can likely uniquely identify an individual with very high accuracy. You've swapped one identifier for another. Privacy through obscurity?
I doubt swapping a user identifier (first.last, userid, whatever...) for an advertising ID will work. After all, Facebook tracks you by generating a random ID for every visit to a page that has a like button. If you are signed in, that page visit is tracked by them. If you sign in later, that page visit is retroactively added to your history. If you create an account later, that random ID is then merged with your account.
Similarly, I almost never sign into any google stuff other than the infrequent email that for whatever reason I can't get on Thunderbird or my phone. Yet the ads I see when I do sign into gmail are for those same items I searched for days/weeks ago. Though with a phone, Google tracks your location too. I seem to remember there being a patent on location-based coupons being sent to user phones some time ago...
It is one of many reasons... of course the biggest reason we are stuck in a rut is because of a stupid two-party system, which can never change without changing to a ranked voting system... which itself can never change because the two-parties won't allow it.
So we are always stuck with voters having to pick between what they think is the lesser of two evils OR vote AGAINST the party they are most afraid of.... and usually fueled by single issues such as those I listed above.
I'd mod this up, but you're already at 5 ;-). This is what we need, some way to move away from this Kang vs Kodos scenario. "Either way, your planet is doomed". All we really need is for one candidate outside of the Dems and Repubs to get 5% of the popular vote. It's also why I'm voting for Gary Johnson. Not because I think he will win, but because I think he's a better candidate than either Trump or Clinton. Honestly, I had hoped for Trump to run as an Independent since I think he's got the popularity to shake out a third party. Maybe his venom on the microphone will get enough conservatives to jump ship and form another party (though I doubt that... they love their solidarity, even if the head is a crackpot).
Moving slightly offtopic, but I hope folks find it interesting and it continues your thought on gov spending. Here's a graph of the national deficit by president. Note that blue downward curve between Pres. Bush 1 and 2. While it's true that each Bush had their own tour in Iraq, they both spent money like it was going out of style despite being of the "no big government, fiscal responsiblity!" republican camp. Pres. Clinton managed to turn the tide, but is still one of the least liked, highest paid ex-Presidents. Obama, as of 2014, hasn't been doing that well either... Though the latter part of Bush II and Obama are due to the recession.
So you think the filter is just going to block porn?
I've never heard of a porn filter that didn't at least contain some political content, but who know, perhaps this will be a first.
That's because of Rule #34.
A free laptop or free disposal of your old plus $150 peeing on your foot toward a new one?
No deal.
Considering how in bed the Gov't is with proprietary vendors, it's surprising how there is now this about-face regarding OSS. If you could see each services "Approved Software List", you won't see much by way of OSS. You'll see iTunes, which is funny considering there are laws against personally owned mp3's on gov't computers and remote update sites are disabled, but you won't see MySQL, MariaDB or PostGRES. If you do, then they are typically relegated to "enclaves", and not the big DoD enterprise network.
Considering there are hundreds of thousands of DoD employees with 1 or more computers each, I'm hoping this is the sign of change toward OSS alternatives. $90 for an OS and $75 for an office suite multiplied by a hundred thousand a year (guesstimating hardware/software turnaround) adds up fast.
"I just spent $100k on a car with Autopilot. I'm going to drive down a winding road, at night, without headlights, and let Autopilot do the work".
This is another datapoint proving that intelligence and income have no direct correlation.
Rude? Maybe. Arrogant? I dunno about that one.
I'm not a smoker, but my fumes seem to make my kids laugh.
Needs to run fucking like a normal console.
I've been playing games a long time and have yet to find one with that title. Or are you talking about what the adult industry is going to do with VR?
Don't forget about Yet Another Beautiful and Underrated Saturn Emulator. I've used this a few times and it has done fairly well in the games I did try.
The point I was originally trying to make is that (estimated) piracy is so high due to a multitude of reasons. Obnoxious advertising, too many commercials, too difficult to get to the actual content, too expensive to get (e.g. cable networks), take your pick. When I had cable TV some years ago my cost for basic+ went from $35 a month to near $85 in the span of 3 years. I gained a dozen channels, none of them I wanted. That barrier for entry keeps rising (best I can tell).
For broadcast networks, the "lost sales" is entirely advertising money. Fewer folks watching live and being forced to watch the latest BS add for a phone that features an action movie star on a motorcycle surrounded by explosions. For cable networks, it's part subscriber revenue and advertising. For premium channels (HBO and such) it's all subscriber revenue.
I'd argue it's not so much an entitlement issue for the masses, though there are some folks that will always go for the free (torrented or such) stuff, it's that the barrier is too high for the common person. GoT was the most pirated show, then HBO took notice and made it easier to watch legally. I no longer have to pay for cable + premium channels ($100+ a month, last I checked) and set aside time from my week (and potentially from my kids), instead I can pay the $10 a month and watch it whenever I have time.
When will the content producers realize that "Pirates" are not lost sales. They never were sales, thus estimating losses is pointless. The only way to really combat a large number of people wanting something for free is to make it accessible for a price the population is willing to pay. It also doesn't help that everybody wants such a tight grip on their own stuff that they force consumers (not pirates) to find simpler routes to the content, that don't involve first borns or animal sacrifice.
For our visual folks, this cartoon from the Oatmeal should help.
Personally, if I had to pay $10 for each of NBC, Disney, CBS, and other channel groups, I might as well just suck it up and pay for cable TV. If instead I was able to pay $1 for a channel that I actually cared about a-la carte, then I'd be much happier. Then those lesser-watched channels would fade away and content providers would actually have to work to make good stuff, not tack-on the "old lady watering her garden" channel HD. I'd be spending $15 a month and getting what I want. If the channel doesn't pull in enough, then maybe they can subsidize with some self-promotion like HBO does.
researchers at Symantec who devoted their lives to unraveling the code line by line
You know, when you "devote your life" to something it's usually for longer than a season of Game of Thrones. Mayhaps the claim is a bit hyperbolic?
just sayin'.
I think it is more in reference to their not leaving basements or showering while surviving off a healthy diet of Mountain Dew and Doritos. I am pretty sure I read a few were known to yell "Mom! Bathroom!" too.
Here's hoping at least one outsider gets enough votes to be officially recognized as a political party. I'd much rather we have a 3 or 4 way monkey shit fight during election years than the toddler-level "he pulled my hair on the playground" BS we see today.
I think you mean "altitude" ;-)
Now all we need is Wine support. So we can run Windows Apps in Linux, in Windows, in Linux, in Windows, in Linux, in Windows...
Does that count as a stack overflow?
FWIW, Google Hangouts handles this sort of thing quite well. You can message from the app on iOS/Android, or gmail in a browser on any platform.
Really, this is just MS being a day late and dollar short. Something they probably have a patent on the procedure for.
More of the iTunes mentality: Taking something that could be implemented simply and cleanly - and using it to drag you kicking and screaming into an larger application that you hate.
Forget that "0.0% of people want this", as TFA states. We know what you want. We will help you want it.
FTFY.
Years ago iTunes was a respectable music manager and player. Now it's a bloated mess of iGadget interfaces, iCloud updates, application storefront/maintenance, digital music store/downloader, digital movie store/downloader... I feel I missed 5-6 things.
[citation needed]
...due to the fact that a liver is only viable for a short while after the death of the diner...
Especially if said diner was pounding margaritas during happy hour.
Somebody mod this guy up, he's right. Its the main reason why I switched away from the RH ecosystem. And before anybody tries to throw the "hipster" slur, I'm probably old enough to be your Dad. I've been at this for awhile, and there are good reasons to think the more traditional UNIX way was better.
That's great! If you're comfortable with the way you're accustomed to doing things, I have nothing against you. I'm just trying to figure out why so many people shit on the hard work done by FOSS developers, who spend time and money to give stuff to the world entirely for free (as in beer AND speech) and don't force you in any way to use it. I don't like GNOME Shell, but I don't anonymous shit-post every article about Linux. I just don't use it, and I don't suffer from apoplectic fits knowing that some peoples' opinions differ from mine.
What I'm trying to understand is the constant critique of others when you are free to do your own thing. Linus started developing the kernel all by himself and now there's hundreds (thousands?) of folks helping him out. Each of the distros started as an idea by a few people, then grew as more people liked what the first few were doing.
I for one don't care that my laptop uses PulseAudio, SystemD, NetworkManager, or Gnome Shell. As long as they work for what I want to do, why should I care? Sure, there are a handful of times Gnome has crashed, but it's still far fewer times than Windows XP or 7 has crashed for me.
If you don't like the way something is being done, use something that you do like. If you know enough about the internals to bitch and moan about the intricacies of SystemD vs SysVInit, you know enough to piece together something you do like. Stop bitching about RedHat and make your own.
What we really need is a pandora-like way to vote up or down on ads. True, there's going to be those people that simply vote every ad down, but I think some sort of system that could send a clear message "this ad sucks... bad" could be helpful to everybody. Consumers get a voice, advertisers get feedback on what definitely doesn't work.
There are a few ads that are funny once or twice. After the 10th time (in a row) they simply need to be voted off the island. Others are just plain terrible to begin with and should be tied to a chair and beaten with hammers.
How am I supposed to have an emoji militia without rifles?
I feel my e-2nd amendment rights have been trampled.
There is an older study that looked at the environmental impact of producing a Prius versus producing a Hummer.
The answer might surprise you. According to an in-depth study by the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, hybrid cars do, in fact, require more energy to produce than conventional cars, emitting more greenhouse gases and burning more fossil fuels during the manufacturing process. The production of hybrid batteries, in particular, requires much more energy than producing a standard car battery and results in higher emission levels of gases like sulfur oxide [source: Burnham et al].
But do the environmental impacts of hybrid vehicle production outweigh the long-term benefits of driving a cleaner running automobile? That answer is a resounding "no." If you drive both a conventional and hybrid car for 160,000 miles (257,495 kilometers), the conventional vehicle requires far more energy to operate and emits far more greenhouse gases over its lifetime, significantly canceling out any imbalance during the production stage [source: Burnham et al].
Basically, to be that awesome "green citizen", you'll need to drive that electric car near 160,000 miles. Something that would take ~10 years or so to do. A more recent study looks at cost of ownership and appears to have an approximately $10k difference between gasoline and electric over 5 years.