That assumes that newer laptops are still using the same old battery-backed NVRAM to hold BIOS settings. As I understand (and I could be wrong here) newer PCs, especially UEFI models, use flash storage to store those settings so there is no need for a battery.
That and what better way to slip a poison pill/garrote/syringe/Polonium-210/etc. into the poor bastard's body?
I salute but pity Snowden. He has spat in the eye of one of the most powerful and arguably most amoral governments on the planet; he is living on borrowed time and probably knows it. Frankly I'm surprised that he (and Assange for that matter) have not already been "disappeared" or medically "taken an unexpected turn for the worse" by now.
And how does one go about changing that when the laws of this nation have been so contorted and tweaked for the special interest groups that voting has devolved into a mixture of false-choice prisoners' dilemma and bread and circuses for the mob?
Not to invoke Godwin's law here but during the Nuremberg trials, several prison camp guards protested that they were "just doing their job" when they were actively participating on one of the most egregious examples of human barbarity in the history of our species (not because of the numbers but because of the fact that wiping out a subset of the population was the singular goal of the project and how methodically it was pursued)
Obviously we should vote, and obviously we should lobby our government representation. However weak they may be, they are the only legal lever we have.
Voting doesn't count for much if you can be disenfranchised at the drop of a hat and your district has been gerrymandered such that the incumbent's only threat comes from within the same party. (IE primaries)
The game is rigged, the dice are crooked, the House will always win. Every time.
And people are finally figuring it out, I'd say it's only a matter of time before they get pissed off enough about it to do something more drastic then going to the polls.
No it is not a separate point, if your representative won't give a flying fuck what you have to say unless there is a wad of Benjamins in it for them then no, common people cannot effectively lobby for their views.
You are arguing over semantics and semiotics. At the end of the day you have to pay to play.
So you're saying that every citizen of the United States should be expected to know and understand all 5000+ laws that are on the books for just the federal level? Each and every person in this country commits on average 3 felonies a day without realizing it and that is the problem. When you can be arrested for almost any arbitrary reason then it is merely a matter of time before LEOs apply said laws in an equally arbitrary manner. Why? Because they can...
Just because it hasn't happened yet does not mean it can't or won't happen in the future.Consider the incentive for incarcerating people for non-violent offenses: Big Prison is Big Business; the US has a higher percentage of the population behind bars than any other nation, including regimes we consider repressive like China. That is not an accident.
And why shouldn't they be? The real world is messy, painful, remorselessly cruel, and, more importantly, largely beyond an individuals to control.
Virtual worlds, by virtue of being run on finite-state machines, are simpler, more consistent, and allow the user a modicum of control. (tired of dealing with the dicks at the auction hourse or pvp arena? Move to a different server or log out, it's simple and instant, plus there's always the reset button, try that with reality)
No shit, in this economy, working tech support with all the horrors that entails (I read BOFH posts as a form of vicarious catharsis) is considered doing pretty damn good for yourself. There are people with 5-10 years of experience in the industry scrambling for the same entry-level jobs that the kids fresh from college are gunning for. Guess which applicant most companies will go for, the one with a track record that has fallen on hard times, or the untested newbie?
Seconded, I am one of those 20-somethings living with his parents; I am just now getting on my feet financially at a job with long term potential and I have a BSc, good resume, (all Fortune 500 companies) and numerous industry certifications. If your kid just has a GED he is pretty much gonna be guaranteed to live in poverty, the market for unskilled labor is saturated as it is and even entry-level IT jobs are hard to come by, especially fresh from college (most job posts I've seen require a minimum of 5 years experience on something. Just out of college? You're fucked) Hell, even Geek Squad is getting choosy with applicants...Us Millenials are going to be (if not already) a lost generation.
That said, get him checked for depression, I'm an aspie and depression can be utterly crippling. I've had days where it's all I can do to get out of bed while simultaneously feeling it's all I can do to stay in bed and not go find a way to commit suicide. I decided long ago not to have kids because the idea of inflicting that kind of pain on my own flesh and blood frankly scares and horrifies the shit out of me.
That said, I've been on medications for several years now and they do help immensely when you need them. The side effects suck at times and there still seems to be a social stigma attached to depression but it's a hell of a lot better than being a statistic.
Shop around for a good psych, preferably one that is also able to provide talk or Cognitive Behavioral therapy; it's crucial that your son is able to bond and confide in your psych, the doc can't help if he doesn't know what's wrong.
Ever hear of specialty food? We could just end up being a delicacy in the Universe.
Ever heard of a Molecular Constructor? Why farm when you can get the exact same results by just pouring a soup of fairly plentiful elements into a machine and get fresh-from-the-oven human brains (or Earl Grey tea for that matter) a minute later?
So then why would a civilization capable of advanced space flight go out of their way and through all the trouble of finding a population of quasi-intelligent apes to farm for brain power when they could likely just as easily grow brain matter on a computing/communication substrate that can be controlled, specialized, and reproduced at will with enough resources?
Human brains, for all their wonderful complexity, are the end result of evolution, a process notorious for using hacked-together "good enough" adaptations. Engineered tissue from the ribosome up could be made much more efficient. Hell, replacing the axon's chemo-electrical method of signal transduction with something more along the lines of metallic or carbon nanotube circuits would improve efficiency many times over; nerve transduction has been clocked at only 170 m/s, peanuts compared to modern silicon processors.
Then said commanding officer can order for you executed on the spot for treason and/or mutiny against a superior. He's in charge; you're breaking rank, who do you think the rest of your squad is gonna side with? Remember to factor in events like Bradley Manning, examples have been made, they know what happens when you rock the boat...
Who said power had to be centralized? (and no, I am not a Libertarian, I just believe that the absence of nation-states does not automatically imply central hegemonic control, there can be a middle ground between the two)
Forget their rights, removing a persons essential human dignity is a far worse fate then death. Keeping you alive as a horrifically broken shell of a human being can go on for years. After all, once you're dead what more can they do to you?
RSA and Diffie-Hellmann are different beasts. RSA is a form of public key cryptography, Diffie-Hellmann is a way to share a secret key over an insecure channel.
Public key cryptography provides both encryption and authentication/non-repudiation. Unless you leak your private key nobody else is able to pose as you, the public key would not match with the doctored private key. Diffie-Hellmann by itself is vulnerable to MITM attacks, you have to assume that Alice is really who she says she is and not Eve masquerading as Alice.
Very true but you can use sandboxing or chroot jailing to minimize their potential fallout. (and yes that does mean you have to trust that the sandbox/chroot does not have any exploitable flaws that could lead to a jailbreak)
You're thinking of WEP (and perhaps WPA1). WPA2 uses AES for block encryption and coupled with a RADIUS server can rotate keys on a per-user basis every few hours. You want your wireless secure? Use WPA2-Enterprise and FreeRADIUS. As a side bonus it actually makes giving guest users access a lot easier. They get their own login/password that does not affect other users; once they are gone, you delete them from the RADIUS server and they're locked out again without changing anyone else's wireless config.
Slashdot Mirror
That assumes that newer laptops are still using the same old battery-backed NVRAM to hold BIOS settings. As I understand (and I could be wrong here) newer PCs, especially UEFI models, use flash storage to store those settings so there is no need for a battery.
Most BIOS/Disk controllers have an additional HDD password that stays with the drive even when you pull it.
Couple this with a TPM chip attestation method to ensure that the drive won't unlock unless it recognizes the mobo and that is a non-issue.
That and what better way to slip a poison pill/garrote/syringe/Polonium-210/etc. into the poor bastard's body?
I salute but pity Snowden. He has spat in the eye of one of the most powerful and arguably most amoral governments on the planet; he is living on borrowed time and probably knows it. Frankly I'm surprised that he (and Assange for that matter) have not already been "disappeared" or medically "taken an unexpected turn for the worse" by now.
Say it with me now!
WAR IS PEACE!
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY!
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH!
We have always been at war with Eur^H^H^HEastasia!
And how does one go about changing that when the laws of this nation have been so contorted and tweaked for the special interest groups that voting has devolved into a mixture of false-choice prisoners' dilemma and bread and circuses for the mob?
Not to invoke Godwin's law here but during the Nuremberg trials, several prison camp guards protested that they were "just doing their job" when they were actively participating on one of the most egregious examples of human barbarity in the history of our species (not because of the numbers but because of the fact that wiping out a subset of the population was the singular goal of the project and how methodically it was pursued)
They were still hung by the way.
Obviously we should vote, and obviously we should lobby our government representation. However weak they may be, they are the only legal lever we have.
Voting doesn't count for much if you can be disenfranchised at the drop of a hat and your district has been gerrymandered such that the incumbent's only threat comes from within the same party. (IE primaries)
The game is rigged, the dice are crooked, the House will always win. Every time.
And people are finally figuring it out, I'd say it's only a matter of time before they get pissed off enough about it to do something more drastic then going to the polls.
No it is not a separate point, if your representative won't give a flying fuck what you have to say unless there is a wad of Benjamins in it for them then no, common people cannot effectively lobby for their views.
You are arguing over semantics and semiotics. At the end of the day you have to pay to play.
So you're saying that every citizen of the United States should be expected to know and understand all 5000+ laws that are on the books for just the federal level? Each and every person in this country commits on average 3 felonies a day without realizing it and that is the problem. When you can be arrested for almost any arbitrary reason then it is merely a matter of time before LEOs apply said laws in an equally arbitrary manner. Why? Because they can...
Al-Jezeera or the BBC. Journalism in America has been bought and paid for.
Just because it hasn't happened yet does not mean it can't or won't happen in the future.Consider the incentive for incarcerating people for non-violent offenses: Big Prison is Big Business; the US has a higher percentage of the population behind bars than any other nation, including regimes we consider repressive like China. That is not an accident.
And why shouldn't they be? The real world is messy, painful, remorselessly cruel, and, more importantly, largely beyond an individuals to control.
Virtual worlds, by virtue of being run on finite-state machines, are simpler, more consistent, and allow the user a modicum of control. (tired of dealing with the dicks at the auction hourse or pvp arena? Move to a different server or log out, it's simple and instant, plus there's always the reset button, try that with reality)
No shit, in this economy, working tech support with all the horrors that entails (I read BOFH posts as a form of vicarious catharsis) is considered doing pretty damn good for yourself. There are people with 5-10 years of experience in the industry scrambling for the same entry-level jobs that the kids fresh from college are gunning for. Guess which applicant most companies will go for, the one with a track record that has fallen on hard times, or the untested newbie?
Seconded, I am one of those 20-somethings living with his parents; I am just now getting on my feet financially at a job with long term potential and I have a BSc, good resume, (all Fortune 500 companies) and numerous industry certifications. If your kid just has a GED he is pretty much gonna be guaranteed to live in poverty, the market for unskilled labor is saturated as it is and even entry-level IT jobs are hard to come by, especially fresh from college (most job posts I've seen require a minimum of 5 years experience on something. Just out of college? You're fucked) Hell, even Geek Squad is getting choosy with applicants...Us Millenials are going to be (if not already) a lost generation.
That said, get him checked for depression, I'm an aspie and depression can be utterly crippling. I've had days where it's all I can do to get out of bed while simultaneously feeling it's all I can do to stay in bed and not go find a way to commit suicide. I decided long ago not to have kids because the idea of inflicting that kind of pain on my own flesh and blood frankly scares and horrifies the shit out of me.
That said, I've been on medications for several years now and they do help immensely when you need them. The side effects suck at times and there still seems to be a social stigma attached to depression but it's a hell of a lot better than being a statistic.
Shop around for a good psych, preferably one that is also able to provide talk or Cognitive Behavioral therapy; it's crucial that your son is able to bond and confide in your psych, the doc can't help if he doesn't know what's wrong.
Ever hear of specialty food? We could just end up being a delicacy in the Universe.
Ever heard of a Molecular Constructor? Why farm when you can get the exact same results by just pouring a soup of fairly plentiful elements into a machine and get fresh-from-the-oven human brains (or Earl Grey tea for that matter) a minute later?
So then why would a civilization capable of advanced space flight go out of their way and through all the trouble of finding a population of quasi-intelligent apes to farm for brain power when they could likely just as easily grow brain matter on a computing/communication substrate that can be controlled, specialized, and reproduced at will with enough resources?
Human brains, for all their wonderful complexity, are the end result of evolution, a process notorious for using hacked-together "good enough" adaptations. Engineered tissue from the ribosome up could be made much more efficient. Hell, replacing the axon's chemo-electrical method of signal transduction with something more along the lines of metallic or carbon nanotube circuits would improve efficiency many times over; nerve transduction has been clocked at only 170 m/s, peanuts compared to modern silicon processors.
There are discovered gold mines that date back to before our ancestors even had civilization or society.
[citation needed]
I dunno, considering the legal climate here in the United States that may be an uncomfortably apt description...
Happy Freedom Day everybody! Now kindly present your right hand for tracker chip implantation...
Then said commanding officer can order for you executed on the spot for treason and/or mutiny against a superior. He's in charge; you're breaking rank, who do you think the rest of your squad is gonna side with? Remember to factor in events like Bradley Manning, examples have been made, they know what happens when you rock the boat...
Who said power had to be centralized? (and no, I am not a Libertarian, I just believe that the absence of nation-states does not automatically imply central hegemonic control, there can be a middle ground between the two)
Forget their rights, removing a persons essential human dignity is a far worse fate then death. Keeping you alive as a horrifically broken shell of a human being can go on for years. After all, once you're dead what more can they do to you?
RSA and Diffie-Hellmann are different beasts. RSA is a form of public key cryptography, Diffie-Hellmann is a way to share a secret key over an insecure channel.
Public key cryptography provides both encryption and authentication/non-repudiation. Unless you leak your private key nobody else is able to pose as you, the public key would not match with the doctored private key. Diffie-Hellmann by itself is vulnerable to MITM attacks, you have to assume that Alice is really who she says she is and not Eve masquerading as Alice.
Very true but you can use sandboxing or chroot jailing to minimize their potential fallout. (and yes that does mean you have to trust that the sandbox/chroot does not have any exploitable flaws that could lead to a jailbreak)
You're thinking of WEP (and perhaps WPA1). WPA2 uses AES for block encryption and coupled with a RADIUS server can rotate keys on a per-user basis every few hours. You want your wireless secure? Use WPA2-Enterprise and FreeRADIUS. As a side bonus it actually makes giving guest users access a lot easier. They get their own login/password that does not affect other users; once they are gone, you delete them from the RADIUS server and they're locked out again without changing anyone else's wireless config.
No, but they do work for RSA which is often used to share AES keys.