I dont pretend to have any idea if this could be done. But when I saw the animation of the nearby stars swooping around the centre of the milky way... it was so beautiful. I support all attempts to image this area further. I for one wish them all the best luck in this endeavour.and cannot wait to see the results. Best luck u star gazers.
I have no basis for this, but that shouldnt stop me now. Imagine Garmin and others selling a whole bunch of GPS units that do not properly limit their signal detection to the bandwidth assigned to GPS. Maybe the reason for this is that it is both cheaper to produce defective products and further that there is no signals in the surrounding bandwidth to make these product deficiencies apparent. Now a 3rd party comes in and buys rights to the neighbouring frequencies. Suddenly the crappy hardware they sold will not work for thousands and thousands of customers. Whos fault is this? It doesnt matter, as I would suspect the paying public would band together and demand a mass recall for these cheaply designed products. In this imaginary world, do u think that new technologies and progress should be held back simply because some other company cut corners in the past? Do u think people should falsify tests in order to cover up the reality of the situation? Well this is all just imaginary speculation... but as a consumer... I would want to get the company who sold me the defective product to fix it rather then force some other unrelated company into a massive financial loss.
I liked it in Star Trek when Spock's casket was launched into space after he died. I thought this would be a great way to be "buried". Then I saw this and put the two together. Why not offer this as a funeral service and instead of all the electronics, put 1000 one centimetre cubes in the release box filled with a small portion of the cremated remains. I think this would sell well at just $300 a pop. I would buy my centimetre spot right now. As a bonus, they could offer some 5 minute digital message for each participant to be beamed out by just one transmitter also in the box. That way ur message would be beamed to earth and out to the heavens forever. It sure would give me comfort to know that for a brief point in the future, part of me would be up in space and then burned up in the upper atmosphere. Maybe I am alone, but I would pay this and much more. Somehow... I think this $300 pricing must be off. Perhaps it is dependent on the load being research based and thus costs being subsidised.
Piracy is a bad word because it implies theft. Sharing is not theft and it is godly in that sharing is wat allows humans to express humanity. Distribution companies would like u to lump the too together and then call it all immoral and illegal. We need to fight this because it should never be illegal for u to share wat u rightfully own. Not sharing is generally a selfish option. But it should be a choice of the owner not the manufacturer. I can choose to share my car, my shelter, my food, my tools. The problem is distribution. Providing free copies of ur owned goods to people u dont know. That is wat big corporations do and historically it costs a lot of money to do this. Thus large distributors could charge a lot of money for providing this service. Now that the Internet came along and provided a very very cheap mechanism to distribute, the corporations who do this are finding it difficult to justify the amount they charge for this service. Effectively it costs $0 to distribute now. This is a problem for those who depend on this expense in order to justify expensive products and subsequent huge profits. Instead of adjusting to the new paradigm, it is easier and more profitable for them to attempt to legislate it away. I feel we are doing great harm by introducing laws to stifle progress in an attempt to protect the profits of companies who are now obviously just trying to limit new channels of competition. In the end, I expect these old companies r just shooting themselves in the foot by not embracing these new efficient channels of delivery. These companies would be better served by reducing prices and improving access to content. They could be beating the pirate companies at their own game. Look at wat apple has done in the music distribution industry. If the major players in the music industry had of acted faster to give people wat they wanted legally, then they wouldnt have to be giving apple such a large slice of their pie now. Maybe I am naive, but I think the majority of people DONT want to steal movies and music... they just dont want to be ripped off. Because inside, we all know that is exactly wat is happening. And the "theft" is justified based on this gut instinct.
I think the ability to view wikipedia without javascript is kinda half assed. I dont allow javascript by default to any site unless I feel it is needed to view something from a safe site. Because of all the known and yet to know security and phishing holes associated with it. So when I went to wikipedia and saw it was working as normal I was disappointed. I had to turn on javascript just to be blocked. I dont think wikipedia should allow access at all if they really wanted to take a stand here. Anyhow... I think it is kind of a weak point that wikipedia is making.
The US government should not have this power over internet censorship. As a computer programmer I understand that this bill would not stop the illegal activities it is reporting to fight. What it will do is reduce the ability to share legally. This will effect me and my friends because the channels used to exchange copyrighted material is the same channels I use daily to update my operating system... and applications... legally! To me this looks like a mechanism to rid the Internet of free exchange of information and application sharing so that all traffic is driven through expensive corporate controlled channels. It is my opinion that this is a fight to control the concept of Sharing in general. And sharing is not something that should be stopped. I believe sharing is godly as it is a fundamental aspect of a good person and a real aspect of wat allows humans to express humanity.
Canada will implement this sort of law regardless. It is coming. This sort of threat is just another excuse for our citizens to accept such an oppressive law as a necessary evil and for those in power to claim they had no choice. The best government is a minority government because it gets less accomplished. Now that we put in place a majority we see the government ruling in full steam. "That government is best which governs least".
If u have access to perl, here is a simple program to generate passwords urself:
#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
my @charset = ('A'..'Z','a'..'z',0..9,qw(+/));
my $length = 64;
my $iterations = 5;
print join('', (@charset)[map rand $_, (scalar @charset) x $length]) . "\n" for 1.. $iterations;
I use this to generate impossible to remember passwords for all the sites and computers I access and router keys and stuff. I use a single passphrase to encrypt all of them and this works well in firefox by default (set a master password). I find it is possible for anyone to memorize a passphrase of 10 completely random digits in 2 weeks to a month (I have 4 in my head now). In that time, have the passphrase written down for reference and after that destroy it. Store a copy of all passwords externally on USB and make sure these are all protected using encryption protocols recognized by NSA for top secret documents. Never trust encrypting ur secrets with application based "encrypt" buttons... as these are usually made to be insecure so the company can protect their own butts. I am referring to fake encryption like when u click "OTR" in google chat or try to "encrypt" while using Skype.
I ride an electric bicycle for commuting to work. This is not a solution for everyone and is not a replacement for a car, but it is incredibly efficient. If you live in a city that is sympathetic to cyclists (bike paths) and live close enough to ride at 35 kph then this is the best possible solution. I pay less then 2 cents per day in fuel costs (electricity). I know I've been measuring it for years now. I've travelled more then 11,000 km on this vehicle in 2 years. I can ride to neighbouring cities to visit with friends no problems. It is no more dangerous then cycling alone and there are no complaints from pedestrians. The fuel efficiency and almost $0 maintenance cannot be beat. It puts all electric cars and hybrids to shame in terms of savings in money and energy and it is about 100 times cheaper then buying a bus pass every month.
I do believe all electric cars are the future, but right now they are definitely overpriced and the included combustion engine will make sure ur ongoing maintenance costs remain high enough to justify the existing high monthly leasing price the car companies depend on.
This isnt about copyrights. Its about preventing the spread of Kopimism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary_Church_of_Kopimism, which is now an official religion in Sweden. Its about stopping the growth of "Pirate Parties" as in Germany, where the Piratenpartei Deutschland (Pirate Party) took 8.9 percent of the vote in Berlin's recent election.
Yes yes yes! Why are we not using wifi routers to create public networks across urban areas? This is totally free and the bandwidth would be massive. I cannot find any location in my city where there is less then 10 routers in range. And usually there are 20, 30 or more routers. If these routers were simply programmed to pass on messages when they are not servicing the owners requests (which is almost all the time)... then we would have a massive powerful free shared network. Providing all the phone, email, chat services u can handle. Plus video streaming would be a snap. Why arent we doing this? We are already paying for the ability to do it by having routers plugged in all the time? Are we so convinced to be afraid of it by the corporate entities that only stand to profit from our ignorance? Are we so convinced to fear crime and abuse of it by the government agencies that only stand to use the current control and monitoring against us?
Please someone figure out how to make this network live and start using this massive untapped bandwidth. Please write it as a virus sent from router to router... I cannot wait to have my router "infected" with access to this free community network.
Apparently a friend of mine was going quite fast, lost control somehow, hit a tree, flew out of his car (because he wasn't wearing his seat belt), and his car wrapped itself around another tree. He was dazed for quite a while, but survived with no major injuries.
So in this case if he was wearing a seatbelt he would be dead, inside his car that was wrapped around a tree.
But on average it's safer to wear a seatbelt...
Accidents by definition are not planned decision. Wearing a seatbelt or not is a conscious decision. Choosing not to wear a seatbelt was still a bad decision even though it may have saved a life in this one instance. I mean if he were to repeat the accident 100 times, without a seatbelt he probably dies in the other 99 outcomes. Because being thrown outside of a vehicle during an accident has an excessively high death rate. His experience is only significant to others in a greater statistical view which clearly shows... seatbelts are the conscious choice of intelligent people. Regardless of the outcome, ur friend made a poor decision to not wear a seatbelt. And if this story is being repeated as a possible excuse not to wear a seatbelt, then it is irresponsible. I know someone who was thrown out of a car during an accident and landed in a snow bank and survived. I dont know this, but suspect that the injuries would have been less if he was belted and remained inside the whole time... as the other occupants did. But to tell this story as if suggesting that sometimes it saves lives to not wear ur seatbelt is irresponsible. Because it gives stupid people an excuse to continue stupid behaviour.
We live in a free market. Businesses have the choice to use watever model they want. If a business model doesnt work for ur particular business then dont use it. But dont complain because others r successful using the same model that u cannot figure out how to drive a profit from. If u can not find any business model to make money then go out of business. I am not a supporter of the concept of artificially crippling progress to support old cash cows. Just because some model worked in the past doesnt mean we should reject those methods that undercut them and force people to move into jobs of the future. We dont really talk too much about how robotic systems replaced masses of workers in the manufacturing industry any more. Competition is what it is... the most lean companies providing the best service will always win in an open market and that is how it should be. If u seriously believe that there is less total money being spent on software worldwide then in the past... well u r wrong. There is lots of money to be made, it just comes through different channels and depends on reaching out to the world market. If u complain about open source software then I will tell you that perhaps the commercial version has reached its limits and it was time for it to be replaced. Do you really think ur browser software would be better if u paid for it?
Given the choice to between IIS or Apache and the technical knowledge to use either... I have never seen anyone choose IIS. The only reason I have ever seen web services specifically hosted on IIS is because someone told them that this is how they had to do it. The only other reason to use IIS is because that is what you are familiar with or because IIS is a requirement for the application you want to serve from it... which are valid reasons. I never see anyone choose to waste money on a product that provides absolutely no benefit over the free one running on a free operating system. Sorry to state the obvious.
I hope this isnt too off topic. But I think the biggest risk to the Internet is the fact that we r forced to go through commercial ISPs just to get network access. I dont understand why there isnt already free and open networking within urban areas. I see more then 10 routers everywhere in my city all the time. I cant understand why there isnt a secondary protocol running to allow message passing across the city via these routers when they r not busy handling local requests by their owners. Such a network would allow text, voice and file sharing across the city at no additional cost to consumers and absolutely outside the control of commercial entities. Further, it could provide anyone with a route to their home and subsequent access to the Internet through their home connection. This network could be propagated like a virus from router to router... so it could not be prevented by authority or corporate interests. It would be an ideal setup in cases of disaster or government suppression. It is not paranoid to desire free and non commercial solutions. The last time I read the MS windows EULA, it was clearly that microsoft does retain the right to switch off any and all Internet services at any time. You have agreed to this, so if you dont like providing authority (corporate or government) with a "kill switch" then u should also install Ubuntu or a linux variant onto spare space on your hard drive... in case of emergency. I assure u this is not as difficult as u imagine. Anyhow... my main point is that there is a huge amount of free network bandwidth available right now through all the routers in ur city... y is it that we are not exploiting this huge uncontrolled open network? And y dont I see more people talking about doing this? The only losers would be those who sell bandwidth (ISPs) and those who wish to control and monitor it (gov, police, authority).
The credit card industry has a document defining the requirements for creating a server that accepts and holds private customer data. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Card_Industry_Data_Security_Standard. It is a freely available document that will specifically guide you through every point to cover making sure your setup is secure. It involves everything from physical security of the hardware from theft, to managing user access and passwords, to running security monitoring software, to following best practices for preventing hacking over the web using html holes.
You should look into OWASP for preventing scripting, SQL injection, XSS and such attacks. This is primarily for web based security through holes in ur design.
You should learn and use the modsecurity apache module.
I think u will find that following all of this is a task beyond one person. But if you attempt to do as much as you can from these sources... ur setup will be far more secure then most others and a less likely target. If you really need ultimate security, then u should hire someone to perform some of the tasks that you cannot. Following all of this will be a pain in the butt. And every time u make changes to ur application, u will probably have to rewrite much of the security rules. I dont know what banks use, but this is exactly wat online credit card companies are required to do. Oh yeah... also having a "staging server" which is a duplicate of the live server to adjust and test before sending any changes to the live server is a good idea too. Good luck, but I will tell you that it is easier to hire someone to do this for u. and also get insurance if you have liabilities.
I feel it is disturbing using video games to program the mind to be comfortable with death and killing. But reality is that in heavy situations, the amount of hesitation over killing in battle and subsequent shell shock results can be as high as 1:1. Meaning 1/2 of ur men could become effectively useless in heavy battle. Providing a framework for the mind to accept and rationalise the horrors that can occur is essential in getting the most efficiency out of ur men.
I hate to admit it, but a soldier who doesn't think twice before killing is an ideal soldier. Its sad though that we have to do program minds like this. And its a little scary that they tools we use are the same ones our children play with. But I suppose it is in line with military recruitment commercials that imply joining the military is a good way to "see the world" and drive cool machinery.
These "games" are evil, but if you believe peace requires war and peace is the goal... then our re-programming tools should be top of the line.
I've always felt the Babel story is one of destruction of science in the name of protecting religious dogmas. The way it was explained to me is that man was trying to build a tower to reach to the heavens and understand god and this pissed god and his hand came down and stirred up the pot to stop man from trying to be too smart.
I see it as the mythical story to cover up the evil actions of man's past. I relate it to the Libraries of Alexandria that were plundered for scientific writings and anything that conflicted with the requirements for current religious belief were burned. Kinda like what some still try to do today. I just see it as a story of a warning not to look to hard at the world around you... and it implies permission to stop and destroy those who attempt to question your dogma. Because after all... that is what god did.
Perhaps its not the greatest solution... but I suggest that adding esata drives is easy. That is what I did when I ran out of drive space on my server. Install an esata card and buy one esata drive at a time. That way u get maximum space at minimum price as you buy new drives as required. It does not require any changes to ur existing setup. And esata is just as fast as an internal hard drive.
This saved me a lot of time, because the software is setup like a Tivo to auto archive all my favourite shows... and some I dont watch, but keep for others. This means reconfiguring the system is much more time consuming then just reinstalling Linux on a new box. So I just renamed the existing archive directory name, and symlinked that name to point to a directory on the new drive, copied all the subfolders where all the shows reside add configured the tv software to access the old shows through their new directory name. This was fast, painless and not too expensive.
Aside: To the person who suggests u run compression manual on each show... well they are not archiving 30 shows per day and have no concept of what a computer is meant to do... ie: automate beyond anything u could possibly do by hand.
I know it's hard to grasp for a geek, but most people are not tech savvy..
What about poverty or just a budget... is that something we can hope to grasp? Reality is that some people "tinker" as you put it because they cannot afford to pay to have others tinker for them.
All I am saying is that when I hear about a doorbell service that can be transported to any of my remote devices... well I think this is something I MAY have. But when I see it used 3G, I realize it is NOT something I will have.
A smart phone is a computer like any other and should be treated as such.
Agreed, smart phone = computer. Viruses are a good indicator that you can install software that gets the full use out of the hardware you purchased.
I really hate when a manufacture attempts to "protect" me from using devices in ways that they didn't already envision. Like by limiting applications I can/can't install. Because this "protection" can be used as a means to protect their alternate revenue streams. And frankly, I don't expect any one company to ever be big enough to keep-up with all the software I may want to install. Kinda like the way Linux is beating Microsoft in speed of application development and virus protection at the same time.
Point is... "protection" obviously doesn't work and currently only serves to reduce functionality and increase costs. GET RID OF IT!
I like Firefox. But this sort of article makes me worry about its future value.
Any time a salesman tries to explain the manufacturing technique or space aged materials used... I know that the product is almost certainly overpriced or deficient in comparison to competing products. I really dont care how beautiful the code is or how well it compiles with whatever exotic options. Contact me when you have real comparison tests for speed and a version to download.
I run linux and I have had viruses. ClamAV caught a lot of email attachment viruses and such. ClamAV quarantined them. I suspect that they really only run on windows, but at least I didnt forward them on. Also, if you use USB you can get viruses on those devices too. As I did at a community services center with free internet. I told the sysadmin about it... but a week later I went in and I got it again.
Anyhow... I just wanted to point out that Linux does get viruses. Although the majority (all?) appear to target windoz.
I don't think I had a virus actually run on Linux... although if I did, it was really good and didnt reveal itself.
It's easier to put your sensitive data on a micro SD card, and hide that somewhere.
I once setup a computer on an SD card, but also setup a partition to be used as memory for my digital camera. In this way I could put the memory into my SD camera and the camera would operate in all normal ways if searched. But I could also remove the memory from my camera and put it into a computer. Furthermore, I didn't just put data on the SD card. I put the entire operating system on it. So I could essentially travel anywhere with only my camera in hand and when I arrive at my destination, I could put the SD card in any computer and log into my the computer just like it was my own.
So my "hiding" was not really hiding the content, but rather hiding the media in plain site by exploiting the SD memory card for 2 uses. By making one usage active, easy to test and verify the secondary usage is unlikely to be noticed. Especially when I wouldn't even need to carry a computer with me.
To further protect the operating system during transit and protect information when the media is inevitably lost or not needed, I encrypted the computer partition using Luks as well.
Now this doesn't provide true security against the discovery of an encrypted partition completely if the camera data stick is removed and searched separately by a computer. But it is just one layer of protection against unwanted detect of the existence of encrypted data (or even whole operating system) in the first place.
As mentioned, the traveler using this technique wouldn't even have to carry a computer with them. Just keep the SD in the camera and that is all you travel with. Then insert it into a computer you buy, rent or borrow at the destination. I took the SD card into a Best Buy and booted it up on about 80% of their current models without issue. The main issue with the remaining 20% was the inability to boot off SD memory sticks. But for the most part you should expect newer computers to totally support this.
However, don't try any of this with Windows operating systems or any others that attempt to tie the operating system to the motherboard. IMO: An immoral and possibly illegal contract request. But anyhow, windows specifically prohibits booting your operating system on multiple computers and I'm unsure of their current stance on SD installations. I'm also quiet certain you would have to pay extra in order to have the entire operating system encrypted... if windows does even offer this ability at all... I don't know... I don't use windows because it is an antiquated operating system tied up in legal EULA issues that attempts to protect profit at the expense of stifled innovation. Anyhow... point is, use Linux for this and similar experiments. I used Ubuntu and it was easy to setup exactly what I described.
I hope the solution the government provides is to remove the old, weak and largely unprotected operating system and replace it with a free modern operating system that can be automatically installed and upgraded for free. Like some linux variant.
Because it is my opinion that the number one reason we have so many infections is that the user cannot afford to upgrade to the fix and/or cannot afford the commercial product to detect and repair the issue on the existing architecture. With free operating systems and software, the user is free to keep there system up to date with the most advanced and therefore most resilient code.
I believe we would have far less issues with botnets if the latest operating system, applications, virus detection and removal products were all freely available. As users would never delay upgrading to the latest editions due to cost.
Alternatively, a solution would be to give each one of these users a new copy of Win7 and updated versions of all their applications for Win7. But this seems far less likely.
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I dont pretend to have any idea if this could be done. But when I saw the animation of the nearby stars swooping around the centre of the milky way... it was so beautiful. I support all attempts to image this area further. I for one wish them all the best luck in this endeavour.and cannot wait to see the results. Best luck u star gazers.
I have no basis for this, but that shouldnt stop me now. Imagine Garmin and others selling a whole bunch of GPS units that do not properly limit their signal detection to the bandwidth assigned to GPS. Maybe the reason for this is that it is both cheaper to produce defective products and further that there is no signals in the surrounding bandwidth to make these product deficiencies apparent. Now a 3rd party comes in and buys rights to the neighbouring frequencies. Suddenly the crappy hardware they sold will not work for thousands and thousands of customers. Whos fault is this? It doesnt matter, as I would suspect the paying public would band together and demand a mass recall for these cheaply designed products. In this imaginary world, do u think that new technologies and progress should be held back simply because some other company cut corners in the past? Do u think people should falsify tests in order to cover up the reality of the situation? Well this is all just imaginary speculation... but as a consumer... I would want to get the company who sold me the defective product to fix it rather then force some other unrelated company into a massive financial loss.
I liked it in Star Trek when Spock's casket was launched into space after he died. I thought this would be a great way to be "buried". Then I saw this and put the two together. Why not offer this as a funeral service and instead of all the electronics, put 1000 one centimetre cubes in the release box filled with a small portion of the cremated remains. I think this would sell well at just $300 a pop. I would buy my centimetre spot right now. As a bonus, they could offer some 5 minute digital message for each participant to be beamed out by just one transmitter also in the box. That way ur message would be beamed to earth and out to the heavens forever. It sure would give me comfort to know that for a brief point in the future, part of me would be up in space and then burned up in the upper atmosphere. Maybe I am alone, but I would pay this and much more. Somehow... I think this $300 pricing must be off. Perhaps it is dependent on the load being research based and thus costs being subsidised.
Piracy is a bad word because it implies theft. Sharing is not theft and it is godly in that sharing is wat allows humans to express humanity. Distribution companies would like u to lump the too together and then call it all immoral and illegal. We need to fight this because it should never be illegal for u to share wat u rightfully own. Not sharing is generally a selfish option. But it should be a choice of the owner not the manufacturer. I can choose to share my car, my shelter, my food, my tools. The problem is distribution. Providing free copies of ur owned goods to people u dont know. That is wat big corporations do and historically it costs a lot of money to do this. Thus large distributors could charge a lot of money for providing this service. Now that the Internet came along and provided a very very cheap mechanism to distribute, the corporations who do this are finding it difficult to justify the amount they charge for this service. Effectively it costs $0 to distribute now. This is a problem for those who depend on this expense in order to justify expensive products and subsequent huge profits. Instead of adjusting to the new paradigm, it is easier and more profitable for them to attempt to legislate it away. I feel we are doing great harm by introducing laws to stifle progress in an attempt to protect the profits of companies who are now obviously just trying to limit new channels of competition. In the end, I expect these old companies r just shooting themselves in the foot by not embracing these new efficient channels of delivery. These companies would be better served by reducing prices and improving access to content. They could be beating the pirate companies at their own game. Look at wat apple has done in the music distribution industry. If the major players in the music industry had of acted faster to give people wat they wanted legally, then they wouldnt have to be giving apple such a large slice of their pie now. Maybe I am naive, but I think the majority of people DONT want to steal movies and music... they just dont want to be ripped off. Because inside, we all know that is exactly wat is happening. And the "theft" is justified based on this gut instinct.
I think the ability to view wikipedia without javascript is kinda half assed. I dont allow javascript by default to any site unless I feel it is needed to view something from a safe site. Because of all the known and yet to know security and phishing holes associated with it. So when I went to wikipedia and saw it was working as normal I was disappointed. I had to turn on javascript just to be blocked. I dont think wikipedia should allow access at all if they really wanted to take a stand here. Anyhow... I think it is kind of a weak point that wikipedia is making.
The US government should not have this power over internet censorship. As a computer programmer I understand that this bill would not stop the illegal activities it is reporting to fight. What it will do is reduce the ability to share legally. This will effect me and my friends because the channels used to exchange copyrighted material is the same channels I use daily to update my operating system... and applications... legally! To me this looks like a mechanism to rid the Internet of free exchange of information and application sharing so that all traffic is driven through expensive corporate controlled channels. It is my opinion that this is a fight to control the concept of Sharing in general. And sharing is not something that should be stopped. I believe sharing is godly as it is a fundamental aspect of a good person and a real aspect of wat allows humans to express humanity.
Canada will implement this sort of law regardless. It is coming. This sort of threat is just another excuse for our citizens to accept such an oppressive law as a necessary evil and for those in power to claim they had no choice. The best government is a minority government because it gets less accomplished. Now that we put in place a majority we see the government ruling in full steam. "That government is best which governs least".
#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
my @charset = ('A'..'Z','a'..'z',0..9,qw(+
my $length = 64;
my $iterations = 5;
print join('', (@charset)[map rand $_, (scalar @charset) x $length]) . "\n" for 1
I use this to generate impossible to remember passwords for all the sites and computers I access and router keys and stuff. I use a single passphrase to encrypt all of them and this works well in firefox by default (set a master password). I find it is possible for anyone to memorize a passphrase of 10 completely random digits in 2 weeks to a month (I have 4 in my head now). In that time, have the passphrase written down for reference and after that destroy it. Store a copy of all passwords externally on USB and make sure these are all protected using encryption protocols recognized by NSA for top secret documents. Never trust encrypting ur secrets with application based "encrypt" buttons... as these are usually made to be insecure so the company can protect their own butts. I am referring to fake encryption like when u click "OTR" in google chat or try to "encrypt" while using Skype.
I ride an electric bicycle for commuting to work. This is not a solution for everyone and is not a replacement for a car, but it is incredibly efficient. If you live in a city that is sympathetic to cyclists (bike paths) and live close enough to ride at 35 kph then this is the best possible solution. I pay less then 2 cents per day in fuel costs (electricity). I know I've been measuring it for years now. I've travelled more then 11,000 km on this vehicle in 2 years. I can ride to neighbouring cities to visit with friends no problems. It is no more dangerous then cycling alone and there are no complaints from pedestrians. The fuel efficiency and almost $0 maintenance cannot be beat. It puts all electric cars and hybrids to shame in terms of savings in money and energy and it is about 100 times cheaper then buying a bus pass every month. I do believe all electric cars are the future, but right now they are definitely overpriced and the included combustion engine will make sure ur ongoing maintenance costs remain high enough to justify the existing high monthly leasing price the car companies depend on.
This isnt about copyrights. Its about preventing the spread of Kopimism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary_Church_of_Kopimism, which is now an official religion in Sweden. Its about stopping the growth of "Pirate Parties" as in Germany, where the Piratenpartei Deutschland (Pirate Party) took 8.9 percent of the vote in Berlin's recent election.
Yes yes yes! Why are we not using wifi routers to create public networks across urban areas? This is totally free and the bandwidth would be massive. I cannot find any location in my city where there is less then 10 routers in range. And usually there are 20, 30 or more routers. If these routers were simply programmed to pass on messages when they are not servicing the owners requests (which is almost all the time)... then we would have a massive powerful free shared network. Providing all the phone, email, chat services u can handle. Plus video streaming would be a snap. Why arent we doing this? We are already paying for the ability to do it by having routers plugged in all the time? Are we so convinced to be afraid of it by the corporate entities that only stand to profit from our ignorance? Are we so convinced to fear crime and abuse of it by the government agencies that only stand to use the current control and monitoring against us? Please someone figure out how to make this network live and start using this massive untapped bandwidth. Please write it as a virus sent from router to router... I cannot wait to have my router "infected" with access to this free community network.
Apparently a friend of mine was going quite fast, lost control somehow, hit a tree, flew out of his car (because he wasn't wearing his seat belt), and his car wrapped itself around another tree. He was dazed for quite a while, but survived with no major injuries. So in this case if he was wearing a seatbelt he would be dead, inside his car that was wrapped around a tree. But on average it's safer to wear a seatbelt...
Accidents by definition are not planned decision. Wearing a seatbelt or not is a conscious decision. Choosing not to wear a seatbelt was still a bad decision even though it may have saved a life in this one instance. I mean if he were to repeat the accident 100 times, without a seatbelt he probably dies in the other 99 outcomes. Because being thrown outside of a vehicle during an accident has an excessively high death rate. His experience is only significant to others in a greater statistical view which clearly shows... seatbelts are the conscious choice of intelligent people. Regardless of the outcome, ur friend made a poor decision to not wear a seatbelt. And if this story is being repeated as a possible excuse not to wear a seatbelt, then it is irresponsible. I know someone who was thrown out of a car during an accident and landed in a snow bank and survived. I dont know this, but suspect that the injuries would have been less if he was belted and remained inside the whole time... as the other occupants did. But to tell this story as if suggesting that sometimes it saves lives to not wear ur seatbelt is irresponsible. Because it gives stupid people an excuse to continue stupid behaviour.
We live in a free market. Businesses have the choice to use watever model they want. If a business model doesnt work for ur particular business then dont use it. But dont complain because others r successful using the same model that u cannot figure out how to drive a profit from. If u can not find any business model to make money then go out of business. I am not a supporter of the concept of artificially crippling progress to support old cash cows. Just because some model worked in the past doesnt mean we should reject those methods that undercut them and force people to move into jobs of the future. We dont really talk too much about how robotic systems replaced masses of workers in the manufacturing industry any more. Competition is what it is... the most lean companies providing the best service will always win in an open market and that is how it should be. If u seriously believe that there is less total money being spent on software worldwide then in the past... well u r wrong. There is lots of money to be made, it just comes through different channels and depends on reaching out to the world market. If u complain about open source software then I will tell you that perhaps the commercial version has reached its limits and it was time for it to be replaced. Do you really think ur browser software would be better if u paid for it?
Given the choice to between IIS or Apache and the technical knowledge to use either... I have never seen anyone choose IIS. The only reason I have ever seen web services specifically hosted on IIS is because someone told them that this is how they had to do it. The only other reason to use IIS is because that is what you are familiar with or because IIS is a requirement for the application you want to serve from it... which are valid reasons. I never see anyone choose to waste money on a product that provides absolutely no benefit over the free one running on a free operating system. Sorry to state the obvious.
I hope this isnt too off topic. But I think the biggest risk to the Internet is the fact that we r forced to go through commercial ISPs just to get network access. I dont understand why there isnt already free and open networking within urban areas. I see more then 10 routers everywhere in my city all the time. I cant understand why there isnt a secondary protocol running to allow message passing across the city via these routers when they r not busy handling local requests by their owners. Such a network would allow text, voice and file sharing across the city at no additional cost to consumers and absolutely outside the control of commercial entities. Further, it could provide anyone with a route to their home and subsequent access to the Internet through their home connection. This network could be propagated like a virus from router to router... so it could not be prevented by authority or corporate interests. It would be an ideal setup in cases of disaster or government suppression. It is not paranoid to desire free and non commercial solutions. The last time I read the MS windows EULA, it was clearly that microsoft does retain the right to switch off any and all Internet services at any time. You have agreed to this, so if you dont like providing authority (corporate or government) with a "kill switch" then u should also install Ubuntu or a linux variant onto spare space on your hard drive... in case of emergency. I assure u this is not as difficult as u imagine. Anyhow... my main point is that there is a huge amount of free network bandwidth available right now through all the routers in ur city... y is it that we are not exploiting this huge uncontrolled open network? And y dont I see more people talking about doing this? The only losers would be those who sell bandwidth (ISPs) and those who wish to control and monitor it (gov, police, authority).
The credit card industry has a document defining the requirements for creating a server that accepts and holds private customer data. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Card_Industry_Data_Security_Standard. It is a freely available document that will specifically guide you through every point to cover making sure your setup is secure. It involves everything from physical security of the hardware from theft, to managing user access and passwords, to running security monitoring software, to following best practices for preventing hacking over the web using html holes. You should look into OWASP for preventing scripting, SQL injection, XSS and such attacks. This is primarily for web based security through holes in ur design. You should learn and use the modsecurity apache module. I think u will find that following all of this is a task beyond one person. But if you attempt to do as much as you can from these sources... ur setup will be far more secure then most others and a less likely target. If you really need ultimate security, then u should hire someone to perform some of the tasks that you cannot. Following all of this will be a pain in the butt. And every time u make changes to ur application, u will probably have to rewrite much of the security rules. I dont know what banks use, but this is exactly wat online credit card companies are required to do. Oh yeah... also having a "staging server" which is a duplicate of the live server to adjust and test before sending any changes to the live server is a good idea too. Good luck, but I will tell you that it is easier to hire someone to do this for u. and also get insurance if you have liabilities.
I feel it is disturbing using video games to program the mind to be comfortable with death and killing. But reality is that in heavy situations, the amount of hesitation over killing in battle and subsequent shell shock results can be as high as 1:1. Meaning 1/2 of ur men could become effectively useless in heavy battle. Providing a framework for the mind to accept and rationalise the horrors that can occur is essential in getting the most efficiency out of ur men. I hate to admit it, but a soldier who doesn't think twice before killing is an ideal soldier. Its sad though that we have to do program minds like this. And its a little scary that they tools we use are the same ones our children play with. But I suppose it is in line with military recruitment commercials that imply joining the military is a good way to "see the world" and drive cool machinery. These "games" are evil, but if you believe peace requires war and peace is the goal... then our re-programming tools should be top of the line.
I've always felt the Babel story is one of destruction of science in the name of protecting religious dogmas. The way it was explained to me is that man was trying to build a tower to reach to the heavens and understand god and this pissed god and his hand came down and stirred up the pot to stop man from trying to be too smart. I see it as the mythical story to cover up the evil actions of man's past. I relate it to the Libraries of Alexandria that were plundered for scientific writings and anything that conflicted with the requirements for current religious belief were burned. Kinda like what some still try to do today. I just see it as a story of a warning not to look to hard at the world around you... and it implies permission to stop and destroy those who attempt to question your dogma. Because after all... that is what god did.
Perhaps its not the greatest solution... but I suggest that adding esata drives is easy. That is what I did when I ran out of drive space on my server. Install an esata card and buy one esata drive at a time. That way u get maximum space at minimum price as you buy new drives as required. It does not require any changes to ur existing setup. And esata is just as fast as an internal hard drive. This saved me a lot of time, because the software is setup like a Tivo to auto archive all my favourite shows... and some I dont watch, but keep for others. This means reconfiguring the system is much more time consuming then just reinstalling Linux on a new box. So I just renamed the existing archive directory name, and symlinked that name to point to a directory on the new drive, copied all the subfolders where all the shows reside add configured the tv software to access the old shows through their new directory name. This was fast, painless and not too expensive. Aside: To the person who suggests u run compression manual on each show... well they are not archiving 30 shows per day and have no concept of what a computer is meant to do... ie: automate beyond anything u could possibly do by hand.
I know it's hard to grasp for a geek, but most people are not tech savvy..
What about poverty or just a budget... is that something we can hope to grasp? Reality is that some people "tinker" as you put it because they cannot afford to pay to have others tinker for them.
All I am saying is that when I hear about a doorbell service that can be transported to any of my remote devices... well I think this is something I MAY have. But when I see it used 3G, I realize it is NOT something I will have.
A smart phone is a computer like any other and should be treated as such.
Agreed, smart phone = computer. Viruses are a good indicator that you can install software that gets the full use out of the hardware you purchased. I really hate when a manufacture attempts to "protect" me from using devices in ways that they didn't already envision. Like by limiting applications I can/can't install. Because this "protection" can be used as a means to protect their alternate revenue streams. And frankly, I don't expect any one company to ever be big enough to keep-up with all the software I may want to install. Kinda like the way Linux is beating Microsoft in speed of application development and virus protection at the same time. Point is... "protection" obviously doesn't work and currently only serves to reduce functionality and increase costs. GET RID OF IT!
I like Firefox. But this sort of article makes me worry about its future value.
Any time a salesman tries to explain the manufacturing technique or space aged materials used... I know that the product is almost certainly overpriced or deficient in comparison to competing products. I really dont care how beautiful the code is or how well it compiles with whatever exotic options. Contact me when you have real comparison tests for speed and a version to download.
I run linux and I have had viruses. ClamAV caught a lot of email attachment viruses and such. ClamAV quarantined them. I suspect that they really only run on windows, but at least I didnt forward them on. Also, if you use USB you can get viruses on those devices too. As I did at a community services center with free internet. I told the sysadmin about it... but a week later I went in and I got it again.
Anyhow... I just wanted to point out that Linux does get viruses. Although the majority (all?) appear to target windoz.
I don't think I had a virus actually run on Linux... although if I did, it was really good and didnt reveal itself.
It's easier to put your sensitive data on a micro SD card, and hide that somewhere.
I once setup a computer on an SD card, but also setup a partition to be used as memory for my digital camera. In this way I could put the memory into my SD camera and the camera would operate in all normal ways if searched. But I could also remove the memory from my camera and put it into a computer. Furthermore, I didn't just put data on the SD card. I put the entire operating system on it. So I could essentially travel anywhere with only my camera in hand and when I arrive at my destination, I could put the SD card in any computer and log into my the computer just like it was my own.
So my "hiding" was not really hiding the content, but rather hiding the media in plain site by exploiting the SD memory card for 2 uses. By making one usage active, easy to test and verify the secondary usage is unlikely to be noticed. Especially when I wouldn't even need to carry a computer with me.
To further protect the operating system during transit and protect information when the media is inevitably lost or not needed, I encrypted the computer partition using Luks as well.
Now this doesn't provide true security against the discovery of an encrypted partition completely if the camera data stick is removed and searched separately by a computer. But it is just one layer of protection against unwanted detect of the existence of encrypted data (or even whole operating system) in the first place.
As mentioned, the traveler using this technique wouldn't even have to carry a computer with them. Just keep the SD in the camera and that is all you travel with. Then insert it into a computer you buy, rent or borrow at the destination. I took the SD card into a Best Buy and booted it up on about 80% of their current models without issue. The main issue with the remaining 20% was the inability to boot off SD memory sticks. But for the most part you should expect newer computers to totally support this.
However, don't try any of this with Windows operating systems or any others that attempt to tie the operating system to the motherboard. IMO: An immoral and possibly illegal contract request. But anyhow, windows specifically prohibits booting your operating system on multiple computers and I'm unsure of their current stance on SD installations. I'm also quiet certain you would have to pay extra in order to have the entire operating system encrypted... if windows does even offer this ability at all... I don't know... I don't use windows because it is an antiquated operating system tied up in legal EULA issues that attempts to protect profit at the expense of stifled innovation. Anyhow... point is, use Linux for this and similar experiments. I used Ubuntu and it was easy to setup exactly what I described.
I hope the solution the government provides is to remove the old, weak and largely unprotected operating system and replace it with a free modern operating system that can be automatically installed and upgraded for free. Like some linux variant.
Because it is my opinion that the number one reason we have so many infections is that the user cannot afford to upgrade to the fix and/or cannot afford the commercial product to detect and repair the issue on the existing architecture. With free operating systems and software, the user is free to keep there system up to date with the most advanced and therefore most resilient code.
I believe we would have far less issues with botnets if the latest operating system, applications, virus detection and removal products were all freely available. As users would never delay upgrading to the latest editions due to cost.
Alternatively, a solution would be to give each one of these users a new copy of Win7 and updated versions of all their applications for Win7. But this seems far less likely.