No. It's not ok to assault people, specific groups or even politicians with lies, threads or disturbing images. Especially not if behind a cover of an anonymous account. What most people don"t understand: Free speech doesn't mean that you can't be hold accountable. You CAN say that "Xyz builds shitty cars and they fuck and lie to all customers". But Xyz is most likely suing you for defamation. But what if you post your "free speech" on Facebook fake account and hide in the shadows of Internet anonymity? What if Facebook doesn't take down your statement? So - the German government introduced a "big" stick. Either give us the identity of those who post "hate speech" or take it down. There's nothing preventing FB to sue the government.
So - go ahead and post your free speech. Nobody is going to stop you. And be prepared to defend it. That's what free speech is all about. If you just snipe from cover, your speech is worthless because it is undefended. It's ownership falls to the site it is made on. And the site will have to take it down. Simple as that.
Howdy - I am mastering and cutting vinyl almost every day. Let me throw a few cents into the discussion. First: So funny that people stick to their flawed opinion regardless of what physics explains. I bet a few of those buy speaker cables for $100 per foot. Or a gold plated power plug to make the juice "flow" easier.
No doubt - a live DSD recording is very, very cool. Though it depends on the position of the microphone(s) and how the recording engineer mixes all the input streams. Back in the old days they had 2 (maybe 3) mics and that obviously gave a more "natural" source. The Dorati 1812 (Mercury Living Stereo) is a good example. An average concert stage now has 10 or 15 mics floating above the action and the recording engineer downmixes those to Stereo. Unfortunately very often with little success. Compare a high quality Mercury Living Stereo with a modern Digital recording and -most of the time- you will like the vintage recording more - even though - strictly speaking - the physical "quality" of the digital medium is superior.
The talk about "bass" not being reproduced on a record.. well.. as usual with analog.. it depends. The RIAA curves make it possible to cut good bass on the record without loosing too much "real estate" (records are cut after shifting the sound into a higher frequency band. The playback equipment "shifts" it back down so that it sounds ok). But cutting too much bass and you may have the needle jump out of the groove because physical limitations make it impossible to follow the groove. And since records are cut to be played even with shitty equipment, bass is sometimes reduced to safe margins. But even with RIAA bass needs more space. And there's the rumble filter. So there are a number of reasons why some records don't feel to have the right "boom". But it's not necessarily a limitation of the record.
All in all : Back in the days only highly trained and experienced engineers were allowed to touch the very expensive studio equipment. A few of them are still active and they still produce stunning results - yes.. on vinyl. Today - almost anybody is an "expert". "nuff said.
m.
Obviously you were born after MacOS? The "Sent" folder is - in the yes of those who used email when it had an "!" in the address - a more recent invention.
Oh - I take it you were part of the investigation? So - tell me: How do they mark classified email these days? Do they have extra email headers?
X-Classification: Holy shit
Or is the classification within the subject lile
Re: Obamas breakfast [Classification: Important Shit]
Or maybe in the email-address directly
hillary-secret@ownserver.com
Or maybe there's a background image with that famous red "Secret" rubber stamp in 0.5% opaque? As you are a 100% sure of things - you ought to know such details. Please enlighten me.
Well - my company maintains quite a number of Linux production environments. I have worked with Linux since version 0.95 so I have adapted to quite a number of flavors and variations over the years. I have build up experience, tools, procedures to deal with problems and emergencies. Those Linux servers need to run. My customers depend on me and my company to be able to address situations quickly. And I am not even talking about liability issues here. I am not afraid to learn - that's part of the business. systemd and it's quick pace taking over more and more services will make it difficult to fully understand. Though it has been around for a while, there is no long time experience. Linux has developed in an evolutionary way.. over several processor generations on a variety of platforms and millions and millions of installations covering anything from desktops to door knobs. systemd has been crafted on top of the Linux "tree" - without the benefits of an evolutionary experience. I won't take the risk to subject my customers to systemd. Not because I am lazy, not because I don't want to learn - but because I can't take chances with technology that I can't trust to be as reliable as the "old Linux". Systemd just doesn't have the track record. So we have started to migrate to *BSD. I will have to learn a lot (haven't worked with BSD style Unix since we migrated from SUNs to Linux) but our servers will run on a solid and dependable platform. And that makes all the difference.
Come on guys - Wikileaks seems to have morphed into just another media outlet for Putin and his cronies. Are you guys so blind to not understand that everybody seems only to blame America and it's allies for all the bad in the world? This is no longer political hacktivism - Wikileaks actively supports the agenda of foreign governments. This is supposed to make the world a better place? Thanks - but no thanks.
I remember a friend came into the Linux cave (current Linux was version was 0.9x) and asked me if I knew WWW. It's like gopher he said - only with images. So - yes - I know gopher. Looking back all those years - I wonder: Is that the Internet we all envisioned? I actually grew up without the Internet - learned "online" with commercial packet-switched networks that charged by the packet sent or received (though not me - we had.. ways) - got involved with free software, entangled in Linux and finally built an interactive web based online service that was used by half a million users. Completely without javascript, php, python or even an apache web server. Whatever you needed back in the late 90s - most of the stuff you had to program yourself. No yum this or apt get that. Most of my former colleagues and friends have dropped out of the rat race. They lost contact with the fast pace of the change of systems, services or programming languages. And you can hear my occasional rant about how it was all better 20 years ago. I guess we changed the world back then. But the new generation of hackers deserves the chance to change the world again - to their liking. But between us: We shaped the Internet, created the web environment and voice over ip, we challenged the foundation of the music industry with our mp3, we were the people that made what it is known today as "the Internet" - it's a tough act to follow. I sure hope that "systemd" is not the yard stick to measure our successors contributions to the digital world.
... Hacking into a non-government server to retrieve details about a wedding and what to wear is not "an attack.".....
Well - it is. It is at least an attack on one's digital self-determination. It is also an unlawful attack to gain access to information that otherwise wouldn't be available to you. For years we are fighting against the governments intrusion into our digital lives. But it's not an attack if foreign governments hack us - personally or our representatives or companies? What's the difference between physically breaking into a house to read the printed documents and a digital break in to read digital documents? Do you regularly invite unknown Romanians working for Russia into you house or email server? Thinking about it - why not give us the location of your accounts so that we are able to "not attack" you?
m.
If you really believe that there has been a voting free and without manipulation in Crimea - you're an imbecile. And your "Fuck the EU" disqualifies you as a serious discussion participant. I suppose you're one of those European right-wing nuts? Let me tell you something - go fuck up your own country. We don't need you.
I am doing email-servers since 1995. Including UUCP and bang path. But it's increasingly difficult to set up servers that are able to reliably send emails to the big guys. Sometimes emails get through, sometimes they end up in SPAM. Same server, same configuration, same sender. So - yes, I think Google and others are brutally disregarding the principles of email to present their users an artificially spam free environment.
How can it be that my servers receive 100's of spams a week (filtered by spamassassin with almost zero false positives) but I don't see _any_ on my Googlemail account? Not even in my Spam folder?
Google is most certainly discarding a lot of (spam-) mail without bothering to notify the user. What if I m interested in some of it? I guess I have to be thankful that Google graciously accepts some of our servers email as span and doesn't discard it right away.
mm.
People in Germany for the most part don't blame the refugees. They put the blame on the government and they are correct.
The German law says, that no one can ask for asylum if he enters the country from another safe country. Germany is surrounded by "safe" countries so there is no *legal* way to enter the country by food, train or car. And that law is not just a law, it is the Grundgesetz, Germany's constitution.
It would be the Governments job to apply the rules of the law but they choose to ignore it. The government opened the borders and let hundreds of thousands of refugees in - overwhelming law enforcement and local and state level refugee agencies,. Scores of refugees slipped away without even being registered, others simply refused to go where officials asked them to go.
Germany has a bad track record in regard to the integration of people from other Muslim countries - but it's not easy to integrate people with different cultural values. And there's no long- or short term plan what to do with the refugees. Small communities have to deal with hundreds of foreigners, States start to use eminent domain laws to take houses from their rightful owners to place refugees, in some areas, citizens are warned not to wear mini skirts because it could be "misunderstood" by refugees, fighting between different refugee national- or religious groups is common, there are numerous reports of rape and forced prostitution within the refugee camps . And more refugees are on the way. Thousands and thousands more.
The current situation is a nightmare. I completely understand why the citizens are starting to complain. The government failed to apply and to protect the constitution. That has (for the most part) nothing to do with racism or nationalism going wild. The people demand a plan, they want to know how the government is planning to deal with those refugees and what to do with all the refugees that are still "on the roads" towards Germany.
.. because we had a very heavy thunderstorm down here in South Tx and the power went out, net and cable tv were down, even the cell towers were off. No service.. all around. Its not a big deal for us here - we're used to dangerous weather conditions (hurricanes, tornadoes) so we keep emergency stuff handy. But 10 hours without pretty much everything helps to think about that question. Radio can be a life line (and yes, we were able to listen to FM stations on our battery powered radio) and in emergency situations its pretty much the only reliable way to get information out to the general population. I also know from first hand experience, that cell towers are easily overwhelmed when people are trying to call or to access the net in emergency situations. I am sure we all have experience with situations where we really needed the (mobile) net and it just didn't work. I wouldn't rely on anything digital when the shit hits the fan. A radio, a flashlight and plenty of batteries - everybody should have a little emergency box stuffed into a closet.
... I have thoroughly enjoyed the article. But to be honest: A burner phone and an untraceable credit card may very well come in handy - if you are planning to move assets overseas to avoid the IRS. I am doing IT security for a living. I don't have the need for new identities or slipping under the radar. I secure my valuable digital assets, I use entoend encrypted voice channels, file exchange, emails, chat and messaging if necessary and I have different systems for surfing and working. So - here is my advise: Before searching the "dark" net for a new identity (which might be a CIA?NSA?FBI? honeypot) - use common sense. The government is not out to get you, they are not listening to all your calls and they are not tracking everybody's movements. If you become a target of interest (e.g. by buying fake identities) you probably deserve it. Drive to the nearest truck stop, find a truck that goes north, stick you cell phone into the belly of the truck and go south. Never turn back. Never talk to friends anymore. Just build a new life in the badlands of New Mexico. You may develop a taste for jack rabbits.
There's only ONE freedom and its absolute. If you want freedom of religion than there must also be freedom from religion. And I disagree: Marriage is not only a religious thing. It also has broad implications on the real life. And - since you quoted the constitution: Please always remember: All men are created equal. That is the spirit of the forefathers philosophies. Everything else has to obey this very basic principle.
A very determined foe with unlimited funding (like governments) will always be able to get into the systems they want to. Its as simple as that. I am not proposing a virtually unusable computer due to security measures. But it also doesn't make sense to use 'some' security sometimes. If users want to protect their privacy, they have to understand that they will lose several convenience features. You can't have it both ways. Either you value your privacy, or you use all the nice Google or Apple (and other) 'services' . Or in simple terms: If your data leaves you computer without end to end encryption, it becomes (more or less) public domain.
.. well.. security usually adds complexity to point and click. That's just the way it is. I remember back in the early 70s , nobody here actually bothered to lock their cars or even homes. Things have changed. But users don't understand that privacy and confidentiality is a value worth protecting. Ease of use always trumps a little inconvenience to stay safe(r). If everything is shared with a provider, its easy for them to offer complex, convenient services. And that's what the users want. Who cares what happens to my data as long as I have my web history, shopping- and contact lists, downloads and, in the future, purchase and payment shared among all my little gadgets. Every normal human being should be scared about that.
.. but you can't make it drink. I am doing IT security for almost 30 years. I've been an advisor to the highest government branches, I have lectured on countless occasions in front of hundreds if not thousands of people. I have developed security software and environments. And all I can say is: Most people simply don't give a damn. Sure - they listen to what one has to say. And they even promise to change or adapt the way they do things. But after just a few days they've forgotten all of it. Because being safe(r) is inconvenient. People are just not getting it. They don't delete cookies or browser caches (I don't want to have login to facebook all the time) they send even the most personal or confidential data via unsecured email (why would somebody else read this email), they store their whole life or business data on dropbox, Google Drive or comparable services and they sync all of their cell phone content, phone numbers and contact data. It doesn't hurt if someone steals your data. You don't feel it, if a government monitors your every move. And the classic: I ain't got nothing to hide. CEOs told me: The government should be responsible to protect my data - why should I pay for it? Though they spent thousands of dollars on a state of the art security system for their offices - they don't feel it to be necessary to spend money to train their employees or to purchase technology to protect their data. The Snowden leaks didn't help - quite the opposite happened: People are now saying: There's nothing one can do anyway. What the government wants, the government gets. Why bother to protect the data? Most people actually believe encryption to be worthless because the NSA can hack it anyway. In conclusion: I have stopped to try to convince the general population that they can have a safe(r) digital life. I am supporting those who really want to keep their data protected. So - before starting to worry about BIOS hacks - check the other 99.999% of vulnerabilities that are much easier to exploit. As usual: Just my two cents.
I am against capital punishment - sort of. Once in a while some horrific crime happens and my opinion waivers. How can a normal human being kill another human being in a such a cruel way without feeling compassion with his victim? I would use potentially deadly force if somebody would threaten my family and I wouldn't lose sleep about it, should the aggressor perish. The use of potentially lethal force to prevent a potentially brutal crime is one thing - administering death to somebody years after the fact is a completely different thing. I killed a lot of animals (on a ranch) , pigs, cows, deer, rabbits, chicken.. I always tried to make it as stress- and painless as possible but I always felt a bit sad. I know people who rip the legs of bull frogs without killing them first and those folks had no remorse or compassion for the animal. This makes me wonder: Maybe compassion is a genetic trait? Is it possible, that some peoples brains are "wired" in a way that they just don't care about other peoples (or animals) pain, fear and suffering? Is it moral to kill offenders because their brain is filtering what most of us would consider to be 'normal feelings' ? Or is capital punishment justified exactly because of that? I read a lot of opinions in this thread about other countries not being as violent as the US. That's just not true. Psychopaths and brutal criminals do their thing everywhere - it doesn't mater, whether or not they have capital punishment. I guess it all boils down to a simple question: Do we want to legally kill people because of their inability to experience remorse or compassion? This is truly a tough issue....
Mozilla is a non-profit counterpart to other browsers. It started as a community browser with a call for donations - and many, many people (including everybody in my family) donated. However - with big Google and Yahoo deals and money, Firefox has left its roots. Market share has become more important than being a community browser. They incorporated interfaces for DRM content though there was strong opposition from the users, they changed their synchronization api and made hundreds of open source sync interfaces useless (and the new sync api is a nightmare), they now want all extensions to be signed by them exclusively, ignoring the pleas from the developers. I am still a friend of Mozilla. But no longer a fan. If they don't come back and start listening to the users and developers again, they will become just another browser. And there's still Chromium.
... imagine being responsible for the security our country. Imagine trying to avoid or to solve a terrible crime only to find out that a key piece of evidence is unavailable due to string crypto. I understand the dilemma, intelligence and law enforcement agencies are facing. It's simply not good enough to say - well, they suck. I am doing IT security for a long time. I am protecting the digital assets of my clients in a way, that nobody will be able to intercept or to eavesdrop on them. So I guess I know what I am talking about. We are on a slippery slope. We expect our government to prosecute criminals but at the same time we're promoting encryption and complain about the governments attempts to break it. In order to understand the situation - consider the extremes: Everything is encrypted and law enforcement is unable to access any communications or data storage. Would the world be a better and safer place? Only if you are daydreaming.
So how will it play out? How will we find a way to keep the public need for law enforcement in sync with personal liberties ? Politicians may try to outlaw encryption or demand back doors. But that won't work, because good crypto is undetectable and can be hidden pretty much anywhere.
Usually it all boils down to personal responsibility and accountability. I am a big fan of "I do stuff and I will be responsible for the consequences" . In other words: If you do (or provide) crypto, you will have to surrender the keys if ordered (by a court of law) to do so. This of course might interfere with the constitutional protection of 'self incrimination'. Lawyers will have to figure this one out.
One thing is for sure: We want a government that is able to prosecute offenders. In order to do so, law enforcement might need access to encrypted data. If we don't want broken crypto or back doors, we will have to accept responsibility for the data we encrypt.
If the government finds it. But that is another story.
.. don't fix it. But that is unfortunately not the mission principle of some of the Linux developers. Nowadays, people are driven to abstract and to objectifiy everything. If it doesn't have a lot of 'this' in it, it's not good. The early Linux system was built by people with a lot of C and Assembler experience. But Java changed all this as it became the language of choice in a lot of schools and colleges. And it ripples through all areas of software engineering. They tell me it's easier, more error resistant and more portable - but they need more than half the time to tinker with the IDE because they can't keep track without it. And guess what: It still dumps, it still has (security) flaws and it still breaks. Android development is a nightmare, Javascript is morphing into REACT and will be completely abstracted and Linux, well, sooner or later we will end up with $(this) at the prompt. After all, home is not really an object now, is it?
....The situation is that systemd is popular and well liked by people making actual decisions, and hated by a bunch of loud pundits that don't have any responsibilities and are jealous of the decisions of others....
Now you're pissing me off. Unlike you I have been with Linux since the very early 90's. I went through several iterations and changes and most of them made sense. SystemD doesn't make sense - at least not in real life. In the world I live in, I simply don't give a shit about the the deeper meaning of how things should be. I install a server, it runs, I am happy. Want to start a daemon? Drop a script into rc3.d and you're done. Want to track a problem? Grep through the logs. Your daemon blocking the system? rm script and hit the power button. I don't need a shiny sports car to do my work, especially not if it repositions the accelerator on the passenger side and removes the speedometer, because the engine automatically knows the speed I am supposed to be driving at. The beaten up, rusty reliable truck is my tool of choice. If you want something new, you should have forked and rename it to Winux.
We donated to Gnome to help them defend themselves against Groupon. Now they have stated that they will use the funds for the ongoing development. This is crappy message to all donors now and in the future - and a misuse of trust. Why? Because it will make it harder to convince future donors that this is a real emergency and not just a ruse to get money. If somebody asks for a donation for a specific purpose, than they should offer to reimburse the donors if that special purpose goes away. Gnome should really thing about the message they are sending here.
Slashdot Mirror
No. It's not ok to assault people, specific groups or even politicians with lies, threads or disturbing images. Especially not if behind a cover of an anonymous account. What most people don"t understand: Free speech doesn't mean that you can't be hold accountable. You CAN say that "Xyz builds shitty cars and they fuck and lie to all customers". But Xyz is most likely suing you for defamation. But what if you post your "free speech" on Facebook fake account and hide in the shadows of Internet anonymity? What if Facebook doesn't take down your statement? So - the German government introduced a "big" stick. Either give us the identity of those who post "hate speech" or take it down. There's nothing preventing FB to sue the government.
So - go ahead and post your free speech. Nobody is going to stop you. And be prepared to defend it. That's what free speech is all about. If you just snipe from cover, your speech is worthless because it is undefended. It's ownership falls to the site it is made on. And the site will have to take it down. Simple as that.
No doubt - a live DSD recording is very, very cool. Though it depends on the position of the microphone(s) and how the recording engineer mixes all the input streams. Back in the old days they had 2 (maybe 3) mics and that obviously gave a more "natural" source. The Dorati 1812 (Mercury Living Stereo) is a good example. An average concert stage now has 10 or 15 mics floating above the action and the recording engineer downmixes those to Stereo. Unfortunately very often with little success. Compare a high quality Mercury Living Stereo with a modern Digital recording and -most of the time- you will like the vintage recording more - even though - strictly speaking - the physical "quality" of the digital medium is superior.
The talk about "bass" not being reproduced on a record .. well .. as usual with analog .. it depends. The RIAA curves make it possible to cut good bass on the record without loosing too much "real estate" (records are cut after shifting the sound into a higher frequency band. The playback equipment "shifts" it back down so that it sounds ok). But cutting too much bass and you may have the needle jump out of the groove because physical limitations make it impossible to follow the groove. And since records are cut to be played even with shitty equipment, bass is sometimes reduced to safe margins. But even with RIAA bass needs more space. And there's the rumble filter. So there are a number of reasons why some records don't feel to have the right "boom". But it's not necessarily a limitation of the record.
All in all : Back in the days only highly trained and experienced engineers were allowed to touch the very expensive studio equipment. A few of them are still active and they still produce stunning results - yes .. on vinyl. Today - almost anybody is an "expert". "nuff said.
m.
Obviously you were born after MacOS? The "Sent" folder is - in the yes of those who used email when it had an "!" in the address - a more recent invention.
Oh - I take it you were part of the investigation? So - tell me: How do they mark classified email these days? Do they have extra email headers? X-Classification: Holy shit Or is the classification within the subject lile Re: Obamas breakfast [Classification: Important Shit] Or maybe in the email-address directly hillary-secret@ownserver.com Or maybe there's a background image with that famous red "Secret" rubber stamp in 0.5% opaque? As you are a 100% sure of things - you ought to know such details. Please enlighten me.
Well - my company maintains quite a number of Linux production environments. I have worked with Linux since version 0.95 so I have adapted to quite a number of flavors and variations over the years. I have build up experience, tools, procedures to deal with problems and emergencies. Those Linux servers need to run. My customers depend on me and my company to be able to address situations quickly. And I am not even talking about liability issues here. I am not afraid to learn - that's part of the business. systemd and it's quick pace taking over more and more services will make it difficult to fully understand. Though it has been around for a while, there is no long time experience. Linux has developed in an evolutionary way .. over several processor generations on a variety of platforms and millions and millions of installations covering anything from desktops to door knobs. systemd has been crafted on top of the Linux "tree" - without the benefits of an evolutionary experience. I won't take the risk to subject my customers to systemd. Not because I am lazy, not because I don't want to learn - but because I can't take chances with technology that I can't trust to be as reliable as the "old Linux". Systemd just doesn't have the track record. So we have started to migrate to *BSD. I will have to learn a lot (haven't worked with BSD style Unix since we migrated from SUNs to Linux) but our servers will run on a solid and dependable platform. And that makes all the difference.
Come on guys - Wikileaks seems to have morphed into just another media outlet for Putin and his cronies. Are you guys so blind to not understand that everybody seems only to blame America and it's allies for all the bad in the world? This is no longer political hacktivism - Wikileaks actively supports the agenda of foreign governments. This is supposed to make the world a better place? Thanks - but no thanks.
I remember a friend came into the Linux cave (current Linux was version was 0.9x) and asked me if I knew WWW. It's like gopher he said - only with images. So - yes - I know gopher. Looking back all those years - I wonder: Is that the Internet we all envisioned? I actually grew up without the Internet - learned "online" with commercial packet-switched networks that charged by the packet sent or received (though not me - we had .. ways) - got involved with free software, entangled in Linux and finally built an interactive web based online service that was used by half a million users. Completely without javascript, php, python or even an apache web server. Whatever you needed back in the late 90s - most of the stuff you had to program yourself. No yum this or apt get that. Most of my former colleagues and friends have dropped out of the rat race. They lost contact with the fast pace of the change of systems, services or programming languages. And you can hear my occasional rant about how it was all better 20 years ago. I guess we changed the world back then. But the new generation of hackers deserves the chance to change the world again - to their liking. But between us: We shaped the Internet, created the web environment and voice over ip, we challenged the foundation of the music industry with our mp3, we were the people that made what it is known today as "the Internet" - it's a tough act to follow. I sure hope that "systemd" is not the yard stick to measure our successors contributions to the digital world.
... Hacking into a non-government server to retrieve details about a wedding and what to wear is not "an attack." .....
Well - it is. It is at least an attack on one's digital self-determination. It is also an unlawful attack to gain access to information that otherwise wouldn't be available to you. For years we are fighting against the governments intrusion into our digital lives. But it's not an attack if foreign governments hack us - personally or our representatives or companies? What's the difference between physically breaking into a house to read the printed documents and a digital break in to read digital documents? Do you regularly invite unknown Romanians working for Russia into you house or email server? Thinking about it - why not give us the location of your accounts so that we are able to "not attack" you?
m.
If you really believe that there has been a voting free and without manipulation in Crimea - you're an imbecile. And your "Fuck the EU" disqualifies you as a serious discussion participant. I suppose you're one of those European right-wing nuts? Let me tell you something - go fuck up your own country. We don't need you.
I am doing email-servers since 1995. Including UUCP and bang path. But it's increasingly difficult to set up servers that are able to reliably send emails to the big guys. Sometimes emails get through, sometimes they end up in SPAM. Same server, same configuration, same sender. So - yes, I think Google and others are brutally disregarding the principles of email to present their users an artificially spam free environment. How can it be that my servers receive 100's of spams a week (filtered by spamassassin with almost zero false positives) but I don't see _any_ on my Googlemail account? Not even in my Spam folder? Google is most certainly discarding a lot of (spam-) mail without bothering to notify the user. What if I m interested in some of it? I guess I have to be thankful that Google graciously accepts some of our servers email as span and doesn't discard it right away. mm.
People in Germany for the most part don't blame the refugees. They put the blame on the government and they are correct.
The German law says, that no one can ask for asylum if he enters the country from another safe country. Germany is surrounded by "safe" countries so there is no *legal* way to enter the country by food, train or car. And that law is not just a law, it is the Grundgesetz, Germany's constitution.
It would be the Governments job to apply the rules of the law but they choose to ignore it. The government opened the borders and let hundreds of thousands of refugees in - overwhelming law enforcement and local and state level refugee agencies,. Scores of refugees slipped away without even being registered, others simply refused to go where officials asked them to go.
Germany has a bad track record in regard to the integration of people from other Muslim countries - but it's not easy to integrate people with different cultural values. And there's no long- or short term plan what to do with the refugees. Small communities have to deal with hundreds of foreigners, States start to use eminent domain laws to take houses from their rightful owners to place refugees, in some areas, citizens are warned not to wear mini skirts because it could be "misunderstood" by refugees, fighting between different refugee national- or religious groups is common, there are numerous reports of rape and forced prostitution within the refugee camps . And more refugees are on the way. Thousands and thousands more.
The current situation is a nightmare. I completely understand why the citizens are starting to complain. The government failed to apply and to protect the constitution. That has (for the most part) nothing to do with racism or nationalism going wild. The people demand a plan, they want to know how the government is planning to deal with those refugees and what to do with all the refugees that are still "on the roads" towards Germany.
.. because we had a very heavy thunderstorm down here in South Tx and the power went out, net and cable tv were down, even the cell towers were off. No service .. all around. Its not a big deal for us here - we're used to dangerous weather conditions (hurricanes, tornadoes) so we keep emergency stuff handy. But 10 hours without pretty much everything helps to think about that question. Radio can be a life line (and yes, we were able to listen to FM stations on our battery powered radio) and in emergency situations its pretty much the only reliable way to get information out to the general population. I also know from first hand experience, that cell towers are easily overwhelmed when people are trying to call or to access the net in emergency situations. I am sure we all have experience with situations where we really needed the (mobile) net and it just didn't work. I wouldn't rely on anything digital when the shit hits the fan. A radio, a flashlight and plenty of batteries - everybody should have a little emergency box stuffed into a closet.
... I have thoroughly enjoyed the article. But to be honest: A burner phone and an untraceable credit card may very well come in handy - if you are planning to move assets overseas to avoid the IRS. I am doing IT security for a living. I don't have the need for new identities or slipping under the radar. I secure my valuable digital assets, I use entoend encrypted voice channels, file exchange, emails, chat and messaging if necessary and I have different systems for surfing and working. So - here is my advise: Before searching the "dark" net for a new identity (which might be a CIA?NSA?FBI? honeypot) - use common sense. The government is not out to get you, they are not listening to all your calls and they are not tracking everybody's movements. If you become a target of interest (e.g. by buying fake identities) you probably deserve it. Drive to the nearest truck stop, find a truck that goes north, stick you cell phone into the belly of the truck and go south. Never turn back. Never talk to friends anymore. Just build a new life in the badlands of New Mexico. You may develop a taste for jack rabbits.
There's only ONE freedom and its absolute. If you want freedom of religion than there must also be freedom from religion. And I disagree: Marriage is not only a religious thing. It also has broad implications on the real life. And - since you quoted the constitution: Please always remember: All men are created equal. That is the spirit of the forefathers philosophies. Everything else has to obey this very basic principle.
Thank you for this comment. I am following the discussion with utter disbelieve. What century are we in?
A very determined foe with unlimited funding (like governments) will always be able to get into the systems they want to. Its as simple as that. I am not proposing a virtually unusable computer due to security measures. But it also doesn't make sense to use 'some' security sometimes. If users want to protect their privacy, they have to understand that they will lose several convenience features. You can't have it both ways. Either you value your privacy, or you use all the nice Google or Apple (and other) 'services' . Or in simple terms: If your data leaves you computer without end to end encryption, it becomes (more or less) public domain.
.. well .. security usually adds complexity to point and click. That's just the way it is. I remember back in the early 70s , nobody here actually bothered to lock their cars or even homes. Things have changed. But users don't understand that privacy and confidentiality is a value worth protecting. Ease of use always trumps a little inconvenience to stay safe(r). If everything is shared with a provider, its easy for them to offer complex, convenient services. And that's what the users want. Who cares what happens to my data as long as I have my web history, shopping- and contact lists, downloads and, in the future, purchase and payment shared among all my little gadgets. Every normal human being should be scared about that.
.. but you can't make it drink. I am doing IT security for almost 30 years. I've been an advisor to the highest government branches, I have lectured on countless occasions in front of hundreds if not thousands of people. I have developed security software and environments. And all I can say is: Most people simply don't give a damn. Sure - they listen to what one has to say. And they even promise to change or adapt the way they do things. But after just a few days they've forgotten all of it. Because being safe(r) is inconvenient.
People are just not getting it. They don't delete cookies or browser caches (I don't want to have login to facebook all the time) they send even the most personal or confidential data via unsecured email (why would somebody else read this email), they store their whole life or business data on dropbox, Google Drive or comparable services and they sync all of their cell phone content, phone numbers and contact data. It doesn't hurt if someone steals your data. You don't feel it, if a government monitors your every move. And the classic: I ain't got nothing to hide. CEOs told me: The government should be responsible to protect my data - why should I pay for it? Though they spent thousands of dollars on a state of the art security system for their offices - they don't feel it to be necessary to spend money to train their employees or to purchase technology to protect their data.
The Snowden leaks didn't help - quite the opposite happened: People are now saying: There's nothing one can do anyway. What the government wants, the government gets. Why bother to protect the data? Most people actually believe encryption to be worthless because the NSA can hack it anyway. In conclusion: I have stopped to try to convince the general population that they can have a safe(r) digital life. I am supporting those who really want to keep their data protected. So - before starting to worry about BIOS hacks - check the other 99.999% of vulnerabilities that are much easier to exploit. As usual: Just my two cents.
I am against capital punishment - sort of. Once in a while some horrific crime happens and my opinion waivers. How can a normal human being kill another human being in a such a cruel way without feeling compassion with his victim? I would use potentially deadly force if somebody would threaten my family and I wouldn't lose sleep about it, should the aggressor perish. The use of potentially lethal force to prevent a potentially brutal crime is one thing - administering death to somebody years after the fact is a completely different thing. I killed a lot of animals (on a ranch) , pigs, cows, deer, rabbits, chicken .. I always tried to make it as stress- and painless as possible but I always felt a bit sad. I know people who rip the legs of bull frogs without killing them first and those folks had no remorse or compassion for the animal. This makes me wonder: Maybe compassion is a genetic trait? Is it possible, that some peoples brains are "wired" in a way that they just don't care about other peoples (or animals) pain, fear and suffering? Is it moral to kill offenders because their brain is filtering what most of us would consider to be 'normal feelings' ? Or is capital punishment justified exactly because of that? I read a lot of opinions in this thread about other countries not being as violent as the US. That's just not true. Psychopaths and brutal criminals do their thing everywhere - it doesn't mater, whether or not they have capital punishment. I guess it all boils down to a simple question: Do we want to legally kill people because of their inability to experience remorse or compassion? This is truly a tough issue....
Mozilla is a non-profit counterpart to other browsers. It started as a community browser with a call for donations - and many, many people (including everybody in my family) donated. However - with big Google and Yahoo deals and money, Firefox has left its roots. Market share has become more important than being a community browser. They incorporated interfaces for DRM content though there was strong opposition from the users, they changed their synchronization api and made hundreds of open source sync interfaces useless (and the new sync api is a nightmare), they now want all extensions to be signed by them exclusively, ignoring the pleas from the developers. I am still a friend of Mozilla. But no longer a fan. If they don't come back and start listening to the users and developers again, they will become just another browser. And there's still Chromium.
... imagine being responsible for the security our country. Imagine trying to avoid or to solve a terrible crime only to find out that a key piece of evidence is unavailable due to string crypto. I understand the dilemma, intelligence and law enforcement agencies are facing. It's simply not good enough to say - well, they suck. I am doing IT security for a long time. I am protecting the digital assets of my clients in a way, that nobody will be able to intercept or to eavesdrop on them. So I guess I know what I am talking about. We are on a slippery slope. We expect our government to prosecute criminals but at the same time we're promoting encryption and complain about the governments attempts to break it. In order to understand the situation - consider the extremes: Everything is encrypted and law enforcement is unable to access any communications or data storage. Would the world be a better and safer place? Only if you are daydreaming. So how will it play out? How will we find a way to keep the public need for law enforcement in sync with personal liberties ? Politicians may try to outlaw encryption or demand back doors. But that won't work, because good crypto is undetectable and can be hidden pretty much anywhere. Usually it all boils down to personal responsibility and accountability. I am a big fan of "I do stuff and I will be responsible for the consequences" . In other words: If you do (or provide) crypto, you will have to surrender the keys if ordered (by a court of law) to do so. This of course might interfere with the constitutional protection of 'self incrimination'. Lawyers will have to figure this one out. One thing is for sure: We want a government that is able to prosecute offenders. In order to do so, law enforcement might need access to encrypted data. If we don't want broken crypto or back doors, we will have to accept responsibility for the data we encrypt. If the government finds it. But that is another story.
.. don't fix it. But that is unfortunately not the mission principle of some of the Linux developers. Nowadays, people are driven to abstract and to objectifiy everything. If it doesn't have a lot of 'this' in it, it's not good. The early Linux system was built by people with a lot of C and Assembler experience. But Java changed all this as it became the language of choice in a lot of schools and colleges. And it ripples through all areas of software engineering. They tell me it's easier, more error resistant and more portable - but they need more than half the time to tinker with the IDE because they can't keep track without it. And guess what: It still dumps, it still has (security) flaws and it still breaks. Android development is a nightmare, Javascript is morphing into REACT and will be completely abstracted and Linux, well, sooner or later we will end up with $(this) at the prompt. After all, home is not really an object now, is it?
.. and completely happy. Works like a charm with long battery endurance and a rugged aluminum body. mm.
....The situation is that systemd is popular and well liked by people making actual decisions, and hated by a bunch of loud pundits that don't have any responsibilities and are jealous of the decisions of others....
Now you're pissing me off. Unlike you I have been with Linux since the very early 90's. I went through several iterations and changes and most of them made sense. SystemD doesn't make sense - at least not in real life. In the world I live in, I simply don't give a shit about the the deeper meaning of how things should be. I install a server, it runs, I am happy. Want to start a daemon? Drop a script into rc3.d and you're done. Want to track a problem? Grep through the logs. Your daemon blocking the system? rm script and hit the power button. I don't need a shiny sports car to do my work, especially not if it repositions the accelerator on the passenger side and removes the speedometer, because the engine automatically knows the speed I am supposed to be driving at. The beaten up, rusty reliable truck is my tool of choice. If you want something new, you should have forked and rename it to Winux.
Just my two cents.
mm.
We donated to Gnome to help them defend themselves against Groupon. Now they have stated that they will use the funds for the ongoing development. This is crappy message to all donors now and in the future - and a misuse of trust. Why? Because it will make it harder to convince future donors that this is a real emergency and not just a ruse to get money. If somebody asks for a donation for a specific purpose, than they should offer to reimburse the donors if that special purpose goes away. Gnome should really thing about the message they are sending here.