Build your own. Works best for Windows machines and Linux as well
I'm not a hobbyist and don't have the time. Any Windows machine I buy will almost certainly be for work and I'm not about to waste a ton of time building a machine. If Lenovo wants to load their machines with spyware then there are plenty of other options out there.
If all they have to do is say "oh, gee, we're not really sorry" and have no consequences, this will keep happening.
This is something that has come up in our culture lately. It seems no mater how bad the offense, all the media wants is some sort of apology and somehow that makes it acceptable. There are no further consequences which boggles my mind. Sometimes an apology is not sufficient. What we should really care about is what did they DO to make things right. I could give a shit whether they apologize or not. Fix it and I'll forgive. What is said means nothing.
Which is precisely why you should assume any piece of consumer electronics which wants to connect to the internet was pushed out the door by lazy, incompetent, greedy bastards who bear no legal penalty for screwing up on security and privacy.
I've been steering everyone I know away from Sony products for more than a decade now, and what I suggest when they ask what brand they can trust I have always told them Samsung.
Genuinely not being snarky but why? What has Samsung ever done that would lead you to believe they would be a brand you could/should trust more than Sony? Just because they haven't really stepped in a big pile of #2 until now is evidence of nothing. Sure Sony has done some truly stupid shit but Samsung has really only been a big name in computer products for the last few years. I don't think they are in any way more trustworthy, they just haven't had time for their sins to float to the surface yet.
I ask you, is there any major brand who are on the side of consumer/customer privacy out there anymore?
I'm not aware of any that ever were unfortunately.
I'll just buy from elsewhere if I need a Windows machine. I have a one strike and you are out policy on this kind of nonsense. I used to buy their machines back when IBM was still making them but they seem to have lost their way.
I wonder if it's perhaps an engineer-type mentality that gets so focused on building cool new things, they just don't stop to think about how those new things can be abused or exploited to do bad things.
It's partly that. It's also very likely to be a significant amount of incompetence. I am an engineer and run a contract manufacturing company. We build wire harnesses and our customers provide the technical details for the product to be built. I've been doing this for many years now and I can count on my fingers the number of drawings that I've received that could be built solely from the documentation provided. This means that a LOT of engineers are wildly incompetent at writing engineering documentations which is >50% of their job for most of them.
I guess engineers don't typically think like baddies, figuring out how to use technology to hurt people or steal from them.
Not only do they not think like baddies, they often don't bother to consult with those who do. Furthermore even if they did think about it it wouldn't surprise me if a cost/benefit analysis was done which drove the engineers and/or management to not bother. Encryption done right is hard and it doesn't result in a single additional sale for most products. Nobody buys a TV wondering how good the encryption on it is. Maybe now they will but it just hasn't been on anyone's radar to this point so why would we expect the companies making the products to worry about it even if they should have?
The word science has been debased over time; It was originally applied to those who tried to unravel the mysteries of nature.
Since nature encompasses everything around us that's a pretty big field. Just because it isn't fundamental physics does not mean it isn't science.
It started with "social studies" picking up the term "social sciences" to gain more credibility...
Social interactions absolutely can be (and are) studied using the scientific method. That IS science even if it isn't quite as elegant as F=MA. Science is a method of inquiry based in objective evidence and that method can be applied to topics ranging from physics to biology to mathematics to social interaction to economics and pretty much anything else that you can apply a testable hypothesis against.
Honestly, CS has a lot more to do with being like a mathematician than a traditional scientist.
Computer Science isn't "like" mathematics, it IS mathematics. CS is basically a sub branch of mathematics including formal logic, information theory, algorithms, and a lot more.
There is a "science" for everything now.
You seem to be implying that somehow that is a bad thing. Not really seeing why using the scientific method wherever possible could possibly be a negative.
But...I can't decide if that bothers me or not. The sheer *audacity* of this project impresses me. I kind of want to see it happen.
The only audacity is the balls it takes to scam stupid, credulous people out of their money. Anyone who cannot see that immediately is a weapons grade idiot.
Unfortunately, the mission is basically a death-sentence for the people involved
There is no mission. There never will be from this "organization". This is a scam and nothing more.
You cannot demonstrate that; you can only conjecture it.
Are you seriously that clueless? This is either a scam or some profoundly wishful thinking. Given that it has all the trappings of a scam I'm strongly favoring that hypothesis. This "organization" is doing EXACTLY what I would expect from someone who is trying to bilk the ignorant and credulous out of some money.
Lets see: 1) Desirable goal? Check 2) Vaguely worded by reassuring sounding assurances that it will work? Check 3) No clear funding model but asks for donations? Check 4) Lots of press releases but no technology development? Check 5) No credible management team? Check 6) Claims that defy known physics and claim technological advancements to be unnecessary? Check 7) Claims of interest from well known companies but no actual details? Check 8) Claims that they have "visited" various well known aerospace firms without further details? Check
Seriously if you believe ANY of this Mars-One scam then you are a weapons grade imbecile.
I supposed they can claim this on a semantic technicality; since no one has done it before either succeeding or failing with current technology, you can't really say it has been demostrated to be false.
Only if we ignore a whole bunch of well established physics and biology. We're hardly ignorant of the technical problems involved and we know for a fact that we haven't conquered several showstoppers including radiation shielding on the trip there.
Why is slashdot giving scammers like this the time of day? This is not a real mission to Mars. This is not even a credible attempt at one. There is no funding, no realistic plan, no details, no technology development, and nothing else that should even give the slightest hint that this is anything more than a scam.
Computer "science" is not a science---it is an arbitrary paradigm beyond the electrical engineering and physics required to construct physical computers.
First off, your premise is wrong. Computer science is very much a science, specifically one devoted to the study of information, algorithms, storage and other aspects of information processing. Do not confuse the field of computer science with what most people who have computer science degrees actually do to earn a living which is more fairly described as engineering. The mere fact that much of the field (though not all) is abstract in nature does not in any way mean that it is not a scientific pursuit. By your definition chemical engineering is "an arbitrary paradigm" beyond the chemistry and physics required to build processing plants. If you can apply the scientific method to a problem then you are doing science. The level of abstraction is irrelevant to the discussion.
Since there is no "science" in computer science, calling a programmer an "engineer" makes no sense.
Second, a programmer absolutely can be an engineer as long as he/she fits the definition of doing engineering work. Engineering is the application of science, technology, economics and other practical knowledge to solving problems. Most programmers are involved in engineering work at some level. While it might be socially pretentious to call some of them engineers, strictly speaking it is technically correct if you do.
HR wants 10 years experience in something that was invented 5 years ago.
Yeah we've all see that but HR usually just parrots what the hiring manager tells them.
If you have bigger-picture skills, you might be tempted to think for yourself.
The problem with having a generalist skill set is that no one at a large enterprise will know what to do with you. Generally a large enterprise will want someone with deep domain expertise in a narrow field. And that makes sense because they have a specific task and it is comparatively easy to evaluate experience versus ability.
I have the skill set of a generalist. I'm have an engineering degree and a business degree and I'm also a certified accountant. I'm rather competent in a variety of skills though if you look hard enough you can usually find someone marginally better at any one of them if you don't need the other talents I possess. I have worked in diverse industries, everything from manufacturing to health care to auctions to retail. I've consulted, owned several businesses and spent many years doing hard core engineering analytics (statistical stuff mostly) for big manufacturing companies. I'm competent in process engineering, product design, production management, statistics, accounting, finance, HR and some areas of IT. When I apply for jobs I generally have little problem convincing the interviewer that I'm pretty smart but they then usually become concerned that I'm either overqualified OR that I will get bored and leave OR they think that I don't have enough experience in the little niche they are hiring for even though I generally could handle it pretty easily.
Generalist skill sets are usually most valuable in smaller companies which cannot afford to have specialists. That's why I run a small manufacturing company rather than working as a minion in a much larger one.
Which is why in many places it is illegal to call yourself an engineer unless you licensed to be one.
Not anywhere in the US. Just because you don't have a license doesn't mean you are not an engineer. To be an engineer you have to do engineering work. That's it. Doesn't mean you are a competent one, but you can describe yourself as one. While the term does get used inappropriately sometimes it's perfectly fine to call yourself an engineer if you are applying science to practical problems because that is what engineers do. It also doesn't truly matter if you have an engineering degree or not. Some of the best engineers I know don't have a college degree.
There are jobs you cannot get without a certification like a PE (civil engineers and a few others) because of liability concerns but that doesn't mean the people who lack such licensing (including myself) are not engineers.
Software engineering is much harder to keep up with. Other engineers get to keep using the same solutions. We have to keep inventing new ones.
Speaking as one of those "other engineers" I can safely say that is complete nonsense. You think engineers in other fields do nothing but solve the same problem over and over using nothing but the same tools? If that were true then there wouldn't be much need for engineers at all. I have a job precisely because I have to continually find new solutions and invent new tools to solve problems. If you seriously think that software engineers are forced to be more inventive than other types of engineers then you very clearly have no idea what other types of engineers actually do.
The case has been litigated and SCOTUS held the police need a warrant to conduct a search.
And of course the police always do what they are told... [/sarcasm]
Letting the police look at what is displayed on your phone screen is not a voluntary consent to a search of the phone.
And yet I assure you it will be interpreted as such.
As for the cost of fighting them, if it's litigated again it will be as a civil rights violation under 42 U.S. Code section 1983 which includes a fee shifting provision.
Which only matters if you have enough money in the first place to see the litigation through and happen to win which is by no means guaranteed.
This however does not mean you cannot be compelled to give physical items,or access to physical items (including fingerprints).
I disagree that I should have to (potentially) incriminate myself by giving access to data that the police would not otherwise have the ability to access if I were not present.
The cops have no right to demand you produce your passphrase.
Nor should they have any rights to my fingerprints except for taking ink copies for comparison should prints be relevant to a criminal investigation.
They have a right to demand the bit of paper they know you wrote the passphrase on.
That doesn't mean they should be able to physically force me to enter the passphrase into the device. They can do that bit of work themselves. Forcing you to enter your fingerprint is a functionally identical process to forcing you to enter a passphrase - the only difference is that one doesn't involve my memory. They can take my keys but I see no reason to insert them in the door for them. They can do that without me - or not.
I don't see why you think that handing an officer your phone for one reason - viewing the on-screen ID, would appear to translate into "I grant you permission to close the ID app and browse/download my email and photos."
That is EXACTLY how it will be interpreted by the police until they are told very explicitly that doing so is a no-no. In fact odds are they will keep doing it anyway because the cost of fighting them on it is really steep, well beyond what is reasonable for most people. Justice may be done at the end of the day but that doesn't mean that you won't experience a whole bunch of severe inconvenience and civil rights violations along the way.
Who hasn't forged an ID setting their age appropriately to get alcohol?
I haven't. In fact I've never consumed any alcohol because the smell makes me nauseous. I've tasted enough beer, wine and spirits (I cook with it) to know that I find the taste repulsive as well. I have no moral issue with responsible alcohol consumption but I never saw the point in trying to get drunk, especially when under-age.
And what happens when you lose your ID, in which most wallets or purses has absolutely no form of security?
I get a new one. It happens. That's not really a big worry to be honest. I'm more worried about losing the credit cards, medical cards and cash contained in my wallet.
It'll probably involve a minimal contactless reader and token-transfer like Apple Pay.
I assure you it will not. That is not how police play that game. Furthermore that requires your phone to be on and then the officer can search the phone because you just gave him access and probable cause. If they want to come up with a system whereby the officer has no physical way to search the phone (not just legal protections) then I might think this is a good idea. As the law stands right now there is no way in hell I would do this.
Some idiot judge apparently recently ruled that while you don't have to give your password you do have to give your fingerprint. How that doesn't violate the 5th amendment involves some mental gymnastics that I'm not really capable of.
Don't need to transfer all phone data. (really? you think cops are going to sit around to transfer 16-128GB? lol)
Don't know why you are laughing. It's not funny at all. Yes I absolutely think cops are going to sit around and transfer the entire contents. You'd be a fool to presume otherwise. He gets paid to be there no matter how long it takes.
Not if you place them on the ceiling. You can simply run cabling along the ceiling to where it needs to go.
Run cabling "along the ceiling"? Maybe you like your house to look like crap but personally I think running wires along the ceiling looks terrible and my wife would feel even stronger about it. To do it so it doesn't look all JV requires actually putting holes in the ceiling/walls and is a substantial project. It also requires hiring an electrician unless you are planning to violate a whole bunch of code and safety regulations.
A projector on the ceiling can go pretty much anywhere.
No it cannot because you have to project it onto something. Maybe every wall you have is a blank white wall but that doesn't describe my house. Furthermore once you mount it it's staying there and is non-trivial to move elsewhere.
For the size? Don't think so.
Then you haven't looked into it. Unless you are talking about >80" screen size, projectors lose to flatscreens at the same price points. Good luck getting a good cheap 4K projector plus accessories cheaper than a 70" flatscreen.
So many people on Slashdot today seem to have projector info from the 80's when projectors were not nearly so bright as they are now. Projectors are far more awesome than any TV can ever be, AND you can take them with you someplace else if you want to.
I thought you were just telling us to mount it to the ceiling.
Just use a projector. It's inexpensive and typically has no features other than projecting.
"Inexpensive"? Umm... no. To get a decent set up in my house I'd have to ceiling mount the projector. That means punching holes in my ceiling and bringing in an electrician to run the wires. I'd have to put some sort of screen on one of my walls. I'd have to spend quite a bit of money for a projector with adequate brightness and spend a fair bit of time tinkering with it. And then if I decide to rearrange the room I'm pretty much stuck with what I've got. All of that costs significant $$$ unless you go all ghetto in your setup.
No thanks. Projectors can be great. My sister has one in her house which is nice but her house was designed with one in mind.
This is where Comcast building wifi hotspots into their cable modems becomes pretty damned insidious - how long until devices like this are "pre-authorized" to automatically connect to the mothership through any available wireless connection?
Agreed but then that's part of the reasons why I own my own cable modem> It does not have built in wifi so Comcast can't pull any hijinks and it costs me less since I'm not paying any rental fees. Also fortunately I live far enough away from my neighbors that no wifi signals but my own are within range of my house.
If you already have a smartphone, the story is a bit different, I agree.
And the sales figures for smartphones say that odds are far better than not that you do have a smartphone. I don't think I've met a single person who has a fitness tracker who does not also have a smartphone. The target demographic for fitness trackers is very close to a subset of the demographic for smartphones.
If I would just like something that monitors my fitness, I would not be tempted to buy a device that can do a lot of other things as well.
Please point me to a fitness tracker that is usable as a standalone device without either a smartphone or a PC. I've certainly never seen one.
And I would not like to take the time to get acquainted with a smart phone, while I could master a fitness tracker in a few minutes.
If you haven't actually tried a smartphone how do you know they are harder to use? Honestly my fitbit took more setup time than my phone did and I find the interface considerably less intuitive.
Slashdot Mirror
Build your own. Works best for Windows machines and Linux as well
I'm not a hobbyist and don't have the time. Any Windows machine I buy will almost certainly be for work and I'm not about to waste a ton of time building a machine. If Lenovo wants to load their machines with spyware then there are plenty of other options out there.
If all they have to do is say "oh, gee, we're not really sorry" and have no consequences, this will keep happening.
This is something that has come up in our culture lately. It seems no mater how bad the offense, all the media wants is some sort of apology and somehow that makes it acceptable. There are no further consequences which boggles my mind. Sometimes an apology is not sufficient. What we should really care about is what did they DO to make things right. I could give a shit whether they apologize or not. Fix it and I'll forgive. What is said means nothing.
Which is precisely why you should assume any piece of consumer electronics which wants to connect to the internet was pushed out the door by lazy, incompetent, greedy bastards who bear no legal penalty for screwing up on security and privacy.
Preach on brother. This is absolutely correct.
I've been steering everyone I know away from Sony products for more than a decade now, and what I suggest when they ask what brand they can trust I have always told them Samsung.
Genuinely not being snarky but why? What has Samsung ever done that would lead you to believe they would be a brand you could/should trust more than Sony? Just because they haven't really stepped in a big pile of #2 until now is evidence of nothing. Sure Sony has done some truly stupid shit but Samsung has really only been a big name in computer products for the last few years. I don't think they are in any way more trustworthy, they just haven't had time for their sins to float to the surface yet.
I ask you, is there any major brand who are on the side of consumer/customer privacy out there anymore?
I'm not aware of any that ever were unfortunately.
I'll just buy from elsewhere if I need a Windows machine. I have a one strike and you are out policy on this kind of nonsense. I used to buy their machines back when IBM was still making them but they seem to have lost their way.
I wonder if it's perhaps an engineer-type mentality that gets so focused on building cool new things, they just don't stop to think about how those new things can be abused or exploited to do bad things.
It's partly that. It's also very likely to be a significant amount of incompetence. I am an engineer and run a contract manufacturing company. We build wire harnesses and our customers provide the technical details for the product to be built. I've been doing this for many years now and I can count on my fingers the number of drawings that I've received that could be built solely from the documentation provided. This means that a LOT of engineers are wildly incompetent at writing engineering documentations which is >50% of their job for most of them.
I guess engineers don't typically think like baddies, figuring out how to use technology to hurt people or steal from them.
Not only do they not think like baddies, they often don't bother to consult with those who do. Furthermore even if they did think about it it wouldn't surprise me if a cost/benefit analysis was done which drove the engineers and/or management to not bother. Encryption done right is hard and it doesn't result in a single additional sale for most products. Nobody buys a TV wondering how good the encryption on it is. Maybe now they will but it just hasn't been on anyone's radar to this point so why would we expect the companies making the products to worry about it even if they should have?
The word science has been debased over time; It was originally applied to those who tried to unravel the mysteries of nature.
Since nature encompasses everything around us that's a pretty big field. Just because it isn't fundamental physics does not mean it isn't science.
It started with "social studies" picking up the term "social sciences" to gain more credibility...
Social interactions absolutely can be (and are) studied using the scientific method. That IS science even if it isn't quite as elegant as F=MA. Science is a method of inquiry based in objective evidence and that method can be applied to topics ranging from physics to biology to mathematics to social interaction to economics and pretty much anything else that you can apply a testable hypothesis against.
Honestly, CS has a lot more to do with being like a mathematician than a traditional scientist.
Computer Science isn't "like" mathematics, it IS mathematics. CS is basically a sub branch of mathematics including formal logic, information theory, algorithms, and a lot more.
There is a "science" for everything now.
You seem to be implying that somehow that is a bad thing. Not really seeing why using the scientific method wherever possible could possibly be a negative.
Birth is a death sentence.
Doesn't mean we let you scam other people out of their money in order to help them reach death sooner.
You have to be a serious sociopath to give that little of a shit about your fellow humans.
But...I can't decide if that bothers me or not. The sheer *audacity* of this project impresses me. I kind of want to see it happen.
The only audacity is the balls it takes to scam stupid, credulous people out of their money. Anyone who cannot see that immediately is a weapons grade idiot.
Unfortunately, the mission is basically a death-sentence for the people involved
There is no mission. There never will be from this "organization". This is a scam and nothing more.
You cannot demonstrate that; you can only conjecture it.
Are you seriously that clueless? This is either a scam or some profoundly wishful thinking. Given that it has all the trappings of a scam I'm strongly favoring that hypothesis. This "organization" is doing EXACTLY what I would expect from someone who is trying to bilk the ignorant and credulous out of some money.
Lets see:
1) Desirable goal? Check
2) Vaguely worded by reassuring sounding assurances that it will work? Check
3) No clear funding model but asks for donations? Check
4) Lots of press releases but no technology development? Check
5) No credible management team? Check
6) Claims that defy known physics and claim technological advancements to be unnecessary? Check
7) Claims of interest from well known companies but no actual details? Check
8) Claims that they have "visited" various well known aerospace firms without further details? Check
Seriously if you believe ANY of this Mars-One scam then you are a weapons grade imbecile.
I supposed they can claim this on a semantic technicality; since no one has done it before either succeeding or failing with current technology, you can't really say it has been demostrated to be false.
Only if we ignore a whole bunch of well established physics and biology. We're hardly ignorant of the technical problems involved and we know for a fact that we haven't conquered several showstoppers including radiation shielding on the trip there.
I know the idea of going to Mars is pretty awesome but this just reeks of scam. They are claiming they will launch the first people by 2024, a mere 9 years from now. You will note that except for a Donate link there is no mention of funding. They even say "No new technology developments are required to establish a human settlement on Mars", which is demonstrably false.
Why is slashdot giving scammers like this the time of day? This is not a real mission to Mars. This is not even a credible attempt at one. There is no funding, no realistic plan, no details, no technology development, and nothing else that should even give the slightest hint that this is anything more than a scam.
Computer "science" is not a science---it is an arbitrary paradigm beyond the electrical engineering and physics required to construct physical computers.
First off, your premise is wrong. Computer science is very much a science, specifically one devoted to the study of information, algorithms, storage and other aspects of information processing. Do not confuse the field of computer science with what most people who have computer science degrees actually do to earn a living which is more fairly described as engineering. The mere fact that much of the field (though not all) is abstract in nature does not in any way mean that it is not a scientific pursuit. By your definition chemical engineering is "an arbitrary paradigm" beyond the chemistry and physics required to build processing plants. If you can apply the scientific method to a problem then you are doing science. The level of abstraction is irrelevant to the discussion.
Since there is no "science" in computer science, calling a programmer an "engineer" makes no sense.
Second, a programmer absolutely can be an engineer as long as he/she fits the definition of doing engineering work. Engineering is the application of science, technology, economics and other practical knowledge to solving problems. Most programmers are involved in engineering work at some level. While it might be socially pretentious to call some of them engineers, strictly speaking it is technically correct if you do.
HR wants 10 years experience in something that was invented 5 years ago.
Yeah we've all see that but HR usually just parrots what the hiring manager tells them.
If you have bigger-picture skills, you might be tempted to think for yourself.
The problem with having a generalist skill set is that no one at a large enterprise will know what to do with you. Generally a large enterprise will want someone with deep domain expertise in a narrow field. And that makes sense because they have a specific task and it is comparatively easy to evaluate experience versus ability.
I have the skill set of a generalist. I'm have an engineering degree and a business degree and I'm also a certified accountant. I'm rather competent in a variety of skills though if you look hard enough you can usually find someone marginally better at any one of them if you don't need the other talents I possess. I have worked in diverse industries, everything from manufacturing to health care to auctions to retail. I've consulted, owned several businesses and spent many years doing hard core engineering analytics (statistical stuff mostly) for big manufacturing companies. I'm competent in process engineering, product design, production management, statistics, accounting, finance, HR and some areas of IT. When I apply for jobs I generally have little problem convincing the interviewer that I'm pretty smart but they then usually become concerned that I'm either overqualified OR that I will get bored and leave OR they think that I don't have enough experience in the little niche they are hiring for even though I generally could handle it pretty easily.
Generalist skill sets are usually most valuable in smaller companies which cannot afford to have specialists. That's why I run a small manufacturing company rather than working as a minion in a much larger one.
Which is why in many places it is illegal to call yourself an engineer unless you licensed to be one.
Not anywhere in the US. Just because you don't have a license doesn't mean you are not an engineer. To be an engineer you have to do engineering work. That's it. Doesn't mean you are a competent one, but you can describe yourself as one. While the term does get used inappropriately sometimes it's perfectly fine to call yourself an engineer if you are applying science to practical problems because that is what engineers do. It also doesn't truly matter if you have an engineering degree or not. Some of the best engineers I know don't have a college degree.
There are jobs you cannot get without a certification like a PE (civil engineers and a few others) because of liability concerns but that doesn't mean the people who lack such licensing (including myself) are not engineers.
Software engineering is much harder to keep up with. Other engineers get to keep using the same solutions. We have to keep inventing new ones.
Speaking as one of those "other engineers" I can safely say that is complete nonsense. You think engineers in other fields do nothing but solve the same problem over and over using nothing but the same tools? If that were true then there wouldn't be much need for engineers at all. I have a job precisely because I have to continually find new solutions and invent new tools to solve problems. If you seriously think that software engineers are forced to be more inventive than other types of engineers then you very clearly have no idea what other types of engineers actually do.
The case has been litigated and SCOTUS held the police need a warrant to conduct a search.
And of course the police always do what they are told... [/sarcasm]
Letting the police look at what is displayed on your phone screen is not a voluntary consent to a search of the phone.
And yet I assure you it will be interpreted as such.
As for the cost of fighting them, if it's litigated again it will be as a civil rights violation under 42 U.S. Code section 1983 which includes a fee shifting provision.
Which only matters if you have enough money in the first place to see the litigation through and happen to win which is by no means guaranteed.
You are not required to incriminate yourself.
Agreed.
This however does not mean you cannot be compelled to give physical items,or access to physical items (including fingerprints).
I disagree that I should have to (potentially) incriminate myself by giving access to data that the police would not otherwise have the ability to access if I were not present.
The cops have no right to demand you produce your passphrase.
Nor should they have any rights to my fingerprints except for taking ink copies for comparison should prints be relevant to a criminal investigation.
They have a right to demand the bit of paper they know you wrote the passphrase on.
That doesn't mean they should be able to physically force me to enter the passphrase into the device. They can do that bit of work themselves. Forcing you to enter your fingerprint is a functionally identical process to forcing you to enter a passphrase - the only difference is that one doesn't involve my memory. They can take my keys but I see no reason to insert them in the door for them. They can do that without me - or not.
I don't see why you think that handing an officer your phone for one reason - viewing the on-screen ID, would appear to translate into "I grant you permission to close the ID app and browse/download my email and photos."
That is EXACTLY how it will be interpreted by the police until they are told very explicitly that doing so is a no-no. In fact odds are they will keep doing it anyway because the cost of fighting them on it is really steep, well beyond what is reasonable for most people. Justice may be done at the end of the day but that doesn't mean that you won't experience a whole bunch of severe inconvenience and civil rights violations along the way.
Users must be able to provide officers with DL information, but officers must not be able to get any additional data.
Obligatory xkcd.
Who hasn't forged an ID setting their age appropriately to get alcohol?
I haven't. In fact I've never consumed any alcohol because the smell makes me nauseous. I've tasted enough beer, wine and spirits (I cook with it) to know that I find the taste repulsive as well. I have no moral issue with responsible alcohol consumption but I never saw the point in trying to get drunk, especially when under-age.
And what happens when you lose your ID, in which most wallets or purses has absolutely no form of security?
I get a new one. It happens. That's not really a big worry to be honest. I'm more worried about losing the credit cards, medical cards and cash contained in my wallet.
It'll probably involve a minimal contactless reader and token-transfer like Apple Pay.
I assure you it will not. That is not how police play that game. Furthermore that requires your phone to be on and then the officer can search the phone because you just gave him access and probable cause. If they want to come up with a system whereby the officer has no physical way to search the phone (not just legal protections) then I might think this is a good idea. As the law stands right now there is no way in hell I would do this.
Some idiot judge apparently recently ruled that while you don't have to give your password you do have to give your fingerprint. How that doesn't violate the 5th amendment involves some mental gymnastics that I'm not really capable of.
Don't need to transfer all phone data. (really? you think cops are going to sit around to transfer 16-128GB? lol)
Don't know why you are laughing. It's not funny at all. Yes I absolutely think cops are going to sit around and transfer the entire contents. You'd be a fool to presume otherwise. He gets paid to be there no matter how long it takes.
Not if you place them on the ceiling. You can simply run cabling along the ceiling to where it needs to go.
Run cabling "along the ceiling"? Maybe you like your house to look like crap but personally I think running wires along the ceiling looks terrible and my wife would feel even stronger about it. To do it so it doesn't look all JV requires actually putting holes in the ceiling/walls and is a substantial project. It also requires hiring an electrician unless you are planning to violate a whole bunch of code and safety regulations.
A projector on the ceiling can go pretty much anywhere.
No it cannot because you have to project it onto something. Maybe every wall you have is a blank white wall but that doesn't describe my house. Furthermore once you mount it it's staying there and is non-trivial to move elsewhere.
For the size? Don't think so.
Then you haven't looked into it. Unless you are talking about >80" screen size, projectors lose to flatscreens at the same price points. Good luck getting a good cheap 4K projector plus accessories cheaper than a 70" flatscreen.
So many people on Slashdot today seem to have projector info from the 80's when projectors were not nearly so bright as they are now. Projectors are far more awesome than any TV can ever be, AND you can take them with you someplace else if you want to.
I thought you were just telling us to mount it to the ceiling.
Just use a projector. It's inexpensive and typically has no features other than projecting.
"Inexpensive"? Umm... no. To get a decent set up in my house I'd have to ceiling mount the projector. That means punching holes in my ceiling and bringing in an electrician to run the wires. I'd have to put some sort of screen on one of my walls. I'd have to spend quite a bit of money for a projector with adequate brightness and spend a fair bit of time tinkering with it. And then if I decide to rearrange the room I'm pretty much stuck with what I've got. All of that costs significant $$$ unless you go all ghetto in your setup.
No thanks. Projectors can be great. My sister has one in her house which is nice but her house was designed with one in mind.
This is where Comcast building wifi hotspots into their cable modems becomes pretty damned insidious - how long until devices like this are "pre-authorized" to automatically connect to the mothership through any available wireless connection?
Agreed but then that's part of the reasons why I own my own cable modem> It does not have built in wifi so Comcast can't pull any hijinks and it costs me less since I'm not paying any rental fees. Also fortunately I live far enough away from my neighbors that no wifi signals but my own are within range of my house.
If you already have a smartphone, the story is a bit different, I agree.
And the sales figures for smartphones say that odds are far better than not that you do have a smartphone. I don't think I've met a single person who has a fitness tracker who does not also have a smartphone. The target demographic for fitness trackers is very close to a subset of the demographic for smartphones.
If I would just like something that monitors my fitness, I would not be tempted to buy a device that can do a lot of other things as well.
Please point me to a fitness tracker that is usable as a standalone device without either a smartphone or a PC. I've certainly never seen one.
And I would not like to take the time to get acquainted with a smart phone, while I could master a fitness tracker in a few minutes.
If you haven't actually tried a smartphone how do you know they are harder to use? Honestly my fitbit took more setup time than my phone did and I find the interface considerably less intuitive.