The problem is if the firmware can be hacked over-the-air to turn on the microphone and camera at will. Is this possible? I have always assumed not. However, if the firmware is plagued with security holes, it becomes rather more likely that it is possible.
Google, of course, makes this extremely difficult to do through Android. They do not control the underlying firmware, however.
While true, I am rather less concerned about that.
Although, now that you mention it, I wonder if the firmware could be hacked so as to cause a fault in the battery and cause it to catch fire or explode?
No, but I provide aluminum foil if anyone wants to make their own.
I am think to frame this as an etiquette issue. We take our shoes off at the door to avoid tracking dirt and the occasional dogshit through the house. Similarly, we leave our cellphones at the door so as to more fully engage with each other in the tranquility of a peaceful home... and leave the spy shit at the door.
It does apply to everything electronic, but not everything has camera AND microphone AND gps AND permanent attachment to the Internet. The only other electronics I would be concerned about would be tablets and possibly laptops (might end up with charging stations for those, too).
Can you think of anything else that should be isolated? WiFi-enabled LED lights and WiFi access points are potential contenders, but I am choosing not to worry about those until actual evidence of their exploitation pops up.
Nevertheless, consensus is not the same as reality. A true scientific mindset appreciates not only the fact that consensus may point to a clear conclusion, but also the potential that it might be wrong.
I am not correcting your choice, I am correcting the way you chose it. Truth is not democratic in nature.
So this basically means that even if the NSA is *NOT* spying on everyone's personal lives by surreptitiously turning on our cameras and microphones, then some 2-bit drug cartel with a couple crackers and an eBay account can? No thanks.
In my house, we are putting in a charging station by the front door, where we will leave all phones. Guests will be cordially invited to leave their cell phones at the door, feel free to pick up a free charge for the ride home.
In the words of a Google employee, "Fuck these guys."
I find it very interesting how you so easily fall into that trap; the idea that consensus governs reality.
No, reality lies outside of consensus. Sometimes it takes decades (occasionally, centuries) for consensus to match reality.
That's not to say global cooling is the correct model, but to claim it is incorrect simply because it has not gained a consensus inside of 40 years is rather disingenious.
Re: Another bitcoin short-sell opportunity coming
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You are missing the forest for the trees. The overall economy may have suffered a recession, but the Japanese government was still inflating heavily. During that period, the economy was suffering from extensive capital destruction caused by collapsing loans.
Just like the US economy is experiencing now, high rates of defaults on mortgages causes extensive capital destruction and rapidly decrease the overall size of the economy. The Federal Reserve can inject hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy and it just gets sucked up into the abyss formed by collapsing loans. It is important to observe that the overall effect of this inflation is to significantly obscure even basic market signals, making it impossible to determine where to allocate money and resources. This is why corporations are stacking up cash reserves and failing to make new investments.
Both the Yen and the Dollar are highly inflationary currencies. Just because the overall value of the currency appears to decrease does not alter the fact that the currency is inflationary, or that it suffers greatly from inflationary policies. A decreasing economy merely means that fractional reserve banking is running in reverse, destroying wealth instead of creating wealth.
Re: Another bitcoin short-sell opportunity coming
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It does hurt its non-speculative uses. Nevertheless, it remains stronger than ever, and still growing. The fact is that these boom and bust cycles have not driven people away. If anything, the publicity attracts more attention, and therefore growth.
The question remains: at what point do the economists start being right about their predictions?
Re: Another bitcoin short-sell opportunity coming
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That is not a valid example. The Yen is inflationary, and that period gave us the term stagflation, a dreary mix of both inflation and deflation.
There is no example of a deflationary currency that I know of except possibly precious metals and that is questionable. So the question is philosophical; when do you think the economists will start being right about bitcoin? They have been dreadfully wrong so far, when will tbey start being right?
Re:Another bitcoin short-sell opportunity coming
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I think you are simply sour about not picking up bitcoin when it was $20/ea a few months ago. $100 worth of bitcoin then would net you $1500 now.
Ouch.
Re:Another bitcoin short-sell opportunity coming
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Bitcoin is fabulous for sending money around the world. Ever tried to send money to a relative half-way across the country? Easy if you have a shared bank account. Really fucking hard if you don't. PayPal and Dwolla have kinda-sorta mechanisms but those are recent and complex.
Bitcoin is easy and costs pennies.
That's a great reason to use Bitcoin.
Re:Another bitcoin short-sell opportunity coming
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So what you are saying is, in order to actually sell something, you have to convince people to part with not just the money, but also its future value, right?
Doesn't that mean the end of consumerism? The end of gluttony and waste? A return to making things that last? A return to cottage industries? Is this bad?
I would like to invite you to consider something: at what point do economists' theories about bitcoin start becoming true? Now? 5 years? 20 years? 100 years? At what point does deflation end a currency? At what point does deflation even begin to weaken its appeal?
Re:Another bitcoin short-sell opportunity coming
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I find it interesting that one of bitcoin's greatest strengths (perhaps *the* greatest strength) is so often considered to be its greatest weakness. Bitcoin was designed in an Austrian economics school of thought, which holds quite clearly that markets should be free, inflation is bad, and so on.
We are going on 5 years now, and this upstart currency is stronger than ever. I think it lends a slightly different air to philosophical economics discussions, now that we have pure anarchic/Austrian currency to compare to "real" currencies.
What do you think?
Re:Another bitcoin short-sell opportunity coming
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One of the big uses of bitcoin is the ability to send arbitrary amounts of wealth anywhere in the world with fees amounting to a few pennies. Need to send $10? No problem. Need to send $10,000? No problem.
For merchants, accepting bitcoins has zero fees, or if you want to use a merchant service and get the cash value deposited directly in your bank account, it's about 1 percent. Also, there is never any possibility of chargebacks. It is extremely attractive for merchants for these reasons.
These are a couple of the perfectly-legal uses of bitcoin, that do not get into the whole Austrian/Anarchy philosophical world.
Something to think about: bitcoin as a black market tender is useless unless real-world people can accept it.
Re:Another bitcoin short-sell opportunity coming
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You don't think it warrants attention on a nerd news site that a technology-backed currency based on peer-to-peer cryptography is still growing strongly five years after its inception? If nothing else, I find the technological aspects quite intriguing.
I'll grant you that the constant focus on the illegal aspects of bitcoin grows annoying, just like calling computer crackers, "hackers."
Re:Another bitcoin short-sell opportunity coming
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Why do you think that?
Do you think regular currencies are a scam as well?
Yup. Something to consider: when Americans protest, they don't take to the streets with signs (much). They buy guns. Americans have been protesting strongly for years.
I do not think there is a single answer to global energy needs. We need many answers, not just one magic answer. If this technology helps some people, then it is absolutely worthwhile. We need every bit of help we can get. If it's only a small fraction of a percent, that is fine; the technology is helping people and helping the earth. The least you could do is support it.
Dismissing ideas because they won't replace fossil fuels is foolish. Replacing fossil fuels is going to take a combination of ideas, probably in combination with production decentralization.
Of course, homeschooling is not for everyone. For parents who are OK with their children growing up to be... less... than them (and the rest of the world), there are plenty of schools happy to teach.
But for parents who want their children to exceed, they need to MAKE THE TIME. If you don't have the money, drop out, join the food sovereignty movement, and teach your kids yourself. And, thanks the 2-orders-of-magnitude improvement in self-paced instruction over classroom instructor, you have to be a really really really horrible person to be worse than the classroom.
Kids want to learn. The unschooling movement is full of people who have discovered that one of the best ways to teach children is to provide sufficient guides for them to explore their natural curiousity.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, I know you were playing on my seeming paranoia, I apologize for spreading it... :/
The problem is if the firmware can be hacked over-the-air to turn on the microphone and camera at will. Is this possible? I have always assumed not. However, if the firmware is plagued with security holes, it becomes rather more likely that it is possible.
Google, of course, makes this extremely difficult to do through Android. They do not control the underlying firmware, however.
While true, I am rather less concerned about that.
Although, now that you mention it, I wonder if the firmware could be hacked so as to cause a fault in the battery and cause it to catch fire or explode?
I already do. For one, most strangers are honest, law-abiding people.
No, but I provide aluminum foil if anyone wants to make their own.
I am think to frame this as an etiquette issue. We take our shoes off at the door to avoid tracking dirt and the occasional dogshit through the house. Similarly, we leave our cellphones at the door so as to more fully engage with each other in the tranquility of a peaceful home ... and leave the spy shit at the door.
It does apply to everything electronic, but not everything has camera AND microphone AND gps AND permanent attachment to the Internet. The only other electronics I would be concerned about would be tablets and possibly laptops (might end up with charging stations for those, too).
Can you think of anything else that should be isolated? WiFi-enabled LED lights and WiFi access points are potential contenders, but I am choosing not to worry about those until actual evidence of their exploitation pops up.
Your post is completely correct.
Nevertheless, consensus is not the same as reality. A true scientific mindset appreciates not only the fact that consensus may point to a clear conclusion, but also the potential that it might be wrong.
I am not correcting your choice, I am correcting the way you chose it. Truth is not democratic in nature.
So this basically means that even if the NSA is *NOT* spying on everyone's personal lives by surreptitiously turning on our cameras and microphones, then some 2-bit drug cartel with a couple crackers and an eBay account can? No thanks.
In my house, we are putting in a charging station by the front door, where we will leave all phones. Guests will be cordially invited to leave their cell phones at the door, feel free to pick up a free charge for the ride home.
In the words of a Google employee, "Fuck these guys."
I find it very interesting how you so easily fall into that trap; the idea that consensus governs reality.
No, reality lies outside of consensus. Sometimes it takes decades (occasionally, centuries) for consensus to match reality.
That's not to say global cooling is the correct model, but to claim it is incorrect simply because it has not gained a consensus inside of 40 years is rather disingenious.
You are missing the forest for the trees. The overall economy may have suffered a recession, but the Japanese government was still inflating heavily. During that period, the economy was suffering from extensive capital destruction caused by collapsing loans.
Just like the US economy is experiencing now, high rates of defaults on mortgages causes extensive capital destruction and rapidly decrease the overall size of the economy. The Federal Reserve can inject hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy and it just gets sucked up into the abyss formed by collapsing loans. It is important to observe that the overall effect of this inflation is to significantly obscure even basic market signals, making it impossible to determine where to allocate money and resources. This is why corporations are stacking up cash reserves and failing to make new investments.
Both the Yen and the Dollar are highly inflationary currencies. Just because the overall value of the currency appears to decrease does not alter the fact that the currency is inflationary, or that it suffers greatly from inflationary policies. A decreasing economy merely means that fractional reserve banking is running in reverse, destroying wealth instead of creating wealth.
It does hurt its non-speculative uses. Nevertheless, it remains stronger than ever, and still growing. The fact is that these boom and bust cycles have not driven people away. If anything, the publicity attracts more attention, and therefore growth.
The question remains: at what point do the economists start being right about their predictions?
That is not a valid example. The Yen is inflationary, and that period gave us the term stagflation, a dreary mix of both inflation and deflation.
There is no example of a deflationary currency that I know of except possibly precious metals and that is questionable. So the question is philosophical; when do you think the economists will start being right about bitcoin? They have been dreadfully wrong so far, when will tbey start being right?
I think you are simply sour about not picking up bitcoin when it was $20/ea a few months ago. $100 worth of bitcoin then would net you $1500 now.
Ouch.
Bitcoin is fabulous for sending money around the world. Ever tried to send money to a relative half-way across the country? Easy if you have a shared bank account. Really fucking hard if you don't. PayPal and Dwolla have kinda-sorta mechanisms but those are recent and complex.
Bitcoin is easy and costs pennies.
That's a great reason to use Bitcoin.
So what you are saying is, in order to actually sell something, you have to convince people to part with not just the money, but also its future value, right?
Doesn't that mean the end of consumerism? The end of gluttony and waste? A return to making things that last? A return to cottage industries? Is this bad?
I would like to invite you to consider something: at what point do economists' theories about bitcoin start becoming true? Now? 5 years? 20 years? 100 years? At what point does deflation end a currency? At what point does deflation even begin to weaken its appeal?
I find it interesting that one of bitcoin's greatest strengths (perhaps *the* greatest strength) is so often considered to be its greatest weakness. Bitcoin was designed in an Austrian economics school of thought, which holds quite clearly that markets should be free, inflation is bad, and so on.
We are going on 5 years now, and this upstart currency is stronger than ever. I think it lends a slightly different air to philosophical economics discussions, now that we have pure anarchic/Austrian currency to compare to "real" currencies.
What do you think?
One of the big uses of bitcoin is the ability to send arbitrary amounts of wealth anywhere in the world with fees amounting to a few pennies. Need to send $10? No problem. Need to send $10,000? No problem.
For merchants, accepting bitcoins has zero fees, or if you want to use a merchant service and get the cash value deposited directly in your bank account, it's about 1 percent. Also, there is never any possibility of chargebacks. It is extremely attractive for merchants for these reasons.
These are a couple of the perfectly-legal uses of bitcoin, that do not get into the whole Austrian/Anarchy philosophical world.
Something to think about: bitcoin as a black market tender is useless unless real-world people can accept it.
You don't think it warrants attention on a nerd news site that a technology-backed currency based on peer-to-peer cryptography is still growing strongly five years after its inception? If nothing else, I find the technological aspects quite intriguing.
I'll grant you that the constant focus on the illegal aspects of bitcoin grows annoying, just like calling computer crackers, "hackers."
Why do you think that?
Do you think regular currencies are a scam as well?
Yup. Something to consider: when Americans protest, they don't take to the streets with signs (much). They buy guns. Americans have been protesting strongly for years.
When Americans protest, they don't take to the streets. No, in the United States, they buy guns and lots and lots of ammunition.
You. I like you.
That's going to go over real well when they turn off EBT in a few days. https://twitter.com/search?q=EBT&src=typd
I do not think there is a single answer to global energy needs. We need many answers, not just one magic answer. If this technology helps some people, then it is absolutely worthwhile. We need every bit of help we can get. If it's only a small fraction of a percent, that is fine; the technology is helping people and helping the earth. The least you could do is support it.
Dismissing ideas because they won't replace fossil fuels is foolish. Replacing fossil fuels is going to take a combination of ideas, probably in combination with production decentralization.
Of course, homeschooling is not for everyone. For parents who are OK with their children growing up to be ... less... than them (and the rest of the world), there are plenty of schools happy to teach.
But for parents who want their children to exceed, they need to MAKE THE TIME. If you don't have the money, drop out, join the food sovereignty movement, and teach your kids yourself. And, thanks the 2-orders-of-magnitude improvement in self-paced instruction over classroom instructor, you have to be a really really really horrible person to be worse than the classroom.
Kids want to learn. The unschooling movement is full of people who have discovered that one of the best ways to teach children is to provide sufficient guides for them to explore their natural curiousity.