You assume that the attackers would be basement hackers. Not a good assumption. There have been plenty of government assassinations in even recent history. Do you think Russia or China would be above killing, say, a US senator who keeps voting against their interests? Because I'm sure they would be willing, if they could be absolutly sure of not being caught. I wouldn't even trust the US with it - they already use drone strikes against suspected terrorists without trial, but drones are messy and lead to bad PR. And if Iran gets hold of the hack... they'd probably set up a virus that transmits the 'drop dead' command from any device with a bluetooth interface and US-English language setting.
Pacemakers need replacement every seven years or so anyway as the batteries go flat. You can just install one without the vulnerability then. It's a routine procedure.
Murder is easy. Getting away with it is hard. If the old guy with a heart condition drops dead from apparent heart failure, who is going to even suspect murder?
Tell the company, and inform them that in six months you will be presenting this dicovery at a conference. That way they have plenty of time to deploy a patch.
That, or they might just say that if you ever go public they'll sue you so hard your grandchildren will still be paying the legal fees.
There is too much utility in computers for them to have failed from the actions of one company. If Microsoft hadn't been there, another OS would have filled the niche. Probably OS/2, or RiscOS. At worst it might have delayed their mass-adoption by a couple of years.
There is one very good reason to invest in manned space exploration:
Big. Fucking.Rock.
Sure, chances are is isn't going to drop on on any time in the next thousand years. But it will, one day. Got to get off this planet sooner or later, and now is a good time for it - we've still got most of the planet's resources ready for plundering, and international competition as a motivator. We could put it off and try to solve the problems we have on earth right now, but realistically, that's not going to happen - there will always be seemingly urgent problems to solve. There are enough resources available to tackle more than one goal at a time.
Combine that with access to contraception, and you've got a roadmap from third-world poverty to first-world prosperity. Or whatever passes for prosperity these days.
The UK's healthcare system is ill-managed, under-funded, and constantly in traumatic reform as it's become a political football always kicked around between factions. The waiting lists are long, the wards overcrowded, and the hospitals understaffed.
And yet we still managed to beat the US on every major metric of public health, with the exception of cancer survival rates - and we spend a smaller portion of GDP on it via taxes than the US does via insurance premiums and medical bills.
Even our badly-run mess of a single provider manages to beat the US. Really, America... when you are being beaten in the life expectancy charts by the like of *Cuba*, you really need to admit you are failing.
At least we had a self-sustaining moon base, even in that.
Never mind the flying car - I want my robot maid!
I can get a roomba for the hoovering. But what about the ironing? And dusting? The washing machine and dishwasher are great labor-saving devices, but they don't load themselves.
I think all long-running protests turn into that. The Tea Party protests were just as bad, and for much the same reason: The protesters were protesting a vague idea, but had nothing specific to unify them.
As much as I like the idea of OTR, it still runs over existing centralised and thus filterable IM networks. RS's file-sharing capability was also a big selling point for me.
There is such a thing as an appropriate level of security. Tor is overkill, because the many-proxy approach imposes severe resource limitations. Might be fine for messages, but try sending a large file. For most people, there isn't any need for that level of paranoia - the NSA isn't going to be trying to find you. The concerns are advertisers, sneaky hotspot operators trying to harvest credentials, government mass-monitoring programs, copyright enforcement agencies, snooping employers... things like that.
There are a few small issues with retroshare still (No forward secrecy, key length should be longer, hell to compile), but those are just refinement issues. More users means more incentive and developer attention to perfect it.
I've been convincing as many people as I can to start using Retroshare as an IM program. It's encryption isn't the best - the NSA might be able to break it with a lot of effort, but they certainly can't do so for mass-surveillance. But it's compact, reliable, cross-platform (Though a rather fiddly compile), and it gets the IMs through. No central servers, all communications encrypted - you establish contacts by exchanging keys. And very hard to filter, as it doesn't run consistent ports and the preferred protocol is SSL with a UDP fallback. It can even do the UDP-dummy-start trick to get through a NAT at both ends, like Skype does. Plus it incorporates folder sharing, which means you can help to promote it by promising friends access to your folder-o-piracy.
Shameless as this plug is, I'm in no way affiliated with Retroshare. I just think it's a very nice piece of software, and more people should use it.
The money-making businesses stay on earth, making money. The stockholders go up into orbit. They may not be on earth, but they still get their share dividends - which can then pay the cost of resupply rockets.
You're focusing on individual survival. No one individual has everything it'll take on their own. You're going to have to cooperate with other survivors. That means something of value to trade, an skills are of value.
The life of a post-apoc engineer may consist of 'Give me a place to sleep and food for a few days, and I'll get that old well-pump working again' or 'Can I join your little community? I'm no good at farming, but I can loot a load of old solar panels and car batteries and get you electric light and piped clean water.' You offer your skills to maintain technology that makes life easier, in return for protection from wandering bandits, food and residence.
With the collapse of technology, even improvised equipment is going to be valuable. Can you rip radiators from a building, paint them black, put them under glass and get the temperature up to near-boiling? You just gave a community back sterile, disease-free water. They will be grateful.
Slashdot Mirror
You assume that the attackers would be basement hackers. Not a good assumption. There have been plenty of government assassinations in even recent history. Do you think Russia or China would be above killing, say, a US senator who keeps voting against their interests? Because I'm sure they would be willing, if they could be absolutly sure of not being caught. I wouldn't even trust the US with it - they already use drone strikes against suspected terrorists without trial, but drones are messy and lead to bad PR. And if Iran gets hold of the hack... they'd probably set up a virus that transmits the 'drop dead' command from any device with a bluetooth interface and US-English language setting.
Pacemakers need replacement every seven years or so anyway as the batteries go flat. You can just install one without the vulnerability then. It's a routine procedure.
Murder is easy. Getting away with it is hard. If the old guy with a heart condition drops dead from apparent heart failure, who is going to even suspect murder?
Just to both.
Tell the company, and inform them that in six months you will be presenting this dicovery at a conference. That way they have plenty of time to deploy a patch.
That, or they might just say that if you ever go public they'll sue you so hard your grandchildren will still be paying the legal fees.
There is too much utility in computers for them to have failed from the actions of one company. If Microsoft hadn't been there, another OS would have filled the niche. Probably OS/2, or RiscOS. At worst it might have delayed their mass-adoption by a couple of years.
There is one very good reason to invest in manned space exploration:
Big. Fucking.Rock.
Sure, chances are is isn't going to drop on on any time in the next thousand years. But it will, one day. Got to get off this planet sooner or later, and now is a good time for it - we've still got most of the planet's resources ready for plundering, and international competition as a motivator. We could put it off and try to solve the problems we have on earth right now, but realistically, that's not going to happen - there will always be seemingly urgent problems to solve. There are enough resources available to tackle more than one goal at a time.
Combine that with access to contraception, and you've got a roadmap from third-world poverty to first-world prosperity. Or whatever passes for prosperity these days.
The UK's healthcare system is ill-managed, under-funded, and constantly in traumatic reform as it's become a political football always kicked around between factions. The waiting lists are long, the wards overcrowded, and the hospitals understaffed.
And yet we still managed to beat the US on every major metric of public health, with the exception of cancer survival rates - and we spend a smaller portion of GDP on it via taxes than the US does via insurance premiums and medical bills.
Even our badly-run mess of a single provider manages to beat the US. Really, America... when you are being beaten in the life expectancy charts by the like of *Cuba*, you really need to admit you are failing.
At least we had a self-sustaining moon base, even in that.
Never mind the flying car - I want my robot maid!
I can get a roomba for the hoovering. But what about the ironing? And dusting? The washing machine and dishwasher are great labor-saving devices, but they don't load themselves.
But we don't need to make networks impossible to monitor.
We just need to make them take so much effort that even the most over-funded government agency can't afford non-targeted monitoring.
I think all long-running protests turn into that. The Tea Party protests were just as bad, and for much the same reason: The protesters were protesting a vague idea, but had nothing specific to unify them.
Share a folder, fill it with goodies. That's how I did it.
As much as I like the idea of OTR, it still runs over existing centralised and thus filterable IM networks. RS's file-sharing capability was also a big selling point for me.
There is such a thing as an appropriate level of security. Tor is overkill, because the many-proxy approach imposes severe resource limitations. Might be fine for messages, but try sending a large file. For most people, there isn't any need for that level of paranoia - the NSA isn't going to be trying to find you. The concerns are advertisers, sneaky hotspot operators trying to harvest credentials, government mass-monitoring programs, copyright enforcement agencies, snooping employers... things like that.
Oh, almost forgot: FIRST!
There are a few small issues with retroshare still (No forward secrecy, key length should be longer, hell to compile), but those are just refinement issues. More users means more incentive and developer attention to perfect it.
I've been convincing as many people as I can to start using Retroshare as an IM program. It's encryption isn't the best - the NSA might be able to break it with a lot of effort, but they certainly can't do so for mass-surveillance. But it's compact, reliable, cross-platform (Though a rather fiddly compile), and it gets the IMs through. No central servers, all communications encrypted - you establish contacts by exchanging keys. And very hard to filter, as it doesn't run consistent ports and the preferred protocol is SSL with a UDP fallback. It can even do the UDP-dummy-start trick to get through a NAT at both ends, like Skype does. Plus it incorporates folder sharing, which means you can help to promote it by promising friends access to your folder-o-piracy.
Shameless as this plug is, I'm in no way affiliated with Retroshare. I just think it's a very nice piece of software, and more people should use it.
Ownership of property.
The money-making businesses stay on earth, making money. The stockholders go up into orbit. They may not be on earth, but they still get their share dividends - which can then pay the cost of resupply rockets.
Read up three posts.
Politicians who know that putting on a big show of protecting children is a vote-winner.
You need a more lingering threat. Something like "WE ARE COMING FOR YOU." That gives everyone a chance to imagine their own fear.
Because child.
We live in a culture which goes to often-ridiculous extremes to protect children from danger, even imaginary danger.
'Annoying bit.'
You can largely compensate for that just by tilting the panel appropriately.
Of more concern, what happens in winter?
I'd suggest putting all the heavy processing on a remote server, but I don't think this laptop works with the cloud.
You're focusing on individual survival. No one individual has everything it'll take on their own. You're going to have to cooperate with other survivors. That means something of value to trade, an skills are of value.
The life of a post-apoc engineer may consist of 'Give me a place to sleep and food for a few days, and I'll get that old well-pump working again' or 'Can I join your little community? I'm no good at farming, but I can loot a load of old solar panels and car batteries and get you electric light and piped clean water.' You offer your skills to maintain technology that makes life easier, in return for protection from wandering bandits, food and residence.
With the collapse of technology, even improvised equipment is going to be valuable. Can you rip radiators from a building, paint them black, put them under glass and get the temperature up to near-boiling? You just gave a community back sterile, disease-free water. They will be grateful.
I'm guessing he has that dedicated graphics.