In libertarian world negative externalities are paid by those who are stuck with them, even if they're an unwilling third party to someone else's actions because nobody has any responsibility for the common good.
That's certainly one brand of libertarian, but libertarianism is a pretty broad swath of ideas. I'd say that most libertarians would be just fine with using government to find a way to internalize the externalities, to make whoever causes them to pay them. What libertarians don't like is the idea that money should be forcibly collected from everyone in order to cover the externalities... which, incidentally, still allows those who directly benefit from them to avoid paying their way.
To fall, you have to be high at some point. Slashdot has always been a pandering to the freesource zealotry.
There's nothing low about "freesource zealotry", particularly among those who actually contribute their time and skills to free software. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I've always done this. I have one short, low-entropy password which I use on ALL low-risk web sites. For example, it's the one I use on slashdot. I don't really care if anyone gets in and starts posting stuff as me. In fact it might be a good thing, since it would give me some plausible deniability for the stupid things I sometimes say:-)
For important sites (e.g. financial), I use long, randomly-generated passwords and manage them in a password manager, which itself is protected with a very strong password. But for everything else, that's too much effort and serves no purpose. And for my "crown jewels" account -- my e-mail account, which if hacked would provide the intruder with the ability to reset most all of my other passwords -- I use a strong password and have two-factor authentication enabled.
That's more than a bit disingenuous of you... the law has been around, but the court's rather bizarre interpretation of it, that it requires search engines to remove links but doesn't require the source sites to remove the content, is extremely new. A more reasonable interpretation is that if some information should be removed the target should get the source site to remove it, which will automatically cause it to disappear from search engines, given that they're mere indexes.
By your logic Microsoft never had a monopoly with Internet Explorer
Agreed. Microsoft did not have a monopoly on browsers. Actually, no court ever said they did. What the court said was that they had a monopoly on desktop operating system software... which is itself a questionable conclusion, but less so given the way Microsoft had the PC distribution channels locked up.
Monopolies are not determined by amount of competition, but by amount of marketshare held, so unless you're going to argue like a fool that Google doesn't hold the vast majority of marketshare then you can't argue that Google doesn't hold a search monopoly.
I don't think market share tells the whole story, especially with respect to something like web search, because the effort required to use a different search engine is basically zero. Using a PC operating system other than Microsoft Windows was much more difficult back when MS was in anti-trust court.
For that matter, Google's market share isn't that overwhelming. In the US it's only 68%. In much of Asia it's less than 10%. In Europe it's higher, granted, in excess of 80%, but that still doesn't overcome the ease-of-switching factor, IMO.
I often avoid driving long distances because I have a hard time staying awake. It doesn't matter if I'm sleepy or not, after an hour or so behind the wheel, I start having a hard time. I drink lots of caffeine, eat spicy snacks, etc., and that usually manages to keep me alert, but sometimes even that isn't enough. I find pulling my arm hair or slapping my legs or face, hard, works pretty well to shock me back into alertness. If it gets really bad, I pull over and jog up and down the side of the road for a few minutes. All in all, I have a set of coping strategies that work reasonably well, and I haven't actually fallen asleep and wrecked in almost 25 years.
But it still worries me, every time I set out on a long road trip I can't avoid.
If this really can detect when I'm actually falling asleep, and safely, gently take over and steer the car to a stop, I'd love it. I'd still use my same stay-awake strategies, but having the automated backup would really reduce my anxiety (which anxiety, BTW, does not seem to contribute to keeping me awake).
We probably can't observe the multiverse. What we can do is postulate how events might play out if, as is suspected, subatomic particles have some interaction with their counterparts in "nearby" universes. We can model the various possible explanations and use the models to generate testable predictions. Assuming that process ultimately rules out some of the models and favors others, we still won't know that there really are multiple universes, all we'll know is that a model that assumes there are, and assumes they interact in specified ways, is a good explanation for the observed phenomena. "Good" in the sense of being as simple as possible, and no simpler, hard to modify without contradicting observations, etc. Other explanations might work, but just be conceptually weirder and harder for us to think about.
Or maybe we'll eventually find something in the model that demands a multiverse, and for which we can find no other simple, consistent explanations. That will tend to convince us that it really exists. Or maybe the theory will show us a way that we can scale up the interactions to the macro level, where we can observe the multiverse. Or maybe we'll find something that contradicts the multiverse... or maybe none of the above will happen and the whole concept is just a game for very clever people.
That's great to hear. I didn't realize you were a Microsoftie (though it's on your/. bio). I work for Google, but I'm all for strong, healthy competition.
Nope. We can apply our mathematics to things within our universe because as far as we have observed, the laws of physics are constant throughout it. Outside of our universe, we have no idea what is going on, therefore our mathematics may likely be completely wrong and worthless.
The many-worlds hypothesis usually used in explaining the oddities in QM doesn't assume different physics.
Yeah, we're fully aware of the problem. Improvements are in the pipeline. I'm not sure I can disclose what, exactly, although there's obviously no reason to be secretive about this.
Anything dealing with multiverse is speculative. Math does not constitute evidence.
By that argument, everything we know about stars, quasars, black holes, and virtually everything else that isn't on our planet and relatively close to the surface is all speculative, too. Nearly everything we know about the stuff not immediately at hand is based on mathematical models, calibrated against "observations" which are often very, very indirect and themselves dependent on many layers of mathematical models derived the same way.
I don't know enough about QM and many worlds theories to know how much really is well-supported, but from what little I've read, the many-worlds hypothesis seems to provide a much better explanation of the spooky action at a distance effects we observe than the alternatives.
Any marginal blocks mapped out before you encrypt will remain unencrypted and may be available to a determined attacker. Same goes for hard drives, and SATA secure erase is not provably trustworthy. Always encrypt your storage before you put any data on it. If you do not trust your hardware AES to not be backdoored then use software crypto.
Yes, the safest approach is to enable encryption just after you get the device (after using it for a few minutes to accumulate some randomness in the Linux randomness pool, so you get a good key). If you don't, totally wiping it is more or less impossible, though the odds of anything significant surviving either the normal wipe or the encrypt & wipe (which probably won't actually do any more than the wipe) are pretty small.
Last time I checked the standard Android encryption will not do the sdcard partition (I mean not the physical card, but the partition on the internal flash, usually the biggest chunk of it, like let's say 11 out of 16GB).
I'm pretty sure that's not true, because it would make device encryption pretty much useless. A glance at the code certainly appears to show that it encrypts all volumes, but maybe/sdcard somehow gets excluded from the list? I'll ask my colleague, who "owns" disk encryption for Android at Google, tomorrow and post a followup.
I'll also note that none of the devices I have handy (Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 1st & 2nd gen, Nexus 10, Moto X, Moto RAZR M, Samsung Note 2) even have an/sdcard partition, exactly. They all mount their data partition on/data, and/data is definitely included in device encryption. In fact, it and/cache are the primary targets of device encryption (/system doesn't matter).
It has been my observation that the people who have blistering hatred for Snowden, are the kinds of people who totally embrace jingoism.
But there are also those who don't have a blistering hatred, yet still feel that he broke the law and should be accountable. I find these people to be especially common among those who themselves are or have been under legal and moral obligations to preserve US government secrets and are appalled that Snowden essentially dumped a huge pile of unsifted sensitive data on the Guardian and trusted them to keep it secure and behave responsibly.
These people largely agree with the need to publish some of the data, but find dumping all of it to be criminally irresponsible.
I think there are a lot more people like that than those who have the blistering hatred you mention. FWIW, my own take (as someone who once held a Top Secret clearance) is that Snowden's action was necessary, that it was infeasible for him to properly vet and carefully release the data, that the news agencies have done a good job and been responsible, and that whatever damage it may have done is far more than offset by the good that it has done. So on balance I consider him a hero. But I do know a lot of people whose concern about what he did tips the balance the other way, even though they don't "have blistering hatred".
Except Snowden is 31 and you must be 35 to meet the candidacy requirement for POTUS.
It also helps to be able to set foot on US soil without being arrested. Not a constitutional requirement, per se, but a fairly important practical one. Otherwise even if you win you have to figure out how to sneak into the country and your own inauguration so you can get sworn in -- and acquire the ability to pardon yourself -- before being body slammed to the ground, thrown into the back of a black Suburban and transported to Gitmo for waterboarding.
That file contains the code that generates the master key, derives the key encryption key used to protect it (using scrypt), stores the protected master key, and configures dm_crypt with the master key.
Some functions to look at:
- create_encrypted_random_key(), which creates the master key (reading from/dev/urandom).
- encrypt_master_key(), which derives a KEK from your password and uses it to encrypt the master key.
- decrypt_master_key(), which does the reverse.
- create_crypto_blk_dev(), which creates dm_crypt block device.
- cryptfs_setup_volume(), which mounts an encrypted block device.
- cryptfs_enable_inplace(), which encrypts an existing file system.
Do you really trust a mobile platform to be faithful to the documentation when you're trying to wipe a partition (which could easily be implemented directly but isn't) by first encrypting all data and then throwing away the key?
The device doesn't know you're trying to wipe. It knows that you (a) requested full disk encryption and then later (b) requested a wipe. So it can't optimize (a) away. I suppose it's possible it could just lie and tell you "Yep, I'm encrypting" even though it isn't, but that's the sort of thing that would definitely get noticed by security analysts and gleefully published.
Some EVs also let you limit the max that your pack charges up to to further extend lifespan (it's usually destructive both to use the very top end and the bottom end of the discharge range).
That is the theory, but real-world experience with the world's most successful EV (Nissan LEAF) isn't bearing it out. There doesn't appear to be any significant benefit to limiting charging to the 80% level. What is proving to matter, a lot, is temperature. The risks of very cold temperatures are so extreme that the cars have built-in battery heaters (powered by the batteries, obviously) to protect against them, so in practice cold just reduces range, but hot temperatures seriously impact battery longevity.
Another theoretically-predicted battery-killer that is not showing real-world degradation is quick charging. I believe Nissan has even stopped telling people they should limit the amount of level 3 charging they do.
Excellent points about larger capacity batteries needing to survive fewer cycles, though.
Their goal has unswervingly been lock-in from top to bottom, while trying to nickel and dime you the whole way.
This is exactly the corporate culture shake-up that's required.
Microsoft has a lot of really smart people, and the financial and other assets needed to put them to work doing great things that can compete and win on their own, actually serving customers rather than trying to lock them in and then exploit them.
MS could be great. But they need a radically different internal dynamic to get there. Will this guy be able to do that? I'm skeptical, but I really hope he can.
Yes, the speed limit is typically a maximum of 65mph with a few of the big open space states that go up to 75mph
Some western states are now setting 80 mph speed limits on freeways through long unpopulated stretches, and 90 mph is a fairly common speed there. But not 100.
Slashdot Mirror
In libertarian world negative externalities are paid by those who are stuck with them, even if they're an unwilling third party to someone else's actions because nobody has any responsibility for the common good.
That's certainly one brand of libertarian, but libertarianism is a pretty broad swath of ideas. I'd say that most libertarians would be just fine with using government to find a way to internalize the externalities, to make whoever causes them to pay them. What libertarians don't like is the idea that money should be forcibly collected from everyone in order to cover the externalities... which, incidentally, still allows those who directly benefit from them to avoid paying their way.
To fall, you have to be high at some point. Slashdot has always been a pandering to the freesource zealotry.
There's nothing low about "freesource zealotry", particularly among those who actually contribute their time and skills to free software. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I've always done this. I have one short, low-entropy password which I use on ALL low-risk web sites. For example, it's the one I use on slashdot. I don't really care if anyone gets in and starts posting stuff as me. In fact it might be a good thing, since it would give me some plausible deniability for the stupid things I sometimes say :-)
For important sites (e.g. financial), I use long, randomly-generated passwords and manage them in a password manager, which itself is protected with a very strong password. But for everything else, that's too much effort and serves no purpose. And for my "crown jewels" account -- my e-mail account, which if hacked would provide the intruder with the ability to reset most all of my other passwords -- I use a strong password and have two-factor authentication enabled.
If I am hearing correctly, this guy was signed up for 105 megabits per second... Do you know how hard it is to use 105 megabits/second?
Sigh.
Slashdot, how far you have fallen.
All the test could literally be done in a decent 8th grade science class.
Interesting. What tests are you thinking of that could so easily establish anthropogenic global warming?
The law in question dates back to 1995
That's more than a bit disingenuous of you... the law has been around, but the court's rather bizarre interpretation of it, that it requires search engines to remove links but doesn't require the source sites to remove the content, is extremely new. A more reasonable interpretation is that if some information should be removed the target should get the source site to remove it, which will automatically cause it to disappear from search engines, given that they're mere indexes.
By your logic Microsoft never had a monopoly with Internet Explorer
Agreed. Microsoft did not have a monopoly on browsers. Actually, no court ever said they did. What the court said was that they had a monopoly on desktop operating system software... which is itself a questionable conclusion, but less so given the way Microsoft had the PC distribution channels locked up.
Monopolies are not determined by amount of competition, but by amount of marketshare held, so unless you're going to argue like a fool that Google doesn't hold the vast majority of marketshare then you can't argue that Google doesn't hold a search monopoly.
I don't think market share tells the whole story, especially with respect to something like web search, because the effort required to use a different search engine is basically zero. Using a PC operating system other than Microsoft Windows was much more difficult back when MS was in anti-trust court.
For that matter, Google's market share isn't that overwhelming. In the US it's only 68%. In much of Asia it's less than 10%. In Europe it's higher, granted, in excess of 80%, but that still doesn't overcome the ease-of-switching factor, IMO.
I often avoid driving long distances because I have a hard time staying awake. It doesn't matter if I'm sleepy or not, after an hour or so behind the wheel, I start having a hard time. I drink lots of caffeine, eat spicy snacks, etc., and that usually manages to keep me alert, but sometimes even that isn't enough. I find pulling my arm hair or slapping my legs or face, hard, works pretty well to shock me back into alertness. If it gets really bad, I pull over and jog up and down the side of the road for a few minutes. All in all, I have a set of coping strategies that work reasonably well, and I haven't actually fallen asleep and wrecked in almost 25 years.
But it still worries me, every time I set out on a long road trip I can't avoid.
If this really can detect when I'm actually falling asleep, and safely, gently take over and steer the car to a stop, I'd love it. I'd still use my same stay-awake strategies, but having the automated backup would really reduce my anxiety (which anxiety, BTW, does not seem to contribute to keeping me awake).
If it just started in March, they're still 2-3 years from a conclusion in court.
We probably can't observe the multiverse. What we can do is postulate how events might play out if, as is suspected, subatomic particles have some interaction with their counterparts in "nearby" universes. We can model the various possible explanations and use the models to generate testable predictions. Assuming that process ultimately rules out some of the models and favors others, we still won't know that there really are multiple universes, all we'll know is that a model that assumes there are, and assumes they interact in specified ways, is a good explanation for the observed phenomena. "Good" in the sense of being as simple as possible, and no simpler, hard to modify without contradicting observations, etc. Other explanations might work, but just be conceptually weirder and harder for us to think about.
Or maybe we'll eventually find something in the model that demands a multiverse, and for which we can find no other simple, consistent explanations. That will tend to convince us that it really exists. Or maybe the theory will show us a way that we can scale up the interactions to the macro level, where we can observe the multiverse. Or maybe we'll find something that contradicts the multiverse... or maybe none of the above will happen and the whole concept is just a game for very clever people.
Many things are possible, that's why it's fun :-)
But it allows them.
our mathematics may likely be completely wrong and worthless.
Maybe. But this is an area in which we actually can make observations that allow us to refine the math, because it does make testable predictions.
That's great to hear. I didn't realize you were a Microsoftie (though it's on your /. bio). I work for Google, but I'm all for strong, healthy competition.
He also didn't go to an Ivy League school, which isn't a constitutional requirement either, but a practical one.
Neither did Reagan. It's easy to find counterexamples.
Nope. We can apply our mathematics to things within our universe because as far as we have observed, the laws of physics are constant throughout it. Outside of our universe, we have no idea what is going on, therefore our mathematics may likely be completely wrong and worthless.
The many-worlds hypothesis usually used in explaining the oddities in QM doesn't assume different physics.
Yeah, we're fully aware of the problem. Improvements are in the pipeline. I'm not sure I can disclose what, exactly, although there's obviously no reason to be secretive about this.
Anything dealing with multiverse is speculative. Math does not constitute evidence.
By that argument, everything we know about stars, quasars, black holes, and virtually everything else that isn't on our planet and relatively close to the surface is all speculative, too. Nearly everything we know about the stuff not immediately at hand is based on mathematical models, calibrated against "observations" which are often very, very indirect and themselves dependent on many layers of mathematical models derived the same way.
I don't know enough about QM and many worlds theories to know how much really is well-supported, but from what little I've read, the many-worlds hypothesis seems to provide a much better explanation of the spooky action at a distance effects we observe than the alternatives.
Any marginal blocks mapped out before you encrypt will remain unencrypted and may be available to a determined attacker. Same goes for hard drives, and SATA secure erase is not provably trustworthy. Always encrypt your storage before you put any data on it. If you do not trust your hardware AES to not be backdoored then use software crypto.
Yes, the safest approach is to enable encryption just after you get the device (after using it for a few minutes to accumulate some randomness in the Linux randomness pool, so you get a good key). If you don't, totally wiping it is more or less impossible, though the odds of anything significant surviving either the normal wipe or the encrypt & wipe (which probably won't actually do any more than the wipe) are pretty small.
Last time I checked the standard Android encryption will not do the sdcard partition (I mean not the physical card, but the partition on the internal flash, usually the biggest chunk of it, like let's say 11 out of 16GB).
I'm pretty sure that's not true, because it would make device encryption pretty much useless. A glance at the code certainly appears to show that it encrypts all volumes, but maybe /sdcard somehow gets excluded from the list? I'll ask my colleague, who "owns" disk encryption for Android at Google, tomorrow and post a followup.
I'll also note that none of the devices I have handy (Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 1st & 2nd gen, Nexus 10, Moto X, Moto RAZR M, Samsung Note 2) even have an /sdcard partition, exactly. They all mount their data partition on /data, and /data is definitely included in device encryption. In fact, it and /cache are the primary targets of device encryption (/system doesn't matter).
It has been my observation that the people who have blistering hatred for Snowden, are the kinds of people who totally embrace jingoism.
But there are also those who don't have a blistering hatred, yet still feel that he broke the law and should be accountable. I find these people to be especially common among those who themselves are or have been under legal and moral obligations to preserve US government secrets and are appalled that Snowden essentially dumped a huge pile of unsifted sensitive data on the Guardian and trusted them to keep it secure and behave responsibly.
These people largely agree with the need to publish some of the data, but find dumping all of it to be criminally irresponsible.
I think there are a lot more people like that than those who have the blistering hatred you mention. FWIW, my own take (as someone who once held a Top Secret clearance) is that Snowden's action was necessary, that it was infeasible for him to properly vet and carefully release the data, that the news agencies have done a good job and been responsible, and that whatever damage it may have done is far more than offset by the good that it has done. So on balance I consider him a hero. But I do know a lot of people whose concern about what he did tips the balance the other way, even though they don't "have blistering hatred".
Except Snowden is 31 and you must be 35 to meet the candidacy requirement for POTUS.
It also helps to be able to set foot on US soil without being arrested. Not a constitutional requirement, per se, but a fairly important practical one. Otherwise even if you win you have to figure out how to sneak into the country and your own inauguration so you can get sworn in -- and acquire the ability to pardon yourself -- before being body slammed to the ground, thrown into the back of a black Suburban and transported to Gitmo for waterboarding.
Who gives a shit what the documentation says. Actual implementation is what matters.
Absolutely. So, look at the source: https://android.googlesource.c...
That file contains the code that generates the master key, derives the key encryption key used to protect it (using scrypt), stores the protected master key, and configures dm_crypt with the master key.
Some functions to look at:
- create_encrypted_random_key(), which creates the master key (reading from /dev/urandom).
- encrypt_master_key(), which derives a KEK from your password and uses it to encrypt the master key.
- decrypt_master_key(), which does the reverse.
- create_crypto_blk_dev(), which creates dm_crypt block device.
- cryptfs_setup_volume(), which mounts an encrypted block device.
- cryptfs_enable_inplace(), which encrypts an existing file system.
Do you really trust a mobile platform to be faithful to the documentation when you're trying to wipe a partition (which could easily be implemented directly but isn't) by first encrypting all data and then throwing away the key?
The device doesn't know you're trying to wipe. It knows that you (a) requested full disk encryption and then later (b) requested a wipe. So it can't optimize (a) away. I suppose it's possible it could just lie and tell you "Yep, I'm encrypting" even though it isn't, but that's the sort of thing that would definitely get noticed by security analysts and gleefully published.
That's got nothing to do with talent, and everything to do with how the talent is employed.
Actually there's quite a lot of data, quite widely reported. Google it.
Some EVs also let you limit the max that your pack charges up to to further extend lifespan (it's usually destructive both to use the very top end and the bottom end of the discharge range).
That is the theory, but real-world experience with the world's most successful EV (Nissan LEAF) isn't bearing it out. There doesn't appear to be any significant benefit to limiting charging to the 80% level. What is proving to matter, a lot, is temperature. The risks of very cold temperatures are so extreme that the cars have built-in battery heaters (powered by the batteries, obviously) to protect against them, so in practice cold just reduces range, but hot temperatures seriously impact battery longevity.
Another theoretically-predicted battery-killer that is not showing real-world degradation is quick charging. I believe Nissan has even stopped telling people they should limit the amount of level 3 charging they do.
Excellent points about larger capacity batteries needing to survive fewer cycles, though.
Their goal has unswervingly been lock-in from top to bottom, while trying to nickel and dime you the whole way.
This is exactly the corporate culture shake-up that's required.
Microsoft has a lot of really smart people, and the financial and other assets needed to put them to work doing great things that can compete and win on their own, actually serving customers rather than trying to lock them in and then exploit them.
MS could be great. But they need a radically different internal dynamic to get there. Will this guy be able to do that? I'm skeptical, but I really hope he can.
Yes, the speed limit is typically a maximum of 65mph with a few of the big open space states that go up to 75mph
Some western states are now setting 80 mph speed limits on freeways through long unpopulated stretches, and 90 mph is a fairly common speed there. But not 100.