This will have no impact on me. I have never used a Microsoft E-mail application or a Microsoft E-mail service. My ISP uses SpamAssassin in its E-mail server. My E-mail application is Thunderbird, which has a heuristic spam filter.
In the summer of 2003, the Great North-East Blackout hit New England and other areas in the U.S. and parts of Canada. My wife were in Montreal at the time. When we tried to fly home non-stop to California from Trudeau International Airport (called Dorval International Airport at that time) via Air Canada on an early morning flight, we instead found ourselves flying in the late afternoon to Dulles in Washington, DC, changing planes, and then flying home. We arrived at our house more than 12 hours late.
No, Montreal and the rest of the province of Quebec were not affected by the blackout. Air Canada's computers, however, were in Toronto. Toronto and much of the province of Ontario were indeed blacked-out. While other airlines continued normal operations out of Montreal, Air Canada could not confirm reservations or issue boarding passes. Air Canada had no remote backup facilities.
Apparently, Delta Air Lines learned no lesson from Air Canada's experience 13 years ago.
I consider myself an expert in modern technology. For 40+ years, I was a software specialist. For 30+ of those years, I tested software used by the military to operate their earth-orbiting space satellites. I do not have a cell phone, not because I do not understand them but because I have no need for one.
However, the big deal is that cell phone text messages are very insecure. The Social Security Administration's form of two-factor authentication will not enhance users' security. Wait until some Social Security recipient -- relying on the asserted but false enhanced security of the SSA's two-factor authentication -- discovers that a hacker has redirected the direct deposit of his monthly benefit payment into a hacker's back account.
Visit the test Web site more than once. If subsequent visits indicate that you remain unique -- that you are the only one out of all visits including your own prior visits -- then you are somewhat safe from tracking. Even better is when it reports inconsistent results from several visits within a short period of time. I did that, and the report was that I was unique twice relative to HTTP_ACCEPT Headers. Also, the Monitor Contrast Level was not the same for two consecutive visits.
I get this result by installing the Secret Agent extension from https://www.dephormation.org.u.... Panopticlick has similar problems characterizing my browser. And various Web sites that attempt geolocation have me all over the globe.
The current end-user version of GIMP is 2.8.18. Per the GIMP Web site home page, version 2.9.4 is a development version and not an end-user, stable version. The next end-user, stable version will be 2.10. Use 2.9.4 at your own risk.
To a large extent, SeaMonkey extensions are also compatible with Firefox. The reverse is not always true.
I have 27 extensions (not plugins) installed. Here are my most important. Note that three are merely to restore capabilities that were lost when Mozilla developers decided that users really do not know what they need. * Adblock Plus -- I do not subscribe to any filters; instead, I depend entirely on my own, manually-entered filters. * Expire history by days -- Some developer at Mozilla decided that the users are wrong, that browser history should be pruned only when the database gets full. This extension restores that prior capability for users to set a preferred life-span for history entries. This extension was Firefox-only, but a Web tool allowed me to convert it for SeaMonkey. * Find Preferences -- I hate the proliferation of banners in the user interface, another case where developers at Mozilla think they know what users need more than what the users say they need. This extension restores the prior capability to use a popup dialogue to search within a Web page. * Flashblock -- Yes, I could use the Addons Manager to enable and disable the Flash plugin, Via the PrefBar extension (see below), Flashblock allows me to have a checkbox on my tool bar to enable and disable the Flash plugin without having to open the Addons Manager. Flashblock also indicates where on a Web page Flash presentations are present, provides a simple click to show the presentation, and a context menu to completely delete the presentation. * Live HTTP headers -- I used this to find that my credit union was setting cookies for Facebook. * Old Default Image Style -- Again, Mozilla developers decided that the user-set background color was not what users really wanted when displaying only a selected image. Instead, they forced a black background, which conflicts with images that have black along their edges. This extension restored the use of user-set background colors (pale mint green in my case). * Password Exporter -- I use this to move passwords from my PC to my wife's. This extension was Firefox-only, but a Web tool allowed me to convert it for SeaMonkey. * Passwords Button -- Part of the Toolbar Buttons extension (see below), this gives me a tool bar button to open the edit window of Password Manager so that I can delete, change, or copy passwords. This extension was Firefox-only, but a Web tool allowed me to convert it for SeaMonkey. * PrefBar -- I want this as an inherent capability in the vanilla browser. I cannot easily browse without it. I have 31 checkboxes, buttons, and menus setup in PrefBar. Some are from the basic extension, some are added from the PrefBar Web site, and some I created myself. * Secret Agent -- Although not entirely effective, this confuses attempts by Web servers to track me. * Show Password On Input -- This is for my master password; see Show my Password below. * Show my Password -- This is for login passwords. This and the Show Password On Input extension make passwords visible upon my request. I am getting old, and my fingers do not always type what I think I am typing. These let me see if I have mistyped a password and take corrective action. * Theme Font & Size Changer -- This controls the fonts and their sizes in the browser's user interface, not on rendered Web pages. As I get older, I increase the sizes. * Toolbar Buttons -- This provides an enhanced set of buttons for customizing my browser's tool bar. Additional buttons beyond that enhanced set are available from the extension's Web site.
Where I indicate "This extension was Firefox-only, but a Web tool allowed me to convert it for SeaMonkey.", the tool is at http://addonconverter.fotokrai....
If this lawsuit reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, Google wins. There is a justice on the Supreme Court who used to head the U.S. Equal-Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). While in that position, he sat on over 20,000 age-discrimination complaints until the statute of limitations expired. If he had been an attorney in private practice or a non-judge government attorney, he would have been disbarred. Who is he? Hint: Anita Hill was a side issue.
I listen to streaming radio, plus one non-broadcast source. These are mostly classical streams; but I also listen to Greek, big-band, Irish, and news streams. A list of streams is near the bottom of my Web page at http://www.rossde.com/music.ht....
I listen to streams without capturing them. Depending on the characteristics of the stream, I use RealPlayer, VideoLAN, or Winamp. To me, Windows Media Player® is an abomination; I do not use it. On vary rare occasions, I go to YouTube; sometimes I capture a YouTube stream and save it on my PC.
I have a large collection of vinyl, cassettes, and CDs. Sometimes, I play the CDs on my PC. The others I can only play when my wife is not watching TV since the cassette deck and vinyl turntable share speakers with the TV. I also listen to a classical radio station (KUSC) or a news radio station (KNX) in my car, but hills surrounding my house make radio reception inside my house problematical.
As for those who claim to be old (e.g., in their 40s), I will be 75 in less than two months.
I download a public OpenPGP key from a key server. Each key consists of over 2,000 apparently meaningless upper- and lower-case letters, numerals, and the symbols + and/.
I select a 8-10 character string from within the key. Before using the result, I check to make sure that the special characters + and / are allowed in the password. If the string has those characters but they are not allowed in the password, I delete them and extend the string with additional characters from the key.
The article says: "In addition, reported emissions from known sources in these regions were -- in some cases -- two to three times lower than satellite-based estimates."
Does this mean "2 to 3 times greater", "1/2 to 1/3 lower", or "1/2 to 2/3 lower"?
The short answer to the original question is "Yes, they can and will track you."
However, you can making tracking very difficult. The following is what I do. This for those who use Firefox or SeaMonkey as their browser on a Windows system. NOTE WELL the exception.
1. Mark the file cookies.sqlite as read-only. For "smooth" Web browsing, I do want some cookies. To set or update them, I terminate my browser, mark cookies read-write, launch my browser to visit ONLY the Web site for which I want cookies, terminate my browser to eliminate session-only cookies, and restore the read-only setting for cookies.sqlite. Web site might act as if they were setting cookies, but those cookies are lost when I terminate my browser.
2. Disable geolocation. For all of my profiles, I insert the following into file user.js:
user_pref("geo.enabled", false);
The semi-colon (;) at the end of the line is mandatory. You can insert an adjacent comment line indicating why you did this; just begin the comment with two virgules (//).
3. Install the Secret Agent extension from https://www.dephormation.org.u.... Each time I request a Web page, my outgoing Internet headers are different. Some sites that try to use those headers to determine my location have me bouncing all over the world. Every time I go to Panopticlick at https://panopticlick.eff.org/, I get a different result. Two NOTES: (1) Because some Web sites require consistent user agents as you navigate through them, I disabled the extension's capability to vary my user agent string. (2) Because Firefox now requires extensions to be signed by Mozilla and the developer of Secret Agent refuses to submit his extension for signature, this cannot be installed in Firefox. Unsigned extensions can still be installed in SeaMonkey.
With GPS, you can accurately tell your latitude, longitude, and altitude within a very few feet. However, commercial GPS mapping services often contain wrong data.
Visitors using GPS to locate my home for the first time from my address often travel up a collector street and then turn right. I am a left turn from that collector street. I have seen this happen with contractors and airport shuttle vans.
The problem lies within the maps used by the GPS services, not with the GPS satellite system. This is quite understandable since Web-based mapping services have similar errors.
"The World of Mathematics" is a four-volume set edited by James R. Newman. This might be somewhat dated, but it should still be relevant. Besides mathematical essays, the set also contains biographies of mathematicians and histories of mathematical concepts.
While some of the contents of either recommendations might be beyond the understanding of your nephew, he will still understand some of each and find them interesting.
For use in encryption or for verifying that a file is authentic, SHA1 and MD5 should definitely be avoided.
When transmitting a file over a LAN, WAN, or the Internet, however, SHA1 and MD5 are still useful to ensure that the file has not been corrupted (e.g., packets lost). Also, those two hashes can be used to determine if two files in the same system are the same.
I purchased a Motorola modem three years ago. Arris acquired Motorola's modem business, but I do not know when. How can I tell if my modem is affected?
I use the Mozilla-based browser, SeaMonkey. Anyone using Firefox should also be able to do the following:
1. On my PC, I marked cookies.sqlite as read only. Web sites might think they are setting cookies, but those cookies disappear as soon as I terminate my browser. For sites where I want to keep cookies, I terminate my browser, change cookies.sqlite to read-write, start a new browser session, visit only the one site, use the Cookie Manager to delete unwanted cookies, terminate my browser, and change cookies.sqlite back to read-only.
2. I installed the AdBlock Plus extension for my browser. I do not use any of the subscription sets of filters. Instead, I create my own filters.
3. I installed the Secret Agent extension from https://www.dephormation.org.u... for my browser. This sends ever-changing request headers when I request a Web page. Each time I request a new Web page or reload the current page, the Web server thinks I am a different user. This often makes Web sites respond as if I were in a different nation.
4. I occasionally capture the response headers when I request a Web page. If I see responses from unrelated domains, I check the Web site's privacy policy. I successfully made a bank and a credit union remove hidden responses to Facebook that violated their privacy policies. For the credit union, I had to file a formal complaint with their federal regulatory agency to get a satisfactory response.
5. I often use anti-malware applications to scan for tracking cookies, deleting any that are found.
2. Encrypt the backup file using an OpenPGP application (e.g., PGP, Gnu Privacy Guard). Software should not have sensitive data so it does not need to be encrypted.
3. Upload the encrypted backup file to a cloud service whose servers are in a nation that will not respond to a police warrant from the nation whose police worry you.
4. Use a strong eraser application to erase the original files, the backup file, and the encrypted backup file on the laptop.
Leap-seconds were properly handled in computer software before most of today's software engineers and programmers were born.
Back in 1969, I started working on a software system that already handled leap-seconds quite smoothly. At that time, keeping UTC aligned with the rotation of the earth involved introducing fractional seconds and also having UTC seconds NOT the same duration as atomic seconds (TAI). In 1972, this was simplified by having UTC seconds exactly the same duration as TAI seconds and (after an initial fractional leap) introducing only leaps that were full seconds. The software in the system on which I was working DID NOT HAVE TO CHANGE!!.
Internally, the system on which I was working -- which evolved and continued in use to operate military space satellites for over 20 years -- kept all time in TAI, which never has leap-seconds. A relatively small routine converted in either direction between UTC for displays and TAI for internal time. Another small routine converted from UTC to UT! to sidereal time, the latter more closely reflecting the rotation of the earth, which is gradually slowing and also has predictable periodic fluctuations. The purpose of all this was that we needed to know very accurately the spot on the rotating earth directly under the orbiting space satellite. The position of the satellite was known in TAI while the surface of the earth was rotating very closely to sidereal time.
Also note that the network time protocol (NTP) also accounts for leap-seconds and has done so for decades.
I can only conclude that the current attempt to do away with leap-seconds is a result of lazy software "professionals" trying to shift blame for their ignorance about leap-seconds.
I only use those stratum 1 servers that (a) either serve my geographical area or are worldwide, (b) that have "open access", and (c) do not require me to notify them that I am using them. Also, I only use those stratum 2 servers that meet the same criteria.
The "Rules of Engagement" state: "There are many scenarios where the above rules may not apply, especially... clients with intermittent connectivity..." Given that I disconnect from the Internet whenever I walk away from my PC and I shut down my PC whenever I leave my house or go to sleep, I am indeed a client "with intermittent connectivity".
The Windows capability to synchronize my PC clock depends on a single time server. The default is Microsoft's own time.windows.com, which is not always up.
SocketWatch does not tie me to one particular time server the way the Windows capability does. SocketWatch has a list of servers, which I have edited. My list now has over 200 entries. Per my option settings, SocketWatch queries the top five entries from the list hourly, scoring each entry primarily on how quickly the server responds. The server with the best (lowest) score is then used to reset my PC clock. During that process, the servers in the list are sorted according to their latest scores with the lowest score at the top. Thus, a time server that was in the top five but has problems is replaced with a server that has a better score.
My list includes some stratum 1 servers, which are atomic clocks. Microsoft's time.windows.com is a stratum 2 server, which means it is not a clock but instead is a server that gets its time by synchronizing with stratum 1 servers. Thus, I can get synchronization more accurately than provided by Microsoft's default server.
It appears to me that all the NTP patches and all the NTP alternatives are for UNIX or Linux systems.
I use SocketWatch on Windows 7 to synchronize my PC clock with external time servers around the world. I have it set to run every hour. It warns me whenever an adjustment to my PC clock is excessive (using my definition of "excessive").
The questions are: How do the reported problems with NTP affect me. Or do those problems only affect time servers?
Yes, I know SocketWatch is no longer being maintained. The developer is going out of business and will soon stop distributing it. As long as it works for me, I hope to keep using it.
The journal article cited addresses Diffie-Hellman (DH) certificates with 1024 bits. For browsers, such certificates are being deprecated. Certification authorities are not supposed to issue intermediate certificates or sign subscriber certificates that have less than 2048 bits, and Mozilla reserves the right to require even larger certificates.
Furthermore, the OpenPGP format allows even larger DH parts of the DH/DSS encryption keys. My own DH/DSS key is 4096/1024. The 4096 is the size of the DH part. The 1024 is the size of the one-time, temporary DSS key used to encrypt my files; that temporary key is then itself encrypted with my DH key and appended to the encrypted file. Since a new DSS key is generated each time I encrypt a file -- even for the same file -- the smaller size does not bother me.
I have two Visa cards from my credit union. One I rarely use other than for purchases via the Internet; that one sits in my desk at home. The other Visa card I carry with me.
I always call my credit union before traveling. This past summer, we visited out daughter in Saskatoon, Canada. Going, we changed planes in Edmonton with a long layover. Returning, we changed planes in Calgary. Before the trip, I called my credit union and gave them the dates of travel and the three cities I was visiting. Treating my daughter and her family to dinner in a nice restaurant, the Visa card in my wallet was rejected. We had to use my wife's Master Card, for which I also called the bank before traveling.
Back at our hotel, I called my credit union. They had entered my "vacation alert" into my account only for the Visa card that was still sitting in my desk in California. During this phone call, they added a "vacation alert" for the Visa card in my wallet.
Interestingly, we traveled in France earlier in the year. For that, I also called my credit union and bank about my travel plans. I used the Visa card I had in my wallet and my wife used her Master Card, all without any problems.
Also, my credit union occasionally calls me about very large Visa charges when I have not even left southern California. Frankly, I am happy that they are monitoring my account. Once my pocket was picked in Washington, DC. My Visa credit limit was totally consumed in the three hours between when I last remembered handling my wallet and when I reported the theft to Visa. It took one day to get a replacement Visa card but several days to restore my access to the account, something I hope the current monitoring procedures would prevent.
Becoming a public-benefit corporation is the first step towards becoming a non-profit, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt corporation. A private-benefit corporation cannot be tax-exempt.
Of course, this means much more than Kickstarter merely avoiding taxes. It also means it cannot compete with for-profit companies; any profits unrelated to its public-benefit purpose are taxed at a higher rate than for-profit corporations. This also means that it cannot endorse any candidate for election to public office and severely limits its ability to lobby government officials and agencies.
Those who would prevent the use of ad-blockers need to consider where the logical path of their position leads. Advertisements also appear on television and radio, in newspapers and magazines, and on billboards along our highways.
Action to prevent ad-blockers must therefore also prohibit Mute buttons on TV remotes and prohibit me from running to the bathroom during long commercial breaks on TV. They must also prohibit me from switching radio stations or turning off the radio while driving They must force me me read every ad in my morning newspaper and make me stop my car to carefully read every billboard.
NO. I can choose to be deaf and blind to advertisements in other media. Why can I not choose to block advertisements on the Internet? What is it about the Internet that mandates its advertisements on me, something other media cannot do?
Slashdot Mirror
This will have no impact on me. I have never used a Microsoft E-mail application or a Microsoft E-mail service. My ISP uses SpamAssassin in its E-mail server. My E-mail application is Thunderbird, which has a heuristic spam filter.
In the summer of 2003, the Great North-East Blackout hit New England and other areas in the U.S. and parts of Canada. My wife were in Montreal at the time. When we tried to fly home non-stop to California from Trudeau International Airport (called Dorval International Airport at that time) via Air Canada on an early morning flight, we instead found ourselves flying in the late afternoon to Dulles in Washington, DC, changing planes, and then flying home. We arrived at our house more than 12 hours late.
No, Montreal and the rest of the province of Quebec were not affected by the blackout. Air Canada's computers, however, were in Toronto. Toronto and much of the province of Ontario were indeed blacked-out. While other airlines continued normal operations out of Montreal, Air Canada could not confirm reservations or issue boarding passes. Air Canada had no remote backup facilities.
Apparently, Delta Air Lines learned no lesson from Air Canada's experience 13 years ago.
I consider myself an expert in modern technology. For 40+ years, I was a software specialist. For 30+ of those years, I tested software used by the military to operate their earth-orbiting space satellites. I do not have a cell phone, not because I do not understand them but because I have no need for one.
However, the big deal is that cell phone text messages are very insecure. The Social Security Administration's form of two-factor authentication will not enhance users' security. Wait until some Social Security recipient -- relying on the asserted but false enhanced security of the SSA's two-factor authentication -- discovers that a hacker has redirected the direct deposit of his monthly benefit payment into a hacker's back account.
Visit the test Web site more than once. If subsequent visits indicate that you remain unique -- that you are the only one out of all visits including your own prior visits -- then you are somewhat safe from tracking. Even better is when it reports inconsistent results from several visits within a short period of time. I did that, and the report was that I was unique twice relative to HTTP_ACCEPT Headers. Also, the Monitor Contrast Level was not the same for two consecutive visits.
I get this result by installing the Secret Agent extension from https://www.dephormation.org.u.... Panopticlick has similar problems characterizing my browser. And various Web sites that attempt geolocation have me all over the globe.
The current end-user version of GIMP is 2.8.18. Per the GIMP Web site home page, version 2.9.4 is a development version and not an end-user, stable version. The next end-user, stable version will be 2.10. Use 2.9.4 at your own risk.
Go to http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ and scroll down about 2/3 to "Development snapshots".
To a large extent, SeaMonkey extensions are also compatible with Firefox. The reverse is not always true.
I have 27 extensions (not plugins) installed. Here are my most important. Note that three are merely to restore capabilities that were lost when Mozilla developers decided that users really do not know what they need.
* Adblock Plus -- I do not subscribe to any filters; instead, I depend entirely on my own, manually-entered filters.
* Expire history by days -- Some developer at Mozilla decided that the users are wrong, that browser history should be pruned only when the database gets full. This extension restores that prior capability for users to set a preferred life-span for history entries. This extension was Firefox-only, but a Web tool allowed me to convert it for SeaMonkey.
* Find Preferences -- I hate the proliferation of banners in the user interface, another case where developers at Mozilla think they know what users need more than what the users say they need. This extension restores the prior capability to use a popup dialogue to search within a Web page.
* Flashblock -- Yes, I could use the Addons Manager to enable and disable the Flash plugin, Via the PrefBar extension (see below), Flashblock allows me to have a checkbox on my tool bar to enable and disable the Flash plugin without having to open the Addons Manager. Flashblock also indicates where on a Web page Flash presentations are present, provides a simple click to show the presentation, and a context menu to completely delete the presentation.
* Live HTTP headers -- I used this to find that my credit union was setting cookies for Facebook.
* Old Default Image Style -- Again, Mozilla developers decided that the user-set background color was not what users really wanted when displaying only a selected image. Instead, they forced a black background, which conflicts with images that have black along their edges. This extension restored the use of user-set background colors (pale mint green in my case).
* Password Exporter -- I use this to move passwords from my PC to my wife's. This extension was Firefox-only, but a Web tool allowed me to convert it for SeaMonkey.
* Passwords Button -- Part of the Toolbar Buttons extension (see below), this gives me a tool bar button to open the edit window of Password Manager so that I can delete, change, or copy passwords. This extension was Firefox-only, but a Web tool allowed me to convert it for SeaMonkey.
* PrefBar -- I want this as an inherent capability in the vanilla browser. I cannot easily browse without it. I have 31 checkboxes, buttons, and menus setup in PrefBar. Some are from the basic extension, some are added from the PrefBar Web site, and some I created myself.
* Secret Agent -- Although not entirely effective, this confuses attempts by Web servers to track me.
* Show Password On Input -- This is for my master password; see Show my Password below.
* Show my Password -- This is for login passwords. This and the Show Password On Input extension make passwords visible upon my request. I am getting old, and my fingers do not always type what I think I am typing. These let me see if I have mistyped a password and take corrective action.
* Theme Font & Size Changer -- This controls the fonts and their sizes in the browser's user interface, not on rendered Web pages. As I get older, I increase the sizes.
* Toolbar Buttons -- This provides an enhanced set of buttons for customizing my browser's tool bar. Additional buttons beyond that enhanced set are available from the extension's Web site.
Where I indicate "This extension was Firefox-only, but a Web tool allowed me to convert it for SeaMonkey.", the tool is at http://addonconverter.fotokrai....
If this lawsuit reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, Google wins. There is a justice on the Supreme Court who used to head the U.S. Equal-Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). While in that position, he sat on over 20,000 age-discrimination complaints until the statute of limitations expired. If he had been an attorney in private practice or a non-judge government attorney, he would have been disbarred. Who is he? Hint: Anita Hill was a side issue.
I listen to streaming radio, plus one non-broadcast source. These are mostly classical streams; but I also listen to Greek, big-band, Irish, and news streams. A list of streams is near the bottom of my Web page at http://www.rossde.com/music.ht....
I listen to streams without capturing them. Depending on the characteristics of the stream, I use RealPlayer, VideoLAN, or Winamp. To me, Windows Media Player® is an abomination; I do not use it. On vary rare occasions, I go to YouTube; sometimes I capture a YouTube stream and save it on my PC.
I have a large collection of vinyl, cassettes, and CDs. Sometimes, I play the CDs on my PC. The others I can only play when my wife is not watching TV since the cassette deck and vinyl turntable share speakers with the TV. I also listen to a classical radio station (KUSC) or a news radio station (KNX) in my car, but hills surrounding my house make radio reception inside my house problematical.
As for those who claim to be old (e.g., in their 40s), I will be 75 in less than two months.
I download a public OpenPGP key from a key server. Each key consists of over 2,000 apparently meaningless upper- and lower-case letters, numerals, and the symbols + and /.
I select a 8-10 character string from within the key. Before using the result, I check to make sure that the special characters + and / are allowed in the password. If the string has those characters but they are not allowed in the password, I delete them and extend the string with additional characters from the key.
For more information about OpenPGP, including links to key servers, see my http://www.rossde.com/PGP/inde....
The article says: "In addition, reported emissions from known sources in these regions were -- in some cases -- two to three times lower than satellite-based estimates."
Does this mean "2 to 3 times greater", "1/2 to 1/3 lower", or "1/2 to 2/3 lower"?
The short answer to the original question is "Yes, they can and will track you."
However, you can making tracking very difficult. The following is what I do. This for those who use Firefox or SeaMonkey as their browser on a Windows system. NOTE WELL the exception.
1. Mark the file cookies.sqlite as read-only. For "smooth" Web browsing, I do want some cookies. To set or update them, I terminate my browser, mark cookies read-write, launch my browser to visit ONLY the Web site for which I want cookies, terminate my browser to eliminate session-only cookies, and restore the read-only setting for cookies.sqlite. Web site might act as if they were setting cookies, but those cookies are lost when I terminate my browser.
2. Disable geolocation. For all of my profiles, I insert the following into file user.js:
user_pref("geo.enabled", false);
The semi-colon (;) at the end of the line is mandatory. You can insert an adjacent comment line indicating why you did this; just begin the comment with two virgules (//).
3. Install the Secret Agent extension from https://www.dephormation.org.u.... Each time I request a Web page, my outgoing Internet headers are different. Some sites that try to use those headers to determine my location have me bouncing all over the world. Every time I go to Panopticlick at https://panopticlick.eff.org/, I get a different result. Two NOTES: (1) Because some Web sites require consistent user agents as you navigate through them, I disabled the extension's capability to vary my user agent string. (2) Because Firefox now requires extensions to be signed by Mozilla and the developer of Secret Agent refuses to submit his extension for signature, this cannot be installed in Firefox. Unsigned extensions can still be installed in SeaMonkey.
With GPS, you can accurately tell your latitude, longitude, and altitude within a very few feet. However, commercial GPS mapping services often contain wrong data.
Visitors using GPS to locate my home for the first time from my address often travel up a collector street and then turn right. I am a left turn from that collector street. I have seen this happen with contractors and airport shuttle vans.
The problem lies within the maps used by the GPS services, not with the GPS satellite system. This is quite understandable since Web-based mapping services have similar errors.
I can suggest two books.
"The World of Mathematics" is a four-volume set edited by James R. Newman. This might be somewhat dated, but it should still be relevant. Besides mathematical essays, the set also contains biographies of mathematicians and histories of mathematical concepts.
Any book by Martin Gardiner, who wrote the monthly "Mathematical Games" column for "Scientific American" magazine for 25 years. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
While some of the contents of either recommendations might be beyond the understanding of your nephew, he will still understand some of each and find them interesting.
For use in encryption or for verifying that a file is authentic, SHA1 and MD5 should definitely be avoided.
When transmitting a file over a LAN, WAN, or the Internet, however, SHA1 and MD5 are still useful to ensure that the file has not been corrupted (e.g., packets lost). Also, those two hashes can be used to determine if two files in the same system are the same.
I purchased a Motorola modem three years ago. Arris acquired Motorola's modem business, but I do not know when. How can I tell if my modem is affected?
I use the Mozilla-based browser, SeaMonkey. Anyone using Firefox should also be able to do the following:
1. On my PC, I marked cookies.sqlite as read only. Web sites might think they are setting cookies, but those cookies disappear as soon as I terminate my browser. For sites where I want to keep cookies, I terminate my browser, change cookies.sqlite to read-write, start a new browser session, visit only the one site, use the Cookie Manager to delete unwanted cookies, terminate my browser, and change cookies.sqlite back to read-only.
2. I installed the AdBlock Plus extension for my browser. I do not use any of the subscription sets of filters. Instead, I create my own filters.
3. I installed the Secret Agent extension from https://www.dephormation.org.u... for my browser. This sends ever-changing request headers when I request a Web page. Each time I request a new Web page or reload the current page, the Web server thinks I am a different user. This often makes Web sites respond as if I were in a different nation.
4. I occasionally capture the response headers when I request a Web page. If I see responses from unrelated domains, I check the Web site's privacy policy. I successfully made a bank and a credit union remove hidden responses to Facebook that violated their privacy policies. For the credit union, I had to file a formal complaint with their federal regulatory agency to get a satisfactory response.
5. I often use anti-malware applications to scan for tracking cookies, deleting any that are found.
1. Backup the data files to a single backup file.
2. Encrypt the backup file using an OpenPGP application (e.g., PGP, Gnu Privacy Guard). Software should not have sensitive data so it does not need to be encrypted.
3. Upload the encrypted backup file to a cloud service whose servers are in a nation that will not respond to a police warrant from the nation whose police worry you.
4. Use a strong eraser application to erase the original files, the backup file, and the encrypted backup file on the laptop.
Leap-seconds were properly handled in computer software before most of today's software engineers and programmers were born.
Back in 1969, I started working on a software system that already handled leap-seconds quite smoothly. At that time, keeping UTC aligned with the rotation of the earth involved introducing fractional seconds and also having UTC seconds NOT the same duration as atomic seconds (TAI). In 1972, this was simplified by having UTC seconds exactly the same duration as TAI seconds and (after an initial fractional leap) introducing only leaps that were full seconds. The software in the system on which I was working DID NOT HAVE TO CHANGE!!.
Internally, the system on which I was working -- which evolved and continued in use to operate military space satellites for over 20 years -- kept all time in TAI, which never has leap-seconds. A relatively small routine converted in either direction between UTC for displays and TAI for internal time. Another small routine converted from UTC to UT! to sidereal time, the latter more closely reflecting the rotation of the earth, which is gradually slowing and also has predictable periodic fluctuations. The purpose of all this was that we needed to know very accurately the spot on the rotating earth directly under the orbiting space satellite. The position of the satellite was known in TAI while the surface of the earth was rotating very closely to sidereal time.
Also note that the network time protocol (NTP) also accounts for leap-seconds and has done so for decades.
I can only conclude that the current attempt to do away with leap-seconds is a result of lazy software "professionals" trying to shift blame for their ignorance about leap-seconds.
I only use those stratum 1 servers that (a) either serve my geographical area or are worldwide, (b) that have "open access", and (c) do not require me to notify them that I am using them. Also, I only use those stratum 2 servers that meet the same criteria.
The "Rules of Engagement" state: "There are many scenarios where the above rules may not apply, especially ... clients with intermittent connectivity ..." Given that I disconnect from the Internet whenever I walk away from my PC and I shut down my PC whenever I leave my house or go to sleep, I am indeed a client "with intermittent connectivity".
The Windows capability to synchronize my PC clock depends on a single time server. The default is Microsoft's own time.windows.com, which is not always up.
SocketWatch does not tie me to one particular time server the way the Windows capability does. SocketWatch has a list of servers, which I have edited. My list now has over 200 entries. Per my option settings, SocketWatch queries the top five entries from the list hourly, scoring each entry primarily on how quickly the server responds. The server with the best (lowest) score is then used to reset my PC clock. During that process, the servers in the list are sorted according to their latest scores with the lowest score at the top. Thus, a time server that was in the top five but has problems is replaced with a server that has a better score.
My list includes some stratum 1 servers, which are atomic clocks. Microsoft's time.windows.com is a stratum 2 server, which means it is not a clock but instead is a server that gets its time by synchronizing with stratum 1 servers. Thus, I can get synchronization more accurately than provided by Microsoft's default server.
It appears to me that all the NTP patches and all the NTP alternatives are for UNIX or Linux systems.
I use SocketWatch on Windows 7 to synchronize my PC clock with external time servers around the world. I have it set to run every hour. It warns me whenever an adjustment to my PC clock is excessive (using my definition of "excessive").
The questions are: How do the reported problems with NTP affect me. Or do those problems only affect time servers?
Yes, I know SocketWatch is no longer being maintained. The developer is going out of business and will soon stop distributing it. As long as it works for me, I hope to keep using it.
The journal article cited addresses Diffie-Hellman (DH) certificates with 1024 bits. For browsers, such certificates are being deprecated. Certification authorities are not supposed to issue intermediate certificates or sign subscriber certificates that have less than 2048 bits, and Mozilla reserves the right to require even larger certificates.
Furthermore, the OpenPGP format allows even larger DH parts of the DH/DSS encryption keys. My own DH/DSS key is 4096/1024. The 4096 is the size of the DH part. The 1024 is the size of the one-time, temporary DSS key used to encrypt my files; that temporary key is then itself encrypted with my DH key and appended to the encrypted file. Since a new DSS key is generated each time I encrypt a file -- even for the same file -- the smaller size does not bother me.
I have two Visa cards from my credit union. One I rarely use other than for purchases via the Internet; that one sits in my desk at home. The other Visa card I carry with me.
I always call my credit union before traveling. This past summer, we visited out daughter in Saskatoon, Canada. Going, we changed planes in Edmonton with a long layover. Returning, we changed planes in Calgary. Before the trip, I called my credit union and gave them the dates of travel and the three cities I was visiting. Treating my daughter and her family to dinner in a nice restaurant, the Visa card in my wallet was rejected. We had to use my wife's Master Card, for which I also called the bank before traveling.
Back at our hotel, I called my credit union. They had entered my "vacation alert" into my account only for the Visa card that was still sitting in my desk in California. During this phone call, they added a "vacation alert" for the Visa card in my wallet.
Interestingly, we traveled in France earlier in the year. For that, I also called my credit union and bank about my travel plans. I used the Visa card I had in my wallet and my wife used her Master Card, all without any problems.
Also, my credit union occasionally calls me about very large Visa charges when I have not even left southern California. Frankly, I am happy that they are monitoring my account. Once my pocket was picked in Washington, DC. My Visa credit limit was totally consumed in the three hours between when I last remembered handling my wallet and when I reported the theft to Visa. It took one day to get a replacement Visa card but several days to restore my access to the account, something I hope the current monitoring procedures would prevent.
Becoming a public-benefit corporation is the first step towards becoming a non-profit, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt corporation. A private-benefit corporation cannot be tax-exempt.
Of course, this means much more than Kickstarter merely avoiding taxes. It also means it cannot compete with for-profit companies; any profits unrelated to its public-benefit purpose are taxed at a higher rate than for-profit corporations. This also means that it cannot endorse any candidate for election to public office and severely limits its ability to lobby government officials and agencies.
Those who would prevent the use of ad-blockers need to consider where the logical path of their position leads. Advertisements also appear on television and radio, in newspapers and magazines, and on billboards along our highways.
Action to prevent ad-blockers must therefore also prohibit Mute buttons on TV remotes and prohibit me from running to the bathroom during long commercial breaks on TV. They must also prohibit me from switching radio stations or turning off the radio while driving They must force me me read every ad in my morning newspaper and make me stop my car to carefully read every billboard.
NO. I can choose to be deaf and blind to advertisements in other media. Why can I not choose to block advertisements on the Internet? What is it about the Internet that mandates its advertisements on me, something other media cannot do?