This is almost like how pharmaceutical scientists keep having to modify and discover new antibiotics. The current batch of drugs eventually becomes less and less effective and the bacteria become resistant, prompting us to constantly evolve the offerings.
The whole notion of automatic updates just doesn't make any sense.
Please assure that you're not one of those people who complain about users running unpatched Windows boxes because they turned off auto-update.
For the average non-techy user auto-update is the one thing I'd say is essential. They're not in any position to judge what parts of their system need, or don't need updates, and I'd rather that they trust in Google, or Microsoft, or even Canonical to decide for them.
Now, you can debate the fine points, about whether minor plug-ins should auto-update, or ask why Java on Windows boxes seems to want to update every third day, as does Adobe Reader, but in general I'd still argue that auto-updates are good security practice.
#4: speaker quality (if you care about music or videos)
If you care about the quality of the music you're listening to you'll understand that it is impossible to achieve anything reasonable with a sub-one inch speaker.
Just to save time, let's all agree that wind power could never, ever, ever work in North America. Or solar. Obviously the blah blah blah mumble mumble obfuscate is so different here that it would be impossible.
Also, North American wind is like TOTALLY different from European wind.
A bit of a joke... anyhow, if you have e-mailed them once offering (I assume) to forward misdirected mail, and they haven't bothered to answer, you're well within your rights to just set up an auto-delete using Gmail's filters. Good manners always is the first option.
If you're archiving and reading other people's misdirected e-mail you're a little bit creepy though, and I somehow doubt that you'll do this.
As for the rest of your problem, just set up a second Gmail address with a nonsensical middle name (first initial).turnip.(common last name)@gmail.com and have it forward to your "real" gmail address. Problem solved.
The great thing about G-mail, Facebook, and pretty much every site that isn't a bank, is that you can in fact make up a new name and have it work.
Passwords are not case sensitive and can't include special characters (e.g., #, %, etc.). Passwords must be 8-16 characters long and contain at least one number and letter.
- be 8 to 16 characters long
- use at least one number and one letter
- not include spaces or special characters (e.g., #, %, etc.)
Lord - things are never dull over at easyDNS. Hot on the heels of the decision above, some called the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) is demanding that easyDNS play Cop.
It's almost surreal to be getting this letter from the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) addressed to ICANN Registrars requesting that "you adopt and implement policies and procedures, consistent with this letter,", given the timing of what we just went through with the City of London Police takedown requests.
What are those policies and procedures the NAPB wants all ICANN Registrars to adopt? Glad you asked:...
It's just that they're buying and upgrading the tiny computers that they carry in their purse or pocket - their smartphones.
I probably do 65% of my computing on my phone, with the desktop reserved for bookkeeping (because I need to run a Windows VM for Quickbooks); long form writing (because a phone screen keyboard still sucks for anything beyond two sentences); and for the kind of on-line research and reading that just doesn't work on a phone screen.
For all of those my 5 or 6 year old Dell is good enough. I added a second monitor, and I do plan to add to the RAM and another drive, but that's it - it works.
I upgrade my Linux distro every couple of major versions, and let most applications just upgrade themselves. I may need to upgrade the bookkeeping software at some point, but hopefully it will still chug along under Vista.
In any case, I can't see any reason why I would buy a new desktop PC unless this one just ups and dies.
Like most libraries, our local has embraced all manner of e-technology. Although the vast majority of users still prefer 'real books," they also offer e-books, e-reader loans, music downloads, and audiobook downloads, as well as access to a large group of databases.
As an end user I'd call most of this a disaster. Books are simple - you sign it out, take it home, and renew it until you're done reading it. If someone else needs the book they can place a hold, and you can't renew it any more. If you need a book not on the shelf you can place a hold.
I had been using them for audiobooks to listen to in the car on my Android phone. This worked great except that pretty much the only company servicing Canadian libraries is Overdrive, and their software is bar none the worst that I've encountered.
Still, it was just usable enough that despite the really poor selection of audiobooks, the limited number of "copies available", the lack of any way to renew books, and the really, really, really horrid interface on either PC or phone, I could live with it.
This year Overdrive updated their software, with a new added "feature": you could no longer limit downloads to WIFI. Or even pause a download in progress. As a consequence one ill-timed audiobook download consumed my entire month's cel phone data cap in less than a day.
I deleted it, and let my library know that I was using Pirate Bay from here on - faster, easier, better selection, and no chance of getting hammered with data overage charges.
Beyond that it's pretty well known that publishers define an e-book as only being downloadable for a few dozen times - alleging that this replicates the physical life of an actual book. It's an obvious lie, and ignores the longstanding practices of rebinding and repairing books - something that libraries have done for many decades.
Our library has a pretty remarkable section of CDs on loan, and actually has surprised me many times with the stuff that they have on the shelves. The downloadable music offering Freegal lets you grab a grand total of THREE songs per month. DRM free, but kind of useless.
At the end of the day I wish that our library would go back to lending physical artifacts - the restraints on them by the publishers makes any attempt to provide e-content pretty much impossible.
Our client base is primarily in West Vancouver BC - the richest municipality in Canada. The kind of town where a $3 million house is a "starter", and will immediately be pulled own to build a 20,000 ft McMansion.
In many years of working with clients in WV, I can recall TWO that actually ever turned on their alarms, and would estimate that half of our clients don't even lock their doors.
If nothing else they demonstrate that Vancouver's criminal class is either really dumb, or can't afford a bus pass.
It isn't that hard if you reject consumerism and learn how to invest properly
And are lucky,
And don't suffer a major illness which takes you out of the workforce for several years. Or which, in the US, has to be paid for with your life savings or by selling your home.
And don't invest is supposedly safe things that tank during a major economic recession. The things that supposedly highly trained investment advisors told you to buy. (or are you suggesting that every single person regardless of background, intelligence, and education should be expected to play the markets on their own??)
And don't find your previously well-paying job shipped offshore, leaving you working at McDonalds.
And of course, lets not forget that many millions of people were promised by both industry and government that if they worked hard in their jobs for the requisite 35+ years they would receive a decent pension at age 65 and would be allowed to relax and enjoy their so-called golden years.
Those people have been shafted in the most a callous and despicable fashion, and with no plausible reason. The demographic age bubble has been rolling along for more than half a century, and everyone knew it. There's no reasonable excuse why the various pension schemes couldn't have been managed in a responsible way so that the promises made to these ordinary working people would be honored.
It's time to stop blaming the victims that are struggling to live in retirement poverty, and start blaming the businesses and governments that are putting them there.
Seriously. $75 to $100 a month for cable? Haven't done that for years. $8.95 a month for Netflix, plus a bit of Pirate Bay to top up the offerings. You tell me what makes more sense.
Although honestly I'd be happy to pay say $25-30 a month for some hybrid of the two - at least for news channels.
Of course the downside of not watching cable or network TV is that you really appreciate how horrible advertising is. Easily the most painful part of going out to a movie.
Very aware. But it's one thing for our own spooks to wrongly accuse someone; it's something entirely different to pull them off of a plane, ship them to Syria, and torture them for several years in a prison.
I lived and worked in the US for a few years prior to 9/11, and travelled to many parts of the country. I still have a lot of good friends down there, and surely there are a lot of places that I'd love to visit again.
The problem is that since I moved back to Canada there have been a seemingly endless series of stories like this. Whether it's Mahar Arar being grabbed and shipped to Syria for torture and imprisonment; Jacob Appelbaum being detailed by US customs with no reason and no explanation; innocent people who are having their laptops and phones seized and copied with no warrant or explanation, or who are quite simply harassed at the border on the whim of any customs agent. - it just seems to be happening more and more each year.
Being innocent (whatever that means to Homeland Security) is no protection. All it takes is one renta-cop with a bad attitude.
To my American friends: I am honestly terrified by the thought of crossing your border, and I am not alone.
One problem is that the trains go through small towns with volunteer fire departments, not well schooled in handling a derailment and explosion.
More importantly, the towns through which these trains travel aren't told what's being shipped through them. Even after Lac Megantic the Canadian government is doing everything possible to allow rail companies to not provide prior details of dangerous cargo being shipped by rail.
Of late I've been thinking that Android is probably the biggest security nightmare around.
Not because there's anything intrinsicly wrong with Android itself, but because (my guess) at least 50% of all Android phones will never see an update of any sort.
Regardless of how secure your device may have been out of the box, the first time that there's a security weakness you have to trust that a) Google will fix it in Android or b) The manufacturer will fix it in their modified version of Android, or c) The wireless carrier will fix it in their even more modified version of the manufacturer's modified version of Android.
Right now I'm running with a six month old Samsung phone. Running ICS! I am certain it will never get JB, much less KitKat, and I'm certain that it will never see any kind of security fixes. I think this is true for at least half of all phones out there today.
These are small computers used for social networking, banking, and all manner of highly important tasks. Tasks that involve highly personal information. How long will it be before we see a massive disaster when someone figures out how to game all of the ICS and older Android phones? Or the hundreds ir thousands of oddball Chinese variants over there?
Slashdot Mirror
This is almost like how pharmaceutical scientists keep having to modify and discover new antibiotics. The current batch of drugs eventually becomes less and less effective and the bacteria become resistant, prompting us to constantly evolve the offerings.
Damn - I missed your troll.......
I can't imagine there an easy fix to this. Is it time to go to yet another browser?
Obviously what we need to be really secure is a Open Source browser.... uh... oh... never mind....
The whole notion of automatic updates just doesn't make any sense.
Please assure that you're not one of those people who complain about users running unpatched Windows boxes because they turned off auto-update.
For the average non-techy user auto-update is the one thing I'd say is essential. They're not in any position to judge what parts of their system need, or don't need updates, and I'd rather that they trust in Google, or Microsoft, or even Canonical to decide for them.
Now, you can debate the fine points, about whether minor plug-ins should auto-update, or ask why Java on Windows boxes seems to want to update every third day, as does Adobe Reader, but in general I'd still argue that auto-updates are good security practice.
And thirty years on many people in Canada are still charged extra each month for "touch-tone service."
Aha! Weather in some places that's colder or warmer than others! With stuff happening on the Sun.
Obviously Global Warming is a fiction created by neo-Luddite Green party members.
And communists. Yeah. Communists.
#4: speaker quality (if you care about music or videos)
If you care about the quality of the music you're listening to you'll understand that it is impossible to achieve anything reasonable with a sub-one inch speaker.
Somehow I envision a Wikipedia of maps, with boundaries and street names changing at random if two groups can't agree.
Sure it may not happen in downtown Topeka, but imagine to geo-edit wars that will happen in the Middle East or other disputed territory.
Damn you dbill, using that so-called "science" stuff to win an argument!
Just to save time, let's all agree that wind power could never, ever, ever work in North America. Or solar. Obviously the blah blah blah mumble mumble obfuscate is so different here that it would be impossible.
Also, North American wind is like TOTALLY different from European wind.
A bit of a joke... anyhow, if you have e-mailed them once offering (I assume) to forward misdirected mail, and they haven't bothered to answer, you're well within your rights to just set up an auto-delete using Gmail's filters. Good manners always is the first option.
If you're archiving and reading other people's misdirected e-mail you're a little bit creepy though, and I somehow doubt that you'll do this.
As for the rest of your problem, just set up a second Gmail address with a nonsensical middle name (first initial).turnip.(common last name)@gmail.com and have it forward to your "real" gmail address. Problem solved.
The great thing about G-mail, Facebook, and pretty much every site that isn't a bank, is that you can in fact make up a new name and have it work.
You're right in suggesting that Canadians almost certainly also had their data stolen.
Aside from that, one correction. This story deals with security breaches.
These are Canadian breeches.
Passwords are not case sensitive and can't include special characters (e.g., #, %, etc.). Passwords must be 8-16 characters long and contain at least one number and letter. - be 8 to 16 characters long - use at least one number and one letter - not include spaces or special characters (e.g., #, %, etc.)
Whew! I'm glad I'm with Scotiabank, who just this month is forcing everyone to answer a bunch of "Mother's Maiden Name" type "security" questions.....
Oh shit - hold on - Scotiabank too - case insensitive!
People are still buying and upgrading computers.
It's just that they're buying and upgrading the tiny computers that they carry in their purse or pocket - their smartphones.
I probably do 65% of my computing on my phone, with the desktop reserved for bookkeeping (because I need to run a Windows VM for Quickbooks); long form writing (because a phone screen keyboard still sucks for anything beyond two sentences); and for the kind of on-line research and reading that just doesn't work on a phone screen.
For all of those my 5 or 6 year old Dell is good enough. I added a second monitor, and I do plan to add to the RAM and another drive, but that's it - it works.
I upgrade my Linux distro every couple of major versions, and let most applications just upgrade themselves. I may need to upgrade the bookkeeping software at some point, but hopefully it will still chug along under Vista.
In any case, I can't see any reason why I would buy a new desktop PC unless this one just ups and dies.
Like most libraries, our local has embraced all manner of e-technology. Although the vast majority of users still prefer 'real books," they also offer e-books, e-reader loans, music downloads, and audiobook downloads, as well as access to a large group of databases.
As an end user I'd call most of this a disaster. Books are simple - you sign it out, take it home, and renew it until you're done reading it. If someone else needs the book they can place a hold, and you can't renew it any more. If you need a book not on the shelf you can place a hold.
I had been using them for audiobooks to listen to in the car on my Android phone. This worked great except that pretty much the only company servicing Canadian libraries is Overdrive, and their software is bar none the worst that I've encountered.
Still, it was just usable enough that despite the really poor selection of audiobooks, the limited number of "copies available", the lack of any way to renew books, and the really, really, really horrid interface on either PC or phone, I could live with it.
This year Overdrive updated their software, with a new added "feature": you could no longer limit downloads to WIFI. Or even pause a download in progress. As a consequence one ill-timed audiobook download consumed my entire month's cel phone data cap in less than a day.
I deleted it, and let my library know that I was using Pirate Bay from here on - faster, easier, better selection, and no chance of getting hammered with data overage charges.
Beyond that it's pretty well known that publishers define an e-book as only being downloadable for a few dozen times - alleging that this replicates the physical life of an actual book. It's an obvious lie, and ignores the longstanding practices of rebinding and repairing books - something that libraries have done for many decades.
Our library has a pretty remarkable section of CDs on loan, and actually has surprised me many times with the stuff that they have on the shelves. The downloadable music offering Freegal lets you grab a grand total of THREE songs per month. DRM free, but kind of useless.
At the end of the day I wish that our library would go back to lending physical artifacts - the restraints on them by the publishers makes any attempt to provide e-content pretty much impossible.
Our client base is primarily in West Vancouver BC - the richest municipality in Canada. The kind of town where a $3 million house is a "starter", and will immediately be pulled own to build a 20,000 ft McMansion.
In many years of working with clients in WV, I can recall TWO that actually ever turned on their alarms, and would estimate that half of our clients don't even lock their doors.
If nothing else they demonstrate that Vancouver's criminal class is either really dumb, or can't afford a bus pass.
It isn't that hard if you reject consumerism and learn how to invest properly
And are lucky,
And don't suffer a major illness which takes you out of the workforce for several years. Or which, in the US, has to be paid for with your life savings or by selling your home.
And don't invest is supposedly safe things that tank during a major economic recession. The things that supposedly highly trained investment advisors told you to buy. (or are you suggesting that every single person regardless of background, intelligence, and education should be expected to play the markets on their own??)
And don't find your previously well-paying job shipped offshore, leaving you working at McDonalds.
And of course, lets not forget that many millions of people were promised by both industry and government that if they worked hard in their jobs for the requisite 35+ years they would receive a decent pension at age 65 and would be allowed to relax and enjoy their so-called golden years.
Those people have been shafted in the most a callous and despicable fashion, and with no plausible reason. The demographic age bubble has been rolling along for more than half a century, and everyone knew it. There's no reasonable excuse why the various pension schemes couldn't have been managed in a responsible way so that the promises made to these ordinary working people would be honored.
It's time to stop blaming the victims that are struggling to live in retirement poverty, and start blaming the businesses and governments that are putting them there.
Seriously. $75 to $100 a month for cable? Haven't done that for years. $8.95 a month for Netflix, plus a bit of Pirate Bay to top up the offerings. You tell me what makes more sense.
Although honestly I'd be happy to pay say $25-30 a month for some hybrid of the two - at least for news channels.
Of course the downside of not watching cable or network TV is that you really appreciate how horrible advertising is. Easily the most painful part of going out to a movie.
Very aware. But it's one thing for our own spooks to wrongly accuse someone; it's something entirely different to pull them off of a plane, ship them to Syria, and torture them for several years in a prison.
Besides which, it's not a fucking competition.
I lived and worked in the US for a few years prior to 9/11, and travelled to many parts of the country. I still have a lot of good friends down there, and surely there are a lot of places that I'd love to visit again.
The problem is that since I moved back to Canada there have been a seemingly endless series of stories like this. Whether it's Mahar Arar being grabbed and shipped to Syria for torture and imprisonment; Jacob Appelbaum being detailed by US customs with no reason and no explanation; innocent people who are having their laptops and phones seized and copied with no warrant or explanation, or who are quite simply harassed at the border on the whim of any customs agent. - it just seems to be happening more and more each year.
Being innocent (whatever that means to Homeland Security) is no protection. All it takes is one renta-cop with a bad attitude.
To my American friends: I am honestly terrified by the thought of crossing your border, and I am not alone.
1984 - if only so that you'll know that 90% of people who reference it have never read it.
Moby Dick - (actually, as an audio book) because it really is an amazing and epic tale.
The Elements of Style - Strunk and White - because, like, teh Interwebs
One problem is that the trains go through small towns with volunteer fire departments, not well schooled in handling a derailment and explosion.
More importantly, the towns through which these trains travel aren't told what's being shipped through them. Even after Lac Megantic the Canadian government is doing everything possible to allow rail companies to not provide prior details of dangerous cargo being shipped by rail.
Problem is that probably 60% of phones don't have a CM version available.
Of late I've been thinking that Android is probably the biggest security nightmare around.
Not because there's anything intrinsicly wrong with Android itself, but because (my guess) at least 50% of all Android phones will never see an update of any sort.
Regardless of how secure your device may have been out of the box, the first time that there's a security weakness you have to trust that a) Google will fix it in Android or b) The manufacturer will fix it in their modified version of Android, or c) The wireless carrier will fix it in their even more modified version of the manufacturer's modified version of Android.
Right now I'm running with a six month old Samsung phone. Running ICS! I am certain it will never get JB, much less KitKat, and I'm certain that it will never see any kind of security fixes. I think this is true for at least half of all phones out there today.
These are small computers used for social networking, banking, and all manner of highly important tasks. Tasks that involve highly personal information. How long will it be before we see a massive disaster when someone figures out how to game all of the ICS and older Android phones? Or the hundreds ir thousands of oddball Chinese variants over there?