For attackers trying to collect personal information -- for identity theft, for dirt, for spying -- can you imagine a better target than servers holding everyone's tax returns?
Remember, security needs to make an attack more costly than the data is worth to the attacker. What responsibility / liability do vendors have regarding security for these servers? A breach may not cost them very much.
* Without someone finding salmonella in a piece of chicken
* Without someone finding a defect in a new GM car
* Without someone's computer crashing
* Without someone finding a spelling error in a Slashdot post...
Out of 420,000 apps, does finding malware every month really signify something? Or is 1% a high rate?
Tinfoil hat time! So in 40 years, these will be required by insurers to screen for pre-existing conditions!?!!? No historical data on early-stage developmental physiology, no 95% subsidy off government single-payer coverage cost...
What about using it to screen people for jobs and other things. I'm sure physiological conditions can be inferred, even if not accurately (kind of like a credit score -- or as part of your credit score).
Also, why does it make you paranoid to want to have a private life? Think about that: It's bizarre that the discussion has been framed this way. People have desired privacy since the beginning of time; it's natural.
yeah, it is not like coal, oil, nukes, hydro, trains, planes, space crafts, cars/roads, electrification, telephony, etc ever got a hand out from a gov, esp. the American federal or state govs.
You forgot natural gas, the US government funded the development of fracking, I just read about cotton, where the government developed anti-wrinkle technology that reputedly saved the industry from new synthetic competitors around 1950.
Also, didn't we give the financial industry a couple of bucks the other day? Health care? Every defense-related industry?
Solar has a good chance of being a very large industry in the future. Germany continues to advance, giving themselves an opportunity to be the world leaders in the industry -- the place where the skills, infrastructure, funding, supporting know-how (legal, financial, etc.) are all concentrated, like Silicon Valley for IT.
Meanwhile the "conservatives" in the US continue to obstruct progress here for political reasons, as part of their universal anti-liberal crusade. By loudly denying any idea that at any point was associated with liberals (including climate change and alternative energy), they will somehow change the facts and make conservatives "right".
1) it's consistent across android platforms. 2) if the customer can't read a whole 7 lines of large font before clicking agree or disagree then they are probably to stupid to even feed themselves. 3) no they don't, Android phones are fully functional without any tie to a Google account and without sharing location data.
1) That feature may be, but other tracking functions, by Google and other vendors, are not explicit.
2) Can't or don't, it doesn't happen. Plus, they don't understand what it means.
3) Many services, apps, etc. are unavailable without tracking.
I was aware that's exactly what was going on when I turned on the Android feature that sends location data to Google. They don't exactly hide it, either, which is why I'm wondering why this story is even news. When you "check-in" or somesuch, it's doing right what it says on the tin.
True in some situations but 1) certainly not always true, 2) what is obvious to you may not be obvious to most consumers, and 3) they make it a requirement to use key features, which doesn't provide much of an option to the users.
Why all this subterfuge? Why not just include an app called "Tracking App" on every Android phone, and include it with every iPhone download?
If Google is right and the tracking is legitimate, what do they have to hide? Consumers will welcome it. If they (and all the other businesses and governments that track you) feel a need to keep it under the radar, then there must be a reason for that.
The price of living in a free society is that occasionally someone is going to get pissed off at the world and blow up...
This happens in free societies, non-free societies, and everything in between. Consider Iraq, Pakistan, Russia, Algeria (during their insurgency), China just had a bomb go off near Tienanmen Square etc etc.
In fact, generally the free societies seem to safest and most prosperous. Long ago, when the Algerian government or military canceled election results because they disliked the winner, one expert I read predicted that there would be a violent insurgency. They said: Political aspirations won't go away; if they are denied at the ballot box, then people will try to achieve them through other means. The ballot box (and free expression) are peaceful outlets.
We're arrogant, self-centered and always convinced we are right about everything.
The rest of your statement backs that up well.
Every political system is dysfunctional. You can read the same complaint from every day throughout history. The current situation is a special case, where Congress can't act at all, but that's because of the 'Tea Party' fringe right which refuses to respect the democratic will of the majority or that anyone else in the country deserves a vote or input.
it's not automatically a Big Brand New Development just because MIT strapped a 12V square to an old watch band and hooked it up to some temperature sensors.
Sometimes it does seem like Slashdot simply publishes the MIT newsfeed, without the slightest skepticism.
Why should a codec be free? Or when you say "in a perfect world" do you really mean "I want it, therefore its wrong if I dont have it" ?
If you reduce barriers to using the technology, then more people can receive its benefits and create wonderful things from it, from which yet more people benefit. TCP/IP, HTTP, HTML, SMTP, etc. worked out well in that regard.
I'm not against patents, but certainly it's better for everyone but the patent-holder if the technology is free.
Your wireless router uses the public airwaves. It was never intended to be a secret.
EVEN if you don't broadcast an SSID, your router's existence is still public knowledge.
Agreed, but I don't buy that it's ok to collect, store, and analyze anything that's publicly observable. With modern technology, that means that only things I do in a sealed, shielded basement room are private.
How does one hack a location?
Use it in combination with other tools, such as those that can extract location information from my phone, to determine my location.
If you don't want to participate, then don't install the app on your smartphone.
I can't opt-out. How will your solution prevent others from recording the location of my wireless router, or prevent people from misusing this database to hack my location?
Doesn't this amount to the Department of the Defense propagandizing directly to the U.S. public? What is acceptable and what is not?
I can see press conferences, announcements, and factual information, but when does it become an attempt to persuade the public?
Re:Good for the young, healthy, & coordinated
on
How Safe Is Cycling?
·
· Score: 1
Road driving excludes many people. the poor who can't afford a car, insurance or fuel; people with poor vision, especially the elderly; the otherwise frail; and uncoordinated.
It seems like an idea for the young and wealthy, for the young and wealthy. Which is fine, but devoting significant public resources to it seems questionable. Should cities invest in paved roads that many residents are unable to utilize?/quote.
A good point, but riding a bike is still much more physically demanding and risky than driving a car. An elderly person in a minor car accident pays for some repairs. One in a minor bike accident breaks a hip, which sometimes is the end of their mobility.
Re:Good for the young, healthy, & coordinated
on
How Safe Is Cycling?
·
· Score: 1
The elderly and frail get that way by not getting enough exercise. If you don't stress your muscles as you age you lose muscle mass quickly. If you maintain an active life style and stress your muscles you can maintain high level of physical intensity well into your 60's and 70's.
Most people don't simply because it is simply hard work and they don't like to exercise that is hard work. It also takes a fair amount of time and commitment.
Active or not, as you age your bones grow brittle, and other body parts become much more injury prone, and you heal much more slowly. I know someone 75, very active who recently had a simple bike accident, the tire hitting the curb at a relatively slow speed and them falling off. They injured their knee, required surgery, and will be unable to walk for months.
It's too easy to call people lazy. It's like calling poor people lazy. Life is much more complicated than that.
Could cycles be made safer, both to reduce risk and to reduce the coordination required to operate one. As I posted elsewhere, cycling currently excludes the elderly (for whom one fall could be catastrophic), the frail, and the otherwise uncoordinated (young or old, one encounter with a car can be catastrophic).
Some ideas:
1) Certainly they could be made more visible to cars, especially at night. For drivers, the tiny lights are hard to pickup visually against the background of the city, and things happen very fast at automobile speeds. Plus, one tiny light doesn't give any clue to the dimensions of the rest of the bike (in contrast, think of the yellow lights that outline trucks).
2) Separate bikes from cars. The different rates of speed seem to make combining them inherently dangerous. Some places already do this, with dedicated, and physically separate bike lanes. Look up Amsterdam to see examples.
3) Better stability? Why not tricycles, which don't fall over when stopping or turning too sharply? I suspect there must be some drawback, but it's transportation, not a race.
Good for the young, healthy, & coordinated (ma
on
How Safe Is Cycling?
·
· Score: 2
Cycling excludes many people, especially the elderly, the otherwise frail, and the uncoordinated. In the city, at least, they would be taking their lives in their hands.
It seems like an idea by the young and healthy, for the young and healthy. Which is fine, but devoting significant public resources to it seems questionable. Should cities invest in transportation programs (such as bikeshare) that many residents are physically unable to utilize?
The head of state of a friendly government is completely off-limits for spying.
Is that your opinion about right and wrong, or are you answer the question of 'what are the unspoken rules of international espionage'? If the latter, what is that based on?
These governments have all known about this spying for a long time (as has anyone who reads the news carefully). Maybe they feel the need to pretend to be surprised, but I wonder what the real understanding between governments is. When is it ok? How much is too much? What are the lines?
The main problem I've encountered is that the article content is determined by whoever has more time for endless debates and edit wars.
One solution is to limit each user's number of edits per article per day. For example, if each editor can only edit each article once per day, or 3 times per week, it would stop a lot of edit wars and eliminate the problem of editors who think they "own" articles. More debate would be moved to the Talk pages.
There would be some drawbacks: For example, editors doing major revisions or fixing their own errors or starting new articles would be overly restricted, but there are workarounds for that. Also, a group of editors would still dominate an article, because collectively they would have many more edits than the newcomer.
Just looking at three of the leading newspapers in the U.S. (if not the world):
* The NY Times has long been owned by the Sulzbergers for over a century
* The Washington Post was owned by (or just controlled by?) the Grahams until Bezos bought it
* The Wall Street Journal was owned by the Bancroft family for over a century until News Corp. (Rupert Murdoch's company) bought it.
The fourth leading US newspaper, USA Today, was founded and is owned by Gannett, a leading owner of local media.
Slashdot Mirror
For attackers trying to collect personal information -- for identity theft, for dirt, for spying -- can you imagine a better target than servers holding everyone's tax returns?
Remember, security needs to make an attack more costly than the data is worth to the attacker. What responsibility / liability do vendors have regarding security for these servers? A breach may not cost them very much.
I file using paper.
Not a month goes by ...
* Without someone finding salmonella in a piece of chicken ...
* Without someone finding a defect in a new GM car
* Without someone's computer crashing
* Without someone finding a spelling error in a Slashdot post
Out of 420,000 apps, does finding malware every month really signify something? Or is 1% a high rate?
Tinfoil hat time! So in 40 years, these will be required by insurers to screen for pre-existing conditions!?!!? No historical data on early-stage developmental physiology, no 95% subsidy off government single-payer coverage cost...
What about using it to screen people for jobs and other things. I'm sure physiological conditions can be inferred, even if not accurately (kind of like a credit score -- or as part of your credit score).
Also, why does it make you paranoid to want to have a private life? Think about that: It's bizarre that the discussion has been framed this way. People have desired privacy since the beginning of time; it's natural.
yeah, it is not like coal, oil, nukes, hydro, trains, planes, space crafts, cars/roads, electrification, telephony, etc ever got a hand out from a gov, esp. the American federal or state govs.
You forgot natural gas, the US government funded the development of fracking, I just read about cotton, where the government developed anti-wrinkle technology that reputedly saved the industry from new synthetic competitors around 1950.
Also, didn't we give the financial industry a couple of bucks the other day? Health care? Every defense-related industry?
Solar has a good chance of being a very large industry in the future. Germany continues to advance, giving themselves an opportunity to be the world leaders in the industry -- the place where the skills, infrastructure, funding, supporting know-how (legal, financial, etc.) are all concentrated, like Silicon Valley for IT.
Meanwhile the "conservatives" in the US continue to obstruct progress here for political reasons, as part of their universal anti-liberal crusade. By loudly denying any idea that at any point was associated with liberals (including climate change and alternative energy), they will somehow change the facts and make conservatives "right".
1) it's consistent across android platforms.
2) if the customer can't read a whole 7 lines of large font before clicking agree or disagree then they are probably to stupid to even feed themselves.
3) no they don't, Android phones are fully functional without any tie to a Google account and without sharing location data.
1) That feature may be, but other tracking functions, by Google and other vendors, are not explicit.
2) Can't or don't, it doesn't happen. Plus, they don't understand what it means.
3) Many services, apps, etc. are unavailable without tracking.
I was aware that's exactly what was going on when I turned on the Android feature that sends location data to Google. They don't exactly hide it, either, which is why I'm wondering why this story is even news. When you "check-in" or somesuch, it's doing right what it says on the tin.
True in some situations but 1) certainly not always true, 2) what is obvious to you may not be obvious to most consumers, and 3) they make it a requirement to use key features, which doesn't provide much of an option to the users.
Why all this subterfuge? Why not just include an app called "Tracking App" on every Android phone, and include it with every iPhone download?
If Google is right and the tracking is legitimate, what do they have to hide? Consumers will welcome it. If they (and all the other businesses and governments that track you) feel a need to keep it under the radar, then there must be a reason for that.
The price of living in a free society is that occasionally someone is going to get pissed off at the world and blow up ...
This happens in free societies, non-free societies, and everything in between. Consider Iraq, Pakistan, Russia, Algeria (during their insurgency), China just had a bomb go off near Tienanmen Square etc etc.
In fact, generally the free societies seem to safest and most prosperous. Long ago, when the Algerian government or military canceled election results because they disliked the winner, one expert I read predicted that there would be a violent insurgency. They said: Political aspirations won't go away; if they are denied at the ballot box, then people will try to achieve them through other means. The ballot box (and free expression) are peaceful outlets.
We're arrogant, self-centered and always convinced we are right about everything.
The rest of your statement backs that up well.
Every political system is dysfunctional. You can read the same complaint from every day throughout history. The current situation is a special case, where Congress can't act at all, but that's because of the 'Tea Party' fringe right which refuses to respect the democratic will of the majority or that anyone else in the country deserves a vote or input.
Can you socially engineer thousands of technically sophisticated Slashdot users into downloading an infected PDF?
it's not automatically a Big Brand New Development just because MIT strapped a 12V square to an old watch band and hooked it up to some temperature sensors.
Sometimes it does seem like Slashdot simply publishes the MIT newsfeed, without the slightest skepticism.
Why should a codec be free? Or when you say "in a perfect world" do you really mean "I want it, therefore its wrong if I dont have it" ?
If you reduce barriers to using the technology, then more people can receive its benefits and create wonderful things from it, from which yet more people benefit. TCP/IP, HTTP, HTML, SMTP, etc. worked out well in that regard.
I'm not against patents, but certainly it's better for everyone but the patent-holder if the technology is free.
Your wireless router uses the public airwaves.
It was never intended to be a secret.
EVEN if you don't broadcast an SSID, your router's existence is still public knowledge.
Agreed, but I don't buy that it's ok to collect, store, and analyze anything that's publicly observable. With modern technology, that means that only things I do in a sealed, shielded basement room are private.
How does one hack a location?
Use it in combination with other tools, such as those that can extract location information from my phone, to determine my location.
If you don't want to participate, then don't install the app on your smartphone.
I can't opt-out. How will your solution prevent others from recording the location of my wireless router, or prevent people from misusing this database to hack my location?
Doesn't this amount to the Department of the Defense propagandizing directly to the U.S. public? What is acceptable and what is not?
I can see press conferences, announcements, and factual information, but when does it become an attempt to persuade the public?
Road driving excludes many people. the poor who can't afford a car, insurance or fuel; people with poor vision, especially the elderly; the otherwise frail; and uncoordinated.
It seems like an idea for the young and wealthy, for the young and wealthy. Which is fine, but devoting significant public resources to it seems questionable. Should cities invest in paved roads that many residents are unable to utilize?/quote.
A good point, but riding a bike is still much more physically demanding and risky than driving a car. An elderly person in a minor car accident pays for some repairs. One in a minor bike accident breaks a hip, which sometimes is the end of their mobility.
The elderly and frail get that way by not getting enough exercise. If you don't stress your muscles as you age you lose muscle mass quickly. If you maintain an active life style and stress your muscles you can maintain high level of physical intensity well into your 60's and 70's.
Most people don't simply because it is simply hard work and they don't like to exercise that is hard work. It also takes a fair amount of time and commitment.
Active or not, as you age your bones grow brittle, and other body parts become much more injury prone, and you heal much more slowly. I know someone 75, very active who recently had a simple bike accident, the tire hitting the curb at a relatively slow speed and them falling off. They injured their knee, required surgery, and will be unable to walk for months.
It's too easy to call people lazy. It's like calling poor people lazy. Life is much more complicated than that.
You still run the risk of getting run over by an idiot who isn't paying attention, but the risk at that point is similar to being a pedestrian.
... if you walked in the street all day.
Could cycles be made safer, both to reduce risk and to reduce the coordination required to operate one. As I posted elsewhere, cycling currently excludes the elderly (for whom one fall could be catastrophic), the frail, and the otherwise uncoordinated (young or old, one encounter with a car can be catastrophic).
Some ideas:
1) Certainly they could be made more visible to cars, especially at night. For drivers, the tiny lights are hard to pickup visually against the background of the city, and things happen very fast at automobile speeds. Plus, one tiny light doesn't give any clue to the dimensions of the rest of the bike (in contrast, think of the yellow lights that outline trucks).
2) Separate bikes from cars. The different rates of speed seem to make combining them inherently dangerous. Some places already do this, with dedicated, and physically separate bike lanes. Look up Amsterdam to see examples.
3) Better stability? Why not tricycles, which don't fall over when stopping or turning too sharply? I suspect there must be some drawback, but it's transportation, not a race.
Cycling excludes many people, especially the elderly, the otherwise frail, and the uncoordinated. In the city, at least, they would be taking their lives in their hands.
It seems like an idea by the young and healthy, for the young and healthy. Which is fine, but devoting significant public resources to it seems questionable. Should cities invest in transportation programs (such as bikeshare) that many residents are physically unable to utilize?
The head of state of a friendly government is completely off-limits for spying.
Is that your opinion about right and wrong, or are you answer the question of 'what are the unspoken rules of international espionage'? If the latter, what is that based on?
These governments have all known about this spying for a long time (as has anyone who reads the news carefully). Maybe they feel the need to pretend to be surprised, but I wonder what the real understanding between governments is. When is it ok? How much is too much? What are the lines?
The main problem I've encountered is that the article content is determined by whoever has more time for endless debates and edit wars.
One solution is to limit each user's number of edits per article per day. For example, if each editor can only edit each article once per day, or 3 times per week, it would stop a lot of edit wars and eliminate the problem of editors who think they "own" articles. More debate would be moved to the Talk pages.
There would be some drawbacks: For example, editors doing major revisions or fixing their own errors or starting new articles would be overly restricted, but there are workarounds for that. Also, a group of editors would still dominate an article, because collectively they would have many more edits than the newcomer.
Just looking at three of the leading newspapers in the U.S. (if not the world):
* The NY Times has long been owned by the Sulzbergers for over a century
* The Washington Post was owned by (or just controlled by?) the Grahams until Bezos bought it
* The Wall Street Journal was owned by the Bancroft family for over a century until News Corp. (Rupert Murdoch's company) bought it.
The fourth leading US newspaper, USA Today, was founded and is owned by Gannett, a leading owner of local media.