You just printed the recruiter job description, though. He's going to get you in the door, and maybe show you to your table. However, he's not the waiter nor the chef, and will not have much influence on the interview process, so why should he care.
Kids these days think just because they have access to the data, it makes them domain experts. Access to stock prices - instant stock broker. Access to booking sites - instant travel expert. The truth is, expertise still takes time to build up, and it will be another eon before AI can understand custom needs and wishes, rather than make clumsy Clippy suggestions.
So, find a local, preferably independent, travel agent. Go there in person, sit down for a coffee. Then let a professional sort out all the hurdles of your honeymoon or complicated multi-leg business trip. He or she will find you the best deals, best hotels according to your budget; take care of rescheduled flights; arrange transport from the airport to your hotel; send you a tourist guide book if he's nice.
Prices vary, but commission around 100 - 150 USD for flight and hotel bookings is normal. On a more complex itinerary, that pays for itself with the better flight combinations from different airlines, which you cannot stitch together yourself. The peace of mind is priceless.
Stallman cleared up that confusion decades ago, by insisting that the complete OS be called GNU/Linux. More recently, in 2011, he also made the Android naming clear:
"Android is very different from the GNU/Linux operating system because it contains very little of GNU. Indeed, just about the only component in common between Android and GNU/Linux is Linux, the kernel. People who erroneously think "Linux" refers to the entire GNU/Linux combination get tied in knots by these facts, and make paradoxical statements such as "Android contains Linux, but it isn't Linux". If we avoid starting from the confusion, the situation is simple: Android contains Linux, but not GNU; thus, Android and GNU/Linux are mostly different."
Of course, posting on Slashdot, you ought to know all that. So either congrats on your troll, or please hand in your geek card at the door.
I recommend "World Order" (2014) by Henry Kissinger, if you haven't read it yet. He goes into details and the historic background to the points you describe. Importantly, he compares the notion of the Western nation-state against other forms of world order, like the tribal systems in the Middle East, and the single king and empire of China.
Central to the European nation-state is the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, where more than hundred represented empires, states and cities sat down to put an end to decades of war. The outcome was the novel idea and mutual agreement that "I'll let you do what you like in your state - if you give me the same right in mine". This was against the backdrop of the Catholic church spreading their religion by the sword, backed by the Holy Roman Empire. Of course it did not put an end to wars, but at least it established a common framework by which peace could be built around.
Over the next centuries, there have been endless attempts at exporting this idea, and lately "bring democracy", and give people "freedom". However, without the historical background, the concept of a nation-state gets lost in translation. Some see it as blasphemy to their religion, others as a contradiction to their world view. In addition, especially in the 20th century, borders have been re-drawn completely arbitrarily, causing never-ending bickering.
Mix in of poverty; low value of life (lots of people, and a die rather than live forever mentality); plus the points you already mentioned. The situation in the Middle East is starting to look rather predictable. In fact, with a tin-foil hat on, the last US wars and military action in Iraq almost looks purposefully designed to continue the chaos and schisms. We've always been at war with Eurasia?
I was going to say "rain", but "titanium on your wedding day" might also work. Although, then somebody might think you're talking about the rings. So how about acid: "Acid rain on your wedding day". That sounds unpleasant, and very ironic, don't you think?
In the end, it's about the money. Of these five companies, only Facebook is not in the top five of companies with the largest market cap; they're all top 15 though, with a combined market cap of some 2 trillion USD. Much of it is in liquid cash. That's a lot of money and power sitting around to buy up, sue away, push out smaller competitors. Not even IBM controlled that amount of money and power in their heyday.
When Snowden wanted to initiate communication with Greenwald, would it really have been a good idea to use keys which were linked to their real names? And either way, using existing keys or newly minted ones, wouldn't they have to confirm the key fingerprints off-channel anyway? In that scenario, you really want to make sure you got the right one.
For other types of communication, the threat model is different: When I send a message to my family, the content of the message is probably enough to establish that it was genuine. It would still have been nice if all governments and spies along its route would have a harder time reading it, though.
The scenario I could see signed keys being helpful in, is valuable communication between two strangers. E.g. if the two us wanted to make a trade, and you'd send me your Bitcoin address, I'd trust you more if the message was signed with a signed key. However, if you were selling me illegal goods, we're back to square one. Neither of us would communicate with real names.
They way I understand the EU "Data Retention Directive" is that telecom, ISP and other communication providers _are obliged_ to retain communication meta data of everybody and everything, for a minimum of 6 months. The UK act might go even further, and the devil is in the details. However, I find it a bit ironic that the EU court strikes down on this, when they have a thorn in their own eye.
In "The Internet Is Not the Answer" by Andrew Keen *, he points to some of the problems with today's web services: As opposed to the Internet's golden days of public standards and open protocols, today they are mostly centralized proprietary "winner takes all".
And the reason is simple: When Paul Baran, Bob Taylor, Bob Kahn, Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, et.al. invented their respective contributions, they were often government employees and as such not seeking or able to pursue monetary gains based on their inventions, or vehemently opposed to do so. They also understood that their protocols had to be public and open in order to be widely adopted.
In today's Internet economy, the goal is not universal standards or federated networks (e.g. email, PSTN), but rather reaching critical mass in walled gardens. If you can show you have amassed enough users, your company gets valued billions. IPO, vest, rinse and repeat. So if there was a public social network protocol, you could jump ship, just as you can with a domain and email today. That would not be in th interest of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp . Much better ride the curve till the next bust.
*) Skip the book; it's a long rant, a gets a bit dull, even if Keen is a good writer.
> running scripts or programs written by potentially malicious people is the only reasonable way to do your job
Maybe I'm reading too much into this part of your post, however, if the only way to do your job is to run scripts you download off the Internet, then may I suggest you're doing it wrong (TM) ?
Typically, scripts are very small programs which you implement yourself for your own convenience. They are typically not distributed beyond your immediate team. If the "scripts" grow into applications for which you cannot (or will not) inspect the code yourself, then they are as much a security threat as any other executable from an unknown untrusted source. Now, that risk might be acceptable in some scenarios, but typically, a no-go on any corporate device.
If every user is worth $250 in ad revenue, they'll have some work to do. Let's say an ad-click pays Snapchat 10 cent. Then every user would have to make 2500 ad clicks. If each user clicks 2 ads per day, it will take a bit less than four years to reach $250 per user.
However, for each ad a user clicks, he will ignore many. Let's say the click-through-rate is 1%. So to get 2 clicks per day, he'll have to be exposed to 200 ads per day. Assuming a normal person is awake 16 hours per day, he will have to be exposed to a new ad in less than 5 minutes, every 5 minutes throughout the day, only on Snapshat.
So yes, that's where this seems at least a magnitude out of whack. Probably two.
Yeah, about that active user number. https://www.google.com/trends/...
Granted, some of that downwards trend might be due to people using the native app instead. However, so far, there are no examples of social networks with a double peak. They go up, and they come down. Facebook is bigger, but not a special snowflake in that regard. It will fade.
That development started at least as early as the 1960s, with Nixon's tough on crime policies. Since then, we've had a steady march towards a more brutal militarized police force from federal to local levels.
For an insightful review and background on why we have the police we have today, read Radley Balko's "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces". It follows the main events, landmark court cases and government policies which took us there. It's a well written journalistic expose, with detailed information and history.
Richard Stallman has always maintained that our mobile phones are tracking devices. He famously refuses to carry one.
So in a way, this is old news. However, the police and government tracking has gotten a lot better over the years.
Citation needed. Because according to this, there are few or no special regulations for Bitcoin in the countries you mentioned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There was a time when MS could rely on mindshare and being the de facto standard. But these days, is that still the case? Why would a start-up go with an MS based solution today? 100% of the software they'd need to get started is free as beer, and free as in freedom to boot. Of course, some of the big consulting firms are still heavily invested, but for how much longer?
So yeah, maybe you're right. It's not about EEE anymore. They're just getting desperate.
> This isn't some political comedy movie where the bumbling doofus finds himself in power by hilarious circumstance
Well, that movie played out quite well for Bush the 2nd.
Also, think about all those who profit from the clowns in power. What would The Daily Show be without Bush and Trump?
An edit to the/etc/hosts file would be a much cheaper fix for you. Works on all major OS, including Android. An of course, works regardless of where you connect.
You'd have to update it from time to time, however once every two/three years is more than enough in my experience. Or you could be fancy, and do a cron-job.
SLC - Single Level Cell = 1 bit (2 states), most robust
MLC - Multi Level Cell = (typically) 2 bits (4 states), ~1/10 of the lifespan of SLC
TLC - Triple Level Cell = 3 bits (8 states), ~1/10 of the lifespan of MLC
Slashdot Mirror
You just printed the recruiter job description, though. He's going to get you in the door, and maybe show you to your table. However, he's not the waiter nor the chef, and will not have much influence on the interview process, so why should he care.
Kids these days think just because they have access to the data, it makes them domain experts. Access to stock prices - instant stock broker. Access to booking sites - instant travel expert. The truth is, expertise still takes time to build up, and it will be another eon before AI can understand custom needs and wishes, rather than make clumsy Clippy suggestions.
So, find a local, preferably independent, travel agent. Go there in person, sit down for a coffee. Then let a professional sort out all the hurdles of your honeymoon or complicated multi-leg business trip. He or she will find you the best deals, best hotels according to your budget; take care of rescheduled flights; arrange transport from the airport to your hotel; send you a tourist guide book if he's nice.
Prices vary, but commission around 100 - 150 USD for flight and hotel bookings is normal. On a more complex itinerary, that pays for itself with the better flight combinations from different airlines, which you cannot stitch together yourself. The peace of mind is priceless.
Stallman cleared up that confusion decades ago, by insisting that the complete OS be called GNU/Linux. More recently, in 2011, he also made the Android naming clear:
"Android is very different from the GNU/Linux operating system because it contains very little of GNU. Indeed, just about the only component in common between Android and GNU/Linux is Linux, the kernel. People who erroneously think "Linux" refers to the entire GNU/Linux combination get tied in knots by these facts, and make paradoxical statements such as "Android contains Linux, but it isn't Linux". If we avoid starting from the confusion, the situation is simple: Android contains Linux, but not GNU; thus, Android and GNU/Linux are mostly different."
Of course, posting on Slashdot, you ought to know all that. So either congrats on your troll, or please hand in your geek card at the door.
> All the Google stuff is great as usual.
Well, last year's "drop the mic" from Gmail wasn't that great...
"Gmail's Mic Drop April Fool Backfires Horribly Costing People Their Jobs"
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
I recommend "World Order" (2014) by Henry Kissinger, if you haven't read it yet. He goes into details and the historic background to the points you describe. Importantly, he compares the notion of the Western nation-state against other forms of world order, like the tribal systems in the Middle East, and the single king and empire of China.
Central to the European nation-state is the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, where more than hundred represented empires, states and cities sat down to put an end to decades of war. The outcome was the novel idea and mutual agreement that "I'll let you do what you like in your state - if you give me the same right in mine". This was against the backdrop of the Catholic church spreading their religion by the sword, backed by the Holy Roman Empire. Of course it did not put an end to wars, but at least it established a common framework by which peace could be built around.
Over the next centuries, there have been endless attempts at exporting this idea, and lately "bring democracy", and give people "freedom". However, without the historical background, the concept of a nation-state gets lost in translation. Some see it as blasphemy to their religion, others as a contradiction to their world view. In addition, especially in the 20th century, borders have been re-drawn completely arbitrarily, causing never-ending bickering.
Mix in of poverty; low value of life (lots of people, and a die rather than live forever mentality); plus the points you already mentioned. The situation in the Middle East is starting to look rather predictable. In fact, with a tin-foil hat on, the last US wars and military action in Iraq almost looks purposefully designed to continue the chaos and schisms. We've always been at war with Eurasia?
I was going to say "rain", but "titanium on your wedding day" might also work. Although, then somebody might think you're talking about the rings. So how about acid: "Acid rain on your wedding day". That sounds unpleasant, and very ironic, don't you think?
In the end, it's about the money. Of these five companies, only Facebook is not in the top five of companies with the largest market cap; they're all top 15 though, with a combined market cap of some 2 trillion USD. Much of it is in liquid cash. That's a lot of money and power sitting around to buy up, sue away, push out smaller competitors. Not even IBM controlled that amount of money and power in their heyday.
When Snowden wanted to initiate communication with Greenwald, would it really have been a good idea to use keys which were linked to their real names? And either way, using existing keys or newly minted ones, wouldn't they have to confirm the key fingerprints off-channel anyway? In that scenario, you really want to make sure you got the right one.
For other types of communication, the threat model is different: When I send a message to my family, the content of the message is probably enough to establish that it was genuine. It would still have been nice if all governments and spies along its route would have a harder time reading it, though.
The scenario I could see signed keys being helpful in, is valuable communication between two strangers. E.g. if the two us wanted to make a trade, and you'd send me your Bitcoin address, I'd trust you more if the message was signed with a signed key. However, if you were selling me illegal goods, we're back to square one. Neither of us would communicate with real names.
So run of the mill Search Engine Optimization, in other words.
They way I understand the EU "Data Retention Directive" is that telecom, ISP and other communication providers _are obliged_ to retain communication meta data of everybody and everything, for a minimum of 6 months. The UK act might go even further, and the devil is in the details. However, I find it a bit ironic that the EU court strikes down on this, when they have a thorn in their own eye.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In "The Internet Is Not the Answer" by Andrew Keen *, he points to some of the problems with today's web services: As opposed to the Internet's golden days of public standards and open protocols, today they are mostly centralized proprietary "winner takes all".
And the reason is simple: When Paul Baran, Bob Taylor, Bob Kahn, Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, et.al. invented their respective contributions, they were often government employees and as such not seeking or able to pursue monetary gains based on their inventions, or vehemently opposed to do so. They also understood that their protocols had to be public and open in order to be widely adopted.
In today's Internet economy, the goal is not universal standards or federated networks (e.g. email, PSTN), but rather reaching critical mass in walled gardens. If you can show you have amassed enough users, your company gets valued billions. IPO, vest, rinse and repeat. So if there was a public social network protocol, you could jump ship, just as you can with a domain and email today. That would not be in th interest of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp . Much better ride the curve till the next bust.
*) Skip the book; it's a long rant, a gets a bit dull, even if Keen is a good writer.
It was written using the new out-of-sync headset, and summarized once for each ear-piece.
> running scripts or programs written by potentially malicious people is the only reasonable way to do your job
Maybe I'm reading too much into this part of your post, however, if the only way to do your job is to run scripts you download off the Internet, then may I suggest you're doing it wrong (TM) ?
Typically, scripts are very small programs which you implement yourself for your own convenience. They are typically not distributed beyond your immediate team. If the "scripts" grow into applications for which you cannot (or will not) inspect the code yourself, then they are as much a security threat as any other executable from an unknown untrusted source. Now, that risk might be acceptable in some scenarios, but typically, a no-go on any corporate device.
Agree, but let's try to run some numbers:
If every user is worth $250 in ad revenue, they'll have some work to do. Let's say an ad-click pays Snapchat 10 cent. Then every user would have to make 2500 ad clicks. If each user clicks 2 ads per day, it will take a bit less than four years to reach $250 per user.
However, for each ad a user clicks, he will ignore many. Let's say the click-through-rate is 1%. So to get 2 clicks per day, he'll have to be exposed to 200 ads per day. Assuming a normal person is awake 16 hours per day, he will have to be exposed to a new ad in less than 5 minutes, every 5 minutes throughout the day, only on Snapshat.
So yes, that's where this seems at least a magnitude out of whack. Probably two.
So are we talking sharks with lasers or more IED kind of torrents? Or are they astroturfing for "Hurt Locker"?
Yeah, about that active user number.
https://www.google.com/trends/...
Granted, some of that downwards trend might be due to people using the native app instead. However, so far, there are no examples of social networks with a double peak. They go up, and they come down. Facebook is bigger, but not a special snowflake in that regard. It will fade.
>devices look like the mothership in Close Encounter
You mean like this?
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=asus...
That development started at least as early as the 1960s, with Nixon's tough on crime policies. Since then, we've had a steady march towards a more brutal militarized police force from federal to local levels.
For an insightful review and background on why we have the police we have today, read Radley Balko's "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces". It follows the main events, landmark court cases and government policies which took us there. It's a well written journalistic expose, with detailed information and history.
Richard Stallman has always maintained that our mobile phones are tracking devices. He famously refuses to carry one.
So in a way, this is old news. However, the police and government tracking has gotten a lot better over the years.
Citation needed. Because according to this, there are few or no special regulations for Bitcoin in the countries you mentioned:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There was a time when MS could rely on mindshare and being the de facto standard. But these days, is that still the case? Why would a start-up go with an MS based solution today? 100% of the software they'd need to get started is free as beer, and free as in freedom to boot. Of course, some of the big consulting firms are still heavily invested, but for how much longer?
So yeah, maybe you're right. It's not about EEE anymore. They're just getting desperate.
> This isn't some political comedy movie where the bumbling doofus finds himself in power by hilarious circumstance
Well, that movie played out quite well for Bush the 2nd.
Also, think about all those who profit from the clowns in power. What would The Daily Show be without Bush and Trump?
An edit to the /etc/hosts file would be a much cheaper fix for you. Works on all major OS, including Android. An of course, works regardless of where you connect.
You'd have to update it from time to time, however once every two/three years is more than enough in my experience. Or you could be fancy, and do a cron-job.
TrackMeNot is good to flood search engines
http://addons.mozilla.org/en-U...
AdNauseam is about flooding click ads
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-...
Flagger is more poking fun at surveillance organizations
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-...
This pictures illustrates it clearly: http://www.pcper.com/files/ima...
And Wikipedia goes into more detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
SLC - Single Level Cell = 1 bit (2 states), most robust
MLC - Multi Level Cell = (typically) 2 bits (4 states), ~1/10 of the lifespan of SLC
TLC - Triple Level Cell = 3 bits (8 states), ~1/10 of the lifespan of MLC