On the other hand, what good is absolute freedom if we can easily be injured or killed by someone else - be it via negligence or malice - and they suffer no consequences? There's a reasonable compromise somewhere between the two, and I don't think your vehicle automatically calling the authorities is unreasonable. The only circumstance in which that works against you is if you want to deliberately flee the scene of the accident, which is A) criminal, and B) a shitty thing to do anyway. In which case, to hell with you.
As an aside, I have been hit by a car. Twice. In neither incident was I the driver of or passenger in a car. "Don't drive" as advice to avoid being hit by a car is pretty useless.
Well, that assumes a supermarket self-checkout. (Which, admittedly, is the most likely possible use for this kind of attack.) But there are other places where barcode readers are there for the general public to use.
As an aside, the barcode readers I've encountered at work do not need to be put into a programming mode. But on the other hand, my employer tends to go for inexpensive equipment...
There thing is that these scanners can be programmed to accept only a number of characters but nobody bothers to do so.
It probably wouldn't make that much difference anyway. Typically the only way to program barcode readers is by using special barcodes from the manual or printed out from the manufacturer's software. An attack would just need to start with the special barcode for 'enable these characters'.
Well, maybe. Evidently there is some case to be made for it being possible to use control characters in a barcode, else the standards wouldn't include them. It must be useful to someone, somewhere. So it shouldn't really be up to the scanner hardware to say "yeah nah, not passing that on, ever".
And as others point out, it's not really within the scope of applications to decide whether or not certain keypresses go through to the OS. So what does that leave us? Really just the device driver for the barcode reader. If it were possible to set as an option in the device driver "ignore control characters from this 'keyboard'", that'd do it.
I don't doubt that many do it that way, but my own (admittedly limited) experience is a similar, but less dishonest/manipulative method.
Some years ago, I was at the recording of a comedy panel show (Good News Week back when it was on the ABC, in case there are any Australians of the right age reading). The show gets recorded, various bits get trimmed out for various reasons - so it'll fit in the time slot, because they messed something up, excessive swearing, etc. Before the show starts, they played clips from previous shows, including things that were funny but had to be left out for time, things that were hilarious but too sweary, etc. Same ultimate effect; warming the audience up, but it's all still from the show's own merits.
It took this? Not our general policy of running around the world tampering with governments, murdering people, and blowing up cities for profit?
Those did kill it most of the way, and the "somewhat interested" is conditional on some pretty unlikely things, such as someone else footing the bill for the trip.
Thinking further, the oldest physical technology I've used in the workplace would be a dumb terminal and the VAX it was attached to when I was working at the Blood Bank.
The oldest technology currently in use at my workplace is telnet. The clients for the system we use are glorified telnet clients with a couple of things bolted on, but for compatibility with the handhelds we sometimes use, it has a mode for working with straight telnet. I sometimes use that from PuTTY or a Unix command line.
Currently, what I'd really like is something that's mostly a typical GNU/Linux system, with OS X's GUI and reliable support for Windows and Mac applications.
Absolutely those are the problems with that approach. And, for the record, I've been saying for years that the NT server needs replacing, and it looks likely to happen soon as its hardware continues to get less reliable. But the fact remains that many things do not get upgraded because of one simple factor: "this works now, and may not after an upgrade". Hell, there's plenty of stuff out there that still runs DOS.
Yes, they have made a lot of changes, but those changes have only pissed off the tablet users. So now you have an OS that not only desktop users don't want to use, but tablet users don't want it either.
Sounds like a step in the right direction; the insistence on using the exact same UI on tablets and desktops is the biggest thing wrong with Windows 8. Which no-one really wants to use on either desktop or tablet anyway, so I'm not really seeing a lot of downside to these changes.
Sure, businesses upgrade when they need to. Never a moment before there is a serious, compelling NEED to upgrade; typically something they absolutely need to operate absolutely needing the newer version, or existing hardware failing and new purchases coming with the new version. The business I work for has mostly XP workstations, and the server that we rely on most is running NT 4.0.
"Upgrade when you need to" is secondary to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Whatever shiny new features the newer version has, there are always teething problems with an upgrade. They could be minor, such as needing to tweak the config of something and only taking a few minutes. Or they could be major, such the software you need not working properly with the new version and needing some rewriting, taking who knows how long. And there's no way of knowing ahead of time what it'll be, so upgrades are always a crapshoot on how much productivity you'll lose in the process.
It's nice that there is an option to disable it - even if it is indirect. But the fact that the "feature" is there at all still offends me. When the makers of a browser decide it's a good idea to turn my browsing history into targeted advertising, I decide a different browser is a good idea.
I've been making less use of Firefox in general in recent years anyway, but this is the straw that broke the camel's back. Firefox gets uninstalled on all my machines.
microsoft is eternal evil , it always does wrong, and google is eternal good, it can never do wrong
this might have made sense 15 years ago, but google has immense power ripe for abuse
You're right, things have changed in 15 years. But just because Google is now evil, doesn't mean that Microsoft suddenly isn't. Which of the two is more evil is a matter of debate, but I still cannot see Microsoft as good.
There's just no rationalizing away the fact that they have been grossly underpowered regardless of context.
I have to disagree there. They are plenty powerful for learning basic coding on. They're plenty powerful for a basic web server for a local network. They're plenty powerful for controlling various bits of hardware via the GPIO port. They're plenty powerful for plenty of things.
Just do your gaming in the spare room. Put a small quiet/silent PC in the living room for media centre stuff if you cannot live without a living room PC.
Also, I'd have to advise against replacing the TV with a projector. They're hellishly expensive if you get one with decent resolution, require a pitch black room to look any good, effectively prevent rearranging the living room, etc.
I would think that the cybernetic bits should be treated no differently than any other physical evidence on or in a person's body. If, for example, paint stains on a suspect's shoes prove that (s)he was at a certain location at a certain time, that's effectively the same thing as an implanted chip that proves the same thing.
why do kids need a pi to learn programming, its a shitty platform all around and offers nothing special in regards to programming
Because it's a cheap computer that they can own themselves and be free to experiment with, rather than the expensive family PC that their parents will stop them from doing anything adventurous with. That the hardware itself offers nothing special is irrelevant. That it's a "shitty platform" is irrelevant. You don't need blazing fast network throughput, massive storage or heaps of CPU power for learning basic programming. You just need a functional system with the necessary basic tools for programming, and this provides it for very little cost.
It really depends what the particular aim of the education is. If it's teaching hardware design to university students, sure, you've got a point. But it's not. The educational aims of the RaspPi Foundation are teaching primary school kids how to code and do simple stuff with a GPIO port. You don't need an entirely open platform to do that.
I'm in favour of things being completely open as much as the next man, but the reality is that there are instances where it's not the greatest concern. It doesn't matter to the ten-year-old writing Hello World in Python that the graphics driver is a binary blob or that the full specs of the SoC are not public. When he's got the knowledge and understanding to be able to delve into things like that (likely some years later), there's nothing stopping him from moving on to platforms that are completely open.
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On the other hand, what good is absolute freedom if we can easily be injured or killed by someone else - be it via negligence or malice - and they suffer no consequences? There's a reasonable compromise somewhere between the two, and I don't think your vehicle automatically calling the authorities is unreasonable. The only circumstance in which that works against you is if you want to deliberately flee the scene of the accident, which is A) criminal, and B) a shitty thing to do anyway. In which case, to hell with you.
As an aside, I have been hit by a car. Twice. In neither incident was I the driver of or passenger in a car. "Don't drive" as advice to avoid being hit by a car is pretty useless.
There's now a wider variety of reasons Windows is derided.
Well, that assumes a supermarket self-checkout. (Which, admittedly, is the most likely possible use for this kind of attack.) But there are other places where barcode readers are there for the general public to use.
As an aside, the barcode readers I've encountered at work do not need to be put into a programming mode. But on the other hand, my employer tends to go for inexpensive equipment...
There thing is that these scanners can be programmed to accept only a number of characters but nobody bothers to do so.
It probably wouldn't make that much difference anyway. Typically the only way to program barcode readers is by using special barcodes from the manual or printed out from the manufacturer's software. An attack would just need to start with the special barcode for 'enable these characters'.
Well, maybe. Evidently there is some case to be made for it being possible to use control characters in a barcode, else the standards wouldn't include them. It must be useful to someone, somewhere. So it shouldn't really be up to the scanner hardware to say "yeah nah, not passing that on, ever".
And as others point out, it's not really within the scope of applications to decide whether or not certain keypresses go through to the OS. So what does that leave us? Really just the device driver for the barcode reader. If it were possible to set as an option in the device driver "ignore control characters from this 'keyboard'", that'd do it.
I don't doubt that many do it that way, but my own (admittedly limited) experience is a similar, but less dishonest/manipulative method.
Some years ago, I was at the recording of a comedy panel show (Good News Week back when it was on the ABC, in case there are any Australians of the right age reading). The show gets recorded, various bits get trimmed out for various reasons - so it'll fit in the time slot, because they messed something up, excessive swearing, etc. Before the show starts, they played clips from previous shows, including things that were funny but had to be left out for time, things that were hilarious but too sweary, etc. Same ultimate effect; warming the audience up, but it's all still from the show's own merits.
It took this? Not our general policy of running around the world tampering with governments, murdering people, and blowing up cities for profit?
Those did kill it most of the way, and the "somewhat interested" is conditional on some pretty unlikely things, such as someone else footing the bill for the trip.
I'm somewhat interested in visiting the US, but this kind of bullshit would absolutely kill any desire to go there.
Thinking further, the oldest physical technology I've used in the workplace would be a dumb terminal and the VAX it was attached to when I was working at the Blood Bank.
The oldest technology currently in use at my workplace is telnet. The clients for the system we use are glorified telnet clients with a couple of things bolted on, but for compatibility with the handhelds we sometimes use, it has a mode for working with straight telnet. I sometimes use that from PuTTY or a Unix command line.
Honestly, sounds more like the Windows experience to me.
Currently, what I'd really like is something that's mostly a typical GNU/Linux system, with OS X's GUI and reliable support for Windows and Mac applications.
Absolutely those are the problems with that approach. And, for the record, I've been saying for years that the NT server needs replacing, and it looks likely to happen soon as its hardware continues to get less reliable. But the fact remains that many things do not get upgraded because of one simple factor: "this works now, and may not after an upgrade". Hell, there's plenty of stuff out there that still runs DOS.
Yes, they have made a lot of changes, but those changes have only pissed off the tablet users. So now you have an OS that not only desktop users don't want to use, but tablet users don't want it either.
Sounds like a step in the right direction; the insistence on using the exact same UI on tablets and desktops is the biggest thing wrong with Windows 8. Which no-one really wants to use on either desktop or tablet anyway, so I'm not really seeing a lot of downside to these changes.
Sure, businesses upgrade when they need to. Never a moment before there is a serious, compelling NEED to upgrade; typically something they absolutely need to operate absolutely needing the newer version, or existing hardware failing and new purchases coming with the new version. The business I work for has mostly XP workstations, and the server that we rely on most is running NT 4.0.
"Upgrade when you need to" is secondary to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Whatever shiny new features the newer version has, there are always teething problems with an upgrade. They could be minor, such as needing to tweak the config of something and only taking a few minutes. Or they could be major, such the software you need not working properly with the new version and needing some rewriting, taking who knows how long. And there's no way of knowing ahead of time what it'll be, so upgrades are always a crapshoot on how much productivity you'll lose in the process.
It's nice that there is an option to disable it - even if it is indirect. But the fact that the "feature" is there at all still offends me. When the makers of a browser decide it's a good idea to turn my browsing history into targeted advertising, I decide a different browser is a good idea.
I've been making less use of Firefox in general in recent years anyway, but this is the straw that broke the camel's back. Firefox gets uninstalled on all my machines.
microsoft is eternal evil , it always does wrong, and google is eternal good, it can never do wrong
this might have made sense 15 years ago, but google has immense power ripe for abuse
You're right, things have changed in 15 years. But just because Google is now evil, doesn't mean that Microsoft suddenly isn't. Which of the two is more evil is a matter of debate, but I still cannot see Microsoft as good.
Yeah. Also, this would be way more prone to data loss when there's a sudden power cut than a more traditional hard drive.
There's just no rationalizing away the fact that they have been grossly underpowered regardless of context.
I have to disagree there. They are plenty powerful for learning basic coding on. They're plenty powerful for a basic web server for a local network. They're plenty powerful for controlling various bits of hardware via the GPIO port. They're plenty powerful for plenty of things.
Not if you liquid cool the video card too.
Yes, make his wife wear headphones around the house whenever the PC is running. Brilliant idea.
Just do your gaming in the spare room. Put a small quiet/silent PC in the living room for media centre stuff if you cannot live without a living room PC.
Also, I'd have to advise against replacing the TV with a projector. They're hellishly expensive if you get one with decent resolution, require a pitch black room to look any good, effectively prevent rearranging the living room, etc.
I would think that the cybernetic bits should be treated no differently than any other physical evidence on or in a person's body. If, for example, paint stains on a suspect's shoes prove that (s)he was at a certain location at a certain time, that's effectively the same thing as an implanted chip that proves the same thing.
why do kids need a pi to learn programming, its a shitty platform all around and offers nothing special in regards to programming
Because it's a cheap computer that they can own themselves and be free to experiment with, rather than the expensive family PC that their parents will stop them from doing anything adventurous with. That the hardware itself offers nothing special is irrelevant. That it's a "shitty platform" is irrelevant. You don't need blazing fast network throughput, massive storage or heaps of CPU power for learning basic programming. You just need a functional system with the necessary basic tools for programming, and this provides it for very little cost.
It really depends what the particular aim of the education is. If it's teaching hardware design to university students, sure, you've got a point. But it's not. The educational aims of the RaspPi Foundation are teaching primary school kids how to code and do simple stuff with a GPIO port. You don't need an entirely open platform to do that.
I'm in favour of things being completely open as much as the next man, but the reality is that there are instances where it's not the greatest concern. It doesn't matter to the ten-year-old writing Hello World in Python that the graphics driver is a binary blob or that the full specs of the SoC are not public. When he's got the knowledge and understanding to be able to delve into things like that (likely some years later), there's nothing stopping him from moving on to platforms that are completely open.