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User: lazarus

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Comments · 389

  1. Re:Wikr on WhatsApp To Offer End-to-End Encryption · · Score: 1

    Re: FBI. That may be true (albeit difficult to do). However, that would be the end of their business, so it would be somewhat pointless to ever agree to that (they have already declined such a request). For reference here is their guidelines for law enforcement requests:

    https://wickr.com/wp-content/u...

    And the report of them denying an FBI request:

    http://www.slashgear.com/wickr...

  2. Wikr on WhatsApp To Offer End-to-End Encryption · · Score: 1

    Wikr is what I use. Right now it's only available as an iOS and Android app. You specify how long you want your messages to exist for and the countdown starts when the receiving party views the message. Slightly clunky, but very very secure:

    From the website:

    App:
      ID and device info are cryptographically hashed with multiple rounds of salted cryptographic hashing using SHA256.
      Data at rest and in transit is encrypted with AES256.
      No password or Password hashes leave device.
      Messages and media are forensically wiped after they expire.

    Server:
      In contact with encrypted messages/media only.
      Never in contact with passwords of private encryption keys.
      Deletes messages on delivery.
      Interacts with only hashed ID and device info.

  3. Re:Queue the Apple apologists on Apple Disables Trim Support On 3rd Party SSDs In OS X · · Score: 2

    Yep. And you can find a whole lot more about how to do what you are suggesting by someone who really knows about the issue and makes a TRIM enabling tool here.

  4. Who Gets the Noise? on Germans Can Get Free Heating From the Cloud · · Score: 1

    I'd want to know more about the noise levels produced before I signed up.

  5. Discount? on Some Virgin Galactic Customers Demand Money Back · · Score: 1

    Please offer discounted tickets...

    Clearly they're going to find and repair any deficiencies, that is why they do these tests in the first place. Off'ing a ship full of paying passengers would be very bad for business. I'd sign up if I could afford to.

  6. Five Billion Years? on New Atomic Clock Reaches the Boundaries of Timekeeping · · Score: 1

    "...able to keep perfect time for five billion years."

    If they were able to create a device that could actually keep the time for five billion years, perfect or not, I would be pretty damn impressed.

  7. Cooling Relations = More Spaceflight on Russia Pledges To Go To the Moon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seems like the cooling relations between the US and Russia are already resulting in a lot more spaceflight initiatives. It's a shame that we cannot "yearn for the stars" out of wonder instead of conflict and competition.

  8. Shame them on TechCentral Scams Call Center Scammers · · Score: 2

    Me: "Does your mother know you are an Internet scam artist for a living?"

    -click-

  9. The Seat Of Power on Ask Slashdot: What Recliner For a Software Developer? · · Score: 1

    This is the recliner you've been looking for.

    You're welcome.

  10. And Everything Just Get's More Inconvenient on eBay Compromised · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So they didn't get payment information, but they got everything they needed to apply for credit in your name. Perfect. It took me an hour to buy my last laptop in a retail store with my credit card in my hand because my card company was so totally paranoid about fraud that they put me through the third degree to ensure I was who I said I was. And it's just going to get worse.

    At this rate cash will be king again. Oh no, wait, that can be fraudulent too. Essentially, it is getting impossible to spend your own money.

  11. You're Asking the Wrong Question on Ask Slashdot: Intelligently Moving From IT Into Management? · · Score: 2

    What you need are good processes and a common way of expressing how these processes are adhered to. Get yourself ITIL certified and make sure that either the person you hire is certified or that is the first thing you have them do. You don't have to be a big shop for this to be relevant.

    On a day-to-day level you need to be the person who is accountable for any and all changes, which mean you must approve them. Yes, you are handing over the keys, but not permission to run roughshod over the environment.

    Also, a good manager "inspects" but does not "micromanage". If you keep this principle in mind and establish some good processes, you will be golden.

  12. Re:Elon farted on SpaceX Files Suit Against US Air Force · · Score: 1

    He designs and builds electric supercars and rockets. When you fart it just smells bad.

  13. iPhone 4 Meets Washing Machine on Ask Slashdot: What Tech Products Were Built To Last? · · Score: 1

    My daughter forgot her iPhone 4 in a pocket while doing laundry (commercial-sized front loader in an apartment building). The door locks when you start these. She panicked when she realized (like all teenagers do when they are without their device for 10 seconds) that she didn't have it and that it was probably in the wash.

    No amount of convincing could get that machine to stop or open up, so she sat their crying for the entire wash cycle (I could only imagine what the accelerometer was doing during the spin cycle). When it stopped and unlocked she retrieved the phone and it was fine. Still works today two years later. I suspect the iPhone 4 will go down in history as being a really solid device, although with 10s of millions of them I'm sure there are lots of stories to the contrary.

  14. Re:HP 15C calculator on Ask Slashdot: What Tech Products Were Built To Last? · · Score: 2

    Thanks for posting this. I had a 15C which I gave to a friend when I got a 28S. The 28S is still on my desk and still works brilliantly. Both calculators are my favourites. The 28S takes "N" batteries which were for "cameras" when cameras still had film in them. So they are getting a little harder to find. It takes a few years for them to die, but I'm starting to stockpile them anyway.

    I'm guessing the button cells for the 15C are a little easier to find.

  15. Re:Important Quote from Article on Scientists Solve the Mystery of Why Zebras Have Stripes · · Score: 1

    I am totally trying this with body paint next time I go to the beach.

  16. Anger Management Classes to Follow on Your Car Will Tell You How To Hit the Next Green Light · · Score: 2

    Except that the massive pickup behind me who is driving 3 inches from my bumper revving his engine and cussing has no idea why I'm driving as slow as I am. I drive a VW clean diesel and my fuel economy (on average over three years) is already over 50mpg from driving like this as often as possible. Trust me, this initiative will go absolutely nowhere until the cars are driving themselves. You can't change human behaviour like you are hoping to. Even when they can see the red light in front of them people MUST get there as quickly as possible so they can stop and wait.

  17. Re:Once again ... on Ohio Attempting To Stop Tesla From Selling Cars, Again · · Score: 1

    "Once again, companies try to prevent competition through legislation "

    Yep. Ever wonder why you don't see more good light-duty trucks in the US? It's because of the Chicken Tax, a law from 1963. I kid you not. And the American consumer is the looser.

    What is new about the Tesla situation is that it is an American company getting squeezed, rather than protection from goods from foreign countries.

    If I lived in Ohio I would be asking my rep how this is good for me as a consumer and whether he's heard of social media.

  18. Waldo on International Space Station Mission Extended To 2024 · · Score: 1

    Too bad, I was hoping to buy it and become Waldo.

    On a more serious note, I don't see the ISS as a single "thing" that can/should be abandoned or destroyed. It is a collaborative effort of many people and many nations and is designed to be built upon and "developed". Like a new community. I'm hoping that we as a species find the right combination of profitability and marketability from it to ensure it is still in the sky long after I'm dead and buried. Perhaps we should start thinking of it as more of a "place" than a "thing".

  19. Here's What To Do on Polar Vortex Sends Life-Threatening Freeze To US · · Score: 5, Funny

    Get your SuperSoaker ready and snow your friends!

  20. State of the Modern Society on Wikipedia's Lamest Edit Wars · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can't decide if I should be thrilled that we have achieved some kind of intellectual enlightened society evidenced by our capacity to be pedantic in a globally connected ecosystem of information, or appalled that people don't have better things to do with their time.

    Perhaps we should have a discussion about this. On-line.

  21. ePost on Canada Post Announces the End of Urban Home Delivery · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Canada Post already has something called ePost, which makes most regular postal mail obsolete now. It sounds to me like they're helping to put traditional postal mail out of business anyway.

    I'd like to have no mailbox altogether. The notion that I have a "postal" address (which everybody wants for some reason) that a human being drives a car to so they can fill it with unwanted matter printed on processed dead trees is completely ridiculous. Give me ePost for bills and a local post office for packages and I'm good.

    What's your address? 127.0.0.1. Same as yours.

  22. Light Sail on Solar Pressure May Help Kepler Return To Planet-Hunting Duties · · Score: 3

    This is fascinating, but what I find even more interesting is why they couldn't use a similar technique to make the need for the attitude control wheels obsolete? It would require a spacecraft much different than Kepler, but would it not be possible to use sails to orient a similar craft no matter what area of the sky it wanted to point to?

  23. Re:Only Ford? on With Burning Teslas In the News Ford Recalls Almost 140,000 Escapes · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My personal favourite was the recall of 3.4 million airbags last year in Toyota and Nissan vehicles because the ones in the seats may catch fire in the event of an accident:

    "In an accident, the airbag for the front passenger seat may not inflate correctly because of a manufacturing defect in the propellant used in the airbag inflator, the companies said. As a result, there is a risk of fires starting or of passengers being injured."

    You survive the accident, but then your seat catches on fire...and your door won't open... Just imagine. Good thing the media is informing us all about how dangerous a Tesla is.

  24. Scary on Female Software Engineers May Be Even Scarcer Than We Thought · · Score: 4, Funny

    I read this as "Female Software Engineers may be even Scarier Than we Thought" and I couldn't wait to find out how in the world that was going to be quantified and/or justified.

    I love geeks, scary or not.

  25. Re:Hallo Windows man on Microsoft Customers Hit With New Wave of Fake Tech Support Calls · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My call went something like this:

    Scammer: "Hi Sir. I am calling you on behalf of Microsoft. It has come to our attention that your computer has been infected with viruses and trojans."
    Me: "Does your mom know that you scam people for a living?"
    -click-
    Me: "Hello?"