I would say it is FUD. If it is a company owned computer that is controlled by others, you might risk having your employer having access to your networks. Other than that the biggest risk is theft. If a computer is stolen, you should change all your passwords anyway, including your wireless network passwords. Friends and family that use it would have access to your network anyway. I'll admit to not RTFA, but it sounds like (I am speculating, I could be wrong) the author is parroting some stuff out of a security certification study guide without really considering if it is actually a problem worth writing about. It is possible the author is anti-linux, but I doubt it considering an alternative tools is suggested. If someone is really paranoid, they could always just use a live CD/thumb drive that doesn't store anything. I am leaning towards well meaning FUD.
These are great for homeowners with HOAs that would consider rooftop panels an eye sore and not allow them. The amount of electricity a typical single family home would produce from these probably isn't impressive, but on a massive scale, this could save a lot of dead dinosaurs. For those outside of a country with strict homeowner's associations, there have been legal battles leading to foreclosures about things as silly as what color an owner paints their trim. Yes, most HOAs (in the US anyway) would not allow rooftop solar panels for aesthetic reasons.
This sounds like a PR move in response to the Snowden leaks. I will give them the benefit of the doubt in this case that they did actually do something worth while. One thing to consider is that if they hadn't have figured it out, someone else might have. If they think an anecdote of them doing something good as a distraction from the domestic surveillance is a bit of an insult though. For all we know, this malware attack could be the exception, and not the norm. Even if its the norm and not the exception, it still doesn't excuse the bad things they have done. IMHO, someone like Snowden leaking this information was inevitable. I think it was a bit naive to expect NDAs to contain something so questionable that I am assuming a good number of people at the NSA knew about. I think the best PR move the NSA could do right now is to suspend some of these programs for now. In the future, if they can find a way to run these programs in a way that respects constitutional protections, then they can continue. For example, if they can track users anonymously and compartmentalize who has access to what pieces of information about a mark. Considering they are trying to get rid of sysads, this makes it harder to compartmentalize because inevitably the few remaining admins have a lot more systems they control.
//Lame attempt at sleep deprived humor
So if i put some paintings in that underwater basket i made in school Ill get smarter? I get it know. The more underwater baskets you can weave to hold art that you were taught to appreciate the more art you can store. The more art you can store the smarter you will probably be...
Mod this up. The Snowden leaks have revealed some morally and legally questionable behavior by the US government, but there are some things that would be best to keep secret that actually are in the best interest of everyone in the world. For example, if the NSA knows how to cryptoanalyze AES or PGP, the methods used getting into the hands of criminals would be bad for everyone.
How do the LEOs know what someone's intention is? I could argue it is to store sensitive work material or items sought after by thieves. What is wrong with putting drugs in there? I have a prescription for Oxycodone before. There are plenty of junkies that would love to get their hands on that. So does this mean police can arrest someone because they think they might have intentions of doing something illegal? Are they going to compensate people for their time and legal fees for arrest based on nothing more than speculation? This is insane. I will admit I didn't RTFA.
So if it causes some people stress with little benefit (possibly even detriment) to millions of people, it is not a big deal? Sounds like a big deal to me.
Agreed. A universal time is the way to go. Why should everyone change there schedule by an hour twice a year based on something arbitrary? What really sucks is working night shift and having to set the clock back an hour while at work...
I don't see why this is trolling. I will admit that they went off on a tangent about the US getting involved in everything, this is a valid, relevant opinion. I will admit a super suit/exoskeleton thing sounds pretty cool. Just because it is cool and you disagree and think this is a worthwhile endeavor doesn't make TheCarp a troll.
Is the moderation process around here something like this:
Let p represent I agree with the poster's opinion.
Let q represent an up vote.
Let r represent a down vote.
p-->q
not(p)-->r
This bothers me a bit. I wonder how much different our world would be if half of the resources spent on militaries and warfare were spent on other things like health care, research grants, scholarships, or transportation. I wouldn't be surprised if there are companies that make (or hope to) this stuff using the common sales tactic of making the mark feel like they need it and can't do without it. Why does the world benefit from better weapons when the underlying problems that often lead to the use of them aren't resolved? At a certain point, it is no longer about defense. A military needs to be just powerful enough to make an invasion or attack too costly to be worth while and deal with nuisances such as pirates (the boat robbers, not file sharers).
For some reason, if this goes live, I would expect people to set up honeypots to make material not violated by copyright protections to trigger a false alarm in their system, and the people distributing material that violates a copyright will find ways around it. When enough people do this, the Signal to Noise Ratio will be so bad they will have little choice but to discontinue it or spend TONS of cash on one of two solutions I see (maybe someone has a better way, but lets not give them ideas) One would be buying gobs of processors, storage, and hiring computer scientists that can compare data passing through their system against their own copies using some sort of fancy algorithm. Even if they have a O(n) algorithm, the volume of data the since of the constant and n are going to be rather large and still cost tons of money to operate and maintain. Another solution is an army of monkeys with a bunch of monitors watching/listening to any streaming media passing through their system, which is probably a ToS and copyright issue itself when legal streams are monitored by those not authorized by the copyright owner to view it that way.
Another problem I can see is a large switch to https and other encrypted protocols to make their snooping useless. Pretty much they are going after the low skilled small fries of the copyright violators.
TLDR - I doubt this will work, I think they will only catch small timers, I think big timers will figure out a work around.
A turd tax? For each turd flushed, one must pay a.$05 tax. It costs money to decompose biodegradable material, its not like things like bacteria and plants are going to eat it...Oh yea, that is how that works.
Maybe connect the toilets to the showers, so one can't flush when another is in the shower? This seems like a joke project a very bored engineer came up with.
I am leaning more towards snake oil, but it might be a good thing. I have often had doubts about the monetary damages claimed in outages/leaks/data theft. Insurance companies providing other types of insurance don't just pay out claims because you said something was valuable, but want some supporting evidence of the value of the claim. Maybe the companies filing claims against their "cyber insurance" policy will have a hard time justifying it, and we will stop seeing exaggerated claims. The reason I say it is probable more likely snake oil is it is pretty hard to put a value on damage to customer trust that can occur when information like credit card numbers is stolen. Does "cyber insurance" cover lost sales?
So what research or expertise do you have to support the claim that "The melatonin/sunlight interpretation the researchers gave is pretty close to unadulterated bullshit"?
Call it bullshit, but even things that you consider innate should still be held to the standard of peer review publishing. Remember, it was once innate that the earth is flat. People studying "scratch, itch, or not blink" and not too long ago smoking figure out things about health effects of all sorts of things that are innately harmless because there is no immediate affect. Asbestos, lead, and smoking come to mind.
Attacking science, no matter what popular opinion of it is, is dangerous. You didn't die of some terrible disease because scientists figured out vaccines. Engineers using what scientists figured out about electricity, magnetism, and mathematics built the computer you are using to read about this "bullshit". We already have enough anti-intellectualism in this world. There are morons in congress (and people who vote for them) that want to take a religious, "common sense", or tough guy approach to problems even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Considering sleep quality and quantity is vital to a persons mental and physical health, sleep research is important. There might be some people reading this that have never lived in a rural area and have never been camping that might just have sleep problems that could benefit from this.
The journal article Computer World references is behind a pay wall. I know a better way to save money. Buy good stuff. My metal shower hooks look much better than those cheap plastic ones. And since they are metal, they don't break. I'm not sure what items they are talking about that would need to be bought on such a consistent basis. I have serious reservations about their claims. I'm not going to print plastic replacement parts for mechanical things such as vehicles and appliances. Can anyone with access to the journal please let us know what items they are talking about?
TLDR - Don't buy cheap crap, don't break stuff, and some things just shouldn't be plastic.
I think Venezia is using the wrong words. I think Creativity vs Skill would be a better comparison. Talent in a sense is just a measure of how quickly one can learn a skill. Both talent and creativity are important. Creativity is needed to find innovative and unconventional (can be good or bad) solutions to problems. Skill is needed to be able to understand the problem and actually produce the work. Programming, systems administration, troubleshooting applications, and other IT tasks/roles all have skills and knowledge that one must acquire before being able to accomplish tasks the job requires. Without the skills and knowledge to fully understand the problem/task, the most creative (talented as Venezia puts it) person in the world won't be able to perform the task required of them. The reverse is also true. Someone could have the depth of knowledge to translate something as abstract as Python to machine code in their head, but if they lack the creativity to apply it or consider non technical approaches (which can be better in some cases) to the task or problem, they aren't very useful either.
TLDR - Both are important.
Radio (waves and their regulations) isn't my area of expertise, but I think this is very short sighted. It seems a better use for this band would be to wait until a new technology or service comes is developed that could make good use of this band, until then, it should be public domain or off limits. I say this because producing innovative goods and services grows the US economy (and the governments tax income with it) since at the very foundation money is just an abstraction of energy/labor that is easy to quantify and exchange. If some of the potential buyers have an innovative idea that uses this band of the spectrum, they can contact the FCC and get a license to operate devices on it. But just selling it to a buyer now for an arbitrary amount seems like it would prevent anyone with an idea that could improve lives and American society to act on the idea.
Slashdot Mirror
I would say it is FUD. If it is a company owned computer that is controlled by others, you might risk having your employer having access to your networks. Other than that the biggest risk is theft. If a computer is stolen, you should change all your passwords anyway, including your wireless network passwords. Friends and family that use it would have access to your network anyway. I'll admit to not RTFA, but it sounds like (I am speculating, I could be wrong) the author is parroting some stuff out of a security certification study guide without really considering if it is actually a problem worth writing about. It is possible the author is anti-linux, but I doubt it considering an alternative tools is suggested. If someone is really paranoid, they could always just use a live CD/thumb drive that doesn't store anything. I am leaning towards well meaning FUD.
These are great for homeowners with HOAs that would consider rooftop panels an eye sore and not allow them. The amount of electricity a typical single family home would produce from these probably isn't impressive, but on a massive scale, this could save a lot of dead dinosaurs. For those outside of a country with strict homeowner's associations, there have been legal battles leading to foreclosures about things as silly as what color an owner paints their trim. Yes, most HOAs (in the US anyway) would not allow rooftop solar panels for aesthetic reasons.
This sounds like a PR move in response to the Snowden leaks. I will give them the benefit of the doubt in this case that they did actually do something worth while. One thing to consider is that if they hadn't have figured it out, someone else might have. If they think an anecdote of them doing something good as a distraction from the domestic surveillance is a bit of an insult though. For all we know, this malware attack could be the exception, and not the norm. Even if its the norm and not the exception, it still doesn't excuse the bad things they have done. IMHO, someone like Snowden leaking this information was inevitable. I think it was a bit naive to expect NDAs to contain something so questionable that I am assuming a good number of people at the NSA knew about. I think the best PR move the NSA could do right now is to suspend some of these programs for now. In the future, if they can find a way to run these programs in a way that respects constitutional protections, then they can continue. For example, if they can track users anonymously and compartmentalize who has access to what pieces of information about a mark. Considering they are trying to get rid of sysads, this makes it harder to compartmentalize because inevitably the few remaining admins have a lot more systems they control.
//Lame attempt at sleep deprived humor
So if i put some paintings in that underwater basket i made in school Ill get smarter? I get it know. The more underwater baskets you can weave to hold art that you were taught to appreciate the more art you can store. The more art you can store the smarter you will probably be...
Mod this up. The Snowden leaks have revealed some morally and legally questionable behavior by the US government, but there are some things that would be best to keep secret that actually are in the best interest of everyone in the world. For example, if the NSA knows how to cryptoanalyze AES or PGP, the methods used getting into the hands of criminals would be bad for everyone.
I'd contribute if you are serious.
Appeals to authority are very weak arguments.
How do the LEOs know what someone's intention is? I could argue it is to store sensitive work material or items sought after by thieves. What is wrong with putting drugs in there? I have a prescription for Oxycodone before. There are plenty of junkies that would love to get their hands on that. So does this mean police can arrest someone because they think they might have intentions of doing something illegal? Are they going to compensate people for their time and legal fees for arrest based on nothing more than speculation? This is insane. I will admit I didn't RTFA.
How pathetic does a person have to be to knowingly short change an entire generation for their own gain?
So if it causes some people stress with little benefit (possibly even detriment) to millions of people, it is not a big deal? Sounds like a big deal to me.
Agreed. A universal time is the way to go. Why should everyone change there schedule by an hour twice a year based on something arbitrary? What really sucks is working night shift and having to set the clock back an hour while at work...
I don't see why this is trolling. I will admit that they went off on a tangent about the US getting involved in everything, this is a valid, relevant opinion. I will admit a super suit/exoskeleton thing sounds pretty cool. Just because it is cool and you disagree and think this is a worthwhile endeavor doesn't make TheCarp a troll.
Is the moderation process around here something like this:
Let p represent I agree with the poster's opinion.
Let q represent an up vote.
Let r represent a down vote.
p-->q
not(p)-->r
This bothers me a bit. I wonder how much different our world would be if half of the resources spent on militaries and warfare were spent on other things like health care, research grants, scholarships, or transportation. I wouldn't be surprised if there are companies that make (or hope to) this stuff using the common sales tactic of making the mark feel like they need it and can't do without it. Why does the world benefit from better weapons when the underlying problems that often lead to the use of them aren't resolved? At a certain point, it is no longer about defense. A military needs to be just powerful enough to make an invasion or attack too costly to be worth while and deal with nuisances such as pirates (the boat robbers, not file sharers).
Can someone mod this up?
For some reason, if this goes live, I would expect people to set up honeypots to make material not violated by copyright protections to trigger a false alarm in their system, and the people distributing material that violates a copyright will find ways around it. When enough people do this, the Signal to Noise Ratio will be so bad they will have little choice but to discontinue it or spend TONS of cash on one of two solutions I see (maybe someone has a better way, but lets not give them ideas) One would be buying gobs of processors, storage, and hiring computer scientists that can compare data passing through their system against their own copies using some sort of fancy algorithm. Even if they have a O(n) algorithm, the volume of data the since of the constant and n are going to be rather large and still cost tons of money to operate and maintain. Another solution is an army of monkeys with a bunch of monitors watching/listening to any streaming media passing through their system, which is probably a ToS and copyright issue itself when legal streams are monitored by those not authorized by the copyright owner to view it that way.
Another problem I can see is a large switch to https and other encrypted protocols to make their snooping useless. Pretty much they are going after the low skilled small fries of the copyright violators.
TLDR - I doubt this will work, I think they will only catch small timers, I think big timers will figure out a work around.
I wish I had mod points to give this +1 insightful.
I mean really - why would you network a toilet?
A turd tax? For each turd flushed, one must pay a .$05 tax. It costs money to decompose biodegradable material, its not like things like bacteria and plants are going to eat it...Oh yea, that is how that works.
Maybe connect the toilets to the showers, so one can't flush when another is in the shower? This seems like a joke project a very bored engineer came up with.
I am leaning more towards snake oil, but it might be a good thing. I have often had doubts about the monetary damages claimed in outages/leaks/data theft. Insurance companies providing other types of insurance don't just pay out claims because you said something was valuable, but want some supporting evidence of the value of the claim. Maybe the companies filing claims against their "cyber insurance" policy will have a hard time justifying it, and we will stop seeing exaggerated claims. The reason I say it is probable more likely snake oil is it is pretty hard to put a value on damage to customer trust that can occur when information like credit card numbers is stolen. Does "cyber insurance" cover lost sales?
Maybe the slashdot effect will bring them donors while bringing their servers to a crawl.
Solar panel/automotive power inverter and satellite internet.
So what research or expertise do you have to support the claim that "The melatonin/sunlight interpretation the researchers gave is pretty close to unadulterated bullshit"?
Call it bullshit, but even things that you consider innate should still be held to the standard of peer review publishing. Remember, it was once innate that the earth is flat. People studying "scratch, itch, or not blink" and not too long ago smoking figure out things about health effects of all sorts of things that are innately harmless because there is no immediate affect. Asbestos, lead, and smoking come to mind.
Attacking science, no matter what popular opinion of it is, is dangerous. You didn't die of some terrible disease because scientists figured out vaccines. Engineers using what scientists figured out about electricity, magnetism, and mathematics built the computer you are using to read about this "bullshit". We already have enough anti-intellectualism in this world. There are morons in congress (and people who vote for them) that want to take a religious, "common sense", or tough guy approach to problems even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Considering sleep quality and quantity is vital to a persons mental and physical health, sleep research is important. There might be some people reading this that have never lived in a rural area and have never been camping that might just have sleep problems that could benefit from this.
The journal article Computer World references is behind a pay wall. I know a better way to save money. Buy good stuff. My metal shower hooks look much better than those cheap plastic ones. And since they are metal, they don't break. I'm not sure what items they are talking about that would need to be bought on such a consistent basis. I have serious reservations about their claims. I'm not going to print plastic replacement parts for mechanical things such as vehicles and appliances. Can anyone with access to the journal please let us know what items they are talking about?
TLDR - Don't buy cheap crap, don't break stuff, and some things just shouldn't be plastic.
I think Venezia is using the wrong words. I think Creativity vs Skill would be a better comparison. Talent in a sense is just a measure of how quickly one can learn a skill. Both talent and creativity are important. Creativity is needed to find innovative and unconventional (can be good or bad) solutions to problems. Skill is needed to be able to understand the problem and actually produce the work. Programming, systems administration, troubleshooting applications, and other IT tasks/roles all have skills and knowledge that one must acquire before being able to accomplish tasks the job requires. Without the skills and knowledge to fully understand the problem/task, the most creative (talented as Venezia puts it) person in the world won't be able to perform the task required of them. The reverse is also true. Someone could have the depth of knowledge to translate something as abstract as Python to machine code in their head, but if they lack the creativity to apply it or consider non technical approaches (which can be better in some cases) to the task or problem, they aren't very useful either. TLDR - Both are important.
Radio (waves and their regulations) isn't my area of expertise, but I think this is very short sighted. It seems a better use for this band would be to wait until a new technology or service comes is developed that could make good use of this band, until then, it should be public domain or off limits. I say this because producing innovative goods and services grows the US economy (and the governments tax income with it) since at the very foundation money is just an abstraction of energy/labor that is easy to quantify and exchange. If some of the potential buyers have an innovative idea that uses this band of the spectrum, they can contact the FCC and get a license to operate devices on it. But just selling it to a buyer now for an arbitrary amount seems like it would prevent anyone with an idea that could improve lives and American society to act on the idea.