He's trying to get himself attention, and succeeding it would seem as here's a story on it.
Assange has acted rather oddly throughout this whole thing, at least if you take his rhetoric at face value. He happily went to Sweden and spent time there until these allegation came up, at which time he went to the UK. He then claimed that the reason was that the charges were BS and Sweden would just hand him over to the US because they were after him as soon as he went back. That of course makes one questions:
1) Why would he go to Sweden in the first place, if he knew it was a country that would hand him over to the US extra judicially?
2) Why would he flee to the UK and feel safe there, a country with such a special relationship with the US it is literally called the "special relationship"?
He then fought the extradition to Sweden in the UK courts and lost. They were ruling just on the validity of the extradition request, not on the validity of the charge behind it. He then fled to the Ecuadorian embassy, claiming that he'd be handed over to the US if he went to Sweden.
So there we are today. Now near as I know, the US has not sought his arrest. While they don't like him, it doesn't look like he's broken US law. Publishing classified US information isn't a crime if you weren't the one who had access to it. So a guy who has a security clearance and gets information and gives it to a paper, he's breaking the law. However the paper that then publishes it is not.
Now maybe he really does know something most don't, but it seems more likely this is just him trying to get in the news. He knows this is an empty offer since the US wouldn't agree to it as they don't have a valid charge to bring against him. This is all between him and Sweden and now him and the UK (even if Sweden dropped the charges, he still broke UK law be fleeing his bail). The US isn't involved.
It is amazing how poor quality most mobile stuff is. There are a few shining counterexamples but most mobile stuff is rather bad. I love me some videogames, and buy quite a few on my PC, but I rarely buy them on mobile because there are so few good ones.
I believe LTE does prevent a lot of the snooping. Part of the problem is that things evolved from really old-ass standards and so security was not always the consideration it should be. I mean remember that the original cell network:
1) Was all unencrypted analogue, the only thing preventing people from listening in was not having a radio that could tune the frequencies.
2) Had all kinds of odd shit related to compatibility with the old PSTN.
It was not even remotely secure. However, it was what we could do with the technology of the day.
Things have been getting better, particularly with VoLTE and the move to all packet switched data. It is always hard though because there are always tradeoff between easy of use, cost, features and security. It's easy on the surface to say that security should always be the top concern but you find out when you try to implement things that actually doing really strong security against all kind of attacks can be prohibitive at times and impede usability.
If properly implemented, and it seems Android and Apple do, contactless payment via your smartphone is a lot more secure than anything else. Some advantages it has:
1) A proxy number can be used for each transaction. Your real number need never be used at any time, as a proxy can be created for each transaction. The bank lets the phone know what proxies to use, and the phone lets the bank know when they are used. so even if the merchant gets completely owned, the information gleaned on you is useless as it was valid for that transaction only.
2) You have a device that can notify the bank of the validity of the transaction. Not only will the payment terminal contact the bank for payment, but your phone can let the bank know as well. Now there has to be some slack built in the system to make sure that it can work even if you don't have signal, but basically when your phone gets back on the network if the transactions don't agree, a flag can be raised.
3) You have some defense against a compromised terminal that overcharges (basically a merchant that has messed with their terminals to charge a different amount than displayed. Your phone knows how much the charge was, and shows it to you. If that is different from the amount on the screen, you can contact your bank there and then and stop the transaction.
4) The two-factor auth is taken off the device, on to your device. You have to unlock your phone to use the payment, so you have a 2-factor setup (your phone + either code or biometrics). However with chip+pin, the pin is entered on the terminal so if it is compromised, it can get your pin. The terminal can't get anything when a phone is used as the auth is on the phone, not the terminal.
It isn't flawless, but it is a decent step up from the security of just using a card.
You don't want it to become one either, or people can break in your house because it has shit security. Even if you have "good" security for a home, it still sucks in the grand scheme and is trivial to bypass. However I imagine you'd be pretty pissed if someone broke in and said "Well you have abysmal security, don't silence the messenger!"
That doesn't mean people shouldn't try and have good electronic security (and physical security for that matter) but that they don't is not an invitation or excuse for breaking in.
Problem is they still need to demonstrate why the current worker does not have those skills and cannot meet their needs. If you have someone already in a position and you aren't getting rid of them for cause, then presumably they meet the needs of that position. Thus if you bring in someone to replace them saying "This new person has technical skills we need" isn't really a valid argument.
At least not unless there is a reduction in services. I don't know why people think outsourcing always saves money. It often doesn't. Basically outsourcing is a good idea if you are too small to be able to do something yourself efficiently. You either don't do enough of it, or do it often enough to make it worth having an internal team.
For example construction is something basically everyone outsources. You just don't build new buildings often enough to make it a worthwhile proposition to have a dedicated staff for it, they'd be sitting around most of the time.
However when you get large, often you can do shit in house for cheaper, or at least the same price and have more control. It isn't like those contract workers are free, and it isn't like the company who contracts them takes no cut.
With a large university, practically everything should be in house. They are so large they usually have their own police forces, they are literally small cities. So you have enough needs that hiring your own staff usually makes sense. In general when I've seen a university outsource something they used to do it ends up costing them more, and the service is generally worse, sometimes a bit, sometimes a lot.
Thus my bet is in the end this contract costs them more than they were paying.
Worst example I've seen is a friend who consults for a public school system (primary, not university). They outsource most everything, as is evident from him contracting to them to do development. So a project he was doing needed a dedicated Linux virtual server. They balked at that, and he pushed back, confused. It was a low spec server, could be a VM, it just needed to be dedicated for security. The reason they balked? The outsourcing firm that ran their servers charged them well over $1000/year per VM. AT a rate like that, you don't need many VMs before it would be cheaper to buy a server and hire a guy who does nothing but mind after it.
If all you can point out is stuff "in China for China" then you aren't strengthening your case. Linux isn't made "in Finland for Finns", Windows isn't made "in the US for Americans," QNX isn't made "in Canada for Canadians," and so on. When you are really good at something, you export it and sell it worldwide. You see that with US and European (as well as other) software, just like you see it with Chinese SMPSes. When you are really good in this interconnected world you cross borders, you aren't only able to sell in a rather walled off, controlled market. Canon, Zeiss, Leica, Nikon, etc don't sell glass just in their native countries or regions, they are the worldwide leaders because they are good. You find Canon cameras for sale through out the world, not just in Japan.
Baidu is probably actually the best example: It is such a huge force in China, yet nobody outside China uses it. Everyone else uses Google (or to a much lesser extent Bing and Yahoo). Despite Google being an American company in origin, their product is not limited to one country. It isn't limited to English speakers either, you find it all over the world. In fact the only places it doesn't have a lot of penetration are places like China, Iran, North Korea and so on.
Why? Because China wants to maintain control on the information their populace can see. So Baidu, being local, works well for that. Google, being global, does not. That combined with a bunch of protectionism means that Baidu is the big thing in China. But that's artificial, it isn't because Baidu is so amazingly great. You can get to Baidu from the US no problem, but few people do because it is a Chinese only site, you go to the homepage and it is in Chinese with no apparent way to change languages. By contrast Google picks a language based on your country location (which you can easily change) and supports searches in essentially every language, including Chinese.
When you look at the heavy hitters in tech, Chinese companies just don't make the list except extremely rarely. Let's take a quick look at a few major areas:
OSes: Windows (US), Linux (Finland, though worldwide really), OS-X (US), iOS (US), Android (US), QNX (Canada), BSD (US/worldwide), vxWorks (US).
CPUs: Intel (US), AMD (US), ARM (UK), MIPS (US), Power (US), Hitachi (Japan).
Databases: Oracle (US), MySQL (Swedish, though US now), Postgres (US/global), MSSQL (US), DB2 (US).
FPGAs: Xilinx (US), Altera (US), Amtel (US), Lattice (US).
Video Production: Avid (US), Final Cut (US), Premiere (US), Vegas (Japan/US, now moving to Germany).
Video Game Engines: Unity (US), Unreal Engine (US), iDTech (US), Frostbite (Sweden), Source (US), Gamebryo/Creation (US), Cryengine (Germany), Dunia (Canada), PhyreEngine (Japan), Unigine (Russia).
The big one being software that gets produced and used/sold. The US and Western Europe dominate that arena. You go and look at who it is producing the big commercial and OSS stuff, from OSes to games to productivity software to media creation tools and so on and those are the areas that dominate. To be sure it is an international endeavour, software is great in that there isn't a huge fixed startup cost so a great many people can participate. But those regions see -by far- the most production. It isn't like it is all immigrants working for the companies either, lots of domestic labour.
So, if China and Russia really are so amazing, so far ahead, I mean we are talking #1 vs #28, then where are all the software companies? Where are all the people contributing to OSS projects? Where are all the indies from those areas?
There is just no way if China is this unstoppable force of the "most talented" developers (not just most numerous) that they wouldn't also be a huge force in the software industry. They just aren't though. They are a participant, as nearly every nation is, but they aren't anything special, nowhere even approaching the US.
I think the journalist may be mistaken. Another story I read on this said the design came from Cadence, which makes a lot more sense. Cadence sells a core that customers can further customize (using Cadence's software of course). It then can be fabbed by a place like TSMC.
Well personally I've been quite happy with a number of the new features. Also security isn't irrelevant to me, given that I do work to keep my device secure by updating it, by running security software, and be screening what I install and only installing things I need.
I am talking about MY interest in something and ya, having new versions of software is something that I consider. If I'm getting a new device that is something I want.
But only if they'd start releasing OS updates for their older hardware. Given that Samsung drops support after just 18 months, I don't think I'd want to buy a refurb since it is going to get updates for, at most 6 more months. If I am going to get something with no updates, I'd want it for actual used market prices, which is to say really cheap.
No, that's not the approach you take. If you think it is, well you need to grow up. You don't cause massive compatibility problems and huge disruptions just for the fun of it. Instead, you do things as smoothly as possible. There is no need to rush out IPv6, it isn't like the world will blow up. IPv4 works, and will continue to work.
You thinking that implementing something like this on a worldwide scale being cheap, easy or quick just shows a massive lack of experience and perspective.
I can't speak authoritatively to Comcast, not having it, but everything I see says they have dual-stack on their entire residential network. Have you tried it? You have to set up DHCP-PD on your router (that is how most ISPs are doing it) and they should give you a prefix that your devices can use.
What do you mean we've done nothing to move people to IPv6? Do you think it is magic? Do you think we just wave a wand and people are on v6? No, what it takes is rolling out support on the OS, router, ISP, and so on. That has been happening, lots. Have a look at Google's IPv6 chart: https://www.google.com/intl/en... what you see is exponential growth happening. This is actual IPv6 connections as well, Google is counting the percentage of people hitting their site with v6, which means an end-to-end connection.
Oh and ISPs have indeed been making IPv6 available to home users, wouldn't see that graph otherwise. For US cable providers Comcast is dual stack on their whole network, Time Warner is on about 90% of it, and Cox is on all of it. That's a whole lot of the US population. This isn't theoretical support either or "Oh call us and maybe we'll turn it on," it is live, on the network, and working now. On my Cox connection all I had to do was tell my router to get itself a prefix and go. My connections to Google, Netflix, and anyone else who supports v6 go out over it.
You don't "move" people to v6 as in force them on to it and turn off v4. Rather you make it available, and chosen by default, which is precisely is what is going on. When the device supports it (Linux including Android and Windows are both dual stack and prefer v6, not sure about OS-X), the router supports it, and the network supports it you are good to go.
Cox is dual-stack on their entire network. Comcast is likewise. Time Warner is about 90% done with IPv6 on their network. That most of the US's cable providers right there, with Charter being the only major that doesn't have IPv6 yet and they are working on it actively.
Not every ISP has it, of course, when you count DSL CLECs, dial up, and so on there are literally thousands of ISPs in the US. However it seems that most of the major cable providers do, and combined those guys serve a massive part of the US population.
In fact, have a look at Google's IPv6 adoption map: https://www.google.com/intl/en.... Looks like the US is doing pretty good. Not only is adoption high compared to most countries, but it works well.
Also remember that IPv6 adoption is more than just ISPs getting it. It needs end-to-end support in that users have to get IPv6 capable routers and devices, and have it enabled.
Used to be that way in the US for all carriers. If they'd even let you BYOD, which was only sometimes, you still paid the full amount on your monthly bill so you were just getting screwed. Only ones that didn't were prepaid carriers, which tend to be niche (usually regional and targeting lower income customers).
However T-Mobile changed that, their big, and highly successful, marketing push was to do away with contracts which also meant doing away with subsidies. To respond to people complaining about upfront price they then did the 24 month financing.
Some of the others have followed suit now, since it was a successful campaign, but not all.
The Athlon was very competitive with the P3, which was an exceedingly solid processor. So it wasn't just that Intel screwed up, but AMD had a well performing product to start with.
But then ya, they really slowed down and stopped improving. They kept rehashing the same architecture over and over. They introduced new features, like 64-bit, but the computational architecture was fundamentally the same. Meanwhile Intel was hard at work making the Core series and just continually improving.
Also AMD had a real problem in that while the Athlon was a good performer, the motherboard chipsets for it were fucking garbage. So the experience of owning an Athlon was a real mixed one and turned some people off. I got burned really badly by the original Athlon and compatibility issues with their motherboards and was turned off to AMD for some time because of it.
T-Mobile doesn't subsidize phones. You pay the full price. You can pay it up front or over 24 months (interest free) but it is full retail. So it makes no difference if you get it from them or someone else.
Also means their plans tend to be cheaper than competing plans, since there's no subsidy rolled in to the monthly charge.
Ya this very much seems to be a case of providing a safety net for someone who doesn't have one or who has run through theirs. I can see why that would help. Unless you are super rich, you can get hit with expenses just beyond your ability to deal with. Even if you have a few million, there are still edge cases that can happen that can deplete your resources. Of course the less you have, the easier it is to get them depleted.
Well when that happens, it can snowball real bad and you lose everything, it gets in a positive feedback loop. So some financial assistance can stop that, it can break the feedback loop. You pay off the debt, which prevents interest from accumulating, which would necessitate more debt, which leads to a unsustainable level and so on.
Makes a lot of sense to me that this would have a positive effect and be a good idea, but within the listed constraints. Just giving people money rarely helps.
I've seen both in my family. I've seen a couple family members bailed out by others when they had a crisis, and they are doing well today. I also have a family member who is ALWAYS broke ALWAYS having money problems and no amount of money will help her because she causes her own problems.
A lot of Americans live in urban areas, but often very much urban sprawl. Particularly the residential areas are often composed of single family homes, with yards and so spread out, not large apartment buildings. Look at Phoenix, or LA, or the like. The Phoenix metro area has like 4.5 million people in it, but that is spread out over 23,500 square km. Ya it isn't rural, but there's a LOT of land area to over if you want to blanket it with wireless of some kind, and it gets really problematic if said wireless is short range.
Now that is not to discount cities like New York (though a lot of people there also live in suburban sprawl) just noting that many of the big urban centers in the US are also big land-area wise. Those are more difficult and costly to cover.
The issue then is one of percentage of the population you can cover vs cost and if it is worth it. So suppose you determine you can cover a place like New York, or the downtown commercial districts of some other large cities, economically but not the residential areas of many places like Phoenix. Is it worth it? Is it worth getting new towers just for those places, and new phone technology that most of the nation has no use for?
Either claim the guy or don't, but don't imply. It is the kind of statement someone would make who was trying to get people to think he has more power/influence would make. I mean if the guy really is your source you do one of two things:
1) Keep shut up about it. You decide that you want to protect his family, friends, information, whatever. So you say nothing and deny everything. You try to convince your adversaries that this guy was just another guy, someone you had no involvement with.
2) Publicly and unequivocally state the guy was your source. You decide it is more important that it now be known. Maybe you feel there is no threat to anyone else, maybe you want to honor his work, maybe you feel it will help bring the people who killed him to justice. Whatever the case you make it very clear that yes, this person was your source and probably even identify some of the information that was theirs.
There is just no way that some kind of half-assed insinuation helps you if he really was a source. It doesn't do any good in terms of verification, but still could be used by an adversary as enough of a conformation to then go after others.
However it makes a lot of sense if he wasn't a source and you are a full of shit attention whore. You get to make news, get people thinking "well it could have been his guy!" but then if it comes out he wasn't, you can deny everything saying "Well I never claimed he was a source, just that his murder was for unknown reasons!"
To me, it seems that Assanage will say pretty much anything these days to get himself in the spotlight and hence this wishywashy crap. He needs to knock it off. If the guy was a source, come out and claim it in unequivocal terms, or just say nothing. Don't insinuate.
Netflix isn't useful because it is so low bandwidth. Sure if you are using ADSL maybe it is relevant but for most fast connections even if the connection is working for shit Netflix will still be fine. A Netflix stream is literally about 2% of my Internet speed for an HD stream.
Ookla can be useful but requires some work on the part of the end user. As you say, you need to test off your ISP. Mine does by default (my ISP, Cox, has a Speedtest server but for internal use only). Realistically, you should test to a neighboring state to get a good idea of how your connection does if it goes through a number of hops. HOWEVER you have to be careful because a lot of Speedtest servers are garbage. They don't have much bandwidth, or apply limits to each connection so you can test your connection on a server and get a shit result, only to choose another one in the same city and get full bandwidth. DSLReports seems to have a much better speedtest program overall, less reliant on users making good choices.
However all that aside, it only tells part of the story as it tells what a particular user has right then, not what they could. That someone only chooses to buy slow Internet doesn't mean that only slow Internet is available. Like here Cox will sell you a plan as slow as 5 Mbps or as fast as 300 Mbps. So should they really get shit for slow internet if someone chooses their slow plan, when the fast one is available? Also people are sometimes their own enemies in slow speed tests. I've known a couple of people that actually had faster Internet service than they were getting because of their equipment. Guy I know was paying for Cox's standard package, which is 50 Mbps, but he had an old DOCSIS 2 modem and a Linksys WRTG54 router. Net effect he got 20ish Mbps because of slow modem, slow router, and G wireless. He got a new DOCSIS 3 modem, new AC router, and now everything is operating at full speed.
I really don't know of a good way to get a single metric for Internet speed. You need to consider what speed(s) are available, how much it costs, how fast it is to various places on the 'net, etc.
You can tell from the fact that the are talking about "using up" a year's allotment of clean air. Uhhhh... No. Air doesn't work like that. While we can, and do, pollute the air we don't "use it up." What's more in terms of breathable air, pollutants in it are a local problem, not global. So in given areas there is heavy pollution that causes the air to be poor quality for breathing, however the amount is very small compared to the total amount on the planet and it doesn't cause a decrease in quality globally.
This is another activist group. They aren't doing science, they are pushing a point of view. Science on CO2 is about it causing more thermal retention, leading to a long term increase in average temperatures. It isn't about "using up" a certain amount in a year.
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He's trying to get himself attention, and succeeding it would seem as here's a story on it.
Assange has acted rather oddly throughout this whole thing, at least if you take his rhetoric at face value. He happily went to Sweden and spent time there until these allegation came up, at which time he went to the UK. He then claimed that the reason was that the charges were BS and Sweden would just hand him over to the US because they were after him as soon as he went back. That of course makes one questions:
1) Why would he go to Sweden in the first place, if he knew it was a country that would hand him over to the US extra judicially?
2) Why would he flee to the UK and feel safe there, a country with such a special relationship with the US it is literally called the "special relationship"?
He then fought the extradition to Sweden in the UK courts and lost. They were ruling just on the validity of the extradition request, not on the validity of the charge behind it. He then fled to the Ecuadorian embassy, claiming that he'd be handed over to the US if he went to Sweden.
So there we are today. Now near as I know, the US has not sought his arrest. While they don't like him, it doesn't look like he's broken US law. Publishing classified US information isn't a crime if you weren't the one who had access to it. So a guy who has a security clearance and gets information and gives it to a paper, he's breaking the law. However the paper that then publishes it is not.
Now maybe he really does know something most don't, but it seems more likely this is just him trying to get in the news. He knows this is an empty offer since the US wouldn't agree to it as they don't have a valid charge to bring against him. This is all between him and Sweden and now him and the UK (even if Sweden dropped the charges, he still broke UK law be fleeing his bail). The US isn't involved.
It is amazing how poor quality most mobile stuff is. There are a few shining counterexamples but most mobile stuff is rather bad. I love me some videogames, and buy quite a few on my PC, but I rarely buy them on mobile because there are so few good ones.
I believe LTE does prevent a lot of the snooping. Part of the problem is that things evolved from really old-ass standards and so security was not always the consideration it should be. I mean remember that the original cell network:
1) Was all unencrypted analogue, the only thing preventing people from listening in was not having a radio that could tune the frequencies.
2) Had all kinds of odd shit related to compatibility with the old PSTN.
It was not even remotely secure. However, it was what we could do with the technology of the day.
Things have been getting better, particularly with VoLTE and the move to all packet switched data. It is always hard though because there are always tradeoff between easy of use, cost, features and security. It's easy on the surface to say that security should always be the top concern but you find out when you try to implement things that actually doing really strong security against all kind of attacks can be prohibitive at times and impede usability.
If properly implemented, and it seems Android and Apple do, contactless payment via your smartphone is a lot more secure than anything else. Some advantages it has:
1) A proxy number can be used for each transaction. Your real number need never be used at any time, as a proxy can be created for each transaction. The bank lets the phone know what proxies to use, and the phone lets the bank know when they are used. so even if the merchant gets completely owned, the information gleaned on you is useless as it was valid for that transaction only.
2) You have a device that can notify the bank of the validity of the transaction. Not only will the payment terminal contact the bank for payment, but your phone can let the bank know as well. Now there has to be some slack built in the system to make sure that it can work even if you don't have signal, but basically when your phone gets back on the network if the transactions don't agree, a flag can be raised.
3) You have some defense against a compromised terminal that overcharges (basically a merchant that has messed with their terminals to charge a different amount than displayed. Your phone knows how much the charge was, and shows it to you. If that is different from the amount on the screen, you can contact your bank there and then and stop the transaction.
4) The two-factor auth is taken off the device, on to your device. You have to unlock your phone to use the payment, so you have a 2-factor setup (your phone + either code or biometrics). However with chip+pin, the pin is entered on the terminal so if it is compromised, it can get your pin. The terminal can't get anything when a phone is used as the auth is on the phone, not the terminal.
It isn't flawless, but it is a decent step up from the security of just using a card.
You don't want it to become one either, or people can break in your house because it has shit security. Even if you have "good" security for a home, it still sucks in the grand scheme and is trivial to bypass. However I imagine you'd be pretty pissed if someone broke in and said "Well you have abysmal security, don't silence the messenger!"
That doesn't mean people shouldn't try and have good electronic security (and physical security for that matter) but that they don't is not an invitation or excuse for breaking in.
Problem is they still need to demonstrate why the current worker does not have those skills and cannot meet their needs. If you have someone already in a position and you aren't getting rid of them for cause, then presumably they meet the needs of that position. Thus if you bring in someone to replace them saying "This new person has technical skills we need" isn't really a valid argument.
At least not unless there is a reduction in services. I don't know why people think outsourcing always saves money. It often doesn't. Basically outsourcing is a good idea if you are too small to be able to do something yourself efficiently. You either don't do enough of it, or do it often enough to make it worth having an internal team.
For example construction is something basically everyone outsources. You just don't build new buildings often enough to make it a worthwhile proposition to have a dedicated staff for it, they'd be sitting around most of the time.
However when you get large, often you can do shit in house for cheaper, or at least the same price and have more control. It isn't like those contract workers are free, and it isn't like the company who contracts them takes no cut.
With a large university, practically everything should be in house. They are so large they usually have their own police forces, they are literally small cities. So you have enough needs that hiring your own staff usually makes sense. In general when I've seen a university outsource something they used to do it ends up costing them more, and the service is generally worse, sometimes a bit, sometimes a lot.
Thus my bet is in the end this contract costs them more than they were paying.
Worst example I've seen is a friend who consults for a public school system (primary, not university). They outsource most everything, as is evident from him contracting to them to do development. So a project he was doing needed a dedicated Linux virtual server. They balked at that, and he pushed back, confused. It was a low spec server, could be a VM, it just needed to be dedicated for security. The reason they balked? The outsourcing firm that ran their servers charged them well over $1000/year per VM. AT a rate like that, you don't need many VMs before it would be cheaper to buy a server and hire a guy who does nothing but mind after it.
If all you can point out is stuff "in China for China" then you aren't strengthening your case. Linux isn't made "in Finland for Finns", Windows isn't made "in the US for Americans," QNX isn't made "in Canada for Canadians," and so on. When you are really good at something, you export it and sell it worldwide. You see that with US and European (as well as other) software, just like you see it with Chinese SMPSes. When you are really good in this interconnected world you cross borders, you aren't only able to sell in a rather walled off, controlled market. Canon, Zeiss, Leica, Nikon, etc don't sell glass just in their native countries or regions, they are the worldwide leaders because they are good. You find Canon cameras for sale through out the world, not just in Japan.
Baidu is probably actually the best example: It is such a huge force in China, yet nobody outside China uses it. Everyone else uses Google (or to a much lesser extent Bing and Yahoo). Despite Google being an American company in origin, their product is not limited to one country. It isn't limited to English speakers either, you find it all over the world. In fact the only places it doesn't have a lot of penetration are places like China, Iran, North Korea and so on.
Why? Because China wants to maintain control on the information their populace can see. So Baidu, being local, works well for that. Google, being global, does not. That combined with a bunch of protectionism means that Baidu is the big thing in China. But that's artificial, it isn't because Baidu is so amazingly great. You can get to Baidu from the US no problem, but few people do because it is a Chinese only site, you go to the homepage and it is in Chinese with no apparent way to change languages. By contrast Google picks a language based on your country location (which you can easily change) and supports searches in essentially every language, including Chinese.
When you look at the heavy hitters in tech, Chinese companies just don't make the list except extremely rarely. Let's take a quick look at a few major areas:
OSes: Windows (US), Linux (Finland, though worldwide really), OS-X (US), iOS (US), Android (US), QNX (Canada), BSD (US/worldwide), vxWorks (US).
CPUs: Intel (US), AMD (US), ARM (UK), MIPS (US), Power (US), Hitachi (Japan).
Databases: Oracle (US), MySQL (Swedish, though US now), Postgres (US/global), MSSQL (US), DB2 (US).
FPGAs: Xilinx (US), Altera (US), Amtel (US), Lattice (US).
Video Production: Avid (US), Final Cut (US), Premiere (US), Vegas (Japan/US, now moving to Germany).
Video Game Engines: Unity (US), Unreal Engine (US), iDTech (US), Frostbite (Sweden), Source (US), Gamebryo/Creation (US), Cryengine (Germany), Dunia (Canada), PhyreEngine (Japan), Unigine (Russia).
Seeing a trend?
The big one being software that gets produced and used/sold. The US and Western Europe dominate that arena. You go and look at who it is producing the big commercial and OSS stuff, from OSes to games to productivity software to media creation tools and so on and those are the areas that dominate. To be sure it is an international endeavour, software is great in that there isn't a huge fixed startup cost so a great many people can participate. But those regions see -by far- the most production. It isn't like it is all immigrants working for the companies either, lots of domestic labour.
So, if China and Russia really are so amazing, so far ahead, I mean we are talking #1 vs #28, then where are all the software companies? Where are all the people contributing to OSS projects? Where are all the indies from those areas?
There is just no way if China is this unstoppable force of the "most talented" developers (not just most numerous) that they wouldn't also be a huge force in the software industry. They just aren't though. They are a participant, as nearly every nation is, but they aren't anything special, nowhere even approaching the US.
I think the journalist may be mistaken. Another story I read on this said the design came from Cadence, which makes a lot more sense. Cadence sells a core that customers can further customize (using Cadence's software of course). It then can be fabbed by a place like TSMC.
Well personally I've been quite happy with a number of the new features. Also security isn't irrelevant to me, given that I do work to keep my device secure by updating it, by running security software, and be screening what I install and only installing things I need.
I am talking about MY interest in something and ya, having new versions of software is something that I consider. If I'm getting a new device that is something I want.
But only if they'd start releasing OS updates for their older hardware. Given that Samsung drops support after just 18 months, I don't think I'd want to buy a refurb since it is going to get updates for, at most 6 more months. If I am going to get something with no updates, I'd want it for actual used market prices, which is to say really cheap.
No, that's not the approach you take. If you think it is, well you need to grow up. You don't cause massive compatibility problems and huge disruptions just for the fun of it. Instead, you do things as smoothly as possible. There is no need to rush out IPv6, it isn't like the world will blow up. IPv4 works, and will continue to work.
You thinking that implementing something like this on a worldwide scale being cheap, easy or quick just shows a massive lack of experience and perspective.
I can't speak authoritatively to Comcast, not having it, but everything I see says they have dual-stack on their entire residential network. Have you tried it? You have to set up DHCP-PD on your router (that is how most ISPs are doing it) and they should give you a prefix that your devices can use.
What do you mean we've done nothing to move people to IPv6? Do you think it is magic? Do you think we just wave a wand and people are on v6? No, what it takes is rolling out support on the OS, router, ISP, and so on. That has been happening, lots. Have a look at Google's IPv6 chart: https://www.google.com/intl/en... what you see is exponential growth happening. This is actual IPv6 connections as well, Google is counting the percentage of people hitting their site with v6, which means an end-to-end connection.
Oh and ISPs have indeed been making IPv6 available to home users, wouldn't see that graph otherwise. For US cable providers Comcast is dual stack on their whole network, Time Warner is on about 90% of it, and Cox is on all of it. That's a whole lot of the US population. This isn't theoretical support either or "Oh call us and maybe we'll turn it on," it is live, on the network, and working now. On my Cox connection all I had to do was tell my router to get itself a prefix and go. My connections to Google, Netflix, and anyone else who supports v6 go out over it.
You don't "move" people to v6 as in force them on to it and turn off v4. Rather you make it available, and chosen by default, which is precisely is what is going on. When the device supports it (Linux including Android and Windows are both dual stack and prefer v6, not sure about OS-X), the router supports it, and the network supports it you are good to go.
What kind of vulnerabilities do you think would exist in IPv6, but not IPv4?
Cox is dual-stack on their entire network. Comcast is likewise. Time Warner is about 90% done with IPv6 on their network. That most of the US's cable providers right there, with Charter being the only major that doesn't have IPv6 yet and they are working on it actively.
Not every ISP has it, of course, when you count DSL CLECs, dial up, and so on there are literally thousands of ISPs in the US. However it seems that most of the major cable providers do, and combined those guys serve a massive part of the US population.
In fact, have a look at Google's IPv6 adoption map: https://www.google.com/intl/en.... Looks like the US is doing pretty good. Not only is adoption high compared to most countries, but it works well.
Also remember that IPv6 adoption is more than just ISPs getting it. It needs end-to-end support in that users have to get IPv6 capable routers and devices, and have it enabled.
Used to be that way in the US for all carriers. If they'd even let you BYOD, which was only sometimes, you still paid the full amount on your monthly bill so you were just getting screwed. Only ones that didn't were prepaid carriers, which tend to be niche (usually regional and targeting lower income customers).
However T-Mobile changed that, their big, and highly successful, marketing push was to do away with contracts which also meant doing away with subsidies. To respond to people complaining about upfront price they then did the 24 month financing.
Some of the others have followed suit now, since it was a successful campaign, but not all.
The Athlon was very competitive with the P3, which was an exceedingly solid processor. So it wasn't just that Intel screwed up, but AMD had a well performing product to start with.
But then ya, they really slowed down and stopped improving. They kept rehashing the same architecture over and over. They introduced new features, like 64-bit, but the computational architecture was fundamentally the same. Meanwhile Intel was hard at work making the Core series and just continually improving.
Also AMD had a real problem in that while the Athlon was a good performer, the motherboard chipsets for it were fucking garbage. So the experience of owning an Athlon was a real mixed one and turned some people off. I got burned really badly by the original Athlon and compatibility issues with their motherboards and was turned off to AMD for some time because of it.
T-Mobile doesn't subsidize phones. You pay the full price. You can pay it up front or over 24 months (interest free) but it is full retail. So it makes no difference if you get it from them or someone else.
Also means their plans tend to be cheaper than competing plans, since there's no subsidy rolled in to the monthly charge.
Ya this very much seems to be a case of providing a safety net for someone who doesn't have one or who has run through theirs. I can see why that would help. Unless you are super rich, you can get hit with expenses just beyond your ability to deal with. Even if you have a few million, there are still edge cases that can happen that can deplete your resources. Of course the less you have, the easier it is to get them depleted.
Well when that happens, it can snowball real bad and you lose everything, it gets in a positive feedback loop. So some financial assistance can stop that, it can break the feedback loop. You pay off the debt, which prevents interest from accumulating, which would necessitate more debt, which leads to a unsustainable level and so on.
Makes a lot of sense to me that this would have a positive effect and be a good idea, but within the listed constraints. Just giving people money rarely helps.
I've seen both in my family. I've seen a couple family members bailed out by others when they had a crisis, and they are doing well today. I also have a family member who is ALWAYS broke ALWAYS having money problems and no amount of money will help her because she causes her own problems.
A lot of Americans live in urban areas, but often very much urban sprawl. Particularly the residential areas are often composed of single family homes, with yards and so spread out, not large apartment buildings. Look at Phoenix, or LA, or the like. The Phoenix metro area has like 4.5 million people in it, but that is spread out over 23,500 square km. Ya it isn't rural, but there's a LOT of land area to over if you want to blanket it with wireless of some kind, and it gets really problematic if said wireless is short range.
Now that is not to discount cities like New York (though a lot of people there also live in suburban sprawl) just noting that many of the big urban centers in the US are also big land-area wise. Those are more difficult and costly to cover.
The issue then is one of percentage of the population you can cover vs cost and if it is worth it. So suppose you determine you can cover a place like New York, or the downtown commercial districts of some other large cities, economically but not the residential areas of many places like Phoenix. Is it worth it? Is it worth getting new towers just for those places, and new phone technology that most of the nation has no use for?
Cost vs benefit always has to be considered.
Either claim the guy or don't, but don't imply. It is the kind of statement someone would make who was trying to get people to think he has more power/influence would make. I mean if the guy really is your source you do one of two things:
1) Keep shut up about it. You decide that you want to protect his family, friends, information, whatever. So you say nothing and deny everything. You try to convince your adversaries that this guy was just another guy, someone you had no involvement with.
2) Publicly and unequivocally state the guy was your source. You decide it is more important that it now be known. Maybe you feel there is no threat to anyone else, maybe you want to honor his work, maybe you feel it will help bring the people who killed him to justice. Whatever the case you make it very clear that yes, this person was your source and probably even identify some of the information that was theirs.
There is just no way that some kind of half-assed insinuation helps you if he really was a source. It doesn't do any good in terms of verification, but still could be used by an adversary as enough of a conformation to then go after others.
However it makes a lot of sense if he wasn't a source and you are a full of shit attention whore. You get to make news, get people thinking "well it could have been his guy!" but then if it comes out he wasn't, you can deny everything saying "Well I never claimed he was a source, just that his murder was for unknown reasons!"
To me, it seems that Assanage will say pretty much anything these days to get himself in the spotlight and hence this wishywashy crap. He needs to knock it off. If the guy was a source, come out and claim it in unequivocal terms, or just say nothing. Don't insinuate.
Netflix isn't useful because it is so low bandwidth. Sure if you are using ADSL maybe it is relevant but for most fast connections even if the connection is working for shit Netflix will still be fine. A Netflix stream is literally about 2% of my Internet speed for an HD stream.
Ookla can be useful but requires some work on the part of the end user. As you say, you need to test off your ISP. Mine does by default (my ISP, Cox, has a Speedtest server but for internal use only). Realistically, you should test to a neighboring state to get a good idea of how your connection does if it goes through a number of hops. HOWEVER you have to be careful because a lot of Speedtest servers are garbage. They don't have much bandwidth, or apply limits to each connection so you can test your connection on a server and get a shit result, only to choose another one in the same city and get full bandwidth. DSLReports seems to have a much better speedtest program overall, less reliant on users making good choices.
However all that aside, it only tells part of the story as it tells what a particular user has right then, not what they could. That someone only chooses to buy slow Internet doesn't mean that only slow Internet is available. Like here Cox will sell you a plan as slow as 5 Mbps or as fast as 300 Mbps. So should they really get shit for slow internet if someone chooses their slow plan, when the fast one is available? Also people are sometimes their own enemies in slow speed tests. I've known a couple of people that actually had faster Internet service than they were getting because of their equipment. Guy I know was paying for Cox's standard package, which is 50 Mbps, but he had an old DOCSIS 2 modem and a Linksys WRTG54 router. Net effect he got 20ish Mbps because of slow modem, slow router, and G wireless. He got a new DOCSIS 3 modem, new AC router, and now everything is operating at full speed.
I really don't know of a good way to get a single metric for Internet speed. You need to consider what speed(s) are available, how much it costs, how fast it is to various places on the 'net, etc.
You can tell from the fact that the are talking about "using up" a year's allotment of clean air. Uhhhh... No. Air doesn't work like that. While we can, and do, pollute the air we don't "use it up." What's more in terms of breathable air, pollutants in it are a local problem, not global. So in given areas there is heavy pollution that causes the air to be poor quality for breathing, however the amount is very small compared to the total amount on the planet and it doesn't cause a decrease in quality globally.
This is another activist group. They aren't doing science, they are pushing a point of view. Science on CO2 is about it causing more thermal retention, leading to a long term increase in average temperatures. It isn't about "using up" a certain amount in a year.