Yes, that's an artifact of the fact that the tech industry feels that it can fail to provide workers with a future.
In no small part because we have politicians obsessed with the bottom line of corporations, as if a profitable corporation which is taking huge chunks out of the economy is somehow good for the rest of the economy. The reality is, it isn't.
It's short sighted thinking that somehow equates corporate profits with national prosperity, when in fact it's transferring wages to the bottom line of corporations.
This bullshit line that shareholder value drives the economy instead of the people who actually work in the economy is slowly killing us. It maximizes the return for rich people and ignores how that 'value' gets generated.
'Shareholder value' has become the altar on which jobs are sacrificed. And except for the rich people who own the stocks, this doesn't help the country or the economy in the long run. Essentially it's a wealth transfer upwards at the expense of everybody else, and shareholder value is just people skimming off the top without actually contributing to any part of the economy -- except that of the banking industry and the wealthy.
Globalization is a lie in which corporations suck up all the money and leave us with neither money nor jobs, and politicians lie to us and tell us this is the road to prosperity.
BOHICA
Now there's a phrase I've not heard in a while, but absolutely yes.
As long as we keep believing these lies, again and again seems to be what we'll be getting.
And yet, I simply don't give a fuck if you think my reasons are valid or not. They're my damned reasons, they don't have to make sense to you or anybody else.
But they're based on an actual experience, and your opinion of them is irrelevant.
This was a decade (more?) ago, and when Microsoft started putting ads into a Tiger Woods golf game, the fact that I don't give a crap about connected gaming was only reinforced.
Either I have to deal with the other gamers, or the assholes who think my video game experience is theirs to monetize.
You should trust prosecutors as much as you trust law enforcement isn't committing perjury by doing parallel construction: not at all. The truth and the law is entirely malleable.
Unfortunately, once a judge rules it admissible, the onus is on you to provide your own expert to refute the data. Which means if they really want to convict you, they can probably fabricate the data, and the rest is just truthiness.
Or, alternately, they might actually get a conviction by providing actual data and convicting a guilty person.
If it wasn't so damned depressing, this game would be fun... now there's almost nothing so far fetched as to actually be crazy, and now the most paranoid theories are plausible, and rooted in fact.
Scary shit, isn't it? Turns out the tinfoil doesn't do a fucking thing.
Pure speculation: two towers can triangulate, three more so, combine with the fact that your phone likely has GPS, and that it needs to send a constant beacon, has things like accelerometers, altimeters, and other sensors...
Oh, and don't forget the link the GP includes is for the UK, which means they could fill in the gaps with video surveillance.
My guess is it is possible to fairly accurately reconstruct your movements by combining all of these things.
None of this stuff is designed to be kept secret from the cell company, and the EULA of all those shiny apps says they can access it, and probably are doing so constantly and reporting it somewhere.
The technology we find so convenient is quite readily used against us. Both because it tells everything about what you do, and is readily obtained by law enforcement, even if they ignore the laws to do it. Because they can always use those Stingray things.
Nobody should be the least bit surprised. Welcome to the creepy distopian future.
There's a chance the GP is bragging and pulling your leg. But I have no reason to disbelieve that modern surveillance can do all he claims... we've helped build the infrastructure required for this by not being able to live without smartphones.
If you're thinking this is all implausible, then I'm afraid you've really not been paying attention to what's happening lately.
I tried an MMO game once.. not 100% sure of which one, I think there was supposed to be some space involved, but I never saw it... since I'm not a wizard at FPS combat (which is a massive understatement) and I wanted to look around to see what the game was all about and what it had and explore the world and see stuff... after 30 minutes of constantly getting killed, respawning in the same place, and getting killed again... well, I disconnected and have never connected to an MMO in the first place.
I had heard there might be an interesting world to explore, some potential to do some interesting role-playing, and see neat an interesting things. In reality, I don't think I ever got past the first 50 feet or so of the starting point before getting killed. Repeatedly, pointlessly, from all angles.
That wasn't a fucking game. Not to me it wasn't.
That pretty much cemented for me that I will never play any form of online game ever again. The rest of the idiots basically preclude any new players from finding any enjoyment in it.
And since I wasn't interested in engaging in combat, but exploring the virtual world, there was literally no redeeming quality to the game for me.
Honestly, now if I want to game, I'll play some Skyrim and ignore the plot and major quests for the most part. If there's a massive open roamer where you can explore and not really do anything with the combat system, it might be cool.
But then I doubt anybody else would play it, because apparently killing off weaker characters is somehow entertaining to far too many people.
If MMO means getting constantly killed by every asshole who does that for fun, I don't want to have anything to do with it.
That sounds good and all, but they're still going to want to pay some company for support. Any government that's too incompetent to manage licensing properly should not be trusted with supporting their software.
Have you ever dealt with Oracle licensing, or are you just spouting off?
Because I can guarantee you, Oracle fucks over corporations and governments about the same.
Oracle is legendary for this stuff.
I can also tell you for a lot of applications, the choice is Oracle, and SQL server. And no matter what Microsoft tells you (who is also trying to fuck you over on licensing), for many applications SQL server just can't do the same job.
The vendor of the software needing the DB won't support your open source platform, or anything else.
If you haven't heard about Oracle's licensing practices or think this is inept governments, then you really have no idea of what you're talking about.
The problem is in how Oracle defines the need for licenses.
Got 200 systems, and all of your users could in theory touch those systems... whammo, they want full licensing for each instance for each user. Oracle makes it into a technical concern.
Want to add more cores? Give us more money. Want to make something accessible via the internet? Give us more money. Want another instance? Start from scratch on that instance, give us more money, then give us more money, and finally we'll tack a little more money on.
There really is no limit to the amount of money Oracle feels entitled to, and if you don't have one central entity handling all of your licenses, you're screwed. And, really, having one central entity doesn't guarantee you a damned thing.
As far as Oracle is concerned, it's # of cores x # of theoretical users x # of instances x how much they can get away with.
Oracle's price gouging is pretty much legendary. And most anybody who has it has gone through this has seen it.
What is this bullshit? Why the hell must everybody want kids?
My wife and I want no damned part in raising children. Neither of us have ever wanted children. We don't generally like children.
To borrow your false dilemma, are you a moron or an asshole?
Why the hell does every smug idiot with children think the rest of us give a damn or want one of the little mewling puking brats?
I don't begrudge you having kids, so get over it if some of us choose not to.
But it's not like some of us haven't had to work with someone who is conveniently never available after hours because of their children. So we're supposed to cover all of those times so you can spend time parenting?
Why would we do that again? Because we think you parenting is such an awesome thing?
You are the one saying this is just a move. Did you write the code? Do you know what it does?
Or are you just naively deciding the bug must be in moving windows because that's what you think it is?
There's a lot of pieces to a window manager and a graphic driver.
Obviously, some of these are interacting and causing the crash. Saying must be something specific... well, that's the nature of bugs, you have to do the right things to trigger them.
If it was "just moving windows", the crash would happen all the time. Which means it's probably more complicated than your oversimplified explanation.
When it comes to new features by Microsoft, that's pretty much what I do. Because time and time again they've proven me right.
I have no interest in those live tiles because they annoy the hell out of me and aren't anything I want. In parallel to that is my firm belief that Microsoft focuses on shiny baubles, and consistently does a shit job of security.
On more than one occasion when people have predicted a new feature would become an exploit, Microsoft is happy to prove that correct.
Not wanting the eye candy and not trusting the eye candy is my choice.
The addition of a smartphone, the use of a headphone jack, and the intention to make it simple to use for small businesses.
Which means you should just start out assuming that it has, like every piece of consumer technology these days, absolutely terrible security.. if any at all.
Every damned week we see yet another piece of consumer tech which has almost zero security. Assuming this is true should be your default position.
What kind of bubble have you lived in that with a Slashdot id that low you still put any faith in this crap? Because weekly for the last decade or so is evidence to the contrary.
An app and a headphone jack simply can't graft security onto a smartphone.
Did anybody expect us to believe something you plugged into a cell phone speaker jack was actually secure in any sense of the word?
Here's a good rule of thumb: if it's a piece of consumer electronics, or involves your phone... it's probably got terrible security.
The first time I saw a commercial for that I pretty much said "yeah, I would not trust a vendor who uses one of those".
The damned thing is almost guaranteed to be something which can be exploited. Sadly, just like every other piece of consumer electronics which tries to add network connectivity.
Companies don't care about, don't know about, and aren't accountable for security. Stop trusting that they do.
Most tech firms are busy out-sourcing or bringing in H1Bs/temporary foreign workers.
Theyr'e trying to get rid of expensive things like employees with benefits, and replace them with scared wage slaves who can be easily replaced if they do something pesky like getting sick.
Corporations want more "at will" employment, not a scenario in which they offer more benefits.
But don't worry, the executives and management are still well looked after.
This is the kind of thing you offer to employees you with to retain, not the disposable ones most companies want.
Right, because I trust every vendor when they tell me how the new hotness is 100% safe and secure.
We'll see what time and reality bears out.
If it's secure, awesome. If not, well, my cynicism will be well founded.
Over the long term, my cynicism has proven to be established by what happens in reality. So you'll excuse me if I don't simply take that claim on faith.
Microsoft is not someone who I take their security claims at face value, they'll have to earn that over a lot of years, because my distrust is a lot of years in the making.
It's a widget which grabs content from the internet. It was insecure when it was "Live Desktop" in XP, it was insecure when it was "Gadgets" in Vista and Windows 7.
Microsoft claims the apps are more secure, but honestly, who really knows?
My assumption is, like all new stuff, it's probably got holes nobody has identified or admitted to knowing about.
They keep trying to have these things, and then they subsequently discover they've got giant security holes in them. I just assume these ones do too.
I find them annoying as hell, and utterly pointless.
But given that Microsoft has tried this live content crap several times before, and had to pull them precisely because they were security exploits... I was surprised to see them be such a prominent feature of Windows 8.
Not only do I think the widgetification of the desktop is annoying as hell, and nothing I want, I fail to see something which they've deprecated (in XP, Vista, and I believe Windows 7) as a security risk should be deemed safer now. It's a widget with access to the internet, what could possibly go wrong?
I just assume building things which gives 3rd parties the ability to live update crap on my desktop is going to be insecure.
That, and I don't want a screen full of blinking and flashing crap in front of me. Hiding that god awful screen was one of the first things I did on my Windows 8.1 box.
Now, ask yourself, which nation states are most actively advancing corporate interests because their politicians are on the payroll?
This is the world being taken over by corrupt politicians who report only the those corporations, which means the rest of the world needs to be looking at these "trade" treaties and asking "in what way does this benefit our citizens, our economy, or our jobs".
Because the short answer is "it doesn't, it maximizes corporate profits at the expense of everybody else".
We're basically being robbed to allow multinationals carve up the world for themselves. And it's being championed by politicians who are lining their pockets at our expense.
Yet more proof we live in a global oligarchy, championed by assholes, who have stacked the deck so heavily in favor of corporations the rest of us are completely fucked.
Everything in these damned treaties are about maximizing the profits of multinational corporations, and don't benefit the citizens.
The treaties are basically theft on a global scale designed to give corporations more rights than people.
This is really American politicians fucking over everybody else in the world because they're so undeniably on the fucking payroll of the corporations it isn't even funny.
It is now pretty much a moral imperative we either start eating the rich, or start copyright infringement on such a massive scale they simply can't do anything about it.
We've sold the farm on the bullshit promise that what is good for greedy assholes and corporations somehow uplifts us all, when nothing could be further from the truth.
The pressing problems we need to solve in the world haven't got a fucking thing to do with copyright.
Slashdot Mirror
Can we stop calling you guys 'editors', and just get on with 'clowns who post story submissions'.
Because it's quite clear you don't actually, you know, edit.
In no small part because we have politicians obsessed with the bottom line of corporations, as if a profitable corporation which is taking huge chunks out of the economy is somehow good for the rest of the economy. The reality is, it isn't.
It's short sighted thinking that somehow equates corporate profits with national prosperity, when in fact it's transferring wages to the bottom line of corporations.
This bullshit line that shareholder value drives the economy instead of the people who actually work in the economy is slowly killing us. It maximizes the return for rich people and ignores how that 'value' gets generated.
'Shareholder value' has become the altar on which jobs are sacrificed. And except for the rich people who own the stocks, this doesn't help the country or the economy in the long run. Essentially it's a wealth transfer upwards at the expense of everybody else, and shareholder value is just people skimming off the top without actually contributing to any part of the economy -- except that of the banking industry and the wealthy.
Globalization is a lie in which corporations suck up all the money and leave us with neither money nor jobs, and politicians lie to us and tell us this is the road to prosperity.
Now there's a phrase I've not heard in a while, but absolutely yes.
As long as we keep believing these lies, again and again seems to be what we'll be getting.
And yet, I simply don't give a fuck if you think my reasons are valid or not. They're my damned reasons, they don't have to make sense to you or anybody else.
But they're based on an actual experience, and your opinion of them is irrelevant.
This was a decade (more?) ago, and when Microsoft started putting ads into a Tiger Woods golf game, the fact that I don't give a crap about connected gaming was only reinforced.
Either I have to deal with the other gamers, or the assholes who think my video game experience is theirs to monetize.
You should trust prosecutors as much as you trust law enforcement isn't committing perjury by doing parallel construction: not at all. The truth and the law is entirely malleable.
Unfortunately, once a judge rules it admissible, the onus is on you to provide your own expert to refute the data. Which means if they really want to convict you, they can probably fabricate the data, and the rest is just truthiness.
Or, alternately, they might actually get a conviction by providing actual data and convicting a guilty person.
If it wasn't so damned depressing, this game would be fun ... now there's almost nothing so far fetched as to actually be crazy, and now the most paranoid theories are plausible, and rooted in fact.
Scary shit, isn't it? Turns out the tinfoil doesn't do a fucking thing.
Pure speculation: two towers can triangulate, three more so, combine with the fact that your phone likely has GPS, and that it needs to send a constant beacon, has things like accelerometers, altimeters, and other sensors ...
Oh, and don't forget the link the GP includes is for the UK, which means they could fill in the gaps with video surveillance.
My guess is it is possible to fairly accurately reconstruct your movements by combining all of these things.
None of this stuff is designed to be kept secret from the cell company, and the EULA of all those shiny apps says they can access it, and probably are doing so constantly and reporting it somewhere.
The technology we find so convenient is quite readily used against us. Both because it tells everything about what you do, and is readily obtained by law enforcement, even if they ignore the laws to do it. Because they can always use those Stingray things.
Nobody should be the least bit surprised. Welcome to the creepy distopian future.
There's a chance the GP is bragging and pulling your leg. But I have no reason to disbelieve that modern surveillance can do all he claims ... we've helped build the infrastructure required for this by not being able to live without smartphones.
If you're thinking this is all implausible, then I'm afraid you've really not been paying attention to what's happening lately.
I tried an MMO game once .. not 100% sure of which one, I think there was supposed to be some space involved, but I never saw it ... since I'm not a wizard at FPS combat (which is a massive understatement) and I wanted to look around to see what the game was all about and what it had and explore the world and see stuff ... after 30 minutes of constantly getting killed, respawning in the same place, and getting killed again ... well, I disconnected and have never connected to an MMO in the first place.
I had heard there might be an interesting world to explore, some potential to do some interesting role-playing, and see neat an interesting things. In reality, I don't think I ever got past the first 50 feet or so of the starting point before getting killed. Repeatedly, pointlessly, from all angles.
That wasn't a fucking game. Not to me it wasn't.
That pretty much cemented for me that I will never play any form of online game ever again. The rest of the idiots basically preclude any new players from finding any enjoyment in it.
And since I wasn't interested in engaging in combat, but exploring the virtual world, there was literally no redeeming quality to the game for me.
Honestly, now if I want to game, I'll play some Skyrim and ignore the plot and major quests for the most part. If there's a massive open roamer where you can explore and not really do anything with the combat system, it might be cool.
But then I doubt anybody else would play it, because apparently killing off weaker characters is somehow entertaining to far too many people.
If MMO means getting constantly killed by every asshole who does that for fun, I don't want to have anything to do with it.
Well, for some of us, simply cutting out on-line gaming is an alternative.
I don't want my gaming experience to be on someone else's timetable, or get mugged by someone who thinks that's fun.
My first few on-line gaming experiences basically told me I didn't like it at all. For some of us, on-line gaming is a negative, not a feature.
Have you ever dealt with Oracle licensing, or are you just spouting off?
Because I can guarantee you, Oracle fucks over corporations and governments about the same.
Oracle is legendary for this stuff.
I can also tell you for a lot of applications, the choice is Oracle, and SQL server. And no matter what Microsoft tells you (who is also trying to fuck you over on licensing), for many applications SQL server just can't do the same job.
The vendor of the software needing the DB won't support your open source platform, or anything else.
If you haven't heard about Oracle's licensing practices or think this is inept governments, then you really have no idea of what you're talking about.
The problem is in how Oracle defines the need for licenses.
Got 200 systems, and all of your users could in theory touch those systems ... whammo, they want full licensing for each instance for each user. Oracle makes it into a technical concern.
Want to add more cores? Give us more money. Want to make something accessible via the internet? Give us more money. Want another instance? Start from scratch on that instance, give us more money, then give us more money, and finally we'll tack a little more money on.
There really is no limit to the amount of money Oracle feels entitled to, and if you don't have one central entity handling all of your licenses, you're screwed. And, really, having one central entity doesn't guarantee you a damned thing.
As far as Oracle is concerned, it's # of cores x # of theoretical users x # of instances x how much they can get away with.
Oracle's price gouging is pretty much legendary. And most anybody who has it has gone through this has seen it.
What is this bullshit? Why the hell must everybody want kids?
My wife and I want no damned part in raising children. Neither of us have ever wanted children. We don't generally like children.
To borrow your false dilemma, are you a moron or an asshole?
Why the hell does every smug idiot with children think the rest of us give a damn or want one of the little mewling puking brats?
I don't begrudge you having kids, so get over it if some of us choose not to.
But it's not like some of us haven't had to work with someone who is conveniently never available after hours because of their children. So we're supposed to cover all of those times so you can spend time parenting?
Why would we do that again? Because we think you parenting is such an awesome thing?
Hell, no.
You are the one saying this is just a move. Did you write the code? Do you know what it does?
Or are you just naively deciding the bug must be in moving windows because that's what you think it is?
There's a lot of pieces to a window manager and a graphic driver.
Obviously, some of these are interacting and causing the crash. Saying must be something specific ... well, that's the nature of bugs, you have to do the right things to trigger them.
If it was "just moving windows", the crash would happen all the time. Which means it's probably more complicated than your oversimplified explanation.
When it comes to new features by Microsoft, that's pretty much what I do. Because time and time again they've proven me right.
I have no interest in those live tiles because they annoy the hell out of me and aren't anything I want. In parallel to that is my firm belief that Microsoft focuses on shiny baubles, and consistently does a shit job of security.
On more than one occasion when people have predicted a new feature would become an exploit, Microsoft is happy to prove that correct.
Not wanting the eye candy and not trusting the eye candy is my choice.
You can feel free to run any shit you choose to.
The addition of a smartphone, the use of a headphone jack, and the intention to make it simple to use for small businesses.
Which means you should just start out assuming that it has, like every piece of consumer technology these days, absolutely terrible security .. if any at all.
Every damned week we see yet another piece of consumer tech which has almost zero security. Assuming this is true should be your default position.
What kind of bubble have you lived in that with a Slashdot id that low you still put any faith in this crap? Because weekly for the last decade or so is evidence to the contrary.
An app and a headphone jack simply can't graft security onto a smartphone.
Did anybody expect us to believe something you plugged into a cell phone speaker jack was actually secure in any sense of the word?
Here's a good rule of thumb: if it's a piece of consumer electronics, or involves your phone ... it's probably got terrible security.
The first time I saw a commercial for that I pretty much said "yeah, I would not trust a vendor who uses one of those".
The damned thing is almost guaranteed to be something which can be exploited. Sadly, just like every other piece of consumer electronics which tries to add network connectivity.
Companies don't care about, don't know about, and aren't accountable for security. Stop trusting that they do.
Oddly enough ... desktops are rendered in graphics, and bugs cause strange behavior because nobody planned for them.
There's probably tons of things which can go wrong when your graphics driver has bugs in it.
In general? Absolutely not.
Most tech firms are busy out-sourcing or bringing in H1Bs/temporary foreign workers.
Theyr'e trying to get rid of expensive things like employees with benefits, and replace them with scared wage slaves who can be easily replaced if they do something pesky like getting sick.
Corporations want more "at will" employment, not a scenario in which they offer more benefits.
But don't worry, the executives and management are still well looked after.
This is the kind of thing you offer to employees you with to retain, not the disposable ones most companies want.
Right, because I trust every vendor when they tell me how the new hotness is 100% safe and secure.
We'll see what time and reality bears out.
If it's secure, awesome. If not, well, my cynicism will be well founded.
Over the long term, my cynicism has proven to be established by what happens in reality. So you'll excuse me if I don't simply take that claim on faith.
Microsoft is not someone who I take their security claims at face value, they'll have to earn that over a lot of years, because my distrust is a lot of years in the making.
Why wouldn't it be a security risk?
It's a widget which grabs content from the internet. It was insecure when it was "Live Desktop" in XP, it was insecure when it was "Gadgets" in Vista and Windows 7.
Microsoft claims the apps are more secure, but honestly, who really knows?
My assumption is, like all new stuff, it's probably got holes nobody has identified or admitted to knowing about.
They keep trying to have these things, and then they subsequently discover they've got giant security holes in them. I just assume these ones do too.
I find them annoying as hell, and utterly pointless.
But given that Microsoft has tried this live content crap several times before, and had to pull them precisely because they were security exploits ... I was surprised to see them be such a prominent feature of Windows 8.
Not only do I think the widgetification of the desktop is annoying as hell, and nothing I want, I fail to see something which they've deprecated (in XP, Vista, and I believe Windows 7) as a security risk should be deemed safer now. It's a widget with access to the internet, what could possibly go wrong?
I just assume building things which gives 3rd parties the ability to live update crap on my desktop is going to be insecure.
That, and I don't want a screen full of blinking and flashing crap in front of me. Hiding that god awful screen was one of the first things I did on my Windows 8.1 box.
No, even the corporations don't "expect" those numbers.
They use them in their bullshit calculations, but if any of them actually believe those numbers they're complete fucking morons
Not "expected" ... "completely fucking fictional".
According to corporations copyright infringement costs them more than the entire GDP of ever nation on the planet.
They basically would claim a zillion trillions dollars in losses, but that doesn't make it true.
You haven't fixed anything.
OK, then start shooting the fucking politicians and CEOs.
Now, ask yourself, which nation states are most actively advancing corporate interests because their politicians are on the payroll?
This is the world being taken over by corrupt politicians who report only the those corporations, which means the rest of the world needs to be looking at these "trade" treaties and asking "in what way does this benefit our citizens, our economy, or our jobs".
Because the short answer is "it doesn't, it maximizes corporate profits at the expense of everybody else".
We're basically being robbed to allow multinationals carve up the world for themselves. And it's being championed by politicians who are lining their pockets at our expense.
Yet more proof we live in a global oligarchy, championed by assholes, who have stacked the deck so heavily in favor of corporations the rest of us are completely fucked.
Everything in these damned treaties are about maximizing the profits of multinational corporations, and don't benefit the citizens.
The treaties are basically theft on a global scale designed to give corporations more rights than people.
This is really American politicians fucking over everybody else in the world because they're so undeniably on the fucking payroll of the corporations it isn't even funny.
It is now pretty much a moral imperative we either start eating the rich, or start copyright infringement on such a massive scale they simply can't do anything about it.
We've sold the farm on the bullshit promise that what is good for greedy assholes and corporations somehow uplifts us all, when nothing could be further from the truth.
The pressing problems we need to solve in the world haven't got a fucking thing to do with copyright.
This treaty is a terrible idea.
Potty humor is fairly universal in the English language. We got it.