Not through plane tickets, through taxes and all the additional "fees" added to each airline ticket by the government. As for booking on a "Prop Job". Do a price, and flight time, comparison for that option for the average traveller to an overseas destination and see just how practical that suggestion really is. Keeping in mind that if if lands at any major airport, you haven't managed to avoid the security mess (including costs) that was the whole point of the exercise.
This sort of policy isn't determined in the prime minister's office, and the level at which it's decided hasn't likely changed. Even if it had, I can't imagine it would make much difference. The parties aren't anywhere near as different from each other as they'd like you to believe.
Do you really think Canada won't match this idiocy? They've done it for pretty much every other US stupidity, I can't imagine this would be any different.
Canada has a history of matching US idiocy immediately pretty much every time. I can almost guarantee you'll do no better flying in to Canada, as much as I wish we could be seen as a bastion of sanity.
Airlines don't pay for the scanners, you do. The scanners will continue to multiply because the people selling them have bought the privilege of doing so.
My concern isn't with what the US decides to do to people flying in and out of their country. There's no way I'd subject myself to that anyway. My concern is that these horrible policies tend to be adopted by everyone else shortly afterwards. It's why I still can't take my water bottle on any flight despite there having never in the history of aviation ever been a credible threat related to liquids. (though at least I can keep my shoes on...) Security theatre started in the US, and spread quickly to pretty much everywhere else. I just don't want to find that my own country is next with these stupid rules.
Apparently you haven't heard. The definition of terrorism specifically excludes anyone with white skin. If they aren't muslim it's just "crime" or a "tragedy" only foreigners are "terrorists"
While there's probably some correlation between people who are developers, and people who have github accounts, I'm quite certain that it's not anywhere near accurate enough to get any sense for the quantity of developers.
They've done the equivalent of counting the number of people who buy groceries at one of the major food chains and assuming that they're all chefs.
"Anybody who writes code"? is that really a sensible metric though? Does the purpose or quantity of that code count?
Compare to other industries. If I make myself a sandwich at home and I a chef? If I replace the faucet in my bathroom am I a plumber?
If I have my own tiny webpage and an rpi that I tinker with in my spare time, am I a developer?
I would never call myself a developer, any more than I would call myself a chef or a plumber, but I have done all of the above. I have a github account, so I guess I'm skewing the numbers.
Meanwhile I would never describe myself as a developer, but I do have a github account. I tinker with the occasional thing at home, an rpi for this or that, or my own server that I "play" with. Having a few web pages, and a bit of home automation does not make me a "developer" but I might be counted in this.
I think they need to realize what while there is probably some overlap between developers and account holders, neither one is a good indication of the actual quantity of the other.
I think you'd find the risk can be mitigated significantly by simply not allowing Samba to connect to the Internet, I can't think of any reason why you'd do that anyway. It's designed for local resource sharing, not Internet transfers.
I shy away from anything with smooth plastic as I like to be able to hold on to my phone without dropping it. My note4 has a textured back. Easier to hold and doesn't hold prints either. The fascination with smooth backs on phones is a disaster in every regard.
The worst part about that list is that many of the items on it were superior in many ways to their competitor, but due to Sony's greed failed to catch on. Sony has come up with some great products, they just need to realize that nobody wants hardware that isn't compatible with anyone else's, and none of the competitors are willing to pay the kind of royalties Sony wants, even if the end product is better.
Beyond that though, Sony did at one point in the past stand for quality. There's a reason people wanted a real Walkman and not a rip-off. The Walkman was simply a better machine. Same with many of their products. Now though the quality of Sony stuff isn't "bad", but it's also no better than any of their competitors, but they often try to charge a premium for the brand. The brand just isn't worth a premium any more.
Are you sure your phone isn't a key to any of those things? Odds are good that it *is* a key to your bank account.
I think you misunderstood my point. The point is that my phone is "guarded" by me, and doesn't get left unattended in random parking lots like my car, left alone for hours or days at a time like my house, or completely unsupervised (by me) like my bank.
If someone wants to steal my car, they are far better to grab my key fob than my phone, they're both in the same pocket, but one requires no authentication, while the other requires a fingerprint. Same idea for my money, they could take my phone, unlock it with a fake fingerprint, then enter the pin number they shoulder surfed earlier on the banking app, or they could just swipe the credit card from my wallet in my other pocket.
I'm not saying my car/home/bank need higher security than my phone does, (because as you rightly point out, the phone accesses those very things) I'm saying that the fact that my phone is being carried by me adds to the security beyond what the fingerprint provides. Maybe I should clarify. If my new car came with a key fob with a fingerprint reader built in, that would increase the security. However if it came with a fingerprint reader on the driver's door instead of a keyfob, that would decrease the security. Same idea with the house, if there was a fingerprint reader integrated in to my key, the security would be increased, if the deadbolt used a fingerprint instead of a key, the security would be decreased. For the bank, if there was a fingerprint reader integrated in to the credit card, security increases, if you use a fingerprint instead of your card, security is decreased.
As for iris being better than fingerprint. Yes and no. I suspect that the speed and accuracy of the fingerprint scanner adds more to it's convenience than the iris scanner, along with an immunity to sunglasses, bright glare, etc. Additionally, despite leaving my prints on my phone, the odds of retrieving one that is clear enough to work with are relatively low. Especially being that my phone was built before the obsession with high gloss backplates that make it impossible to hold on to your phone and hold fingerprints well.
I think by now everyone on Slashdot knows that biometrics provide very little actual security. That said, they do provide a very real solution to a very real problem. My phone has too much information on it to leave completely unprotected, but at the same time, I unlock it so many times a day that entering a long and complex passphrase each time is impractical. Now that said, the phone situation is also not like any other computer security issue either. I pay pretty close attention to where my phone is at all times, and that place is usually on my person. So it could be argued that it doesn't need as much security. It is in very real terms not much different that way from my wallet, and a thief doesn't need to pass any authentication at all if he steals my wallet, and that contains not only cash and credit cards, but also my ID, which would be enough to steal my whole identity.
I see the fingerprint authentication on my phone as being enough to stop my toddler from doing too much harm to my settings, or my friends from pranking me at the bar, it's also enough to foil the vast majority of casual pickpockets. It won't protect me against any government agency, or dedicated crime syndicate, but really, who am I fooling, neither of those groups is going to care about my phone, and if they do, there's no authentication I could put on it that will actually provide real protection from them (between "rubber hose" attacks, and whatever hacking tool they've found and not released yet)
Now if I was asked to use biometrics to authenticate my car, house, workplace, or bank account, I'd object a lot more, after all, those things are often left unattended, and the incentive for a malicious party to get in to them is much higher than my phone.
Movie and TV shows are one thing, sure there's some great CC stuff out there, but it's not what people talk about around the water cooler. But that's only part of it. Do you really think Bitcoin will win against all the banks, credit card companies, and things like Android pay, Apple pay, etc? Because Bitcoin will be your only financial institution if you don't want to go to a physical branch and deal with a human teller for everything. And believe me, those physical branches will start to become pretty rare. But it won't stop there either. Every interaction you have online with any company will require that you are using a "trusted" browser, which will only run on a "trusted" operating system, on "trusted" hardware. And more and more of your interactions will be online. Forget online shopping, forget managing your utility or telecom accounts online, etc. How long until your ISP devices is too risky to even let you connect to the Internet at all with "unsupported" equipment?
I'm not saying I like it, it scares me a lot to lose the very concept of product ownership, but I see the writing on the wall, and batting some major change that I really don't expect to see, it's a matter now of when, not if. Every step will be sold under the guise of security, even though the real purpose is vendor lock in.
It's not the software. Do you know of a FOSS Bank? How about a FOSS movie studio?
Computers aren't just for word processing any more. You can do anything you want to locally, but if you want to interact with the wider world there will be restrictions. Is already started.
I hate it as much as anyone, and lament the loss of the very concept of product ownership, but realistically it's gone. Is just a matter of time now.
You miss the fact that you won't be allowed to do anything on your unlocked computer. Online banking? Nope, go see a teller. Watching media? Not a chance Gaming? That will be locked out too
Look at Android, even simple survey apps are starting to check for root!
You'll be able to have an unlocked computer all you want, you just won't be able to do anything with it.
Just wait. Soon running Linux will be as convenient as running rooted Android, sure, you CAN do it, but you'll have to give up the ability to watch any (legal) media, or do any online financial transactions, etc.
Computers are going the way of smartphones, completely locked down, and even if you break the lock, you'll lose the ability to do half the things you want to do on a daily basis.
It took you a month 10 years ago, today it would only take a minute, I can't believe the improvements to Linux since I switched completely back around 2000
Linux is far easier to use than Windows, and it "just works", no fiddling with drivers, no searching for codecs, you just use it. Every time I have to sit down in front of a Windows machine for any reason I cringe, they're slow, unintuitive, and incredibly difficult to configure to do what you need. I don't want to spend hours trying to figure out how to do the simplest tasks, I just want it to work.
Everyone who claims Linux isn't the alternative either: - has never tried Linux - last tried Linux in the mid '90s - is a paid shill for MS - is part of an extremely tiny minority of users who uses one of the very few applications that refuse to run on Linux and have no practical alternative (and even most people who think they belong to this group don't as their app has a replacement in Linux that they haven't been willing to consider, or runs just fine in wine)
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Not through plane tickets, through taxes and all the additional "fees" added to each airline ticket by the government.
As for booking on a "Prop Job". Do a price, and flight time, comparison for that option for the average traveller to an overseas destination and see just how practical that suggestion really is. Keeping in mind that if if lands at any major airport, you haven't managed to avoid the security mess (including costs) that was the whole point of the exercise.
This sort of policy isn't determined in the prime minister's office, and the level at which it's decided hasn't likely changed.
Even if it had, I can't imagine it would make much difference. The parties aren't anywhere near as different from each other as they'd like you to believe.
Do you really think Canada won't match this idiocy? They've done it for pretty much every other US stupidity, I can't imagine this would be any different.
Canada has a history of matching US idiocy immediately pretty much every time. I can almost guarantee you'll do no better flying in to Canada, as much as I wish we could be seen as a bastion of sanity.
Assuming Canada doesn't follow suit immediately like they've done every other time? I'm not exactly holding my breath.
Airlines don't pay for the scanners, you do. The scanners will continue to multiply because the people selling them have bought the privilege of doing so.
My concern isn't with what the US decides to do to people flying in and out of their country. There's no way I'd subject myself to that anyway.
My concern is that these horrible policies tend to be adopted by everyone else shortly afterwards. It's why I still can't take my water bottle on any flight despite there having never in the history of aviation ever been a credible threat related to liquids. (though at least I can keep my shoes on...)
Security theatre started in the US, and spread quickly to pretty much everywhere else. I just don't want to find that my own country is next with these stupid rules.
Apparently you haven't heard. The definition of terrorism specifically excludes anyone with white skin. If they aren't muslim it's just "crime" or a "tragedy" only foreigners are "terrorists"
Best? or most popular? The two aren't necessarily correlated.
Exactly.
While there's probably some correlation between people who are developers, and people who have github accounts, I'm quite certain that it's not anywhere near accurate enough to get any sense for the quantity of developers.
They've done the equivalent of counting the number of people who buy groceries at one of the major food chains and assuming that they're all chefs.
"Anybody who writes code"? is that really a sensible metric though?
Does the purpose or quantity of that code count?
Compare to other industries. If I make myself a sandwich at home and I a chef? If I replace the faucet in my bathroom am I a plumber?
If I have my own tiny webpage and an rpi that I tinker with in my spare time, am I a developer?
I would never call myself a developer, any more than I would call myself a chef or a plumber, but I have done all of the above. I have a github account, so I guess I'm skewing the numbers.
Meanwhile I would never describe myself as a developer, but I do have a github account.
I tinker with the occasional thing at home, an rpi for this or that, or my own server that I "play" with. Having a few web pages, and a bit of home automation does not make me a "developer" but I might be counted in this.
I think they need to realize what while there is probably some overlap between developers and account holders, neither one is a good indication of the actual quantity of the other.
I think you'd find the risk can be mitigated significantly by simply not allowing Samba to connect to the Internet, I can't think of any reason why you'd do that anyway. It's designed for local resource sharing, not Internet transfers.
Checking your inputs before working with them? that there is CRAZY talk!
I shy away from anything with smooth plastic as I like to be able to hold on to my phone without dropping it. My note4 has a textured back. Easier to hold and doesn't hold prints either. The fascination with smooth backs on phones is a disaster in every regard.
The worst part about that list is that many of the items on it were superior in many ways to their competitor, but due to Sony's greed failed to catch on.
Sony has come up with some great products, they just need to realize that nobody wants hardware that isn't compatible with anyone else's, and none of the competitors are willing to pay the kind of royalties Sony wants, even if the end product is better.
Beyond that though, Sony did at one point in the past stand for quality. There's a reason people wanted a real Walkman and not a rip-off. The Walkman was simply a better machine. Same with many of their products. Now though the quality of Sony stuff isn't "bad", but it's also no better than any of their competitors, but they often try to charge a premium for the brand. The brand just isn't worth a premium any more.
Are you sure your phone isn't a key to any of those things? Odds are good that it *is* a key to your bank account.
I think you misunderstood my point. The point is that my phone is "guarded" by me, and doesn't get left unattended in random parking lots like my car, left alone for hours or days at a time like my house, or completely unsupervised (by me) like my bank.
If someone wants to steal my car, they are far better to grab my key fob than my phone, they're both in the same pocket, but one requires no authentication, while the other requires a fingerprint. Same idea for my money, they could take my phone, unlock it with a fake fingerprint, then enter the pin number they shoulder surfed earlier on the banking app, or they could just swipe the credit card from my wallet in my other pocket.
I'm not saying my car/home/bank need higher security than my phone does, (because as you rightly point out, the phone accesses those very things) I'm saying that the fact that my phone is being carried by me adds to the security beyond what the fingerprint provides.
Maybe I should clarify. If my new car came with a key fob with a fingerprint reader built in, that would increase the security. However if it came with a fingerprint reader on the driver's door instead of a keyfob, that would decrease the security. Same idea with the house, if there was a fingerprint reader integrated in to my key, the security would be increased, if the deadbolt used a fingerprint instead of a key, the security would be decreased. For the bank, if there was a fingerprint reader integrated in to the credit card, security increases, if you use a fingerprint instead of your card, security is decreased.
As for iris being better than fingerprint. Yes and no. I suspect that the speed and accuracy of the fingerprint scanner adds more to it's convenience than the iris scanner, along with an immunity to sunglasses, bright glare, etc. Additionally, despite leaving my prints on my phone, the odds of retrieving one that is clear enough to work with are relatively low. Especially being that my phone was built before the obsession with high gloss backplates that make it impossible to hold on to your phone and hold fingerprints well.
If they can fake the iris, don't you think they could figure out how to fake an eyelid closing?
I think by now everyone on Slashdot knows that biometrics provide very little actual security. That said, they do provide a very real solution to a very real problem. My phone has too much information on it to leave completely unprotected, but at the same time, I unlock it so many times a day that entering a long and complex passphrase each time is impractical.
Now that said, the phone situation is also not like any other computer security issue either. I pay pretty close attention to where my phone is at all times, and that place is usually on my person. So it could be argued that it doesn't need as much security. It is in very real terms not much different that way from my wallet, and a thief doesn't need to pass any authentication at all if he steals my wallet, and that contains not only cash and credit cards, but also my ID, which would be enough to steal my whole identity.
I see the fingerprint authentication on my phone as being enough to stop my toddler from doing too much harm to my settings, or my friends from pranking me at the bar, it's also enough to foil the vast majority of casual pickpockets. It won't protect me against any government agency, or dedicated crime syndicate, but really, who am I fooling, neither of those groups is going to care about my phone, and if they do, there's no authentication I could put on it that will actually provide real protection from them (between "rubber hose" attacks, and whatever hacking tool they've found and not released yet)
Now if I was asked to use biometrics to authenticate my car, house, workplace, or bank account, I'd object a lot more, after all, those things are often left unattended, and the incentive for a malicious party to get in to them is much higher than my phone.
Movie and TV shows are one thing, sure there's some great CC stuff out there, but it's not what people talk about around the water cooler. But that's only part of it. Do you really think Bitcoin will win against all the banks, credit card companies, and things like Android pay, Apple pay, etc? Because Bitcoin will be your only financial institution if you don't want to go to a physical branch and deal with a human teller for everything. And believe me, those physical branches will start to become pretty rare. But it won't stop there either. Every interaction you have online with any company will require that you are using a "trusted" browser, which will only run on a "trusted" operating system, on "trusted" hardware. And more and more of your interactions will be online.
Forget online shopping, forget managing your utility or telecom accounts online, etc. How long until your ISP devices is too risky to even let you connect to the Internet at all with "unsupported" equipment?
I'm not saying I like it, it scares me a lot to lose the very concept of product ownership, but I see the writing on the wall, and batting some major change that I really don't expect to see, it's a matter now of when, not if. Every step will be sold under the guise of security, even though the real purpose is vendor lock in.
It's not the software. Do you know of a FOSS Bank? How about a FOSS movie studio?
Computers aren't just for word processing any more. You can do anything you want to locally, but if you want to interact with the wider world there will be restrictions. Is already started.
I hate it as much as anyone, and lament the loss of the very concept of product ownership, but realistically it's gone. Is just a matter of time now.
You miss the fact that you won't be allowed to do anything on your unlocked computer.
Online banking? Nope, go see a teller.
Watching media? Not a chance
Gaming? That will be locked out too
Look at Android, even simple survey apps are starting to check for root!
You'll be able to have an unlocked computer all you want, you just won't be able to do anything with it.
First they came for the....
Just wait. Soon running Linux will be as convenient as running rooted Android, sure, you CAN do it, but you'll have to give up the ability to watch any (legal) media, or do any online financial transactions, etc.
Computers are going the way of smartphones, completely locked down, and even if you break the lock, you'll lose the ability to do half the things you want to do on a daily basis.
It took you a month 10 years ago, today it would only take a minute, I can't believe the improvements to Linux since I switched completely back around 2000
Linux is far easier to use than Windows, and it "just works", no fiddling with drivers, no searching for codecs, you just use it. Every time I have to sit down in front of a Windows machine for any reason I cringe, they're slow, unintuitive, and incredibly difficult to configure to do what you need. I don't want to spend hours trying to figure out how to do the simplest tasks, I just want it to work.
Everyone who claims Linux isn't the alternative either:
- has never tried Linux
- last tried Linux in the mid '90s
- is a paid shill for MS
- is part of an extremely tiny minority of users who uses one of the very few applications that refuse to run on Linux and have no practical alternative (and even most people who think they belong to this group don't as their app has a replacement in Linux that they haven't been willing to consider, or runs just fine in wine)