I'm guessing that Microsoft debated that internally and the fact that this hasn't happened is more than accidental oversight.
If I had to suggest a reason that XP/Vista systems were not forcibly upgraded to 8/10, then it would be that the hardware/performance/memory requirements of 10 are sufficiently beyond those of XP/Vista that there is a very high probability of the update causing major problems.
Microsoft are "riding the buffet" here. They know by now that what they're doing is hugely unpopular with technically savvy people wishing to stay with i.e. W7. What they don't want is a huge slab of negative publicity and early-evening-news leaders claiming, "Microsoft's forced update just broke my PC!"
Background noise is something they can cope with, but even MS would balk at that amount of negative publicity...
Maybe I have misunderstood the practicalities of running a botnet, or perhaps there is something not quite "right" about what we're being told here.
If you deploy a piece of malware that turns a PC into a zombie, that unit can only be useful after it has been programmed to do something for the botnet ringmaster. Typically, or so we're told, zombie's are used to send spam, maybe compute bitcoins, that sort of thing...
But, since we know that in a large part of the western world [certainly in the UK] that ISPs are now required to keep extensive logs and copies of things like web searches, pages visited, emails received and so on, surely if law enforcement agencies are determined to stamp out botnets, then we should expect to see much greater successes than those reported...
1. Flag any end-user PC that is originating SMTP port calls - workstations should be using IMAP or POP...
2. Flag any end-user device that calls or polls known botnet "master" servers...
3. Once a piece of malware is identified [for example emails with suspicious attachments] then work "out" from the point of detection - i.e. trace back to the originator of the email; look into any other emails sent with similarly sized attachments, etc, etc.
We know, thanks to Snowden, that our governments easily have the capability to do all this and more. However, despite the fact that they certainly have plenty of evidence to know where all this criminal activity is coming from, nothing seems to be happening to crack down on it. I've always been a bit suspicious of the conspiracy theory that says the reason for the inaction is that had the authorities run round closing down gangs of cyber criminals quickly and easily, word would have gotten out about how powerful the security monitoring really was.
But the curious thing is that we now know just how intrusive all the monitoring has become, yet we don't see any benefits from all the supposed safeguards being put into place. Maybe - just maybe - people would actually be less suspicious of authorities who made a demonstrable positive change in the on-line security of the general public...?
If the van was driving towards multiple lanes of traffic, then for at least *half* of the vehicles within line-of-site of the cameras, they could be passing at a relative velocity of, say, 110mph. With that rate of closure, the perceived gap between vehicles, from the perspective of the van, would be far *less* that two seconds, yet for those vehicles themselves, they could all be driving entirely safely at the two-second separation.
OK, so this would only ever work for half the vehicles on the road [the oncoming traffic] but it hopefully address your point at least partially...
Apologies, this is a bit contrived and a bit tongue-in-cheek, but could we think about this case from a trade mark perspective?
Suppose the Google Logo is fully copyright and trademark protected [which I'm pretty sure it would be]. Now let's suppose that the city of Philadelphia was using the camera system on this [and perhaps other] vehicles to not merely build up a huge database of vehicle movements around the city, but also to detect vehicle tax or insurance evaders.
Now suppose that the relevant government office [and, sorry, but I'm not a US citizen, so the legal jurisdictional boundaries between federal, state and city are confusing to me] uses the data harvested by this vehicle to identify and prosecute insurance and vehicle tax evaders. Thus, the government body is using a vehicle carrying a Google trademark to generate revenue.
And there's the huge flaw in my contrived theory - Google don't themselves generate revenue from prosecuting vehicle-related frauds, so would struggle to show harm in this case. But surely, if someone is using Google's trademark without permission, then surely at the very least they have legal redress to have that trademark removed. Further, if the actions of the department operating the vehicle did generate revenue, how thin is the ice they are skating on?
Whilst I am sure that the obvious response from the relevant law enforcement agency may be something along the lines of "The ends justify the means" and whilst I may in some cases even agree with that, how is this established? Where is "The ends justify the means" enshrined in law? How can both an acting government department or an average citizen consider a given scenario and determine whether it falls within such a doctrine?
This case gets much more interesting if we extrapolate the precedent into other scenarios to consider if similar actions would still be considered legal. This has to be the acid test here. We can't think about this as an isolated incident, but as a single manifestation of a policy. Or, in coding terms: this is the instance, not the object. It's the properties of the object that we need to be worried about.
The FBI's stance in this case seems to be another aspect of their world-view on encryption. Just as they believe that it's possible to create a "secure front door" in existing cryptographic algorithms (and thus give them a Master key that doesn't fatally flaw the encryption system), so they seem to be saying here that it is possible to distinguish between a vulnerability used to detect criminals (in this case, an alleged paedophile) and a vulnerability that could compromise the computer of a legitimate, law-abiding end user. Unfortunately, vulnerabilities don't discriminate: they'll work for anyone, for any purpose.
Sadly, proving the FBI's view is wrong would be virtually impossible unless the specific vulnerability was disclosed.
However, imagine a scenario in which the same vulnerability is subsequently identified by criminals and used to build malware that defrauds large numbers of citizens by compromising the security of their on-line banking. Tens, hundreds or thousands of people could be defrauded by hundreds, thousands or millions of dollars. In this scenario we have to ask if, on balance, it is acceptable for the FBI to remain silent in the hope that they might be able to use the same flaw to catch another alleged paedophile in the future or if, on balance, it is wiser to declare the vulnerability and have Mozilla patch it for the security of all.
The FBI, like any law enforcement agency of any western democracy, must themselves abide by the law - since, after all, the salary of every single law enforcement officer employed today is paid for by the tax contributions of the people they are paid to *protect*. As stated above, vulnerabilities don't discriminate and will work for anyone who finds and tries to exploit them. Given that anyone who does exploit a vulnerability is a criminal, the FBI surely have a duty to protect honest citizens against such future criminal exploits. If they don't, then what is the difference between the FBI and a criminal gang?
Consider a scenario [and, yes, this is highly contrived and completely unlikely] in which the vulnerability being exploited by the FBI in this case had at it's heart a mechanism that could be used to readily defeat encryption schemes such as BluRay encryption. Imagine that a criminal finds the vulnerability, spots a similar version in BluRay's implementation of encryption and uses it to produce a widely-available hack that can crack all BluRay disks wide open, regardless of the specific keys being used. Now imagine that the MPAA discover that the FBI had known about the hack for years and stayed silent.
Do you think that the MPAA would say, "Oh, heck, it's the FBI. Stand down, guys - we can't go to court to sue the FBI for beellions [sic] because they've been using this exploit to catch bad guys, which makes this OK..." ???
What this illustration is trying to show is that the moment one applies different "use cases" to the scenario, the "right answer" changes. When that happens in law, it is an example of the law being wrong, because, to be just, the law must be universal and straightforward in it's application.
There are many reasons that the Mozilla Foundation should prevail here. Let's hope that common sense wins the day and that the FBI collaborate and disclose the vulnerability.
One of the interesting aspects of the Assault on Freedom being conducted by governments the world over is the incredibly selective, distorting arguments that they make. In this case, one of the FBI's central themes has been that "terrorists, criminals and paedophiles" use encryption to hide behind. The inference is that "general purpose encryption" is being used "to do or hide bad things".
Even assuming that this argument were true, or had been substantiated by the claimant [neither in this case] it seems to be somewhat self-defeating.
If we apply the same logic to, say, the right to private ownership of firearms [and, sorry for all those who wish to retain their Second Amendment rights, because I truly don't mean to come across as a troll] provides a very similar argument and case. The United States has some of the highest personal firearm ownership levels anywhere in the world, and some of the highest levels of firearms related murders and woundings. So if the FBI were to stand up and say, "Well, because so many people with firearms use them for criminal purposes, we'll just outlaw all personal firearm ownership..." Whether or not you consider that argument right or wrong is irrelevant in this case, because I am using it as a good example of the way that law enforcement are so selective when it comes to their arguments.
We have also seen how acts of states that are conducted behind closed doors and without full public scrutiny (Wikileaks, Snowden, Panama Papers, etc) lead to corruption and vast amounts of white-collar crime. So if we apply the same logic that the FBI are using to attack encryption - and in attempting to stamp out bribery, corruption, fraud and tax evasion, obviously the FBI will also be demanding completely transparent government, all key decisions made before public hearings, complete financial transparency, with additional requirements for anyone worth more than say $10 Million and so on?
Automating tasks currently performed by public servants would almost certainly reduce costs in the short to medium term, but the knock-on consequences could be disastrous.
The unelected department heads and administration provide a check-and-balance between political leadership and the actual delivery of government services. When an administration changes, that same unelected team provides continuity for the transition.
Removing *all* of the administration could become dangerous. It would remove restraints on elected officials, with that it reduces or removes checks and balances. In the UK the government has been experimenting with this through what are known as "QuaNGOs" - Quasi Non-Governmental Organisations. These are entire structures of government and service delivery that answer purely to the Minister in government that set them up. The U.K. now has something like (IIRC) 4,000 such entities, responsible for consuming more than 40% of the entire central government budget. 40%. That's billions yearly, spent with the oversight of a single Minister.
Put simply, it isn't working.
This mechanism is vulnerable to "pet projects", nepotism (hiring family members and friends into super-high-paying top jobs), corruption, fraud, flawed projects and worse.
By all means run a smaller government, but be careful not to hide all your problems under the rug when you do it...
It would be nice if it were something that nVidia were actually working towards (which I don't think they are, btw), but wouldn't it be nice if the various generations of nVidia GPUs were designed to sit a set of pre-defined targets for thermal output and power consumption?
Hang on, I get the fact that innovation doesn't come to order, but stay with me a little longer...
In top end systems these days [those for which things like the 1080 are relevant] the GPU [or plural for SLI configurations] draw the most power and put out the most heat. Like many gamers, I'm going to be tempted to upgrade my existing GPU [which in my case in a 980GTX] for the 1080 once I can get my hands on a warrantied, water-cooled model... But for me, the real challenge is actually driven more by ensuring that the power consumption and TDP profiles of the new card fall within the capabilities of the rest of my gaming rig.
This time around it looks as though I am in luck: the 1080 seems to be around 180W TDP, 5 less than my 980...
We could easily argue that the gamer market doesn't really care about this: the advent of the 1080 is an excuse to throw away half the innards of your gaming PC and build anew. But that could easily make this a non-starter for many who are gaming on a fixed or controlled budget. I can comfortably stretch to the cost of a replacement, water-cooled 1080 card, but the truth is that in order to take something that runs hotter (like a Titan X, for example) would require that I swap my existing (dedicated) triple radiator for say a quad, or a pair of doubles, or maybe even more. That, in turn, would require a new case. which might have other knock-on implications.
But by sticking at the ~ 180W mark, hopefully nVidia will allow me to swap GPUs with nothing more complicated than re-running replacement lengths of connector tubing, and flushing the rest of that cooling circuit.
So granted there's no hard-and-fast rule here, but what's more useful - extracting the last Hz of performance, or releasing cards that have performance profiles that we can "predict" and build around? Would you rather pimp out for the ultimate [and be willing to pay more for it] or does the convenience of a plug-compatible performance upgrade make more sense?
No, respectfully not a troll. I do appreciate that "the wheel" might be stretching the definition of "gadget", but on the other hand just think what that humble invention has enabled is to do...
Actually, you absolutely *can* file a copyright claim. That's why there is "copyright.gov", the United States Copyright Office. For example, there have been times when two different US movie studios both release a movie with pretty much exactly the same plot at pretty much exactly the same time... A good example would be "Drop Zone", starring Wesley Snipes and "Terminal Velocity", starring Charlie Sheen - both released in 1994 (purely by coincidence).
It didn't happen in the case of those two films, but it would have been entirely possible for one to have filed a copyright claim on their plot and followed up with a court injunction against the other studio. Such action would not have needed a formal copyright claim, but it would have been done.
A perhaps more relevant example would come from the court case between The SCO Group (TSG) and Novell, after the latter stepped in and granted IBM the right to use SVRX source code via a perpetual, irrevocable license. TSG tried to argue back that they, not Novell, owned the code - and went so far as to file a copyright claim in the process. See groklaw.net for details.
You are absolutely right to point out that you don't *need* to file for a copyright on anything you produce, because you get an implicit claim on your own works. However, in scenarios where your ownership could be called into question, filing doesn't hurt. And, for those who want to secure some form of protection but don't want to stiff for the copyright fees, print off your works, put it in an envelope, then mail it to yourself. If your letter has a clear "frank" [postal stamp] on it, then just keep it sealed tight - at a pinch a court might accept that as evidence...
I'm sure that Larry Ellison has a burning desire to be relevant again, but I suspect another reason might be the way that Microsoft have been turning tricks on all the companies using Android on their phone hardware, sticking them with patent license suits. Oracle figure that if they can stake a claim on some Intellectual Property in Android, they will be able to just hold out their hand too...
Respectfully, I think that is a hugely dangerous outlook for any "tekkie" to hold. The essence of Oracle's argument is that they want to hold declarative structures as "copyrightable", which is not too far removed from trying to copyright the first couple of notes of a piece of music [something the law deliberately excludes and for good reason].
If Oracle were to win this case, it would hand ***far too much power*** to any first-to-file player in the copyright space. An Oracle win would run the risk of destroying the software world as we know it. What Oracle are trying to claim in court is that if they publish an API, they get to decide whether or not your use of that API is in breach of their copyright. Even if that "API" extends to nothing more than declaratives.
Sometimes [and particularly in this specific case] the implications and subtlety of the arguments do a very good job of hiding the real-world ramifications of a particular ruling. Make no mistake, an Oracle win could be a DISASTER for the software community, most especially the FOSS community.
The US has a similar law. This would absolutely be "tampering with the normal operation of a computer".
The point here is that no matter whether or not the owner/user of the computer had provably committed copyright theft [which we still have no transparent way of evaluating] then the act of tampering with that computer constitutes a completely separate criminal act. A Federal crime in the US, no less.
This is one of those "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right" scenarios...
There does not appear to be anyone disputing that the mechanism developed by the FBI and their technology partner is not one supported by Apple. Legislation such as the DMCA and the Computer Misue Act might have some interesting influence on what is being done here...
Obviously we have to bear in mind that if the current laws would look to prohibit what is being done here, then the laws will, *will* be changed. But you have to wonder if there are parties in this game that want to have their cake and eat it...
In order to receive the payments, the browser requires that you register three things: a bitcoin wallet [otherwise you won't get paid] an email address and a phone number.
In the small print you can bet that you are signing away permission for this company to "sell on" your activity data. How would you like to be plagued by telephone marketing?
Worse, the way this is going to work is by use of things like session cookies, because this browser is going to need to have a way of identifying itself to participating infrastructure. What this does is "expand the identity attributes" [i.e. add to the vectors] by which you can be identified as a real person. This is very much like that ultrasonic audio trick that was recently banned [that allowed a smartphone app to figure out what channel and what TV commercials you were watching].
In other words, you are giving away FAR, FAR more than just the time and intrusion that these ads will cost you.
Seriously, don't do it.
Warning: this is tin-foil-hat logic, but stick with me on this...
Microsoft made 2 massive "purchases" of non-revenue-generating technologies [Hotmail and Skype]. In the case of Hotmail, they instantly got access to all traffic [metadata and content]. In case of Skype, one of the first things they did was re-configure the software to force all communications to route through their servers. For those who don't know, the pre-Microsoft versions of Skype only needed the Skype core servers to work out if their counterparty was "on line" and to pick up their IP address. The call setup and handling was done endpoint-to-endpoint with no server interaction.
Now we learn, thanks to Edward Snowden, that the "Five Eyes" agencies are sucking up all net traffic for analysis...
Now, I have ***ZERO*** hard evidence, but riddle me this: why would Microsoft take a service like Skype [one with limited revenue] and buy it in the first place? Having bought it, why would they massively increase the operational costs by forcing all traffic to go through Microsoft owned servers - infrastructure they would have to pay for? Just the cost of that infrastructure would have wiped out any profits from Skype for decades in advance...
Unless [tinfoil hat please] they were getting massive tax breaks or other deals from the government, to off-set against the costs...
If there is any shred of fact in the complete fiction/theory I've written here, then Microsoft didn't really pay that full price for Skype: or, if they did, they had help.
Maybe I am completely misunderstanding what has happened here [but I don't think so!]. This looks to be an awful lot like a re-run of Enron...
"Energy Company"... Check
Lots of Debt... Check
Unusual Accounting/Business Model... Check
Very interested to learn from anyone who may be able to clarify or disprove that, but if it is the case that this has a fair number of similarities, then we need to hold the regulators to account. Let's be honest, when regulators screw up, we end up paying for it, either through bankrupt pension or savings schemes, worthless shares, or the need for government bail-outs that have to be generated either from general taxation and/or by devaluing currency and/or by racking up vast amounts of national debt...
I can totally understand your views regarding the modding system, which to me, as a newbie, seems to be both bizarre and (as you correctly note, ineffective). After just a few weeks as a registered user, my observation would be that too much modding is taking place based on the identity of the poster or on the childish nature of a comment, not on whether it adds to the discussion.
Unfortunately, however, I am not sure that I can agree with your proposed remedy. For I g all users to post as AC might partially solve one problem, but it will create a much bigger one. Visibly named users brings a degree of accountability. Whilst there will always be those intent on disruption who will use burner email addresses, I think that more use of registration may help to keep people respectful. There are plenty of places on the web to visit if you just want to be abusive to other people...
So how about this... Hand out mod points using whatever bizarro system is in use today, but give registered users an unlimited number of "critique points". A "critique point" can be spent to challenge mod points granted "badly" by another moderator. If, as a moderator, you get a certain number of negative critique points, or a number in a window of time, then you lose your modding privilege for say 30 days. Lose them 3 times and they are gone for good.
A little power, like a little knowledge, is a dangerous thing. Maybe the above might make/. more of a community again?
OK, sorry, as titles go that was definitely a bit click-bait-ey.. But here's what I mean...
BART was paid for [I'm guessing] with public finding, i.e. taxpayer dollars. That means that it should have a reasonable expectation of long service life, maintain-ability and competitive tendering. I'm not familiar with the procurement process for BART, but the OP details a lot of aspects of the design [for example the rail gauge] which are sufficiently non-standard as to make the project unattractive to competitive tendering. That, right there, should have been an alarm bell for those who green-lit the funding.
California is am immensely wealthy state, so here's hoping that they can find the funding to keep BART running smoothly for another 40 years... But as a society I think we need to be taking some lessons from this sort of experience.
The most important one is: when the money being spent comes from tax dollars, open systems based on industry standards and design principles must be mandated. The designers of BART would have been unlikely to have opted for left-hand-thread Whitworth nuts and bolts...
see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... if you're curious... so why should we accept technology implementations that are similarly bespoke? There's never any shortage of an Administration [of most Western nations] willing to vote themselves new powers, but they don't seem quite so keen on holding themselves to account on things like Standards. Here's hoping that stories like this one will serve as educational reminders!
I am just guessing here...
Firstly, we have been witnessing a slow but steady erosion of Microsoft's Windows in the marketplace. The once-dominant OS has had to compete against Linux, OS/X, tablets and so on, all of which provide the OS free of charge. Microsoft can no longer charge watvever they like and get away with it...
Of course, the other aspect not widely discussed relates to Piracy, which we are told remains a major problem. This is an issue if Microsoft expect to be paid for every copy of Windows installed, but the problem goes away if the revenue is generated from the data that W10 "phones home" on and on-going basis...
There could be another reason for this. Do you recall how Creative Labs became very obstructive regarding design information for the X-Fi range of sound cards, to the extent that they would not release even basic info to the GNU/Linux driver community? The reason is because Microsoft sponsors them to write drivers for Windows. Just as Microsoft paid games companies to use DirectX over OpenGL.
So there is a high probability that nVidia are taking the Microsoft coin and in return the deal prohibits them from providing full open source to the FOSS community...
This isn't a theoretical, academic problem. In 2013, the Cyprus government made a shock announcement, stating that they would be taking a "one-off" 'bailout levy' of 10% from any accounts over a certain balance value. Article on BBC News here:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...
This was proposed because Cyprus, like Greece, had a failing economy and owed the European Central Bank some $13 Billion as part of a loan repayment. The economy was tanking, the government didn't have the tax revenue, so they decided to go after the savers. The really wealthy in Greece kept their money off-shore and were not hit, but ex-pats from other EU nations could have been hammered if this went through.
The interesting thing was that before the proposal was announced the Cypriot government put rules in place to prohibit people withdrawing their cash [since that would have started a run on the banks].
We should not underestimate the danger of this proposal.
Should have said... it came with Windows 7 pre-loaded on to a 1Tb SSD in a 500Gb partition [at my request]. I've since dist-upgraded twice [now on 17.3/Rosa] and it works brilliantly...
I bought a fantastic Skylake system in December from AtLastSolutions.com - it's a completely silent fanless machine... Dual-booted with Mint 17 was effortless and worked without any need to re-work anything. All hardware recognised and - best of all - this machine came with an optical audio out for surround sound...
Not sure how you might feel about swapping ubuntu for Mint. I made the switch when Canonical started to snoop end user use of the Dash and I haven't looked back. I find Mint to be cleaner, faster and much more stable than ubuntu. I'm using the Cinnamon desktop and love it. Well worth a try - if you haven't already...
I have no desire to switch from 7 to 10 and I have at least 6 or 7 licences for Windows 7. Running this OS will be fine whilst I am able to get updates from MS if I'm ever forced to do a clean installation, but ever since MS stopped issuing "Service Packs" life got harder.
With their underhand determination to force us away from 7 and on to 10, I can't see a sudden moment of charity resulting in an "End of the Road" Service Pack update any time soon...
So - does anyone know if it might be possible to engineer/build or develop our own "Service Pack" for Windows 7? What happens if a disk crash forces a rebuild to a 7 system after their cutoff date? Would that leave us screwed? I've got the ISO for Service Pack 1, but what about everything that has shipped since then? Anyone got any ideas please?
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I'm guessing that Microsoft debated that internally and the fact that this hasn't happened is more than accidental oversight.
If I had to suggest a reason that XP/Vista systems were not forcibly upgraded to 8/10, then it would be that the hardware/performance/memory requirements of 10 are sufficiently beyond those of XP/Vista that there is a very high probability of the update causing major problems.
Microsoft are "riding the buffet" here. They know by now that what they're doing is hugely unpopular with technically savvy people wishing to stay with i.e. W7. What they don't want is a huge slab of negative publicity and early-evening-news leaders claiming, "Microsoft's forced update just broke my PC!"
Background noise is something they can cope with, but even MS would balk at that amount of negative publicity...
Maybe I have misunderstood the practicalities of running a botnet, or perhaps there is something not quite "right" about what we're being told here.
If you deploy a piece of malware that turns a PC into a zombie, that unit can only be useful after it has been programmed to do something for the botnet ringmaster. Typically, or so we're told, zombie's are used to send spam, maybe compute bitcoins, that sort of thing...
But, since we know that in a large part of the western world [certainly in the UK] that ISPs are now required to keep extensive logs and copies of things like web searches, pages visited, emails received and so on, surely if law enforcement agencies are determined to stamp out botnets, then we should expect to see much greater successes than those reported...
1. Flag any end-user PC that is originating SMTP port calls - workstations should be using IMAP or POP...
2. Flag any end-user device that calls or polls known botnet "master" servers...
3. Once a piece of malware is identified [for example emails with suspicious attachments] then work "out" from the point of detection - i.e. trace back to the originator of the email; look into any other emails sent with similarly sized attachments, etc, etc.
We know, thanks to Snowden, that our governments easily have the capability to do all this and more. However, despite the fact that they certainly have plenty of evidence to know where all this criminal activity is coming from, nothing seems to be happening to crack down on it. I've always been a bit suspicious of the conspiracy theory that says the reason for the inaction is that had the authorities run round closing down gangs of cyber criminals quickly and easily, word would have gotten out about how powerful the security monitoring really was.
But the curious thing is that we now know just how intrusive all the monitoring has become, yet we don't see any benefits from all the supposed safeguards being put into place. Maybe - just maybe - people would actually be less suspicious of authorities who made a demonstrable positive change in the on-line security of the general public...?
If the van was driving towards multiple lanes of traffic, then for at least *half* of the vehicles within line-of-site of the cameras, they could be passing at a relative velocity of, say, 110mph. With that rate of closure, the perceived gap between vehicles, from the perspective of the van, would be far *less* that two seconds, yet for those vehicles themselves, they could all be driving entirely safely at the two-second separation.
OK, so this would only ever work for half the vehicles on the road [the oncoming traffic] but it hopefully address your point at least partially...
Apologies, this is a bit contrived and a bit tongue-in-cheek, but could we think about this case from a trade mark perspective?
Suppose the Google Logo is fully copyright and trademark protected [which I'm pretty sure it would be]. Now let's suppose that the city of Philadelphia was using the camera system on this [and perhaps other] vehicles to not merely build up a huge database of vehicle movements around the city, but also to detect vehicle tax or insurance evaders.
Now suppose that the relevant government office [and, sorry, but I'm not a US citizen, so the legal jurisdictional boundaries between federal, state and city are confusing to me] uses the data harvested by this vehicle to identify and prosecute insurance and vehicle tax evaders. Thus, the government body is using a vehicle carrying a Google trademark to generate revenue.
And there's the huge flaw in my contrived theory - Google don't themselves generate revenue from prosecuting vehicle-related frauds, so would struggle to show harm in this case. But surely, if someone is using Google's trademark without permission, then surely at the very least they have legal redress to have that trademark removed. Further, if the actions of the department operating the vehicle did generate revenue, how thin is the ice they are skating on?
Fraud?
False advertisiing?
Entrapment?
Something else?
Whilst I am sure that the obvious response from the relevant law enforcement agency may be something along the lines of "The ends justify the means" and whilst I may in some cases even agree with that, how is this established? Where is "The ends justify the means" enshrined in law? How can both an acting government department or an average citizen consider a given scenario and determine whether it falls within such a doctrine?
This case gets much more interesting if we extrapolate the precedent into other scenarios to consider if similar actions would still be considered legal. This has to be the acid test here. We can't think about this as an isolated incident, but as a single manifestation of a policy. Or, in coding terms: this is the instance, not the object. It's the properties of the object that we need to be worried about.
The FBI's stance in this case seems to be another aspect of their world-view on encryption. Just as they believe that it's possible to create a "secure front door" in existing cryptographic algorithms (and thus give them a Master key that doesn't fatally flaw the encryption system), so they seem to be saying here that it is possible to distinguish between a vulnerability used to detect criminals (in this case, an alleged paedophile) and a vulnerability that could compromise the computer of a legitimate, law-abiding end user. Unfortunately, vulnerabilities don't discriminate: they'll work for anyone, for any purpose.
Sadly, proving the FBI's view is wrong would be virtually impossible unless the specific vulnerability was disclosed.
However, imagine a scenario in which the same vulnerability is subsequently identified by criminals and used to build malware that defrauds large numbers of citizens by compromising the security of their on-line banking. Tens, hundreds or thousands of people could be defrauded by hundreds, thousands or millions of dollars. In this scenario we have to ask if, on balance, it is acceptable for the FBI to remain silent in the hope that they might be able to use the same flaw to catch another alleged paedophile in the future or if, on balance, it is wiser to declare the vulnerability and have Mozilla patch it for the security of all.
The FBI, like any law enforcement agency of any western democracy, must themselves abide by the law - since, after all, the salary of every single law enforcement officer employed today is paid for by the tax contributions of the people they are paid to *protect*. As stated above, vulnerabilities don't discriminate and will work for anyone who finds and tries to exploit them. Given that anyone who does exploit a vulnerability is a criminal, the FBI surely have a duty to protect honest citizens against such future criminal exploits. If they don't, then what is the difference between the FBI and a criminal gang?
Consider a scenario [and, yes, this is highly contrived and completely unlikely] in which the vulnerability being exploited by the FBI in this case had at it's heart a mechanism that could be used to readily defeat encryption schemes such as BluRay encryption. Imagine that a criminal finds the vulnerability, spots a similar version in BluRay's implementation of encryption and uses it to produce a widely-available hack that can crack all BluRay disks wide open, regardless of the specific keys being used. Now imagine that the MPAA discover that the FBI had known about the hack for years and stayed silent.
Do you think that the MPAA would say, "Oh, heck, it's the FBI. Stand down, guys - we can't go to court to sue the FBI for beellions [sic] because they've been using this exploit to catch bad guys, which makes this OK..." ???
What this illustration is trying to show is that the moment one applies different "use cases" to the scenario, the "right answer" changes. When that happens in law, it is an example of the law being wrong, because, to be just, the law must be universal and straightforward in it's application.
There are many reasons that the Mozilla Foundation should prevail here. Let's hope that common sense wins the day and that the FBI collaborate and disclose the vulnerability.
One of the interesting aspects of the Assault on Freedom being conducted by governments the world over is the incredibly selective, distorting arguments that they make. In this case, one of the FBI's central themes has been that "terrorists, criminals and paedophiles" use encryption to hide behind. The inference is that "general purpose encryption" is being used "to do or hide bad things".
Even assuming that this argument were true, or had been substantiated by the claimant [neither in this case] it seems to be somewhat self-defeating.
If we apply the same logic to, say, the right to private ownership of firearms [and, sorry for all those who wish to retain their Second Amendment rights, because I truly don't mean to come across as a troll] provides a very similar argument and case. The United States has some of the highest personal firearm ownership levels anywhere in the world, and some of the highest levels of firearms related murders and woundings. So if the FBI were to stand up and say, "Well, because so many people with firearms use them for criminal purposes, we'll just outlaw all personal firearm ownership..." Whether or not you consider that argument right or wrong is irrelevant in this case, because I am using it as a good example of the way that law enforcement are so selective when it comes to their arguments.
We have also seen how acts of states that are conducted behind closed doors and without full public scrutiny (Wikileaks, Snowden, Panama Papers, etc) lead to corruption and vast amounts of white-collar crime. So if we apply the same logic that the FBI are using to attack encryption - and in attempting to stamp out bribery, corruption, fraud and tax evasion, obviously the FBI will also be demanding completely transparent government, all key decisions made before public hearings, complete financial transparency, with additional requirements for anyone worth more than say $10 Million and so on?
What's that you say? No? Didn't think so...
Automating tasks currently performed by public servants would almost certainly reduce costs in the short to medium term, but the knock-on consequences could be disastrous.
The unelected department heads and administration provide a check-and-balance between political leadership and the actual delivery of government services. When an administration changes, that same unelected team provides continuity for the transition.
Removing *all* of the administration could become dangerous. It would remove restraints on elected officials, with that it reduces or removes checks and balances. In the UK the government has been experimenting with this through what are known as "QuaNGOs" - Quasi Non-Governmental Organisations. These are entire structures of government and service delivery that answer purely to the Minister in government that set them up. The U.K. now has something like (IIRC) 4,000 such entities, responsible for consuming more than 40% of the entire central government budget. 40%. That's billions yearly, spent with the oversight of a single Minister.
Put simply, it isn't working.
This mechanism is vulnerable to "pet projects", nepotism (hiring family members and friends into super-high-paying top jobs), corruption, fraud, flawed projects and worse.
By all means run a smaller government, but be careful not to hide all your problems under the rug when you do it...
It would be nice if it were something that nVidia were actually working towards (which I don't think they are, btw), but wouldn't it be nice if the various generations of nVidia GPUs were designed to sit a set of pre-defined targets for thermal output and power consumption?
Hang on, I get the fact that innovation doesn't come to order, but stay with me a little longer...
In top end systems these days [those for which things like the 1080 are relevant] the GPU [or plural for SLI configurations] draw the most power and put out the most heat. Like many gamers, I'm going to be tempted to upgrade my existing GPU [which in my case in a 980GTX] for the 1080 once I can get my hands on a warrantied, water-cooled model... But for me, the real challenge is actually driven more by ensuring that the power consumption and TDP profiles of the new card fall within the capabilities of the rest of my gaming rig.
This time around it looks as though I am in luck: the 1080 seems to be around 180W TDP, 5 less than my 980...
We could easily argue that the gamer market doesn't really care about this: the advent of the 1080 is an excuse to throw away half the innards of your gaming PC and build anew. But that could easily make this a non-starter for many who are gaming on a fixed or controlled budget. I can comfortably stretch to the cost of a replacement, water-cooled 1080 card, but the truth is that in order to take something that runs hotter (like a Titan X, for example) would require that I swap my existing (dedicated) triple radiator for say a quad, or a pair of doubles, or maybe even more. That, in turn, would require a new case. which might have other knock-on implications.
But by sticking at the ~ 180W mark, hopefully nVidia will allow me to swap GPUs with nothing more complicated than re-running replacement lengths of connector tubing, and flushing the rest of that cooling circuit.
So granted there's no hard-and-fast rule here, but what's more useful - extracting the last Hz of performance, or releasing cards that have performance profiles that we can "predict" and build around? Would you rather pimp out for the ultimate [and be willing to pay more for it] or does the convenience of a plug-compatible performance upgrade make more sense?
No, respectfully not a troll. I do appreciate that "the wheel" might be stretching the definition of "gadget", but on the other hand just think what that humble invention has enabled is to do...
Actually, you absolutely *can* file a copyright claim. That's why there is "copyright.gov", the United States Copyright Office. For example, there have been times when two different US movie studios both release a movie with pretty much exactly the same plot at pretty much exactly the same time... A good example would be "Drop Zone", starring Wesley Snipes and "Terminal Velocity", starring Charlie Sheen - both released in 1994 (purely by coincidence).
It didn't happen in the case of those two films, but it would have been entirely possible for one to have filed a copyright claim on their plot and followed up with a court injunction against the other studio. Such action would not have needed a formal copyright claim, but it would have been done.
A perhaps more relevant example would come from the court case between The SCO Group (TSG) and Novell, after the latter stepped in and granted IBM the right to use SVRX source code via a perpetual, irrevocable license. TSG tried to argue back that they, not Novell, owned the code - and went so far as to file a copyright claim in the process. See groklaw.net for details.
You are absolutely right to point out that you don't *need* to file for a copyright on anything you produce, because you get an implicit claim on your own works. However, in scenarios where your ownership could be called into question, filing doesn't hurt. And, for those who want to secure some form of protection but don't want to stiff for the copyright fees, print off your works, put it in an envelope, then mail it to yourself. If your letter has a clear "frank" [postal stamp] on it, then just keep it sealed tight - at a pinch a court might accept that as evidence...
I'm sure that Larry Ellison has a burning desire to be relevant again, but I suspect another reason might be the way that Microsoft have been turning tricks on all the companies using Android on their phone hardware, sticking them with patent license suits. Oracle figure that if they can stake a claim on some Intellectual Property in Android, they will be able to just hold out their hand too...
Respectfully, I think that is a hugely dangerous outlook for any "tekkie" to hold. The essence of Oracle's argument is that they want to hold declarative structures as "copyrightable", which is not too far removed from trying to copyright the first couple of notes of a piece of music [something the law deliberately excludes and for good reason].
If Oracle were to win this case, it would hand ***far too much power*** to any first-to-file player in the copyright space. An Oracle win would run the risk of destroying the software world as we know it. What Oracle are trying to claim in court is that if they publish an API, they get to decide whether or not your use of that API is in breach of their copyright. Even if that "API" extends to nothing more than declaratives.
Sometimes [and particularly in this specific case] the implications and subtlety of the arguments do a very good job of hiding the real-world ramifications of a particular ruling. Make no mistake, an Oracle win could be a DISASTER for the software community, most especially the FOSS community.
The US has a similar law. This would absolutely be "tampering with the normal operation of a computer". The point here is that no matter whether or not the owner/user of the computer had provably committed copyright theft [which we still have no transparent way of evaluating] then the act of tampering with that computer constitutes a completely separate criminal act. A Federal crime in the US, no less. This is one of those "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right" scenarios...
There does not appear to be anyone disputing that the mechanism developed by the FBI and their technology partner is not one supported by Apple. Legislation such as the DMCA and the Computer Misue Act might have some interesting influence on what is being done here... Obviously we have to bear in mind that if the current laws would look to prohibit what is being done here, then the laws will, *will* be changed. But you have to wonder if there are parties in this game that want to have their cake and eat it...
In order to receive the payments, the browser requires that you register three things: a bitcoin wallet [otherwise you won't get paid] an email address and a phone number. In the small print you can bet that you are signing away permission for this company to "sell on" your activity data. How would you like to be plagued by telephone marketing? Worse, the way this is going to work is by use of things like session cookies, because this browser is going to need to have a way of identifying itself to participating infrastructure. What this does is "expand the identity attributes" [i.e. add to the vectors] by which you can be identified as a real person. This is very much like that ultrasonic audio trick that was recently banned [that allowed a smartphone app to figure out what channel and what TV commercials you were watching]. In other words, you are giving away FAR, FAR more than just the time and intrusion that these ads will cost you. Seriously, don't do it.
Warning: this is tin-foil-hat logic, but stick with me on this... Microsoft made 2 massive "purchases" of non-revenue-generating technologies [Hotmail and Skype]. In the case of Hotmail, they instantly got access to all traffic [metadata and content]. In case of Skype, one of the first things they did was re-configure the software to force all communications to route through their servers. For those who don't know, the pre-Microsoft versions of Skype only needed the Skype core servers to work out if their counterparty was "on line" and to pick up their IP address. The call setup and handling was done endpoint-to-endpoint with no server interaction. Now we learn, thanks to Edward Snowden, that the "Five Eyes" agencies are sucking up all net traffic for analysis... Now, I have ***ZERO*** hard evidence, but riddle me this: why would Microsoft take a service like Skype [one with limited revenue] and buy it in the first place? Having bought it, why would they massively increase the operational costs by forcing all traffic to go through Microsoft owned servers - infrastructure they would have to pay for? Just the cost of that infrastructure would have wiped out any profits from Skype for decades in advance... Unless [tinfoil hat please] they were getting massive tax breaks or other deals from the government, to off-set against the costs... If there is any shred of fact in the complete fiction/theory I've written here, then Microsoft didn't really pay that full price for Skype: or, if they did, they had help.
Maybe I am completely misunderstanding what has happened here [but I don't think so!]. This looks to be an awful lot like a re-run of Enron... "Energy Company"... Check Lots of Debt... Check Unusual Accounting/Business Model... Check Very interested to learn from anyone who may be able to clarify or disprove that, but if it is the case that this has a fair number of similarities, then we need to hold the regulators to account. Let's be honest, when regulators screw up, we end up paying for it, either through bankrupt pension or savings schemes, worthless shares, or the need for government bail-outs that have to be generated either from general taxation and/or by devaluing currency and/or by racking up vast amounts of national debt...
I can totally understand your views regarding the modding system, which to me, as a newbie, seems to be both bizarre and (as you correctly note, ineffective). After just a few weeks as a registered user, my observation would be that too much modding is taking place based on the identity of the poster or on the childish nature of a comment, not on whether it adds to the discussion. Unfortunately, however, I am not sure that I can agree with your proposed remedy. For I g all users to post as AC might partially solve one problem, but it will create a much bigger one. Visibly named users brings a degree of accountability. Whilst there will always be those intent on disruption who will use burner email addresses, I think that more use of registration may help to keep people respectful. There are plenty of places on the web to visit if you just want to be abusive to other people... So how about this... Hand out mod points using whatever bizarro system is in use today, but give registered users an unlimited number of "critique points". A "critique point" can be spent to challenge mod points granted "badly" by another moderator. If, as a moderator, you get a certain number of negative critique points, or a number in a window of time, then you lose your modding privilege for say 30 days. Lose them 3 times and they are gone for good. A little power, like a little knowledge, is a dangerous thing. Maybe the above might make /. more of a community again?
OK, sorry, as titles go that was definitely a bit click-bait-ey.. But here's what I mean... BART was paid for [I'm guessing] with public finding, i.e. taxpayer dollars. That means that it should have a reasonable expectation of long service life, maintain-ability and competitive tendering. I'm not familiar with the procurement process for BART, but the OP details a lot of aspects of the design [for example the rail gauge] which are sufficiently non-standard as to make the project unattractive to competitive tendering. That, right there, should have been an alarm bell for those who green-lit the funding. California is am immensely wealthy state, so here's hoping that they can find the funding to keep BART running smoothly for another 40 years... But as a society I think we need to be taking some lessons from this sort of experience. The most important one is: when the money being spent comes from tax dollars, open systems based on industry standards and design principles must be mandated. The designers of BART would have been unlikely to have opted for left-hand-thread Whitworth nuts and bolts... see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... if you're curious ... so why should we accept technology implementations that are similarly bespoke? There's never any shortage of an Administration [of most Western nations] willing to vote themselves new powers, but they don't seem quite so keen on holding themselves to account on things like Standards. Here's hoping that stories like this one will serve as educational reminders!
I am just guessing here... Firstly, we have been witnessing a slow but steady erosion of Microsoft's Windows in the marketplace. The once-dominant OS has had to compete against Linux, OS/X, tablets and so on, all of which provide the OS free of charge. Microsoft can no longer charge watvever they like and get away with it... Of course, the other aspect not widely discussed relates to Piracy, which we are told remains a major problem. This is an issue if Microsoft expect to be paid for every copy of Windows installed, but the problem goes away if the revenue is generated from the data that W10 "phones home" on and on-going basis...
There could be another reason for this. Do you recall how Creative Labs became very obstructive regarding design information for the X-Fi range of sound cards, to the extent that they would not release even basic info to the GNU/Linux driver community? The reason is because Microsoft sponsors them to write drivers for Windows. Just as Microsoft paid games companies to use DirectX over OpenGL. So there is a high probability that nVidia are taking the Microsoft coin and in return the deal prohibits them from providing full open source to the FOSS community...
This isn't a theoretical, academic problem. In 2013, the Cyprus government made a shock announcement, stating that they would be taking a "one-off" 'bailout levy' of 10% from any accounts over a certain balance value. Article on BBC News here:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl... This was proposed because Cyprus, like Greece, had a failing economy and owed the European Central Bank some $13 Billion as part of a loan repayment. The economy was tanking, the government didn't have the tax revenue, so they decided to go after the savers. The really wealthy in Greece kept their money off-shore and were not hit, but ex-pats from other EU nations could have been hammered if this went through. The interesting thing was that before the proposal was announced the Cypriot government put rules in place to prohibit people withdrawing their cash [since that would have started a run on the banks]. We should not underestimate the danger of this proposal.
Should have said... it came with Windows 7 pre-loaded on to a 1Tb SSD in a 500Gb partition [at my request]. I've since dist-upgraded twice [now on 17.3/Rosa] and it works brilliantly...
I bought a fantastic Skylake system in December from AtLastSolutions.com - it's a completely silent fanless machine... Dual-booted with Mint 17 was effortless and worked without any need to re-work anything. All hardware recognised and - best of all - this machine came with an optical audio out for surround sound... Not sure how you might feel about swapping ubuntu for Mint. I made the switch when Canonical started to snoop end user use of the Dash and I haven't looked back. I find Mint to be cleaner, faster and much more stable than ubuntu. I'm using the Cinnamon desktop and love it. Well worth a try - if you haven't already...
I have no desire to switch from 7 to 10 and I have at least 6 or 7 licences for Windows 7. Running this OS will be fine whilst I am able to get updates from MS if I'm ever forced to do a clean installation, but ever since MS stopped issuing "Service Packs" life got harder. With their underhand determination to force us away from 7 and on to 10, I can't see a sudden moment of charity resulting in an "End of the Road" Service Pack update any time soon... So - does anyone know if it might be possible to engineer/build or develop our own "Service Pack" for Windows 7? What happens if a disk crash forces a rebuild to a 7 system after their cutoff date? Would that leave us screwed? I've got the ISO for Service Pack 1, but what about everything that has shipped since then? Anyone got any ideas please?