I mean everything. GPU sources (including firmware), bootloader, etc? After all the publicity, financial success, and so on the least you could do is get us the full code via any means at your disposal including reverse engineering (even if it takes several years).
While there are a lot of people incapable of getting decent service with ADSL there are a lot of people like myself who have only ever subscribed to ADSL or Fibe (two places I lived I got fiber, and not from Verizon, but local companies or via municipality public utilities) because of the manipulative tactics of Comcast and similar cable companies. ADSL is better in that you get what you pay for (pretty much always, I've never gotten 4mpbs on 25mbps advertised pipes for example, unlike I've experienced numerous times with Comcast, during prime time hours) so long as you are within a reasonable range of the central office. Comparatively Comcast advertises speeds you can't *EVER* get by design. They know full well that they oversubscribe to such extremes (often) that when users actually want to utilize (during prime time hours) it the connection is unusable- worse than ADSL in many places. Now they mess with the connections to make people think they are getting absurdly fast speeds. But if you actually look at the facts they do all sorts of malicious stuff including shaping of traffic, throttling, disconnecting certain types of content (Torrents), etc.
Microsoft is still the same evil corporation it was before. The difference is Microsoft lost the OS wars in the end and are solving the problem through the threat of violence on OEMs who would rather not ship with Microsoft's offerings. They're utilizing patents and the courts/legal system (ie violence, theft, etc) to blackmail others into submission (or threat thereof).
Microsoft offers nothing of value to GNU/Linux users and those shipping with Android and similar operating systems. Those patents are all garbage. There is no reason we shouldn't be able to utilize a different file system if it were not for MS's monopoly. It was used (and some cases it wasn't even really used, like in the Tom Tom case) only to retain compatibility and that was because of Microsoft's monopoly which gave them the ability to refuse to implement support for other filesystems. Certainly this is monopolistic. If Microsoft had supported other filesystems like every other company we wouldn't be forced into utilizing it's shitty 'patented' filesystem. The patents don't actually provide anything of value. They are more or less a form of DRM. It's nothing more than a mechanism to force people to cough up cash to implement compatibility.
We should get rid of copyright, patents, and similar. The only one with some legitimacy are trademarks and that's an issue of fraud really. I shouldn't own the mark, just the right to sue for label, slander, and fraud should someone use it to deceive others into buying what they think is our product, etc. However I would argue that the case that patents are enforced in malicious ways against those not actually committing fraud. There is no reason someone should be prohibited from using a trademark provided it's not in a way to deceive. Utilizing it to criticize a company or on a product page linking to reviews or similar should not require permission. I'd even go so far as to argue patents should be limited to off-line scenarios and other systems of authentication should be implemented into the software to verify authenticity (we should never censor a site that sells fraudulent goods, but our technical systems should enable people to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate, or between what people recognize thereof, so if I start using a name/brand/etc I build up a reputation under that name then anybody else using that name should be in competition for said name would have to spend a lot to overtake its legitimacy, and that might even not work should the history aspects factor in, plus category, so penguin, a company that distributes ICE is as legitimate as penguin, a company that publishes book, is as legitimate as penguin, a company that sells computers with the GNU/Linux support, etc).
Devuan is a Debian distrro not shipping system d. I only know about it because it's supported by the EOMA68 project which aims to manufacture computers based around a modular computing standard that is free software friendly. Unlike Intel/AMD: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...
The only advancement to any desktop environment which seems to really exist compared to KDE 3.x is search. I'm seriously thinking of returning to KDE 3 and putting my money into helping the developers of the Trinity Desktop Environment (KDE 3.x) resurrect it. It needs some work to bring it up to speed, and more so properly maintain it, but it seems to have the most potential of all the desktop environments. I thought it was dead, but I'm no longer convinced of that. Mainly because it's not an impossibility, but it does need a financial backer with sufficient assets to make it happen.
There are companies that sell and support GNU/Linux hardware today. It's not terribly hard to go and find hardware. ThinkPenguin's got hundreds of computers and peripherals that all work out of the box and unlike the majority of hardware on the market come with proper support so you don't have to worry about losing it during an upgrade.
There are also efforts to free us from the treachery of the few proprietary components that remain, but it's a bigger uphill battle. Intel and AMD are working against us instituting proprietary components on core components (ie the CPU). These components contain malicious software including remote control functionality. It's sold as being for corporations, but you can't disable it, you can't remove it, and even if there was a feasible means of reverse engineering it replacement firmware won't load as Intel/AMD are signing these components. We know for a fact that backdoors are being inserted into peripherals and computers alike. Where the US is forcing it into CPUs designed by American companies that ship with all modern laptop and desktop systems the Chinese are incorporating it into keyboard controller firmware (home grown ARM laptops, though there is a OS level component needed as well).
If you want NSA-free computers check out the effort to do that here: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo... (there are already finished prototypes, the campaign is to bring a small number, 250-500 units into production, before a larger roll out, mass production can happen).
Americans already have opportunities that far exceed the majority of the world. People who want to close the boarder are bigoted and/or biased. Growing up my parents were impacted by changing dynamics as my dad worked in IT as a programmer and was laid off a number of times. That doesn't justify bigotry or restricting peoples right to travel and work freely. Yes- that may have negative implications, but Americans can and have learned to cope with a changing landscape many times in the past. Get over it. We retrain, we go back to school, we start our own businesses. There are lots of options and programs out there. Programs which are *funded* by violence through government mandated taxes. People have no excuses. I'm not an immigrant. I'm unproudly an American citizen by birth, Caucasian male at that. It actually is in our collateral disinterest to make the companies we work for uncompetitive on the world stage. What happens when we do that is they leave the United States for greener pastures elsewhere. Rather what we need to do is make our system more competitive. We need to get rid of copyright (copyright creates monopolies and monopolies are otherwise illegal, it makes no sense that when copyright doesn't do what it was sold to us that we continue to put up with it, it's not for the public good, not when we extended copyright from being a limited monopoly to basically an indefinite one, it also spurs violence due to enforcement, if you don't pay up they steal it from you the state will use violence and kidnap you), get rid of borders (things get more competitive and people can travel freely), get rid of taxes (most taxes are from things like education, social welfare, and military, minimise these and we all can afford to cover our kids education), get rid of public schooling (this doesn't mean people can't contribute to social welfare voluntarily- we did that long before governments got involved), get rid of government instituted monopolies (cable/phone/internet),
Take part in the migration movement to New Hampshire if you want freedom, individual liberties, and a right to self determination, rather than be babied by a nanny state:
I can't begin to take people seriously who talk about security if they don't get the basic gist that in order to build a secure system you must release the complete set of corresponding source code. Security is not something you can just bolt on after the fact. You don't get security simply by releasing the code. But without it you can't design a secure system. This is why all Intel and AMD systems are fundamentally flawed. We don't have the complete set of source code to critical secondary processors which have complete access to everything else. And what does the code on these secondary processors do? They include a lot of bloat including remote control functionality. It's not a secret. It's a back door in plane sight. They make it really easy to write off the back door as a feature, but it's clearly not to anybody who has even a remote understanding of the dangers here. You can't disable it. You can't design a system without it. You're simply screwed if the a high legal intelligence agency wants access to your computer and they haven't got some other means of obtaining said monitoring. It's not something that is going to be used lightly- because they it would become apparent. No. They'll utilize other tools for mass-spying. But for those that actually utilize GPG and similar it's a serious security threat.
We don't even have a complete set of corresponding source code 99.999995% of devices. Besides a handful of routers from ThinkPenguin the closest hope we have for fixing that is EOMA68. By modularizing key components we can cut the cost to design and manufacture devices while playing the companies designing key components like CPUs/SOCs off each other to obtain complete sets of code for all components needed to produce a given device. Crowd funding campaign here: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...
While I'd never buy a device like this I want to applaud the work simply because I know nobody ever does and there is a lack of appreciation in general for this kind of thing as evidence by peoples comments. Now I'll give a nudge on what I think we should be doing and start by saying I am involved in projects that are doing this kind of stuff.
I think we should be focusing on improving hardware support for the pieces that we actually have a bit of control over already and are focused at GNU/Linux users. An example of this would be the EOMA68 crowd funding campaign where we have mostly complete and freedom-friendly designs short of one component (while the scale and time needed to do the RE work might far exceed your abilities or time it would be substantially more valuable to work on projects to reverse engineer Mali400 graphics or an 802.11ac wifi chip- but certainly there are other simpler efforts- like the reverse engineering work needed to support laptops with Intel graphics- I know that the graphics part isn't the problem, but something else related to it still has to be reverse engineered, and the guy doing it quit- mainly because Intel is being more and more hostile, which is another good reason to move away from Intel, which is what EOMA68 is all about, giving us control back of our devices) or just about any retailer of GNU/Linux hardware (excluding Dell and some of the big boys given they do nasty stuff like lock down the PCIE slots to prevent users from installing GNU/Linux friendly wifi cards/because they want to profit off after-warranty replacement part sales and similar, and because it's more of a PR stunt than anything else).
The cause may be good, but the ends don't justify the means. Censorship is not the answer to these sorts of problems. It can't be the answer to any sort of problem as the approach disrupts the concept of democracy. We don't have truly democratic systems now because we're excluding a significant portion of the people in our society. From immigrants and criminals to children. We need to get away from censorship and open our voting booths to everybody whose here.
It's already extremely scary that the US and Chinese governments have inserted backdoors into critical components and/or system designs. We need to gain a firm hold on the devices in our possession and right now the only way that's going to happen is if we fund the modular computer project:
Otherwise it's going to be possible to order companies to do things in the governments interests, in the interests of corporate entities, and in the disinterest of us users. We're already victims of Microsoft, Google, Apple and the government. If we want to begin to undo some of these issues we need to focus on the foundational layers and get sources released for CPUs, keyboard/LCD controllers, wireless chips, and similar. The above project will enable these things by bring down the cost of design and reduce the high initial investment to bring new devices to market that put put the user in control.
That's nonsense. Nobody is saying they shouldn't monitor the situation and take action at an appropriate time. Cops have a moral duty to protect the people even if the supreme court has ruled the police have no obligation to protect the people (as crazy as that sounds it's true, and it's not just one ruling, but they have repeatedly ruled this... I do wonder why I should pay my taxes if the police will only ever be used against me). But cops are not honourable and should not be respected if they do not put other lives above there own. Particularly of those who challenge them and are often the real victims of the system.
I moved to New Hampshire to take part in the Free State Project. While the FSP inc isn't free enough for me I'm still glad to have moved to a state with other like minded individuals whom are focused on getting rid of government taxes and 'services'. People here are for the non-aggression principle which basically states you shouldn't utilize violence against peaceful people (ie perfect example is when government uses violence to get people to pay taxes, or you physically attack someone). New Hampshire is already pretty friendly to those of us who wish to live free of invasive government programs. New Hampshire doesn't require vehicular insurance, seat belts, or even have a general purpose sales tax.
Now we're trying to get more people who believe in liberty and individual rights and whom want less government to move here. We've already hit 100% of the goal to get 20,000 people to sign an intent to move statement and 10% of those 20,000 have already moved! And it's only been since March that people were even suppose to start planning a move (people who signed agreed to move within 5 years). Now we just need to stop accepting federal dollars and eliminate all those pesky federal-mandated laws and get rid of things like license plates, drivers licenses, and other similar victimless legislation. Some of us actually value our freedom over a needlessly over-protective violent police state which is 'just' trying to protect us (yea- right- no thank you- if I want health insurance I'll get health insurance- I don't need someone forcing it down my throat, and yes, I do have health insurance for which I pay for pre-government requirement).
I'd agree that there is no completely secure system, but nobody is breaking into GNU/Linux systems en mass. Not of individual users. Targeted attacks maybe. But that's not likely against low-level BitCoin users. These third parties could spend a lot more energy securing there own setups to thwart these attacks too, but they don't.
I've never lost any BitCoins. People are just stupid. Stop handing your BitCoins over to third parties. This isn't an issue with BitCoins. It's an issue with stupid. I store my BitCoins on *MY* computer. Not someone else's computer. I have some control over the level of security I wish to maintain. Now I don't run Apple's OS X or Microsoft's Windows OS so it's not like I am taking a big risk here. It's not that you can't compromise GNU/Linux... but the reality is I don't install random software on my computer either. I stick to which has been evaluated by the experts and is properly or semi-properly maintained.
There actually isn't much of a difference. If you ban one the other will follow, along with other politically unpopular speech. Popular speech doesn't need protection.
Proper mesh networking support was added to the 802.11n atheros wifi drivers via the community. The companies which design these chipsets have no incentive to add proper mesh support themselves, but because we had access to the sources could add it in the past. This was before the critical components were moved into the firmware on the newer atheros 802.11ac chipsets. Now if the sources were available for the firmware components we could add proper support for mesh networking. It's not and the situation is really bad @ atheros. Management changes and the loss of two key developers at atheros has resulted in a brick wall as far as getting them to understand the value and popularity of there 802.11n wifi chips. It took many many years to get prior management @ atheros to understand the importance and value of releasing the full set of source code. Given this AND the FCC situation there is zero hope at getting the code from atheros now.
I'm hoping we can fix this in the years to come and convince a different chipset company to release the source code for an equivalent firmware. Unfortunately that argument won't fly if the FCC is requiring lock downs.
If you read far enough into what the FCC has actually required TP-Link to do you'll quickly realize this is worse for free and open source software than TP-Link locking down its routers. Go look at https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_pub... (the settlement PDF links to this as a source document). In fine print:
"the Commission required . . . device software that controls the RF parameters that ensure compliance with the Commission’s technical rules for preventing harmful interference must be secured. The purpose . . . is to prevent modifications to the software that could, for example, . . . enable tuning to unauthorized frequencies, increased power above authorized levels, etc. The rule is not intended to prevent or inhibit modification of any other software or firmware in the device, such as software modifications to improve performance, configure RF networks or improve cybersecurity.”.
What this means is that the community won't be able to add features like mesh networking support to modern 802.11ac wireless firmware components (I should also point out that we don't even have source code for any 802.11ac wifi firmware... and the people trying to get it are being hindered by these FCC rule changes.. I know. I'm one of these people.). The reason we have great support for Atheros 802.11n chipsets is explicitly because the community has had access to critical bits of code. This code has now been moved to the wireless firmware which is *LOCKED DOWN*.
So no this is NOT good news. It's actually creating a security threat because we will be prevented by gaining access to the complete set of source code running on our devices.
It's not open at all unless by open you mean there is some code, but in reality it's a proprietary minefield There is proprietary CPU microcode and backdoors in modern Intel/AMD CPUs. We actually have all sources necessary to utilize core functionality and booting of the A20 CPU/SOCs and upcoming SOCs or released SOCs that can be utilized in future EOMA68 computer cards.
What is worse is that the cost of designing and manufacturing new systems is extreme for Intel/AMD. With EOMA68 you don't need to worry about that because you only need to scale the main component (computer card) in order to make it cost effective to manufacture other types of devices at a very low (comparatively) price point.
Not to mention that Intel/AMD are moving to integrated components which drastically increases the investment cost. If I have $80,000 to invest I can't buy 80 15.6" laptops without CPU and 80 14" laptops without CPUs. Then buy multiple different CPUs as needed (so in other words I have i3, i5, and i7). Because the Intel/AMD stuff is going integrated (ie soldered on at the factory) I am not limited to one CPU for each model and in reality that $80,000 might only be enough to get *ONE* 15.6" model. And don't even get me into the integration of wifi on devices. All newer Intel NUC systems are integrated. You are literally stuck on crappy proprietary Intel wifi chips.
Microsoft has a history of partnering with companies with the sole intention of undermining them or otherwise creating a monopoly for themselves. Microsoft's not supporting Linux because it wants Linux to succeed. At best it's a stunt to deceive and at worst they're trying to undermine Linux by initially supporting or claiming to support half-heartedly with the sole purpose of ensuring there are no competing technologies developed. They will probably later pull support leaving Linux with yet another Achilles' heel. Linux works, but we should kill proprietary software off if we want it to succeed. Google, Microsoft, and Apple are all a threat to users because they undermine the diversity and compatibility via different proprietary products, then utilize each owns monopoly influence to kill user's freedoms, choices, and privacy/security.
I find it hilarious that people don't just utilize BitCoin more. If you ask for it more merchants will adopt it. We've got a growing selection of stores in Keene, New Hampshire. More than anywhere else in fact. All because people here are asking merchants to accept it. Unlike credit cards neither merchant nor consumer have to worry about fraud. It's like paying with cash.
Your missing the point and value of this project entirely. We're giving the community and users control over the design of there computing devices. Right now we're stuck behind crappy poorly supported proprietary systems full of backdoors and malicious code. Modern Intel and AMD systems, televisions, every Android device, most Raspberry Pi-like boards, tablets, and even routers have backdoors and other malicious features.
You can't replace wifi cards in most devices these days because manufactures like Intel are integrating the chips into the boards. All modern NUCs for instance ship with proprietary intel wifi chips. Companies like Linksys are undermining our freedom and calling it "open source" trapping us into a system that ensure we won't retain control over critical aspects of the firmwares. Without access to these pieces important user contributed features including good support for mesh networking will no longer be possible. A great example of this is Atheros moving all the important bits in its 802.11ac chips into the firmware and is now refusing to release the code. Atheros *was* one of the better companies, but not because Atheros is good. But because we had multiple free software activists inside the company and because of work my company did to push things forward.
We don't need more than 2GB. We want more than 2GB. And that's fine. We can do that. But the first priority has to be to get a basic system out the door and funded. There are already efforts to get code released for more powerful SOCs. In six months you'll be able to replace that 2GB dual-core 32BIT card with a quad core card. And clearly the issue is not with the 2GB of ram. The issue is with bloated desktop environments. That's a solvable problem by simply not utilizing said desktop environments. You simply can't buy a new computer for $65- but that's exactly what you will be able to do. These aren't intended to replace your high end Intel/AMD system just yet. That's farther out.
Wikileaks is about providing raw data so that actual journalists can do there job. To criticize Julian Assange is to misplace blame. It's perfectly valid to say- yes- this might harm innocent people and it's still a good idea to release as is. There are all sorts of risks to life we take every day. Just getting in ones car is a risky proposition. The reason we do it though is because more good comes from it than if we don't.
Slashdot Mirror
I mean everything. GPU sources (including firmware), bootloader, etc? After all the publicity, financial success, and so on the least you could do is get us the full code via any means at your disposal including reverse engineering (even if it takes several years).
While there are a lot of people incapable of getting decent service with ADSL there are a lot of people like myself who have only ever subscribed to ADSL or Fibe (two places I lived I got fiber, and not from Verizon, but local companies or via municipality public utilities) because of the manipulative tactics of Comcast and similar cable companies. ADSL is better in that you get what you pay for (pretty much always, I've never gotten 4mpbs on 25mbps advertised pipes for example, unlike I've experienced numerous times with Comcast, during prime time hours) so long as you are within a reasonable range of the central office. Comparatively Comcast advertises speeds you can't *EVER* get by design. They know full well that they oversubscribe to such extremes (often) that when users actually want to utilize (during prime time hours) it the connection is unusable- worse than ADSL in many places. Now they mess with the connections to make people think they are getting absurdly fast speeds. But if you actually look at the facts they do all sorts of malicious stuff including shaping of traffic, throttling, disconnecting certain types of content (Torrents), etc.
Microsoft is still the same evil corporation it was before. The difference is Microsoft lost the OS wars in the end and are solving the problem through the threat of violence on OEMs who would rather not ship with Microsoft's offerings. They're utilizing patents and the courts/legal system (ie violence, theft, etc) to blackmail others into submission (or threat thereof).
Microsoft offers nothing of value to GNU/Linux users and those shipping with Android and similar operating systems. Those patents are all garbage. There is no reason we shouldn't be able to utilize a different file system if it were not for MS's monopoly. It was used (and some cases it wasn't even really used, like in the Tom Tom case) only to retain compatibility and that was because of Microsoft's monopoly which gave them the ability to refuse to implement support for other filesystems. Certainly this is monopolistic. If Microsoft had supported other filesystems like every other company we wouldn't be forced into utilizing it's shitty 'patented' filesystem. The patents don't actually provide anything of value. They are more or less a form of DRM. It's nothing more than a mechanism to force people to cough up cash to implement compatibility.
We should get rid of copyright, patents, and similar. The only one with some legitimacy are trademarks and that's an issue of fraud really. I shouldn't own the mark, just the right to sue for label, slander, and fraud should someone use it to deceive others into buying what they think is our product, etc. However I would argue that the case that patents are enforced in malicious ways against those not actually committing fraud. There is no reason someone should be prohibited from using a trademark provided it's not in a way to deceive. Utilizing it to criticize a company or on a product page linking to reviews or similar should not require permission. I'd even go so far as to argue patents should be limited to off-line scenarios and other systems of authentication should be implemented into the software to verify authenticity (we should never censor a site that sells fraudulent goods, but our technical systems should enable people to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate, or between what people recognize thereof, so if I start using a name/brand/etc I build up a reputation under that name then anybody else using that name should be in competition for said name would have to spend a lot to overtake its legitimacy, and that might even not work should the history aspects factor in, plus category, so penguin, a company that distributes ICE is as legitimate as penguin, a company that publishes book, is as legitimate as penguin, a company that sells computers with the GNU/Linux support, etc).
Devuan is a Debian distrro not shipping system d. I only know about it because it's supported by the EOMA68 project which aims to manufacture computers based around a modular computing standard that is free software friendly. Unlike Intel/AMD: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...
The only advancement to any desktop environment which seems to really exist compared to KDE 3.x is search. I'm seriously thinking of returning to KDE 3 and putting my money into helping the developers of the Trinity Desktop Environment (KDE 3.x) resurrect it. It needs some work to bring it up to speed, and more so properly maintain it, but it seems to have the most potential of all the desktop environments. I thought it was dead, but I'm no longer convinced of that. Mainly because it's not an impossibility, but it does need a financial backer with sufficient assets to make it happen.
There are companies that sell and support GNU/Linux hardware today. It's not terribly hard to go and find hardware. ThinkPenguin's got hundreds of computers and peripherals that all work out of the box and unlike the majority of hardware on the market come with proper support so you don't have to worry about losing it during an upgrade.
There are also efforts to free us from the treachery of the few proprietary components that remain, but it's a bigger uphill battle. Intel and AMD are working against us instituting proprietary components on core components (ie the CPU). These components contain malicious software including remote control functionality. It's sold as being for corporations, but you can't disable it, you can't remove it, and even if there was a feasible means of reverse engineering it replacement firmware won't load as Intel/AMD are signing these components. We know for a fact that backdoors are being inserted into peripherals and computers alike. Where the US is forcing it into CPUs designed by American companies that ship with all modern laptop and desktop systems the Chinese are incorporating it into keyboard controller firmware (home grown ARM laptops, though there is a OS level component needed as well).
If you want NSA-free computers check out the effort to do that here: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo... (there are already finished prototypes, the campaign is to bring a small number, 250-500 units into production, before a larger roll out, mass production can happen).
Americans already have opportunities that far exceed the majority of the world. People who want to close the boarder are bigoted and/or biased. Growing up my parents were impacted by changing dynamics as my dad worked in IT as a programmer and was laid off a number of times. That doesn't justify bigotry or restricting peoples right to travel and work freely. Yes- that may have negative implications, but Americans can and have learned to cope with a changing landscape many times in the past. Get over it. We retrain, we go back to school, we start our own businesses. There are lots of options and programs out there. Programs which are *funded* by violence through government mandated taxes. People have no excuses. I'm not an immigrant. I'm unproudly an American citizen by birth, Caucasian male at that. It actually is in our collateral disinterest to make the companies we work for uncompetitive on the world stage. What happens when we do that is they leave the United States for greener pastures elsewhere. Rather what we need to do is make our system more competitive. We need to get rid of copyright (copyright creates monopolies and monopolies are otherwise illegal, it makes no sense that when copyright doesn't do what it was sold to us that we continue to put up with it, it's not for the public good, not when we extended copyright from being a limited monopoly to basically an indefinite one, it also spurs violence due to enforcement, if you don't pay up they steal it from you the state will use violence and kidnap you), get rid of borders (things get more competitive and people can travel freely), get rid of taxes (most taxes are from things like education, social welfare, and military, minimise these and we all can afford to cover our kids education), get rid of public schooling (this doesn't mean people can't contribute to social welfare voluntarily- we did that long before governments got involved), get rid of government instituted monopolies (cable/phone/internet),
Take part in the migration movement to New Hampshire if you want freedom, individual liberties, and a right to self determination, rather than be babied by a nanny state:
www.freestateproject.org
www.freekeene.com
I can't begin to take people seriously who talk about security if they don't get the basic gist that in order to build a secure system you must release the complete set of corresponding source code. Security is not something you can just bolt on after the fact. You don't get security simply by releasing the code. But without it you can't design a secure system. This is why all Intel and AMD systems are fundamentally flawed. We don't have the complete set of source code to critical secondary processors which have complete access to everything else. And what does the code on these secondary processors do? They include a lot of bloat including remote control functionality. It's not a secret. It's a back door in plane sight. They make it really easy to write off the back door as a feature, but it's clearly not to anybody who has even a remote understanding of the dangers here. You can't disable it. You can't design a system without it. You're simply screwed if the a high legal intelligence agency wants access to your computer and they haven't got some other means of obtaining said monitoring. It's not something that is going to be used lightly- because they it would become apparent. No. They'll utilize other tools for mass-spying. But for those that actually utilize GPG and similar it's a serious security threat.
We don't even have a complete set of corresponding source code 99.999995% of devices. Besides a handful of routers from ThinkPenguin the closest hope we have for fixing that is EOMA68. By modularizing key components we can cut the cost to design and manufacture devices while playing the companies designing key components like CPUs/SOCs off each other to obtain complete sets of code for all components needed to produce a given device. Crowd funding campaign here: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...
While I'd never buy a device like this I want to applaud the work simply because I know nobody ever does and there is a lack of appreciation in general for this kind of thing as evidence by peoples comments. Now I'll give a nudge on what I think we should be doing and start by saying I am involved in projects that are doing this kind of stuff.
I think we should be focusing on improving hardware support for the pieces that we actually have a bit of control over already and are focused at GNU/Linux users. An example of this would be the EOMA68 crowd funding campaign where we have mostly complete and freedom-friendly designs short of one component (while the scale and time needed to do the RE work might far exceed your abilities or time it would be substantially more valuable to work on projects to reverse engineer Mali400 graphics or an 802.11ac wifi chip- but certainly there are other simpler efforts- like the reverse engineering work needed to support laptops with Intel graphics- I know that the graphics part isn't the problem, but something else related to it still has to be reverse engineered, and the guy doing it quit- mainly because Intel is being more and more hostile, which is another good reason to move away from Intel, which is what EOMA68 is all about, giving us control back of our devices) or just about any retailer of GNU/Linux hardware (excluding Dell and some of the big boys given they do nasty stuff like lock down the PCIE slots to prevent users from installing GNU/Linux friendly wifi cards/because they want to profit off after-warranty replacement part sales and similar, and because it's more of a PR stunt than anything else).
The cause may be good, but the ends don't justify the means. Censorship is not the answer to these sorts of problems. It can't be the answer to any sort of problem as the approach disrupts the concept of democracy. We don't have truly democratic systems now because we're excluding a significant portion of the people in our society. From immigrants and criminals to children. We need to get away from censorship and open our voting booths to everybody whose here.
It's already extremely scary that the US and Chinese governments have inserted backdoors into critical components and/or system designs. We need to gain a firm hold on the devices in our possession and right now the only way that's going to happen is if we fund the modular computer project:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...
Otherwise it's going to be possible to order companies to do things in the governments interests, in the interests of corporate entities, and in the disinterest of us users. We're already victims of Microsoft, Google, Apple and the government. If we want to begin to undo some of these issues we need to focus on the foundational layers and get sources released for CPUs, keyboard/LCD controllers, wireless chips, and similar. The above project will enable these things by bring down the cost of design and reduce the high initial investment to bring new devices to market that put put the user in control.
That's nonsense. Nobody is saying they shouldn't monitor the situation and take action at an appropriate time. Cops have a moral duty to protect the people even if the supreme court has ruled the police have no obligation to protect the people (as crazy as that sounds it's true, and it's not just one ruling, but they have repeatedly ruled this... I do wonder why I should pay my taxes if the police will only ever be used against me). But cops are not honourable and should not be respected if they do not put other lives above there own. Particularly of those who challenge them and are often the real victims of the system.
I moved to New Hampshire to take part in the Free State Project. While the FSP inc isn't free enough for me I'm still glad to have moved to a state with other like minded individuals whom are focused on getting rid of government taxes and 'services'. People here are for the non-aggression principle which basically states you shouldn't utilize violence against peaceful people (ie perfect example is when government uses violence to get people to pay taxes, or you physically attack someone). New Hampshire is already pretty friendly to those of us who wish to live free of invasive government programs. New Hampshire doesn't require vehicular insurance, seat belts, or even have a general purpose sales tax.
Now we're trying to get more people who believe in liberty and individual rights and whom want less government to move here. We've already hit 100% of the goal to get 20,000 people to sign an intent to move statement and 10% of those 20,000 have already moved! And it's only been since March that people were even suppose to start planning a move (people who signed agreed to move within 5 years). Now we just need to stop accepting federal dollars and eliminate all those pesky federal-mandated laws and get rid of things like license plates, drivers licenses, and other similar victimless legislation. Some of us actually value our freedom over a needlessly over-protective violent police state which is 'just' trying to protect us (yea- right- no thank you- if I want health insurance I'll get health insurance- I don't need someone forcing it down my throat, and yes, I do have health insurance for which I pay for pre-government requirement).
I'd agree that there is no completely secure system, but nobody is breaking into GNU/Linux systems en mass. Not of individual users. Targeted attacks maybe. But that's not likely against low-level BitCoin users. These third parties could spend a lot more energy securing there own setups to thwart these attacks too, but they don't.
I've never lost any BitCoins. People are just stupid. Stop handing your BitCoins over to third parties. This isn't an issue with BitCoins. It's an issue with stupid. I store my BitCoins on *MY* computer. Not someone else's computer. I have some control over the level of security I wish to maintain. Now I don't run Apple's OS X or Microsoft's Windows OS so it's not like I am taking a big risk here. It's not that you can't compromise GNU/Linux... but the reality is I don't install random software on my computer either. I stick to which has been evaluated by the experts and is properly or semi-properly maintained.
There actually isn't much of a difference. If you ban one the other will follow, along with other politically unpopular speech. Popular speech doesn't need protection.
Proper mesh networking support was added to the 802.11n atheros wifi drivers via the community. The companies which design these chipsets have no incentive to add proper mesh support themselves, but because we had access to the sources could add it in the past. This was before the critical components were moved into the firmware on the newer atheros 802.11ac chipsets. Now if the sources were available for the firmware components we could add proper support for mesh networking. It's not and the situation is really bad @ atheros. Management changes and the loss of two key developers at atheros has resulted in a brick wall as far as getting them to understand the value and popularity of there 802.11n wifi chips. It took many many years to get prior management @ atheros to understand the importance and value of releasing the full set of source code. Given this AND the FCC situation there is zero hope at getting the code from atheros now.
I'm hoping we can fix this in the years to come and convince a different chipset company to release the source code for an equivalent firmware. Unfortunately that argument won't fly if the FCC is requiring lock downs.
If you read far enough into what the FCC has actually required TP-Link to do you'll quickly realize this is worse for free and open source software than TP-Link locking down its routers. Go look at https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_pub... (the settlement PDF links to this as a source document). In fine print:
"the Commission required . . . device software that controls the RF parameters that ensure compliance with the Commission’s technical rules for preventing harmful interference must be secured. The purpose . . . is to prevent modifications to the software that could, for example, . . . enable tuning to unauthorized frequencies, increased power above authorized levels, etc. The rule is not intended to prevent or inhibit modification of any other software or firmware in the device, such as software modifications to improve performance, configure RF networks or improve cybersecurity.”.
What this means is that the community won't be able to add features like mesh networking support to modern 802.11ac wireless firmware components (I should also point out that we don't even have source code for any 802.11ac wifi firmware... and the people trying to get it are being hindered by these FCC rule changes.. I know. I'm one of these people.). The reason we have great support for Atheros 802.11n chipsets is explicitly because the community has had access to critical bits of code. This code has now been moved to the wireless firmware which is *LOCKED DOWN*.
So no this is NOT good news. It's actually creating a security threat because we will be prevented by gaining access to the complete set of source code running on our devices.
It's not open at all unless by open you mean there is some code, but in reality it's a proprietary minefield There is proprietary CPU microcode and backdoors in modern Intel/AMD CPUs. We actually have all sources necessary to utilize core functionality and booting of the A20 CPU/SOCs and upcoming SOCs or released SOCs that can be utilized in future EOMA68 computer cards.
What is worse is that the cost of designing and manufacturing new systems is extreme for Intel/AMD. With EOMA68 you don't need to worry about that because you only need to scale the main component (computer card) in order to make it cost effective to manufacture other types of devices at a very low (comparatively) price point.
Not to mention that Intel/AMD are moving to integrated components which drastically increases the investment cost. If I have $80,000 to invest I can't buy 80 15.6" laptops without CPU and 80 14" laptops without CPUs. Then buy multiple different CPUs as needed (so in other words I have i3, i5, and i7). Because the Intel/AMD stuff is going integrated (ie soldered on at the factory) I am not limited to one CPU for each model and in reality that $80,000 might only be enough to get *ONE* 15.6" model. And don't even get me into the integration of wifi on devices. All newer Intel NUC systems are integrated. You are literally stuck on crappy proprietary Intel wifi chips.
Microsoft has a history of partnering with companies with the sole intention of undermining them or otherwise creating a monopoly for themselves. Microsoft's not supporting Linux because it wants Linux to succeed. At best it's a stunt to deceive and at worst they're trying to undermine Linux by initially supporting or claiming to support half-heartedly with the sole purpose of ensuring there are no competing technologies developed. They will probably later pull support leaving Linux with yet another Achilles' heel. Linux works, but we should kill proprietary software off if we want it to succeed. Google, Microsoft, and Apple are all a threat to users because they undermine the diversity and compatibility via different proprietary products, then utilize each owns monopoly influence to kill user's freedoms, choices, and privacy/security.
I find it hilarious that people don't just utilize BitCoin more. If you ask for it more merchants will adopt it. We've got a growing selection of stores in Keene, New Hampshire. More than anywhere else in fact. All because people here are asking merchants to accept it. Unlike credit cards neither merchant nor consumer have to worry about fraud. It's like paying with cash.
Your missing the point and value of this project entirely. We're giving the community and users control over the design of there computing devices. Right now we're stuck behind crappy poorly supported proprietary systems full of backdoors and malicious code. Modern Intel and AMD systems, televisions, every Android device, most Raspberry Pi-like boards, tablets, and even routers have backdoors and other malicious features.
You can't replace wifi cards in most devices these days because manufactures like Intel are integrating the chips into the boards. All modern NUCs for instance ship with proprietary intel wifi chips. Companies like Linksys are undermining our freedom and calling it "open source" trapping us into a system that ensure we won't retain control over critical aspects of the firmwares. Without access to these pieces important user contributed features including good support for mesh networking will no longer be possible. A great example of this is Atheros moving all the important bits in its 802.11ac chips into the firmware and is now refusing to release the code. Atheros *was* one of the better companies, but not because Atheros is good. But because we had multiple free software activists inside the company and because of work my company did to push things forward.
We don't need more than 2GB. We want more than 2GB. And that's fine. We can do that. But the first priority has to be to get a basic system out the door and funded. There are already efforts to get code released for more powerful SOCs. In six months you'll be able to replace that 2GB dual-core 32BIT card with a quad core card. And clearly the issue is not with the 2GB of ram. The issue is with bloated desktop environments. That's a solvable problem by simply not utilizing said desktop environments. You simply can't buy a new computer for $65- but that's exactly what you will be able to do. These aren't intended to replace your high end Intel/AMD system just yet. That's farther out.
If I was Ars Technica it might matter, I'm not.
Wikileaks is about providing raw data so that actual journalists can do there job. To criticize Julian Assange is to misplace blame. It's perfectly valid to say- yes- this might harm innocent people and it's still a good idea to release as is. There are all sorts of risks to life we take every day. Just getting in ones car is a risky proposition. The reason we do it though is because more good comes from it than if we don't.