I have yet to see a cellphone camera that is as good as even my Canon PowerShot SX 120 IS and that is a few years old now and wasn't exactly top-of-the-line even back then.
My camera has a physically bigger sensor and lens than any phone I have ever seen. And it has a proper optical zoom.
Anyone who creates a truly anonymous cryptocurrency (one that even law enforcement/intelligence agencies cant track) will be a huge target. Governments of all sorts wont allow an untraceable method of moving money around the world to exist, it would hurt their interests too much.
Intel and AMD have said that in light of the Microsoft decision not to support the new CPUs on older versions of Windows that they have no plans to release drivers for the new CPUs and chipsets for the older operating systems.
I have a Nokia N900 Linux phone which is so obscure and unpopular no-one is going to bother writing exploits specifically for it. And with the unofficial updates from the community I get fixes for a lot of the general bugs going around (e.g. more recent OpenSSL than the phone came with for example). And being Linux and using so much open source software I can contribute directly to the development of the thing (e.g. I have done a lot of work on updating the included set of root certificates to the latest set from the Mozilla team as well as documenting exactly how you do that)
The N900 also has some hardware features that make spying a little bit harder (for one thing the cellular radio has no ability to access the microphone, speakers or audio hardware and record audio on the sly nor can it access the main Linux filesystem of the device, everything the cellular radio does is done by the main CPU pushing data/audio/etc to it)
Maybe if the idiots in charge of the various local governments in the Bay Area didn't make it basically impossible to build any new residential supply, rents wouldn't be so high and people wouldn't have a reason to complain.
The New Zealand government has been bowing down to the US government for years. Look at what they did to Bruce Simpson where the NZ tax office was used to shut down his "cruise missile" project (actions that were illegal under the laws the tax office is supposed to operate under I believe).
I have a Western Digital external HDD and every so often (whenever I have some free time but trying to do it as frequently as possible) I connect it up to my PC and run a program (SyncBackFree) that does a copy of my 3 main drives. When I am not using it to back up, the external disk lives in my desk drawer.
If I had the money I would buy a second external HDD and keep one offsite swapping the 2 periodically just to deal with issues like a house fire that could destroy both my main PC and my external HDD but even without that, I have a reasonable solution that will help protect against viruses, hardware failure and many potential disasters (e.g. authorities saying "there is a bushfire/flood/massive storm/whatever comming, you need to pack a suitcase and evacuate to a safer place")
Lots of entities would share their code in that circumstance because its in their best interests to do so. But a lot MORE companies (especially companies running Linux on all kinds of embedded hardware like routers and phones and tablets and such) wouldn't share if they didn't have to because its in THEIR best interests NOT to share their code.
Me personally, I think there should be MORE enforcement (via lawsuits if talking directly to the company that is violating the license doesn't work) of the GPL against companies who use the Linux kernel and dont share their code when legally required to.
Plenty of companies violate the GPL on the Linux kernel and many companies are well known as repeat offenders (taking months or even longer to release the source code corresponding to a new device or a new firmware update, releasing code that is incomplete or wont compile, releasing code that doesn't match the binaries or otherwise not properly following the GPL)
Don't require people to buy a data plan just because they have a phone the carrier considers "smart". Don't offer "unlimited" plans that have so many exclusions as to be useless for anything people actually want to do.
They should just do what they do here in Australia and offer a range of plans, each of which would come with a certain amount of calls and text and MMS and data. If people need lots of data, they can pay more and get a plan with lots of data. If they dont, they get a plan with less data. And if the carriers are doing it right (and have the right pricing structure) they shouldn't need to care how the users are using their data (whether that be for VPNs, tethering a laptop, full HD video, downloading Linux ISOs or running SETI @ Home.
And for people who run out of data, the carriers can offer data top-ups for x amount per GB (or part thereof).
I still use DVD for some movies and TV (things I want to own permanently, last thing I added to the collection was the whole series box set of Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis is on my wishlist as well) and the optical drive in my PC is useful as well both for installing software that comes on disk (e.g. I buy games at retail if they are cheaper than buying from digital store and those still come on disk for the most part) and for burning data to if I need to give it to someone (e.g. if I want to burn some photos and give them to someone permanently, a burnt DVD is the easy and cheap way to do that)
Google has a very lengthy set of terms that OEMs must agree to in order to get access to the Google Play store, the Google Play Services middleware layer and various Google apps.
Google could add clauses to these terms such that if OEMs want to be allowed to use the Play store and the other Google software, they must support the device with security updates for a minimum amount of time after the release of the device.
Any OEM that doesn't play ball and follow the rules would risk loosing the right to produce any more devices that contain the Google software.
Good luck doing meaningful deep packet inspection on encrypted HTTPS packets. Or do they plan to simply throttle HTTPS data of all sorts in case it might somehow be a video clip? Or are they somehow doing MITM on HTTPS connections?
The issue is that they are now saying you have to pay extra to get HD video if you are on one of these new plans. If a provider doesn't give T-Mobile the details necessary to detect/block HD streams from that provider (or to force streams to 480p) how can T-Mobile stop people from getting full HD streams from that provider without paying the extra $25 charge? And more to the point, how can T-Mobile stop people using a VPN or proxy to get around paying the $25 charge?
How are they detecting "video streams" in order to throttle it? Based on host (e.g. known domain names for video hosts)? Based on protocol (e.g. blocking known streaming protocols)? Deep packet inspection?
If they are detecting based on host, that's a net neutrality violation since they are discriminating between "video hosts they know about and throttle" and "video hosts they dont know about and don't throttle". If they are attempting to detect based on protocols or port numbers, it wont work for things that use standard HTTP as the underlying protocol or that use port numbers other than the ones they are expecting. And if they are trying some form of packet inspection, good luck doing that on an encrypted HTTPS YouTube stream.
Also I wonder how they are enforcing the 480p restriction. Are they re-encoding the videos? Blocking streams higher than 480p? Something else? (and again, good luck doing that on an encrypted HTTPS YouTube stream)
More to the point, you could probably easily get around whatever they are doing with a VPN and I bet you could find a suitable VPN provider for less than the $25 T-Mobile wants for unlocking high definition video...
And there are a number of exploits for ARM TrustZone (depending on exactly which CPU you have, what software is running etc) so even then there are ways around this stuff...
I run vmware player on my Windows 7 machine. But I am not running it 24/7 or anything like that. I use it to run a Linux development environment for my Nokia N900 phone (there is a ready-made Ubuntu vmware VM file for N900 development and its easier to run it that way than dual boot all the time)
What happened is that Microsoft originally said that people with Skylake hardware would stop getting updates for Windows 7 and 8 on some earlier date than the date at which people with older hardware stop getting those updates. Now it seems like the date for Skylake users to stop getting updates (including security updates) for Windows 7 matches the date at which people with older hardware will stop getting those updates.
As someone who upgraded from a Core 2 Duo to a Skylake i5 in January (before Microsoft announced anything regarding Skylake) this is a good thing from Microsoft. Means I can keep using Windows 7 (and getting security updates for it) for as long as any other Windows 7 user.
So why doesn't someone like Google (who would probably make a lot of money if they were able to roll out Google Fiber in an area like NYC) throw a bunch of lobbying dollars at the relavent governments so the governments will end the monopolies?
Or would Google be unable to out-bid the incumbent in such a situation?
There is no way you could convince every hardware and software company to lock down every computing device to not run anything that isn't approved by governments and big corporations. Outlawing general purpose computers (i.e. things capable of running "unapproved" software) will never be possible either (at least not in any country that isn't a strict dictatorship like North Korea).
Nor could you modify the networking layer of things like Windows to be able to detect anything piracy related (or even just Torrent traffic) since so much of it is encrypted (even ISPs with expensive dedicated super-fast deep packet inspection gear haven't been able to detect all the different ways of sending encrypted BitTorrent traffic out there,)
There are enough PC publishers out there that have a vested interest in not going down that road (including giants like Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, Ubisoft, Valve Corporation, Warner Bros. Interactive and ZeniMax Media) that I cant see Microsoft being able to succeed in any plan to force developers to push PC titles through the UWP and hand over revenue to Microsoft if they dont have to.
Especially for companies like EA and Valve and Ubisoft that have their own stores where they get to keep 100% of the profit and dont have to pay someone else.
Its "login consolidation" (specifically the move with Windows 8 and 10 to use your Live/Hotmail/Outlook/Microsoft/etc login as your desktop login) that is the cause of this bug in the first place.
Thankfully I am on Windows 7 (and would use a local login rather than a cloud login in any case even on Windows 10) so this issue doesn't affect me. (no domains, VPNs or anything else involved either, its just a local login for my desktop)
Slashdot Mirror
I have yet to see a cellphone camera that is as good as even my Canon PowerShot SX 120 IS and that is a few years old now and wasn't exactly top-of-the-line even back then.
My camera has a physically bigger sensor and lens than any phone I have ever seen. And it has a proper optical zoom.
Anyone who creates a truly anonymous cryptocurrency (one that even law enforcement/intelligence agencies cant track) will be a huge target. Governments of all sorts wont allow an untraceable method of moving money around the world to exist, it would hurt their interests too much.
Intel and AMD have said that in light of the Microsoft decision not to support the new CPUs on older versions of Windows that they have no plans to release drivers for the new CPUs and chipsets for the older operating systems.
I have a Nokia N900 Linux phone which is so obscure and unpopular no-one is going to bother writing exploits specifically for it. And with the unofficial updates from the community I get fixes for a lot of the general bugs going around (e.g. more recent OpenSSL than the phone came with for example). And being Linux and using so much open source software I can contribute directly to the development of the thing (e.g. I have done a lot of work on updating the included set of root certificates to the latest set from the Mozilla team as well as documenting exactly how you do that)
The N900 also has some hardware features that make spying a little bit harder (for one thing the cellular radio has no ability to access the microphone, speakers or audio hardware and record audio on the sly nor can it access the main Linux filesystem of the device, everything the cellular radio does is done by the main CPU pushing data/audio/etc to it)
I am sure that any VPN calling themselves "Perfect Privacy" wont be allowing these servers to be used again until they are sure they are clean.
Maybe if the idiots in charge of the various local governments in the Bay Area didn't make it basically impossible to build any new residential supply, rents wouldn't be so high and people wouldn't have a reason to complain.
The New Zealand government has been bowing down to the US government for years. Look at what they did to Bruce Simpson where the NZ tax office was used to shut down his "cruise missile" project (actions that were illegal under the laws the tax office is supposed to operate under I believe).
I have a Western Digital external HDD and every so often (whenever I have some free time but trying to do it as frequently as possible) I connect it up to my PC and run a program (SyncBackFree) that does a copy of my 3 main drives. When I am not using it to back up, the external disk lives in my desk drawer.
If I had the money I would buy a second external HDD and keep one offsite swapping the 2 periodically just to deal with issues like a house fire that could destroy both my main PC and my external HDD but even without that, I have a reasonable solution that will help protect against viruses, hardware failure and many potential disasters (e.g. authorities saying "there is a bushfire/flood/massive storm/whatever comming, you need to pack a suitcase and evacuate to a safer place")
Lots of entities would share their code in that circumstance because its in their best interests to do so. But a lot MORE companies (especially companies running Linux on all kinds of embedded hardware like routers and phones and tablets and such) wouldn't share if they didn't have to because its in THEIR best interests NOT to share their code.
Me personally, I think there should be MORE enforcement (via lawsuits if talking directly to the company that is violating the license doesn't work) of the GPL against companies who use the Linux kernel and dont share their code when legally required to.
Plenty of companies violate the GPL on the Linux kernel and many companies are well known as repeat offenders (taking months or even longer to release the source code corresponding to a new device or a new firmware update, releasing code that is incomplete or wont compile, releasing code that doesn't match the binaries or otherwise not properly following the GPL)
The point is not to replace everything with AES but to use AES instead of weak ciphers like 3DES and RC4.
Don't require people to buy a data plan just because they have a phone the carrier considers "smart". Don't offer "unlimited" plans that have so many exclusions as to be useless for anything people actually want to do.
They should just do what they do here in Australia and offer a range of plans, each of which would come with a certain amount of calls and text and MMS and data. If people need lots of data, they can pay more and get a plan with lots of data. If they dont, they get a plan with less data. And if the carriers are doing it right (and have the right pricing structure) they shouldn't need to care how the users are using their data (whether that be for VPNs, tethering a laptop, full HD video, downloading Linux ISOs or running SETI @ Home.
And for people who run out of data, the carriers can offer data top-ups for x amount per GB (or part thereof).
I still use DVD for some movies and TV (things I want to own permanently, last thing I added to the collection was the whole series box set of Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis is on my wishlist as well) and the optical drive in my PC is useful as well both for installing software that comes on disk (e.g. I buy games at retail if they are cheaper than buying from digital store and those still come on disk for the most part) and for burning data to if I need to give it to someone (e.g. if I want to burn some photos and give them to someone permanently, a burnt DVD is the easy and cheap way to do that)
Ok so if the PC gets ever XBOX game, how can I play LEGO Dimensions on my PC then? Or does that not count since its not an "XBOX exclusive"?
Google has a very lengthy set of terms that OEMs must agree to in order to get access to the Google Play store, the Google Play Services middleware layer and various Google apps.
Google could add clauses to these terms such that if OEMs want to be allowed to use the Play store and the other Google software, they must support the device with security updates for a minimum amount of time after the release of the device.
Any OEM that doesn't play ball and follow the rules would risk loosing the right to produce any more devices that contain the Google software.
Good luck doing meaningful deep packet inspection on encrypted HTTPS packets. Or do they plan to simply throttle HTTPS data of all sorts in case it might somehow be a video clip? Or are they somehow doing MITM on HTTPS connections?
The issue is that they are now saying you have to pay extra to get HD video if you are on one of these new plans. If a provider doesn't give T-Mobile the details necessary to detect/block HD streams from that provider (or to force streams to 480p) how can T-Mobile stop people from getting full HD streams from that provider without paying the extra $25 charge? And more to the point, how can T-Mobile stop people using a VPN or proxy to get around paying the $25 charge?
How are they detecting "video streams" in order to throttle it?
Based on host (e.g. known domain names for video hosts)?
Based on protocol (e.g. blocking known streaming protocols)?
Deep packet inspection?
If they are detecting based on host, that's a net neutrality violation since they are discriminating between "video hosts they know about and throttle" and "video hosts they dont know about and don't throttle". If they are attempting to detect based on protocols or port numbers, it wont work for things that use standard HTTP as the underlying protocol or that use port numbers other than the ones they are expecting. And if they are trying some form of packet inspection, good luck doing that on an encrypted HTTPS YouTube stream.
Also I wonder how they are enforcing the 480p restriction. Are they re-encoding the videos? Blocking streams higher than 480p? Something else? (and again, good luck doing that on an encrypted HTTPS YouTube stream)
More to the point, you could probably easily get around whatever they are doing with a VPN and I bet you could find a suitable VPN provider for less than the $25 T-Mobile wants for unlocking high definition video...
And there are a number of exploits for ARM TrustZone (depending on exactly which CPU you have, what software is running etc) so even then there are ways around this stuff...
I run vmware player on my Windows 7 machine. But I am not running it 24/7 or anything like that. I use it to run a Linux development environment for my Nokia N900 phone (there is a ready-made Ubuntu vmware VM file for N900 development and its easier to run it that way than dual boot all the time)
What happened is that Microsoft originally said that people with Skylake hardware would stop getting updates for Windows 7 and 8 on some earlier date than the date at which people with older hardware stop getting those updates. Now it seems like the date for Skylake users to stop getting updates (including security updates) for Windows 7 matches the date at which people with older hardware will stop getting those updates.
As someone who upgraded from a Core 2 Duo to a Skylake i5 in January (before Microsoft announced anything regarding Skylake) this is a good thing from Microsoft. Means I can keep using Windows 7 (and getting security updates for it) for as long as any other Windows 7 user.
So why doesn't someone like Google (who would probably make a lot of money if they were able to roll out Google Fiber in an area like NYC) throw a bunch of lobbying dollars at the relavent governments so the governments will end the monopolies?
Or would Google be unable to out-bid the incumbent in such a situation?
There is no way you could convince every hardware and software company to lock down every computing device to not run anything that isn't approved by governments and big corporations. Outlawing general purpose computers (i.e. things capable of running "unapproved" software) will never be possible either (at least not in any country that isn't a strict dictatorship like North Korea).
Nor could you modify the networking layer of things like Windows to be able to detect anything piracy related (or even just Torrent traffic) since so much of it is encrypted (even ISPs with expensive dedicated super-fast deep packet inspection gear haven't been able to detect all the different ways of sending encrypted BitTorrent traffic out there,)
There are enough PC publishers out there that have a vested interest in not going down that road (including giants like Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, Ubisoft, Valve Corporation, Warner Bros. Interactive and ZeniMax Media) that I cant see Microsoft being able to succeed in any plan to force developers to push PC titles through the UWP and hand over revenue to Microsoft if they dont have to.
Especially for companies like EA and Valve and Ubisoft that have their own stores where they get to keep 100% of the profit and dont have to pay someone else.
Its "login consolidation" (specifically the move with Windows 8 and 10 to use your Live/Hotmail/Outlook/Microsoft/etc login as your desktop login) that is the cause of this bug in the first place.
Thankfully I am on Windows 7 (and would use a local login rather than a cloud login in any case even on Windows 10) so this issue doesn't affect me. (no domains, VPNs or anything else involved either, its just a local login for my desktop)
SecuROM isn't malware, its not software designed to be malicious or intentionally harm your computer.