This won't protect against "Russian hackers" that attack over the network, possibly doing something to your stuff on an encrypted partition while it is mounted.
It is meant to protect against those planting a keylogger or some other malware in your/boot partition while they have physical access to the device
Yes, that is a quite narrow scenario between the attach on the running OS and the planting of hardware malware in your device. But the first can be patched against, and the latter tends to leave evidence, unless prepared very well. So this security key really helps close a gap. If this would work out-of-the-box with any brand laptop with a suitable TPM and an ordinary Debian or OpenBSD, I would get such a key (and I hope that this becomes a possibility in the future).
So what? Whoever can change that bit can already do a DOS by taking or breaking the laptop, or erasing the OS.
I would consider it quite useful to be able to detect manipulations in/boot; I hope this stuff becomes available for use with third-party laptops, too.
According to a report from 2012, in Germany, then, 59% of track was electrified, and 90% of rail traffic (train-kilometers) was electric.
Since the Diesel trains are mostly smaller DMUs on branch lines (EMUs typically on big long-distance and urban commuter trains), I'd assume that far above 90% of passenger-kilometers on rail would be by electric trains.
Since you asked about "rain electrification": Germany has far more thunderstorms than Britain or Ireland, but on a global scale it would rank below average. (map). But I currently feel too lazy to calculate the number of lightning strikes per rail passenger kilometer.
Sure, electrification has advantages, but it is costly, require time, and there will be people trying to resist.
In the end I think this has to be decided on a line-by-line basis. For a line with steep inclines with frequent trains and few tunnels, the benefits of line electrification should be worth it. For a line without such inclines, few tunnels, few trains, electrification might not be worth it; then the battery-powered train could be a good alternative to Diesel.
Disclaimer: I am am member of Bürgerbündnis Elztalbahn, which supports electrification of the Elztalbahn (no tunnels, AFAIR incline 1:100 on 12 km of the line, service to be upgraded to about 1 train per 30 min and direction throughout most of the day). There is an opposing group, the Elztalbahn Bürgerinitiative that fights against electrification; they tend argue that future battery- or hydrogen-powered trains make electrification obsolete.
If you refer to giving up freedom for security: I'd rather consider that convergent development, not the US and EU taking China as an example. The UK might still be leading there.
American companies might be able to move production out of China. That means the Chinese factories will the produce for other companies (mostly Chinese, as they already do, a bit for other parts of the world). I don't think the US has the know-how or skills to reindustrialize within one year. At least not to today's standard. The US are still great in a few key industries today, but that's it.
Isolating China might have kept them weak. But as you can see by the example of North Korea that doesn't mean it would have resulted in a less authoritarian government. It would very likely have had much worse impact on the people of China than the actions of their current government.
By now it seems too late anyway. Even if the West could agree on such a policy, few other countries would follow. And US+EU+a few minor countries would probably loose such that second cold war.
The best option seems to be to continue trading, and hope for some of the Western values gaining a bit of a foothold in the minds of the Chinese population, resulting in slow changes in China (as is already happening for many years).
Surely, people in the West have for quite a while tended to consider the rights in articles 18 to 21 particularly important (though even in the west there is quite some difference - freedom of speech tends to be valued higher in the US than in Britain or Germany.
On the other hand, people in China tend to value the rights in Articles 22 and 23 more (and are thus more willing to accept restriction to other rights, if they perceive them to be useful in ensuring the rights in 22 and 23).
Of course some people would consider rights not explicitly contained in that declaration as human rights. An interesting example is the right to petition.It is known in many different cultures. It exists in most western cultures (e.g. first amendment in the US, similar provision in the EU and its members). It has a long history (at least medieval times in Europe, at least 500 BC in China). Still it seems this right is not considered that important in the West these days; I guess severly restricting or even taking away that right in a Western country would be possible. A Chinese government probably wouldn't survive making such an attempt.
In the end human rights are never absolute; they always have to be interpreted and valued against each other, as there tend to be conflicts (made explicit by Article 29b - it even allows restrictions for "morality", "public order" and "welfare"). Different societies at different times held different opinions. And Article 30 is quite a strong restriction on all the rights.
Germany was leading in the development of battery-powered electric trains. The Wittfeld battery EMU, of which 163 were built from 1907 were a great success. after a battery upgrade in the 1920s they had a range of 300 km.
From the mid 1950s, the series 515 battery EMU, of which 232 were built, was used on branch lines.
Both the Witteld and the 515 needed special infrastructure for charging.
The last battery EMUs were taken out of service in 1995.
Recently, there is growing interest in alternatives to Diesel and line electrification. This hydrogen-powered train built by Alstom is one of them. The other major European train makers (Bombardier, Siemens, Stadler) at the same time presented new battery EMUs this year. All of them presented working prototypes that are to be evaluated in passenger service on branch lines this and next year.
In 1930 five battery-powered electric shunting engines were built, and used on rail yards in Munich, the last one was taken out of service in 1961. The E80 was charged fromt he normal overhead electrification on electrified track sections. And the new battery EMU prototypes going into service this year also charge that way. This is quite useful for a common situation on branch line service in Germany: Trains go from a station in a city along an electrified main line for a few kilometres, then continue on a branch line.
By your logic, in NYC more than 8.5 million cars pass the street next to the mayor's office daily. While I have never been to NYC, I find that hard to believe.
Pontevedra has over 80k inhabitants. Apparently those over 80k cars did not all use the street next to the mayor's office.
How about applications where some of the advantages of Cryptocurrencies matter more than the disadvantage of volatility?
I'm thinking of anonymity provided by coins such as Monero or Zcash. Could those applications maybe reach a volume sufficient to stabilize the respective currencies value against other goods, especially good often traded against those currencies?
I am not familiar with the current darknet market situation. Maybe someone who knows can tell use if goods there are traded against fixed cryptocurrency prices vs. prices in some legacy currency that are converted to cryptocurrency prices at the time of the trade.
The article claims that the Russian Orlan EVA suits are similarly outdated to the NASA ones, and that Russian Sokol suits are sometimes used by NASA astronauts. But it makes no mention of European or Chinese suits.
If what NASA currently has isn't good enough, how about buying from the Europeans, Russians or Chinese? They should have suitable suits for extravehicular activity.
Delaying the mission seems worse than having to partially rely on foreign technology.
Suits for surface missions might be a problem, as no one has done such missions recently. But a cooperation with the Chinese who are planning their own mission to the moon might work.
Modern China has a tradition of trying major policy or law changes in one province first (and then, if it goes well possibly extend them to the whole country a few years later).
It makes sense to me: we often have politicians and people in countries debating about the possible impact of some far-reaching legislative or policy changes (and often the discussion mostly ignores precedent from other countries where available). But actually trying it on a limited scale gives some useful data
But Intel are not the only ones who have knowledge on Spectre-like bugs.
There are competent security researchers among the OpenBSD developers that might have found another vulnerability; third parties finding vulnerabilities might also decide to disclose them to OS vendors, including the OpenBSD developers, instead of just to Intel.
As can be read in the post (referenced in the summary) on the OpenBSD mailing list, this new option was motivated by BIOSes no longer offering the option to disable hyperthreading.
For some of the recent vulnerabilities, the OpenBSD team, unlike other OS vendors was not informed in advance. So even when one assumes that there is a SpectreNG-variant that uses Hyperthreading, it is not so obvious that it is known to the OpenBSD developers.
On the other hand, knowing that there are more SpectreNG-variants, and not having been informed about the details might make the OpenBSD devlopers even more cautious about any hardware feature that looks suspicious.
I wonder if there is another Spectre-variant, that the OpenBSD developers know about, but we don't yet, where Hyperthreading really matters. WE know there are a few more SpectreNG variants out there, where details are not yet publicly known.
Regarding your "and do so with impunity", you'd also have to consider the actions of non-state actors. There could well be powerful pressure-groups that could force Valve to apply censorship.
Regarding your "they should certainly have the right to decide with whom to partner", I see a difference between "normal" businesses and monopolies. I am not familiar enough with the market, to have a good opinion on Steam being a monopoly or not. But monopolies, due to their power within a given market essentially amounting to being similar to that of a state, should be held to similar standards as a state actor when it comes to non-discrimination.
While bitcoin prices are fluctuating, there is still the price of the mining hardware to be considered. At dropping bitcoin prices, buying new mining hardware would become unprofitable far before continuing to run existing hardware would become unprofitable.
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This won't protect against "Russian hackers" that attack over the network, possibly doing something to your stuff on an encrypted partition while it is mounted.
It is meant to protect against those planting a keylogger or some other malware in your /boot partition while they have physical access to the device
Yes, that is a quite narrow scenario between the attach on the running OS and the planting of hardware malware in your device. But the first can be patched against, and the latter tends to leave evidence, unless prepared very well. So this security key really helps close a gap. If this would work out-of-the-box with any brand laptop with a suitable TPM and an ordinary Debian or OpenBSD, I would get such a key (and I hope that this becomes a possibility in the future).
I have yet to see the $5 wench that can defeat this tamper-evident protection? How would one use it?
You have a $5 wench that can be used to hit someone until they tell you the password, without them noticing that anything is happening?
So what? Whoever can change that bit can already do a DOS by taking or breaking the laptop, or erasing the OS.
I would consider it quite useful to be able to detect manipulations in /boot; I hope this stuff becomes available for use with third-party laptops, too.
Since the Diesel trains are mostly smaller DMUs on branch lines (EMUs typically on big long-distance and urban commuter trains), I'd assume that far above 90% of passenger-kilometers on rail would be by electric trains.
Since you asked about "rain electrification": Germany has far more thunderstorms than Britain or Ireland, but on a global scale it would rank below average. (map). But I currently feel too lazy to calculate the number of lightning strikes per rail passenger kilometer.
That depends on line usage.
Sure, electrification has advantages, but it is costly, require time, and there will be people trying to resist.
In the end I think this has to be decided on a line-by-line basis. For a line with steep inclines with frequent trains and few tunnels, the benefits of line electrification should be worth it. For a line without such inclines, few tunnels, few trains, electrification might not be worth it; then the battery-powered train could be a good alternative to Diesel.
Disclaimer: I am am member of Bürgerbündnis Elztalbahn, which supports electrification of the Elztalbahn (no tunnels, AFAIR incline 1:100 on 12 km of the line, service to be upgraded to about 1 train per 30 min and direction throughout most of the day). There is an opposing group, the Elztalbahn Bürgerinitiative that fights against electrification; they tend argue that future battery- or hydrogen-powered trains make electrification obsolete.
If you refer to giving up freedom for security: I'd rather consider that convergent development, not the US and EU taking China as an example. The UK might still be leading there.
American companies might be able to move production out of China. That means the Chinese factories will the produce for other companies (mostly Chinese, as they already do, a bit for other parts of the world). I don't think the US has the know-how or skills to reindustrialize within one year. At least not to today's standard. The US are still great in a few key industries today, but that's it.
Isolating China might have kept them weak. But as you can see by the example of North Korea that doesn't mean it would have resulted in a less authoritarian government. It would very likely have had much worse impact on the people of China than the actions of their current government.
By now it seems too late anyway. Even if the West could agree on such a policy, few other countries would follow. And US+EU+a few minor countries would probably loose such that second cold war.
The best option seems to be to continue trading, and hope for some of the Western values gaining a bit of a foothold in the minds of the Chinese population, resulting in slow changes in China (as is already happening for many years).
I'd rather say that they tend to value human rights differently than they tend to be valued in the West.
Let's consider the universal declaration of human rights.
Surely, people in the West have for quite a while tended to consider the rights in articles 18 to 21 particularly important (though even in the west there is quite some difference - freedom of speech tends to be valued higher in the US than in Britain or Germany.
On the other hand, people in China tend to value the rights in Articles 22 and 23 more (and are thus more willing to accept restriction to other rights, if they perceive them to be useful in ensuring the rights in 22 and 23).
Of course some people would consider rights not explicitly contained in that declaration as human rights. An interesting example is the right to petition.It is known in many different cultures. It exists in most western cultures (e.g. first amendment in the US, similar provision in the EU and its members). It has a long history (at least medieval times in Europe, at least 500 BC in China). Still it seems this right is not considered that important in the West these days; I guess severly restricting or even taking away that right in a Western country would be possible. A Chinese government probably wouldn't survive making such an attempt.
In the end human rights are never absolute; they always have to be interpreted and valued against each other, as there tend to be conflicts (made explicit by Article 29b - it even allows restrictions for "morality", "public order" and "welfare"). Different societies at different times held different opinions. And Article 30 is quite a strong restriction on all the rights.
Germany was leading in the development of battery-powered electric trains. The Wittfeld battery EMU, of which 163 were built from 1907 were a great success. after a battery upgrade in the 1920s they had a range of 300 km.
From the mid 1950s, the series 515 battery EMU, of which 232 were built, was used on branch lines.
Both the Witteld and the 515 needed special infrastructure for charging.
The last battery EMUs were taken out of service in 1995.
Recently, there is growing interest in alternatives to Diesel and line electrification. This hydrogen-powered train built by Alstom is one of them. The other major European train makers (Bombardier, Siemens, Stadler) at the same time presented new battery EMUs this year. All of them presented working prototypes that are to be evaluated in passenger service on branch lines this and next year.
In 1930 five battery-powered electric shunting engines were built, and used on rail yards in Munich, the last one was taken out of service in 1961. The E80 was charged fromt he normal overhead electrification on electrified track sections. And the new battery EMU prototypes going into service this year also charge that way. This is quite useful for a common situation on branch line service in Germany: Trains go from a station in a city along an electrified main line for a few kilometres, then continue on a branch line.
By your logic, in NYC more than 8.5 million cars pass the street next to the mayor's office daily. While I have never been to NYC, I find that hard to believe.
Pontevedra has over 80k inhabitants. Apparently those over 80k cars did not all use the street next to the mayor's office.
Yes, looking at the map the pedestrian zone is about as big as one would expect for a European city of this size (c.f.Freiburg).
Though Pontevedra has the additional disadvantage of having destroyed or having had to destroy their trams system (as was common in Western Europe)
How about applications where some of the advantages of Cryptocurrencies matter more than the disadvantage of volatility?
I'm thinking of anonymity provided by coins such as Monero or Zcash. Could those applications maybe reach a volume sufficient to stabilize the respective currencies value against other goods, especially good often traded against those currencies?
I am not familiar with the current darknet market situation. Maybe someone who knows can tell use if goods there are traded against fixed cryptocurrency prices vs. prices in some legacy currency that are converted to cryptocurrency prices at the time of the trade.
The article claims that the Russian Orlan EVA suits are similarly outdated to the NASA ones, and that Russian Sokol suits are sometimes used by NASA astronauts. But it makes no mention of European or Chinese suits.
If what NASA currently has isn't good enough, how about buying from the Europeans, Russians or Chinese? They should have suitable suits for extravehicular activity.
Delaying the mission seems worse than having to partially rely on foreign technology.
Suits for surface missions might be a problem, as no one has done such missions recently. But a cooperation with the Chinese who are planning their own mission to the moon might work.
Today we know it's called TLBleed.
Modern China has a tradition of trying major policy or law changes in one province first (and then, if it goes well possibly extend them to the whole country a few years later).
It makes sense to me: we often have politicians and people in countries debating about the possible impact of some far-reaching legislative or policy changes (and often the discussion mostly ignores precedent from other countries where available). But actually trying it on a limited scale gives some useful data
But Intel are not the only ones who have knowledge on Spectre-like bugs.
There are competent security researchers among the OpenBSD developers that might have found another vulnerability; third parties finding vulnerabilities might also decide to disclose them to OS vendors, including the OpenBSD developers, instead of just to Intel.
As can be read in the post (referenced in the summary) on the OpenBSD mailing list, this new option was motivated by BIOSes no longer offering the option to disable hyperthreading.
For some of the recent vulnerabilities, the OpenBSD team, unlike other OS vendors was not informed in advance. So even when one assumes that there is a SpectreNG-variant that uses Hyperthreading, it is not so obvious that it is known to the OpenBSD developers.
On the other hand, knowing that there are more SpectreNG-variants, and not having been informed about the details might make the OpenBSD devlopers even more cautious about any hardware feature that looks suspicious.
I wonder if there is another Spectre-variant, that the OpenBSD developers know about, but we don't yet, where Hyperthreading really matters. WE know there are a few more SpectreNG variants out there, where details are not yet publicly known.
Ethernet requires more wires, and more expensive hardware than simpler busses, such as CAN.
IoT devices need to be cheap and low-power. Ethernet won't always be good enough.
It is not that simple.
Regarding your "and do so with impunity", you'd also have to consider the actions of non-state actors. There could well be powerful pressure-groups that could force Valve to apply censorship.
Regarding your "they should certainly have the right to decide with whom to partner", I see a difference between "normal" businesses and monopolies. I am not familiar enough with the market, to have a good opinion on Steam being a monopoly or not. But monopolies, due to their power within a given market essentially amounting to being similar to that of a state, should be held to similar standards as a state actor when it comes to non-discrimination.
I see how bamboo and paper would not be ideal for making straws. So how about straw?
While bitcoin prices are fluctuating, there is still the price of the mining hardware to be considered. At dropping bitcoin prices, buying new mining hardware would become unprofitable far before continuing to run existing hardware would become unprofitable.