probably because Apple did not VOLUNTARILY offer to help at all, they categorically stated that could and would do nothing without appropriate legal process being followed and even then they said they would not be able to do much. This isn't to slam apple, this is actually the approach I think all companies should take.
Apple's claim to not be able to do much is suspect because the software involved is proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating). We don't know what proprietary software is capable of doing because we're prohibited from inspecting its source code (which we're also denied a copy of). People who tell you otherwise are either speaking beyond their knowledge or (if they work for Apple and have source code access) are untrustworthy because their claim is unverifiable. We can't replace the software on iThings with free software to make sure the user's software freedom is respected, but that's the approach all vendors of computing hardware should take.
I don't know why one would phrase any critique as "slam[ming A]pple" because that carries with it some ugly consequences: downplaying free speech (as if any critique of Apple's claims are somehow beyond analysis), fostering critical discussion (certainly more of this is needed particularly where nonfree software is concerned), and understanding the practical consequences of not respecting a user's software freedom. Distributing proprietary software is certainly not what anyone should do. The adverse effect to our civil liberties are far more important than Apple's (or any other businesses) profits or control over the user.
Part of the fun of this (so long as this is limited to talking about twitter.com) is seeing how the hamfisted censorship-based commentary works. What's okay with corporate power today? Who are media corporations trying to placate today? Nobody needs twitter.com or any of these other single-point-of-failure censorship havens (including/.), so if they go away or one's account is eliminated virtually nothing of value is lost. There were other venues for discussion before they arrived, there are others that co-exist with them, and there will be others when they die.
But it's a different matter of far greater importance when Americans face something similar with their government as is the case with RT (Russia Today) right now. See RT's stories on how the US Government has made RT America & Sputnik register as a "foreign agent". This is particularly interesting in light of Twitter's about-face (aka flip-flop) on RT—Twitter went from offering them a highly lucrative ad package to censoring RT (likely at the behest of the US Government) in order to go along with that government's 'Russiagate' narrative (which itself is protracted baseless distraction coupled with a casus belli for war with Russia). It's difficulty to live up to Noam Chomsky described as supporting freedom of speech ("Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech.") particularly when you "believe that everyone should have the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers" like Twitter claims to!
That's fiction, as as been proven many times with the discovery of ancient zero days in software that's been open source for decades.
Not only does that not follow (you have no idea who scrutinizes their copy of FLOSS precisely because of the privacy FLOSS affords users) but you're missing a much more important point: FLOSS respects a user's ability to do things computer owners want their software to do but inherently can't trust proprietary software to carry out. Proprietary software can't be trusted because the users can't be sure it is doing what the users want and not doing what the users don't want (typically this means leaking information, opening backdoors, and implementing malware). It's not about guarantees, it's about the permission to exert as much control over one's own computers as one wishes. Proprietary software inherently doesn't grant that permission and FLOSS does. Couple that with a monied organization as big as the American federal government, and you have the ability for significantly increasing control over their own computers.
Most anti-malware programs are nonfree (user-subjugating, proprietary) software. So it stands to reason that since people make mistakes and sometimes purposefully either don't fix exploitable bugs or put them there intentionally, nonfree anti-malware programs should be treated no differently from other non-free software—don't run nonfree software. The solution becomes obvious: run free software anti-malware programs instead. Apparently privatization got us to where we are: a series of untrustable nonfree programs with weaknesses only they're allowed to fix; weaknesses which can be exploited to do the very thing the programs aren't supposed to allow.
This is also the proper reason to not trust Kaspersky's anti-malware software: not because it's Russian, not because its recent issues might be the CIA's work posing as something its not, but because it is nonfree. Yes, I'm aware that Kaspersky allows some people to inspect what may well be its source code (perhaps under a non-disclosure agreement). But that is not software freedom because it doesn't grant those few people the freedom to run, share, and modify the code. Also because that limited permission doesn't include Kaspersky's users. All computer users deserve software freedom for all of the software they run. Together we can improve the software and end up with something we can trust. I don't think businesses deserve primacy, and we have n obligation to turn everything into a question of 'how can someone make money with this?', but we could give a research lab funding to continue their work investigating malware and coming up with improvements to anti-malware programs. Given how many people use computers (in other words, they're not optional anymore), we should seriously consider federal funding and long-term employment for this.
WE ALL NEED THE ABILITY TO ABSOLUTELY DISABLE ME AT THE BIOS AND/OR HARDWARE LEVEL. And we need it NOW!
What you're describing is software freedom. And you deserve software freedom for all of the computers you own. You should be allowed to run, inspect, share, and modify the BIOS, "Management Engine" (or workalike), and all of the other software on the computer including any encryption keys used. Fortunately for all of us people are working on different architectures and on freeing common architectures, so I hope you'll help them.
Google agrees: no matter where you are, you've needlessly chosen to trust a spy agency with your work instead of carrying a USB key with strongly-encrypted copies of your documents with you, or setting up a server carrying strongly-encrypted copies of your documents with proper access controls (so even if someone breaks in, they get an encrypted file). I suggest switching to something that makes it a little more difficult to get to your data.
The $250 fee is for the customer to buy one of the smart locks. One of the benefits of the smart lock is you can give certain people control over the lock so they can open it with their phone. A spouse for example. In this scenario, Amazon is an entity that the customer is allowing to open the door. Amazon doesn't control the lock. The customer controls the lock.
The customer controls something using software provided by Amazon. The customers don't retain exclusive access to the lock because the software is probably proprietary (never trust proprietary software) and network-controlled (a tracker conveys signals to open/close the lock) which means Amazon can open/close the lock too. You should learn more about the dangers of proprietary software, particularly proprietary network software (which is often malware) and stop trusting whatever proprietors tell you.
What? What does one have to do with the other?
If someone is breaking into your home you're better off making them have to do something that leaves clear evidence of a break-in such as a brick going through a window. The risks Amazon's system enables is indistinguishable from someone a client allowed in to do something the client wanted done.
I'm sorry. I didn't realize that Ethan Hunt from the IMF was doing fucking smash and grabs now. Are you serious?
If you think only the most sophisticated people or skills are required to pull that off, you have a lot to learn.
Only free software (software the user is free to run, inspect, share, and modify) can be assessed for security, fixed or improved, shared (even commercially), and run at any time for any reason. Without software freedom you're not being treated ethically and you deserve full control over your computers.
Nonfree software is never trustworthy, no matter how long you've run it, how much you're used to its interface, or how much you feel like you can trust it. You have no idea what nonfree software is doing when it runs, you have no permission to alter it, share it, or inspect it no matter how technical and willing you are to do these things. You might not even have permission to run it anytime you want for any reason.
So there is no way to secure Windows 10 so long as Windows 10 is nonfree software. The same applies to any other nonfree software too. No amount of public relations changes how computers and software work.
"Customer gets a really nice wifi & phone controlled lock."—no, Amazon.com gets the control over the lock. The customer gets a UI meant to convey a semblance of control.
"If someone really wants to break into your house, they'll just use a fucking brick. Off camera as well."—which means customers don't need to give over this degree of control to Amazon.com.
"All on camera. If he goes off camera, he's fired."—says you. Even if the terms of service claim this, it's up to Amazon.com to attempt to implement that (customers aren't given power to fire delivery people) and I doubt Amazon.com will have the power to fire a delivery person from a service they don't own. And who can say that the cameras won't conveniently be turned off or otherwise sabotaged so the robber can work in a way that is indistinguishable from being let in?
This is simply far too dangerous and completely unnecessary. So is Amazon.com's voice-controlled ordering but people aren't technically skilled enough to realize how that is a danger to their privacy, particularly for people who think that getting together in-person and speaking secrets is a tried-and-true way of conveying sensitive information. Nobody needed the voice-controlled ordering device, nobody needs this enter-one's-home delivery system. Wise IT professionals help the less technically-minded understand the threats and make informed choices, including having the foresight to say "no" and taking a bit of minor inconvenience rather than a vastly higher risk.
They're also the "family" that brought you the Star Trek fan film restrictions. How did these restrictions come about? For decades these restrictions did not exist and yet Star Trek made lots of money; fans made and distributed derivative works of Star Trek and all of this co-existed with the Star Trek shows and movies. Fans even collected money and donations used for making more fan fiction for all to see and share. But when Prelude to Axanar came along and piqued CBS/Paramount's interest, and CBS/Paramount sued Axanar's production claiming copyright infringement (including some remarkable overreach on what fell under copyright power). The fan film restrictions came out of this.
Now the restrictions exist and CBS/Paramount has made it clear they see anything other than their own Star Trek stuff as competition and not community-building. Is an organization you want to help fund knowing you're helping to fund an organization that treats their fans this way? Adding misleading labelling to adversarial treatment: CBS wants you to pay them to subscribe to their newly-launched Internet streaming service which, among other things, is advertised as "commercial-free" but will still contain "promotional interruptions" ("certain on-demand shows will include "promotional interruptions," CBS said").
What relationship does Fox have with Star Wars fans? I certainly wouldn't recommend Star Wars fan fiction now that Disney owns so much of that (an ever growing part of everything to do with Star Wars) since Disney is even more harmful helping fund a copyright term extension. If Fox treats their fans better, perhaps it's time to consider making The Orville fan fiction instead.
See the "meddling" posts? And learn that their alleged "interference" is indistinguishable from speaking freely?
The next thing you're going to ask for is candidates taking sole responsibility for their campaigns, win or lose! Or to see and hear what "Voice of America" does in other countries.
Why should a Firefox user want a separate password manager only for the browser, not integrated with the password manager they already have as part of the OS (for those systems that already have password managers)?
I could see a separate password manager for systems that don't have one, but not integrating with any system (even free systems) ever? I see how reinventing the wheel might be easier for Firefox developers, but how about in terms of what's in the best interest of the user (which, I'm guessing, doesn't mean learning multiple password managers to accomplish the same task)?
Slashdot has long been merely a corporate repeater. Look at the stories it picks to point to, the views expressed here (including the editorializing by way of direct comment, iconography, and one-liner comments just underneath the headline): they're all no threat to power. That's what makes sites like/. less free than older discussion forums on Usenet. Certain topics and views are simply outside the allowable limits of debate or marginalized for no good reason.
If established power wants to posit that Kodi == "piracy" and in so doing stand against software freedom (how dare people run, inspect, share, and modify Kodi software to suit their needs!), who is/. to object.
it's a small potatoes issue when 60-80% of your people are living paycheck to paycheck
Net neutrality is a critical issue that will determine people's access to the Internet—a network that has gone from being largely unknown and unpopular to indispensable even for the poor (one might argue particularly for the poor). Lots of people with computers of any size will tell you that the number one thing they do with their computers depends on the Internet (they may not word exactly that way, but anyone who understands even a little about things actually work will quickly recognize that Internet access is critical). And it takes virtually zero time to get ordinary people to understand that they depend on the Internet now. Net neutrality is therefore a majoritarian value and we see this reflected across divisions on other issues.
We've got all sorts of problems, large and small, to contend with. We all suffer in various ways dealing with these problems. So we need to get on with figuring out solutions. Fortunately in this case the solution is largely laid out for us. Businesses should work within publicly-specified laws that exist to serve the public's needs. We can tell (based on the time and money opposing net neutrality) that big businesses know we want net neutrality and they're quite clear on what that means. So it's a matter of doing the political work to impress upon those in power that they serve at our pleasure and they should rightly fear doing what we don't want.
Those who care about software freedom (which certainly should be people on technical discussion sites) care and don't cave into handing Google control over their data or their computer. Therefore running the spy agency's preferred browser (Google Chrome) is out both because it's nonfree software (which also eliminates other browsers from consideration) and because its owned by a known spy agency.
We already knew from their announcement that they were backdoors, and the Intel ME security problems confirmed this. In addition to documentation on how to use and disable the system, we also need software freedom—controlling our own computers requires the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify the software, and exclusive control over any encryption keys used so we can decide who else gets to control the hardware with us. Until we have software freedom these devices are not good at all, they are a clear threat to our ability to exclusively control our own computers.
This is also why computers with other architectures are so interesting and important. As far as we know POWER, PPC, and other architectures either don't have backdoors built into the hardware or the comparable hardware comes with user-revocable keys and respect for our software freedom. This is a good time to get away from Intel/AMD systems. They're not trustworthy.
McAfee, Norton, and Kaspersky all have the same problem: they're all nonfree software. No one of them is more trustworthy than the others because none of them give users the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify the program at any time for any reason.
If more people have access to the right tools and parts, more people can offer the service of repairing, thus increasing competition, enabling people with the skills and knowledge to do so to open a business and earn a living.
Funny how people seem to understand this in some contexts but not others. Talk about software freedom enabling self-repair and commercial repair services or commercial admins who can really know what they're running and the nonfree software advocates come out. Fighting for the right to repair is important and necessary but still weaker than what's really needed: software freedom—the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software.
If they do that, then that's absolutely great and reason alone to switch to Kaspersky. Everybody should welcome this.
No, in fact the continued lack of software freedom for users is precisely the reason users should reject Kaspersky's, Microsoft's, Norton's, McAfee's, and so many other nonfree anti-malware software.
Closed-source Antivirus and other security products (encryption, voting machines, credit card processing, etc.) tend to be fairly insecure for lack of external auditing. Companies go at great length to claim how careful they are etc., but the sad truth is that without any external auditing they will allow all kinds of blunders, fix vulnerabilities late and secretly, etc. This has been proven again and again.
"Closed source" is the tell here—that term is a reference to the open source development methodology. And here we see why free software is better than open source: open source enthusiasts are fine with proprietary software so long as some people get to "review" the source code. In this case that set of people are described as "a broad cross-section of computer security experts and government officials"—an unknown set of people who, for all we know, are not interested in looking out for security issues users would find problematic, or bugs that might harm users. Such an arrangement is no better than what Kaspersky is offering now; any proprietor can offer an NDA-laden "review" that does not respect a users' software freedom. It's no accident that the open source group takes this view. Open source was defined to reject software freedom in its pitch to businesses. Ultimately we find time after time that open source enthusiasts are ready to abandon their own development methodology if it would make a business happier to work in secrecy. Software freedom activists, on the other hand, won't settle for less than software freedom: the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software—users included.
The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program that is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users' freedom. Free software activists and open source enthusiasts will react very differently to that.
A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, "I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?" This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.
The free software activist will say, "Your program is very attractive, but I value my freedom more. So I reject your program. I will get my work done some other way, and support a project to develop a free replacement." If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.
Yes, and uploading copies of all the various renderings of the document to archive.org would have given them this, time-honored robust hosting via an ordinary HTTP GET request, from a secure site that doesn't require Javascript to use (contrary to the Mega download link someone else posted to/. elsewhere in this story), made a "download" URL available one could put anywhere (even their own website without alerting most users the data was actually coming from archive.org such as a requirement to go through a separate download page), and done it all gratis. Perhaps the IT admins involved should look into doing this now.
What you described doesn't grant them complete source code access to the code they already have, nor does it grant them license to share, inspect, or modify said source code. So it's not the same as having software freedom which is what we see with PC-MOS/386. What you're describing is reverse engineering and replacing software components at best, a violation of the proprietary license at worst, and not respecting the user's software freedom either way.
Many years ago Apple sold a device with a custom OS called the Newton. Apple sold Newtons for about 5 years (1993-1998) but never released the OS under a free software license. Today some users still own, repair, and use Newtons but they do so with no respect for their software freedom. Whatever problems Apple built into the Newton's software (whether on-purpose or accidentally) cannot be fixed by its users no matter how technically skilled or willing those users are.
PC-MOS/386 currently requires a nonfree compiler (the Borland compiler) but now that PC-MOS/386 is free software it can be ported to systems so it will compile with free software compilers, thus avoiding the problem of free software with nonfree dependencies (what was originally known as "The Java Trap" named after free Java programs that depended on Sun's formerly nonfree Java software). We went from having no software freedom with PC-MOS/386 to being free to port and improve PC-MOS/386 as we wish! So PC-MOS/386 now that it has been released as free software treats you better than Apple treats Newton users. Thanks PC-MOS/386 developers for respecting our software freedom!
I think this should be looked at as a problem that modern Internet use was designed to create for non-technical users: instead of making videos available in many places (so when some are in some way disabled, even temporarily, other copies remain), people are encouraged to think that it's right and proper to host everything in one spot. This makes censorship easy and effective for the admins of that one service.
Metaphorically speaking, don't put all your eggs in one basket. License your work to share, and host copies on multiple servers including your own, and host copies via decentralized file sharing systems such as BitTorrent. One effective way to do this is uploading to archive.org—each archive.org upload is also available via BitTorrent. As long as the material is mirrored by other users individuals can keep copies available even if archive.org disables or deletes their copy.
If it's okay to violate Hollywood movie company copyrights (as is the prevailing view here) because you don't like the terms why are the copyrights to Linux more special?
Licensing differences lead to radically different outcomes. Free software (not just the variants of the Linux kernel containing only free software) is more attractive because the effect of the license on the users. Hollywood movies are licensed restrictively even disallowing verbatim non-commercial sharing (in other words, treating friends like friends). In addition, Hollywood movies often use digital restrictions management (a proper expansion of "DRM" from the majority standpoint, that of the viewer) to enforce more than the license restricts. DRM means non-free software control over one's computer since all DRM software is proprietary. Proprietary software is inherently unethical no matter its purpose. As people put more sensitive data on their computers, more use of proprietary software means predictably uglier outcomes even for those who participated fully in a DRM scheme.
Free software implements an environment of sharing and cooperation as well as individual control over one's computer (to the limits of one's interest and skill). These are good unto themselves but also have good consequences for businesses (which is a nice consequence but not chief goal of the free software movement). I trust I don't have to review how many commercial developers and distributors benefit from the Linux kernel. Commercial distribution of Hollywood movies as we currently see, by contrast, implements control over the viewer, fund an increasingly punitive copyright regime, and fund an unjustifiably long term of copyright./.ers who pay to see the Star Wars movies would be wise to recall this; they're directly funding the organization most widely associated with the last copyright term expansion—Disney, for example.
Violating a free software license means mistreating a person or organization that was respecting a user's software freedom. But violating a proprietary license can be the "lesser evil" as Richard Stallman once put it in his talk about why society needs free software and why we should value software freedom for its own sake: Someone who had a useful nonfree program under a license that prohibited non-commercial verbatim copies had to choose between obeying the license of that program (and denying their friend a copy of the program) versus helping their friend who wanted a copy of a program by distributing a copy. This came up in the context of discussing free software freedom #2: "the freedom to help your neighbour. That's the freedom to make copies and distribute them to others, when you wish":
Freedom two is essential on fundamental ethical grounds, so that you can live an upright, ethical life as a member of your community. If you use a program that does not give you freedom number two, you're in danger of falling at any moment into a moral dilemma. When your friend says "that's a nice program, could I have a copy?" At that moment, you will have to choose between two evils. One evil is: give your friend a copy and violate the licence of the program. The other evil is: deny your friend a copy and comply with the licence of the program.
Once you are in that situation, you should choose the lesser evil. The lesser evil is to give your friend a copy and violate the licence of the program.
He goes on to explain that picking the lesser evil is not good, but one should aim the harm at the party that did harm (those that publish useful proprietary software) not to an innocent party (the friend). So the solution is to only have free software so you never get into this dilemma in the first place because all of the software you have you're free to share. Here we can see that the same copyright scheme grants power to radically different lic
Slashdot Mirror
Apple's claim to not be able to do much is suspect because the software involved is proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating). We don't know what proprietary software is capable of doing because we're prohibited from inspecting its source code (which we're also denied a copy of). People who tell you otherwise are either speaking beyond their knowledge or (if they work for Apple and have source code access) are untrustworthy because their claim is unverifiable. We can't replace the software on iThings with free software to make sure the user's software freedom is respected, but that's the approach all vendors of computing hardware should take.
I don't know why one would phrase any critique as "slam[ming A]pple" because that carries with it some ugly consequences: downplaying free speech (as if any critique of Apple's claims are somehow beyond analysis), fostering critical discussion (certainly more of this is needed particularly where nonfree software is concerned), and understanding the practical consequences of not respecting a user's software freedom. Distributing proprietary software is certainly not what anyone should do. The adverse effect to our civil liberties are far more important than Apple's (or any other businesses) profits or control over the user.
Part of the fun of this (so long as this is limited to talking about twitter.com) is seeing how the hamfisted censorship-based commentary works. What's okay with corporate power today? Who are media corporations trying to placate today? Nobody needs twitter.com or any of these other single-point-of-failure censorship havens (including /.), so if they go away or one's account is eliminated virtually nothing of value is lost. There were other venues for discussion before they arrived, there are others that co-exist with them, and there will be others when they die.
But it's a different matter of far greater importance when Americans face something similar with their government as is the case with RT (Russia Today) right now. See RT's stories on how the US Government has made RT America & Sputnik register as a "foreign agent". This is particularly interesting in light of Twitter's about-face (aka flip-flop) on RT—Twitter went from offering them a highly lucrative ad package to censoring RT (likely at the behest of the US Government) in order to go along with that government's 'Russiagate' narrative (which itself is protracted baseless distraction coupled with a casus belli for war with Russia). It's difficulty to live up to Noam Chomsky described as supporting freedom of speech ("Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech.") particularly when you "believe that everyone should have the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers" like Twitter claims to!
Not only does that not follow (you have no idea who scrutinizes their copy of FLOSS precisely because of the privacy FLOSS affords users) but you're missing a much more important point: FLOSS respects a user's ability to do things computer owners want their software to do but inherently can't trust proprietary software to carry out. Proprietary software can't be trusted because the users can't be sure it is doing what the users want and not doing what the users don't want (typically this means leaking information, opening backdoors, and implementing malware). It's not about guarantees, it's about the permission to exert as much control over one's own computers as one wishes. Proprietary software inherently doesn't grant that permission and FLOSS does. Couple that with a monied organization as big as the American federal government, and you have the ability for significantly increasing control over their own computers.
Most anti-malware programs are nonfree (user-subjugating, proprietary) software. So it stands to reason that since people make mistakes and sometimes purposefully either don't fix exploitable bugs or put them there intentionally, nonfree anti-malware programs should be treated no differently from other non-free software—don't run nonfree software. The solution becomes obvious: run free software anti-malware programs instead. Apparently privatization got us to where we are: a series of untrustable nonfree programs with weaknesses only they're allowed to fix; weaknesses which can be exploited to do the very thing the programs aren't supposed to allow.
This is also the proper reason to not trust Kaspersky's anti-malware software: not because it's Russian, not because its recent issues might be the CIA's work posing as something its not, but because it is nonfree. Yes, I'm aware that Kaspersky allows some people to inspect what may well be its source code (perhaps under a non-disclosure agreement). But that is not software freedom because it doesn't grant those few people the freedom to run, share, and modify the code. Also because that limited permission doesn't include Kaspersky's users. All computer users deserve software freedom for all of the software they run. Together we can improve the software and end up with something we can trust. I don't think businesses deserve primacy, and we have n obligation to turn everything into a question of 'how can someone make money with this?', but we could give a research lab funding to continue their work investigating malware and coming up with improvements to anti-malware programs. Given how many people use computers (in other words, they're not optional anymore), we should seriously consider federal funding and long-term employment for this.
What you're describing is software freedom. And you deserve software freedom for all of the computers you own. You should be allowed to run, inspect, share, and modify the BIOS, "Management Engine" (or workalike), and all of the other software on the computer including any encryption keys used. Fortunately for all of us people are working on different architectures and on freeing common architectures, so I hope you'll help them.
Google agrees: no matter where you are, you've needlessly chosen to trust a spy agency with your work instead of carrying a USB key with strongly-encrypted copies of your documents with you, or setting up a server carrying strongly-encrypted copies of your documents with proper access controls (so even if someone breaks in, they get an encrypted file). I suggest switching to something that makes it a little more difficult to get to your data.
The customer controls something using software provided by Amazon. The customers don't retain exclusive access to the lock because the software is probably proprietary (never trust proprietary software) and network-controlled (a tracker conveys signals to open/close the lock) which means Amazon can open/close the lock too. You should learn more about the dangers of proprietary software, particularly proprietary network software (which is often malware) and stop trusting whatever proprietors tell you.
If someone is breaking into your home you're better off making them have to do something that leaves clear evidence of a break-in such as a brick going through a window. The risks Amazon's system enables is indistinguishable from someone a client allowed in to do something the client wanted done.
If you think only the most sophisticated people or skills are required to pull that off, you have a lot to learn.
Only free software (software the user is free to run, inspect, share, and modify) can be assessed for security, fixed or improved, shared (even commercially), and run at any time for any reason. Without software freedom you're not being treated ethically and you deserve full control over your computers.
Nonfree software is never trustworthy, no matter how long you've run it, how much you're used to its interface, or how much you feel like you can trust it. You have no idea what nonfree software is doing when it runs, you have no permission to alter it, share it, or inspect it no matter how technical and willing you are to do these things. You might not even have permission to run it anytime you want for any reason.
So there is no way to secure Windows 10 so long as Windows 10 is nonfree software. The same applies to any other nonfree software too. No amount of public relations changes how computers and software work.
What a bunch of unwarranted assumptions:
This is simply far too dangerous and completely unnecessary. So is Amazon.com's voice-controlled ordering but people aren't technically skilled enough to realize how that is a danger to their privacy, particularly for people who think that getting together in-person and speaking secrets is a tried-and-true way of conveying sensitive information. Nobody needed the voice-controlled ordering device, nobody needs this enter-one's-home delivery system. Wise IT professionals help the less technically-minded understand the threats and make informed choices, including having the foresight to say "no" and taking a bit of minor inconvenience rather than a vastly higher risk.
They're also the "family" that brought you the Star Trek fan film restrictions. How did these restrictions come about? For decades these restrictions did not exist and yet Star Trek made lots of money; fans made and distributed derivative works of Star Trek and all of this co-existed with the Star Trek shows and movies. Fans even collected money and donations used for making more fan fiction for all to see and share. But when Prelude to Axanar came along and piqued CBS/Paramount's interest, and CBS/Paramount sued Axanar's production claiming copyright infringement (including some remarkable overreach on what fell under copyright power). The fan film restrictions came out of this.
Now the restrictions exist and CBS/Paramount has made it clear they see anything other than their own Star Trek stuff as competition and not community-building. Is an organization you want to help fund knowing you're helping to fund an organization that treats their fans this way? Adding misleading labelling to adversarial treatment: CBS wants you to pay them to subscribe to their newly-launched Internet streaming service which, among other things, is advertised as "commercial-free" but will still contain "promotional interruptions" ("certain on-demand shows will include "promotional interruptions," CBS said").
What relationship does Fox have with Star Wars fans? I certainly wouldn't recommend Star Wars fan fiction now that Disney owns so much of that (an ever growing part of everything to do with Star Wars) since Disney is even more harmful helping fund a copyright term extension. If Fox treats their fans better, perhaps it's time to consider making The Orville fan fiction instead.
See the "meddling" posts? And learn that their alleged "interference" is indistinguishable from speaking freely?
The next thing you're going to ask for is candidates taking sole responsibility for their campaigns, win or lose! Or to see and hear what "Voice of America" does in other countries.
Why should a Firefox user want a separate password manager only for the browser, not integrated with the password manager they already have as part of the OS (for those systems that already have password managers)?
I could see a separate password manager for systems that don't have one, but not integrating with any system (even free systems) ever? I see how reinventing the wheel might be easier for Firefox developers, but how about in terms of what's in the best interest of the user (which, I'm guessing, doesn't mean learning multiple password managers to accomplish the same task)?
Slashdot has long been merely a corporate repeater. Look at the stories it picks to point to, the views expressed here (including the editorializing by way of direct comment, iconography, and one-liner comments just underneath the headline): they're all no threat to power. That's what makes sites like /. less free than older discussion forums on Usenet. Certain topics and views are simply outside the allowable limits of debate or marginalized for no good reason.
If established power wants to posit that Kodi == "piracy" and in so doing stand against software freedom (how dare people run, inspect, share, and modify Kodi software to suit their needs!), who is /. to object.
Net neutrality is a critical issue that will determine people's access to the Internet—a network that has gone from being largely unknown and unpopular to indispensable even for the poor (one might argue particularly for the poor). Lots of people with computers of any size will tell you that the number one thing they do with their computers depends on the Internet (they may not word exactly that way, but anyone who understands even a little about things actually work will quickly recognize that Internet access is critical). And it takes virtually zero time to get ordinary people to understand that they depend on the Internet now. Net neutrality is therefore a majoritarian value and we see this reflected across divisions on other issues.
We've got all sorts of problems, large and small, to contend with. We all suffer in various ways dealing with these problems. So we need to get on with figuring out solutions. Fortunately in this case the solution is largely laid out for us. Businesses should work within publicly-specified laws that exist to serve the public's needs. We can tell (based on the time and money opposing net neutrality) that big businesses know we want net neutrality and they're quite clear on what that means. So it's a matter of doing the political work to impress upon those in power that they serve at our pleasure and they should rightly fear doing what we don't want.
Those who care about software freedom (which certainly should be people on technical discussion sites) care and don't cave into handing Google control over their data or their computer. Therefore running the spy agency's preferred browser (Google Chrome) is out both because it's nonfree software (which also eliminates other browsers from consideration) and because its owned by a known spy agency.
We already knew from their announcement that they were backdoors, and the Intel ME security problems confirmed this. In addition to documentation on how to use and disable the system, we also need software freedom—controlling our own computers requires the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify the software, and exclusive control over any encryption keys used so we can decide who else gets to control the hardware with us. Until we have software freedom these devices are not good at all, they are a clear threat to our ability to exclusively control our own computers.
This is also why computers with other architectures are so interesting and important. As far as we know POWER, PPC, and other architectures either don't have backdoors built into the hardware or the comparable hardware comes with user-revocable keys and respect for our software freedom. This is a good time to get away from Intel/AMD systems. They're not trustworthy.
McAfee, Norton, and Kaspersky all have the same problem: they're all nonfree software. No one of them is more trustworthy than the others because none of them give users the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify the program at any time for any reason.
Perhaps until the "slashvertisement" pays off for those who stand to benefit from the repetition.
Funny how people seem to understand this in some contexts but not others. Talk about software freedom enabling self-repair and commercial repair services or commercial admins who can really know what they're running and the nonfree software advocates come out. Fighting for the right to repair is important and necessary but still weaker than what's really needed: software freedom—the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software.
No, in fact the continued lack of software freedom for users is precisely the reason users should reject Kaspersky's, Microsoft's, Norton's, McAfee's, and so many other nonfree anti-malware software.
"Closed source" is the tell here—that term is a reference to the open source development methodology. And here we see why free software is better than open source: open source enthusiasts are fine with proprietary software so long as some people get to "review" the source code. In this case that set of people are described as "a broad cross-section of computer security experts and government officials"—an unknown set of people who, for all we know, are not interested in looking out for security issues users would find problematic, or bugs that might harm users. Such an arrangement is no better than what Kaspersky is offering now; any proprietor can offer an NDA-laden "review" that does not respect a users' software freedom. It's no accident that the open source group takes this view. Open source was defined to reject software freedom in its pitch to businesses. Ultimately we find time after time that open source enthusiasts are ready to abandon their own development methodology if it would make a business happier to work in secrecy. Software freedom activists, on the other hand, won't settle for less than software freedom: the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software—users included.
In fact what we're seeing in your post is precisely what a later revision of the aforementioned essay talks about. In "Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software" we can find:
Yes, and uploading copies of all the various renderings of the document to archive.org would have given them this, time-honored robust hosting via an ordinary HTTP GET request, from a secure site that doesn't require Javascript to use (contrary to the Mega download link someone else posted to /. elsewhere in this story), made a "download" URL available one could put anywhere (even their own website without alerting most users the data was actually coming from archive.org such as a requirement to go through a separate download page), and done it all gratis. Perhaps the IT admins involved should look into doing this now.
What you described doesn't grant them complete source code access to the code they already have, nor does it grant them license to share, inspect, or modify said source code. So it's not the same as having software freedom which is what we see with PC-MOS/386. What you're describing is reverse engineering and replacing software components at best, a violation of the proprietary license at worst, and not respecting the user's software freedom either way.
Many years ago Apple sold a device with a custom OS called the Newton. Apple sold Newtons for about 5 years (1993-1998) but never released the OS under a free software license. Today some users still own, repair, and use Newtons but they do so with no respect for their software freedom. Whatever problems Apple built into the Newton's software (whether on-purpose or accidentally) cannot be fixed by its users no matter how technically skilled or willing those users are.
PC-MOS/386 currently requires a nonfree compiler (the Borland compiler) but now that PC-MOS/386 is free software it can be ported to systems so it will compile with free software compilers, thus avoiding the problem of free software with nonfree dependencies (what was originally known as "The Java Trap" named after free Java programs that depended on Sun's formerly nonfree Java software). We went from having no software freedom with PC-MOS/386 to being free to port and improve PC-MOS/386 as we wish! So PC-MOS/386 now that it has been released as free software treats you better than Apple treats Newton users. Thanks PC-MOS/386 developers for respecting our software freedom!
I think this should be looked at as a problem that modern Internet use was designed to create for non-technical users: instead of making videos available in many places (so when some are in some way disabled, even temporarily, other copies remain), people are encouraged to think that it's right and proper to host everything in one spot. This makes censorship easy and effective for the admins of that one service.
Metaphorically speaking, don't put all your eggs in one basket. License your work to share, and host copies on multiple servers including your own, and host copies via decentralized file sharing systems such as BitTorrent. One effective way to do this is uploading to archive.org—each archive.org upload is also available via BitTorrent. As long as the material is mirrored by other users individuals can keep copies available even if archive.org disables or deletes their copy.
Licensing differences lead to radically different outcomes. Free software (not just the variants of the Linux kernel containing only free software) is more attractive because the effect of the license on the users. Hollywood movies are licensed restrictively even disallowing verbatim non-commercial sharing (in other words, treating friends like friends). In addition, Hollywood movies often use digital restrictions management (a proper expansion of "DRM" from the majority standpoint, that of the viewer) to enforce more than the license restricts. DRM means non-free software control over one's computer since all DRM software is proprietary. Proprietary software is inherently unethical no matter its purpose. As people put more sensitive data on their computers, more use of proprietary software means predictably uglier outcomes even for those who participated fully in a DRM scheme.
Free software implements an environment of sharing and cooperation as well as individual control over one's computer (to the limits of one's interest and skill). These are good unto themselves but also have good consequences for businesses (which is a nice consequence but not chief goal of the free software movement). I trust I don't have to review how many commercial developers and distributors benefit from the Linux kernel. Commercial distribution of Hollywood movies as we currently see, by contrast, implements control over the viewer, fund an increasingly punitive copyright regime, and fund an unjustifiably long term of copyright. /.ers who pay to see the Star Wars movies would be wise to recall this; they're directly funding the organization most widely associated with the last copyright term expansion—Disney, for example.
Violating a free software license means mistreating a person or organization that was respecting a user's software freedom. But violating a proprietary license can be the "lesser evil" as Richard Stallman once put it in his talk about why society needs free software and why we should value software freedom for its own sake: Someone who had a useful nonfree program under a license that prohibited non-commercial verbatim copies had to choose between obeying the license of that program (and denying their friend a copy of the program) versus helping their friend who wanted a copy of a program by distributing a copy. This came up in the context of discussing free software freedom #2: "the freedom to help your neighbour. That's the freedom to make copies and distribute them to others, when you wish":
He goes on to explain that picking the lesser evil is not good, but one should aim the harm at the party that did harm (those that publish useful proprietary software) not to an innocent party (the friend). So the solution is to only have free software so you never get into this dilemma in the first place because all of the software you have you're free to share. Here we can see that the same copyright scheme grants power to radically different lic