1) I have root access and can remove all the bloat / spyware that comes pre-installed from the carrier 2) I can move between carriers 3) It has a removable battery 4) The camera / microphone have dedicated hardware switches that enable / disable them 5) It is somewhat waterproof ( Don't need to dive with it, but some rain protection is nice ) 6) It has a standardized connector ( USB-C ) and a GD headphone jack 7) The call quality / reliability is on par with a landline 8) It isn't so damn big that it comes with optional leather straps so you can use it as a shield 9) A fast and unthrottled data plan, similar to my standard home internet plan 10) Moving music, photos, video ( or any files ) does not require I-Tunes. Just plug in with USB cable and go.
*Extra bonus if it doesn't come saddled with a contract and / or ludicrous costs for their overpriced phone / data plans.
Meet this fairy tale list of requirements and I might consider one of your shiny gadgets.
If Team - A ( Congress ) can't come up with a plan to protect everyone's privacy, then Team - B ( The States ) will do it themselves.
The latter is likely to create a regulatory minefield for the players in question, so it would be in their best interests to pressure Team - A to get off their ass and do their job.
Considering the current Congress track record of doing anything GOOD for anyone ( other than themselves ) you might hire some minesweepers for you.
Size and bulkiness of headgear. Display resolution in the headset. Reading text is nigh impossible. Horsepower required to run it. Price of both headunit and PC hardware. Roomspace requirements. Motion sickness for some. Niche community thus, low user base. No AAA titles to push it. Platform exclusive titles. Prescription eyewear sucks with this.
These are the ones off the top of my head.
Some you can fix with better design, hardware and vendor collaboration, some ( like motion sickness ) probably not.
Too much fighting over who will be the standard platform will likely be the final nail in the coffin for the tech.
Not sure why we would put bombers back on alert status when we have several platforms on site capable of dealing with NK already.
Both ICBM's and Cruise Missiles ( all variants, including nuclear ) can be launched by a subsurface platform. Guarantee we have more there than the one the public knows about.
Conventional or nuclear weaponry can also be delivered by aircraft via the nearby aircraft carrier(s). Even more cruise missiles ( all variants ) via the ships that make up the battle groups.
Bombers really wouldn't be required.
That said, Kimmo isn't gonna lob a nuke at anyone unless he's got nothing to lose. Though any missile launch will certainly be treated as a potential nuclear armed device.
We start a conventional campaign against NK and he thinks we're about to take him down ? ( ala Iraq ) Then, yes. He'll launch everything he has as a last " fuck you " to the US. Nukes, chems and even bio stuff if he has any.
The NBC possibility is the only reason the US would use a nuclear pre-emptive strike. You would want those delivery platforms and payloads obliterated without question before he had the option to use them.
Thus the dangers of obtaining / stockpiling those weapon types. You raise the risk of a nuclear first strike on your country dramatically due to the risk they pose to everyone else.
If any of this comes to fruition, we'll get to see first hand how well the THAAD and Sea Based Ballistic Shield systems work.
Being smart and / or successful in school is looked down upon by the majority of their peers. You're labeled a geek or a nerd and ostracized for it.
Those who attempt to learn are merely targeted and ridiculed by the rest who seem to exist only to make everyone's life as miserable as possible. Some kids endure it and move on. Some give up and join the crowd. Others snap and go on a killing spree.
Some of the brightest people in this GD country are financially dwarfed by half-wits who can throw a ball, cry on cue or had the luck of being born with the right genetics and / or wealthy parents. High schools pour hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars into athletic programs, but seem to have little interest in funding anything academic outside of the bare minimums.
America has little interest in intelligent people, they want stupid ones who will serve as entertainment for the rest. The powers that be all but beg kids to get interested in STEM programs while, at the same time, they're outsourcing all the jobs associated with those programs overseas.:|
Kids see this and they ask themselves " Which one would I rather be ? "
You want to fix education ?
Start by figuring out how to make advanced learning something kids will strive for vs something they shun to avoid the persecution and misery that usually comes with it.
While other solutions may be more effective at preventing misuse by third parties, you are not required to give your password to law enforcement without reasonable cause.
Their simply demanding it is not " reasonable cause ".
Whereas your biometric ID is fair game. They can, and have, walked into an establishment and forced everyone who used biometric fingerprints to unlock their phones to do so. You have no recourse.
I'll keep my passwords until they fix the other problem thanks.
If this goes through, I would expect it would apply to anything that has a battery within it of X size or capacity.
Phones, tablets, photo gear, etc. etc.
The only reason anyone checks a laptop is because the flight crew demands it due to lack of space in the passenger cabin. Be curious how that will play out if the rules state you can't check it at all.
I see no calls for banning phones. Perhaps it's because doing so would also impact the law abiding / common sense types who use them responsibly ?
Seeing a possible parallel with another type of device that is associated with many a tragedy from time to time ?
Go ahead. Explain to me why a high bodycount over a short duration with device X is any different than a high bodycount over a longer duration with device Y. Then justify your calls for a ban on device X and not Y for me.
I'm all ears.
No Congress types, actors or spotlight whores using the daily tragedy to push their cause / agenda for a smartphone free world that I'm aware of.
No legislation to ban certain types of phones based on how they look.
Once again, the common denominator is the person behind the tool and not the tool itself. This has always been the case. Some are just too damned dense to accept it.
The sooner folks come to understand this, the sooner we can get to work on fixing it.
Just how much hacking / stealing / pilfering needs to happen before someone decides the current way of doing business probably isn't the most secure way of doing it ?
Here's a thought:
Quit allowing sensitive / classified data outside of secure networks.
You want access to that data ? Drive your ass into the facility designed to house and secure it. Yes, it's inconvenient. Security usually is.
But it's either that or we may as well just de-classify all of it and mail it to everyone on the planet. Save a lot of trouble.
about how much he believes in the security of his own software.
The best stuff is that which can stand up to peer review and intense scrutiny, yet retain its trust level.
Given a choice between a closed source super-secret-trust-us-its-secure platform or an open source peer-reviewed-I-dare-you-to-break-it one, guess which one I would prefer to go with ?
It's one thing when they kick in your door or smash a window to get in . . . . . But when you invite them in willingly, it's a different story.
They're not going to do anything obvious while you have remote eyeballs on them. If they are of questionable character, however, they most certainly are going to be taking mental notes of what gear you have, the layout of the house, indications of pets or a spouse and what obvious security mechanisms you have in place.
They will then pass that info on to their buddies to come back another time.
Turn into the bad guy for a moment and think about how you would use such an opportunity to exploit later on.
Even if Puerto Rico could afford such tech ( which it can't ), who is going to pay for those battery updates / replacements / maintenance going forward ?
I would also be curious to know how well those solar panels do in a Category X hurricane. We don't see a lot of installs here because the area is also a hurricane zone. Hell, most things become projectiles when introduced to a 130mph wind.
Doesn't make a lot of sense to install $$$ panels that will potentially become $$$ projectiles next hurricane season.
is to treat the packages they transport with a bit more respect than UPS or FedEX does.
Many times I get a package delivered and it looks like they routed it through a war zone somewhere. All they need to do is get it to me intact and damage free and I'll happily use them instead.
Many years ago when I was doing the Navy thing, I would find classified stuff just laying about, unsecured in staterooms.
( Security patrols in case you're wondering why I was even in Officer's Country )
The vast majority of it was documentation of various things found on a ship that was tossed onto a table or rack ( bed ) in a stateroom. Easy to spot due to the color of the cover sheets. ( blue, red, orange, etc )
Apparently the junior officers thought closing the door to their stateroom was enough to protect it.:|
I thought about hiding it from them just to watch the panic set in when they realized a Secret book was now missing, but it would have ended their careers, so I usually just educated them on it.
Stuff up to Secret levels only. Most TS+ and Crypto related stuff required 2-person control and they were much more protective of it.
is the fact the employee brought home classified documents which somehow found their way onto their home ( read that: Unlikely certified to handle classified information ) computer.
Normally, I would consider this unlikely, but apparently keeping classified info on private systems / servers is all the rage these days:|
Why would anyone consider information from ANY Social Media site trustworthy ? Google and Facebook are designed as information gathering . . . er . . ENTERTAINMENT platforms, not news.
If you're relying on such platforms for accurate information, it's not Google or Facebook that is failing, it's you.
The guns aren't the issue. Never really have been. There are a dozen of them in my safe whose record of violence consists solely of putting holes in paper from varying distances. I can load one and set it on the table and absolutely nothing will happen. It will simply rust away if left there long enough.
However, if you can tell me how guns are at fault here without taking into account whose hands the weapon is in, you'll impress a whole lot of folks. If you can explain why a gun is completely evil in the hands of X vs the hands of Y, AND still convince the world that the problem is the gun, you'll probably win the Nobel Prize.
To point out the elephant in the room, the problem is people. There has never been a mass killing in history without a human mind to think it up and / or put it into motion. Regardless of the tool used ( guns, bombs, vehicles, whatever ) they all have the same common denominator.
People.
However, it's easier to blame and control a tool than it is to identify / profile and control people. Thus, we arrive to where we are today.
The first thing that came to mind was that silly hand-crank you can attach to your gun to get automatic fire rates. Whatever it is he is shooting, it's not a common setup. The initial burst is very long which isn't usually very common as automatic fire has a tendency to lift your muzzle in a hurry. Thus, burst shooting is a thing. ( or heavier belt-fed weapons designed for it, though extremely difficult for civilians to own )
Also odd he elected for a spray-and-pray solution vs aimed shooting, though certainly can't argue with his results:|
You can get 90 round drum magazines though they are prone to jamming in my experience, thus to be avoided. You can simply have more than one rifle ready to go when one runs out.
There is a device called a " Slide Fire " which will get the weapon up to full-auto rates of fire, but has a tendency to wreak havoc on accuracy. ( Google it )
Since this story involves guns, this will be one of those submissions with 1000+ comments before the day is out.
There will be everything from both sides, lots of hate, shit slinging and probably even a few conspiracy theories and / or how it's Trumps or Russia's fault. Democrats and the anti-gun crowd will blame it on lax gun laws and the ability to buy / own guns, Republicans and the pro-gun folks will blame the guys mental health. Responsible gun owners will just sit at home and:facepalm: at all the stupidity that will be forthcoming. The Social Justice Armies will be out in full strength on both sides.
One things for certain, there will be lots of hate and blame over the next month or so. Knee jerk legislation will be forthcoming from a few of the idiots in Congress to ban everything under the sun. It will probably go nowhere, which will generate even more hate for the current administration for " doing nothing ". There will probably be someone who will start a movement and give it some silly name prefixed with a hashtag.
In the end, we'll learn the guy was probably on LE radar for quite a long time before he finally snapped and took out his anger on the world. Folks will want to know why nothing was done and we'll probably end up with fewer rights down the road than we have today because of it. ( As they say in politics, never let a tragedy go to waste. )
What strikes me odd is the guy's age ( 64 ) and what possibly could have caused a melt-down like this that created the anger necessary to randomly kill as many people as he could.
Slashdot Mirror
1) I have root access and can remove all the bloat / spyware that comes pre-installed from the carrier
2) I can move between carriers
3) It has a removable battery
4) The camera / microphone have dedicated hardware switches that enable / disable them
5) It is somewhat waterproof ( Don't need to dive with it, but some rain protection is nice )
6) It has a standardized connector ( USB-C ) and a GD headphone jack
7) The call quality / reliability is on par with a landline
8) It isn't so damn big that it comes with optional leather straps so you can use it as a shield
9) A fast and unthrottled data plan, similar to my standard home internet plan
10) Moving music, photos, video ( or any files ) does not require I-Tunes. Just plug in with USB cable and go.
*Extra bonus if it doesn't come saddled with a contract and / or ludicrous costs for their overpriced phone / data plans.
Meet this fairy tale list of requirements and I might consider one of your shiny gadgets.
Maybe
If Team - A ( Congress ) can't come up with a plan to protect everyone's privacy, then Team - B ( The States ) will do it themselves.
The latter is likely to create a regulatory minefield for the players in question, so it would be in their best interests to pressure Team - A to get off their ass and do their job.
Considering the current Congress track record of doing anything GOOD for anyone ( other than themselves ) you might hire some minesweepers for you.
Have fun.
Size and bulkiness of headgear.
Display resolution in the headset.
Reading text is nigh impossible.
Horsepower required to run it.
Price of both headunit and PC hardware.
Roomspace requirements.
Motion sickness for some.
Niche community thus, low user base.
No AAA titles to push it.
Platform exclusive titles.
Prescription eyewear sucks with this.
These are the ones off the top of my head.
Some you can fix with better design, hardware and vendor collaboration, some ( like motion sickness ) probably not.
Too much fighting over who will be the standard platform will likely be the final nail in the coffin for the tech.
Laws are born when common sense fails.
Not sure why we would put bombers back on alert status when we have several platforms on site capable of dealing with NK already.
Both ICBM's and Cruise Missiles ( all variants, including nuclear ) can be launched by a subsurface platform. Guarantee we have more there than the one the public knows about.
Conventional or nuclear weaponry can also be delivered by aircraft via the nearby aircraft carrier(s). Even more cruise missiles ( all variants ) via the ships that make up the battle groups.
Bombers really wouldn't be required.
That said, Kimmo isn't gonna lob a nuke at anyone unless he's got nothing to lose. Though any missile launch will certainly be treated as a potential nuclear armed device.
We start a conventional campaign against NK and he thinks we're about to take him down ? ( ala Iraq ) Then, yes. He'll launch everything he has as a last " fuck you " to the US. Nukes, chems and even bio stuff if he has any.
The NBC possibility is the only reason the US would use a nuclear pre-emptive strike. You would want those delivery platforms and payloads obliterated without question before he had the option to use them.
Thus the dangers of obtaining / stockpiling those weapon types. You raise the risk of a nuclear first strike on your country dramatically due to the risk they pose to everyone else.
If any of this comes to fruition, we'll get to see first hand how well the THAAD and Sea Based Ballistic Shield systems work.
( Or how effective the first strike is )
Being smart and / or successful in school is looked down upon by the majority of their peers. You're labeled a geek or a nerd and ostracized for it.
Those who attempt to learn are merely targeted and ridiculed by the rest who seem to exist only to make everyone's life as miserable as possible. Some kids endure it and move on. Some give up and join the crowd. Others snap and go on a killing spree.
Some of the brightest people in this GD country are financially dwarfed by half-wits who can throw a ball, cry on cue or had the luck of being born with the right genetics and / or wealthy parents. High schools pour hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars into athletic programs, but seem to have little interest in funding anything academic outside of the bare minimums.
America has little interest in intelligent people, they want stupid ones who will serve as entertainment for the rest. The powers that be all but beg kids to get interested in STEM programs while, at the same time, they're outsourcing all the jobs associated with those programs overseas. :|
Kids see this and they ask themselves " Which one would I rather be ? "
You want to fix education ?
Start by figuring out how to make advanced learning something kids will strive for vs something they shun to avoid the persecution and misery that usually comes with it.
I suppose you could prefix a pin or password to the biometric data which, when hashed, creates a unique signature.
But then it takes us right back to square one in requiring a variable password or pin to begin with, so what would be the point.
Is a trade off I guess.
Passwords are easier to compromise, but also easier to change. Biometrics, not so much.
While other solutions may be more effective at preventing misuse by third parties, you are not required to give your password to law enforcement without reasonable cause.
Their simply demanding it is not " reasonable cause ".
Whereas your biometric ID is fair game. They can, and have, walked into an establishment and forced everyone who used biometric fingerprints to unlock their phones to do so. You have no recourse.
I'll keep my passwords until they fix the other problem thanks.
If this goes through, I would expect it would apply to anything that has a battery within it of X size or capacity.
Phones, tablets, photo gear, etc. etc.
The only reason anyone checks a laptop is because the flight crew demands it due to lack of space in the passenger cabin. Be curious how that will play out if the rules state you can't check it at all.
I see no calls for banning phones. Perhaps it's because doing so would also impact the law abiding / common sense types who use them responsibly ?
Seeing a possible parallel with another type of device that is associated with many a tragedy from time to time ?
Go ahead. Explain to me why a high bodycount over a short duration with device X is any different than a high bodycount over a longer duration with device Y. Then justify your calls for a ban on device X and not Y for me.
I'm all ears.
No Congress types, actors or spotlight whores using the daily tragedy to push their cause / agenda for a smartphone free world that I'm aware of.
No legislation to ban certain types of phones based on how they look.
Once again, the common denominator is the person behind the tool and not the tool itself. This has always been the case. Some are just too damned dense to accept it.
The sooner folks come to understand this, the sooner we can get to work on fixing it.
to simply make the cigarettes out of biodegradable materials ? Dissolves / decays when exposed to sunlight or water for X amount of time.
I'm not a smoker so dunno how plausible it would be, but beats having animals picking up our trash.
Just how much hacking / stealing / pilfering needs to happen before someone decides the current way of doing business probably isn't the most secure way of doing it ?
Here's a thought:
Quit allowing sensitive / classified data outside of secure networks.
You want access to that data ? Drive your ass into the facility designed to house and secure it. Yes, it's inconvenient. Security usually is.
But it's either that or we may as well just de-classify all of it and mail it to everyone on the planet. Save a lot of trouble.
about how much he believes in the security of his own software.
The best stuff is that which can stand up to peer review and intense scrutiny, yet retain its trust level.
Given a choice between a closed source super-secret-trust-us-its-secure platform or an open source peer-reviewed-I-dare-you-to-break-it one, guess which one I would prefer to go with ?
It's one thing when they kick in your door or smash a window to get in . . . . .
But when you invite them in willingly, it's a different story.
They're not going to do anything obvious while you have remote eyeballs on them. If they are of questionable character, however, they most certainly are going to be taking mental notes of what gear you have, the layout of the house, indications of pets or a spouse and what obvious security mechanisms you have in place.
They will then pass that info on to their buddies to come back another time.
Turn into the bad guy for a moment and think about how you would use such an opportunity to exploit later on.
Even if Puerto Rico could afford such tech ( which it can't ), who is going to pay for those battery updates / replacements / maintenance going forward ?
I would also be curious to know how well those solar panels do in a Category X hurricane. We don't see a lot of installs here because the area is also a hurricane zone. Hell, most things become projectiles when introduced to a 130mph wind.
Doesn't make a lot of sense to install $$$ panels that will potentially become $$$ projectiles next hurricane season.
is to treat the packages they transport with a bit more respect than UPS or FedEX does.
Many times I get a package delivered and it looks like they routed it through a war zone somewhere.
All they need to do is get it to me intact and damage free and I'll happily use them instead.
Sadly, yes it is.
Many years ago when I was doing the Navy thing, I would find classified stuff just laying about, unsecured in staterooms.
( Security patrols in case you're wondering why I was even in Officer's Country )
The vast majority of it was documentation of various things found on a ship that was tossed onto a table or rack ( bed ) in a stateroom. Easy to spot due to the color of the cover sheets. ( blue, red, orange, etc )
Apparently the junior officers thought closing the door to their stateroom was enough to protect it. :|
I thought about hiding it from them just to watch the panic set in when they realized a Secret book was now missing, but it would have ended their careers, so I usually just educated them on it.
Stuff up to Secret levels only. Most TS+ and Crypto related stuff required 2-person control and they were much more protective of it.
is the fact the employee brought home classified documents which somehow found their way onto their home ( read that: Unlikely certified to handle classified information ) computer.
Normally, I would consider this unlikely, but apparently keeping classified info on private systems / servers is all the rage these days :|
Maybe the US should go all EU on it and make it a crime to view any science related website :|
Why would anyone consider information from ANY Social Media site trustworthy ?
Google and Facebook are designed as information gathering . . . er . . ENTERTAINMENT platforms, not news.
If you're relying on such platforms for accurate information, it's not Google or Facebook that is failing, it's you.
Well, to counter your point:
The guns aren't the issue. Never really have been. There are a dozen of them in my safe whose record of violence consists solely of putting holes in paper from varying distances. I can load one and set it on the table and absolutely nothing will happen. It will simply rust away if left there long enough.
However, if you can tell me how guns are at fault here without taking into account whose hands the weapon is in, you'll impress a whole lot of folks. If you can explain why a gun is completely evil in the hands of X vs the hands of Y, AND still convince the world that the problem is the gun, you'll probably win the Nobel Prize.
To point out the elephant in the room, the problem is people. There has never been a mass killing in history without a human mind to think it up and / or put it into motion. Regardless of the tool used ( guns, bombs, vehicles, whatever ) they all have the same common denominator.
People.
However, it's easier to blame and control a tool than it is to identify / profile and control people. Thus, we arrive to where we are today.
An update to my post after watching the video.
The first thing that came to mind was that silly hand-crank you can attach to your gun to get automatic fire rates. Whatever it is he is shooting, it's not a common setup. The initial burst is very long which isn't usually very common as automatic fire has a tendency to lift your muzzle in a hurry. Thus, burst shooting is a thing.
( or heavier belt-fed weapons designed for it, though extremely difficult for civilians to own )
Also odd he elected for a spray-and-pray solution vs aimed shooting, though certainly can't argue with his results :|
Just an fyi:
You can get 90 round drum magazines though they are prone to jamming in my experience, thus to be avoided.
You can simply have more than one rifle ready to go when one runs out.
There is a device called a " Slide Fire " which will get the weapon up to full-auto rates of fire, but has a tendency to wreak havoc on accuracy.
( Google it )
Since this story involves guns, this will be one of those submissions with 1000+ comments before the day is out.
There will be everything from both sides, lots of hate, shit slinging and probably even a few conspiracy theories and / or how it's Trumps or Russia's fault. Democrats and the anti-gun crowd will blame it on lax gun laws and the ability to buy / own guns, Republicans and the pro-gun folks will blame the guys mental health. Responsible gun owners will just sit at home and :facepalm: at all the stupidity that will be forthcoming. The Social Justice Armies will be out in full strength on both sides.
One things for certain, there will be lots of hate and blame over the next month or so. Knee jerk legislation will be forthcoming from a few of the idiots in Congress to ban everything under the sun. It will probably go nowhere, which will generate even more hate for the current administration for " doing nothing ". There will probably be someone who will start a movement and give it some silly name prefixed with a hashtag.
In the end, we'll learn the guy was probably on LE radar for quite a long time before he finally snapped and took out his anger on the world. Folks will want to know why nothing was done and we'll probably end up with fewer rights down the road than we have today because of it. ( As they say in politics, never let a tragedy go to waste. )
What strikes me odd is the guy's age ( 64 ) and what possibly could have caused a melt-down like this that created the anger necessary to randomly kill as many people as he could.
That would be a no.
Modern weapons can use GPS as one method of in flight guidance, but rarely is it the only method available to it.
In addition, those same modern weapons can use encrypted versions of said GPS making modifying the data just a wee bit more difficult.
Have to go with all out jamming for that.