The technology is interesting and useful, but cryptocurrency value is just due to the Beanie Baby effect.
I think it more likely that Goldman and/or their buddies went short on cryptocurrencies.
It is strange that the markets can be moved by the analyses/opinions of those who stand to benefit from making the markets move in a particular direction, no?
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, PBS videos will now have the label "publicly funded American broadcaster," while RT will have this disclaimer: "RT is funded in whole or in part by the Russian government."
Though mainstream media in the US aren't directly funded by the US government, they get favors from time to time. Otherwise how would one explain the fact that *all* mainstream media basically regurgitated the government's position in previous [unfortunate and unnecessary] wars?
Not only that, but will videos/ads created by companies that are owned (in whole or in part) by their governments be similarly labeled? I'm thinking of Deusche Telekom, British Telecom (though it is no longer directly owned by the UK.gov), PetroBras, PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela). Sure, they aren't media companies, but what is to stop them from producing "propaganda" that suits their ends?
Also what makes government-funded propaganda so much worse than corporate or political party or any other sort of propaganda?
The situation sucks. Not only in the present but it was make the future suck as well because everyone caught in it are going to feel a crunch come retirement, if they ever do get to retire. There's no guarantees with the mighty 401(k) and IRA that are tied to market forces which we have no command or control over.
I disagree. It allows tremendous freedom to those who prefer that sort of employment arrangement. For example, if you only want to work 6 months out of the year, that is sort of difficult to accomplish with a traditional full-time job. However as a contractor or gig worker, you can easily do that if you want.
Also, if you are concerned about the markets, then invest your IRA or 401(k) in something other than stocks. You do know that you can invest in precious metals, government bonds, real estate, foreign stock markets, or even designate a traditional savings account as your IRA vehicle, right? No need to subject your retirement savings to the risks of the stock market unless you want to.
The summary got me thinking about "what is a number?" I have heard that argument that you should not be able to patent software because that would be equivalent to patenting a mathematical formula. An image, or song, or any other digital representation of anything, though, is just a number. Can I copyright a number? What about the number 7? The number 5,725,783,997,523? What about 2^4357393-1?
If I can't copyright any of those numbers, then why/how can an author copyright an electronic composition, or how can a musician copyright a digital recording of his or her work, or how can a photographer or artist copyright a digital image? Can a movie studio copyright their CSS decryption key so that they can issue takedown requests under the DMCA? Can I only copyright a number if it is sufficiently large and unique? Can the most recently discovered Mersenne prime be copyrighted?
I am not trying to be obtuse. I am genuinely interested in how people think about this rather complex and interesting issue.
I used to think, being a Canadian, that it was just the Quebec francophones with the hyperactive inferiority complex which manifested like that.
I was going to ask how Academie Francaise is different from Real Academia Española.
In Quebec they are anal about signage to the point of there being ordinances outlining the maximum size of English print on your store front in order to preserve their language (which I won't actually insult France enough to call French and will just call "Quebecois"). They were so adamant about it they had to use a special constitutional opt-out Canadian provinces have called the notwithstanding clause to make it legal notwithstanding a person's right to freedom of expression.
Except I cannot think of any place where Spanish is spoken that they get this pedantic about it, except maybe in academic circles.
It's not just industrial control systems, but hypervisors, and plain old systems too. It sees like this is an object lesson in how speed (in terms of releasing a fix) comes at a cost of performance/quality. I know people were all in a panic once Meltdown and Spectre became public, but this wasn't just fixing a SQL injection vulnerability in Rails or Django. This fundamentally affected the execution of nearly every instruction to go through affected CPUs.
I suspect that the severity and publicity made a more organized roll out with extensive beta testing impossible for just about every vendor that had affected products.
Note: ESXi patches associated with VMSA-2018-0004 have been pulled down from the online and offline portal.
...
For ESXi hosts that have not yet applied one of the following patches ESXi650-201801402-BG, ESXi600-201801402-BG, or ESXi550-201801401-BG, VMware recommends not doing so at this time. It is recommended to apply the patches listed in VMSA-2018-0002 instead.
...
For servers using the Intel Haswell and Broadwell processors (see Table 1 for the specific list of affected VMware vSphere supported Intel Haswell and Broadwell processors) that have applied ESXi650-201801402-BG, ESXi600-201801402-BG, or ESXi550-201801401-BG VMware recommends the following:
...
VMware is working closely with Intel and the industry to come to a quick resolution of this Intel microcode issue and provide an update to our customers as soon as possible.
The Dems are all in favor of this as is the electorate. The trouble with the ACA repeal was that the electorate figured out it meant losing access to healthcare and billions of dollars in insurance subsidies. That's what shut it down.
You paint "the electorate" as some sort of monolith with a single political view on the subject of the ACA. That couldn't be further from the truth. I personally know far more people who have been harmed by ACA-driven changes (higher deductibles, higher premiums, forced to change doctors) than people who have benefited from the ACA. There are many people in the US right who now who are legitimately against the ACA because of the direct harm and damage it has done their healthcare. The reason the ACA repeal fails is more complex than you state. In particular, the early measures that were passed by the Republicans did not have to stand up to much scrutiny from a feasibility perspective because they knew Obama would veto them. Once there was a Republican president willing to sign the repeal, the details became far more important and that was where they had trouble getting everybody onboard. Some Republicans wanted the repeal to go all the way, others wanted a partial repeal, others who were moderate or had constituencies that would be disproportionately harmed by a repeal (and thus endanger their re-election chances) were now leaning more towards a "wait and see" posture.
As to net neutrality, you will find that things are not monolithic there either. As others have pointed out in this thread, people who live in rural areas and already have only one ISP choice (and who probably already look at the government as too big) do not see much point in more government interference in things. In addition to that, I don't think it is possible to get either veto-proof majorities in both houses or simple majorities and a Democrat president without at least some of them getting there without the support of big business that have a stake in keeping the government away from implementing NN.
Who knows? It may go the way you say, but I think the reality has quite a bit of nuance that can spoil the matter.
The Republicans are stronger in the House making restoration unlikely there. Even then Trump will almost certainly veto it. If NN is going to come back the Dems have to take the House and Senate by a wide enough margin to overturn a veto.
And as the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act has shown, it is much easier to gather support for something that has no hope of winning ("look, I can engage in some posturing, support something politically popular with my base without actually being on the hook if things go wrong") than it is to actually change something. So, even if the Democrats take both houses of congress and the next president is a Democrat, it wouldn't be surprising if this falls victim to political maneuvering.
a Twitter representative said "we do not proactively review DMs. Period. A limited number of employees have access to such information, for legitimate work purposes, and we enforce strict access protocols for those employees."
Which would still be 100% true if they just sent it all to the government. Just saying.
I think the primary *failure* here is in the moral and legal dimension where users don't necessarily prioritize their rights. I would sincerely hope that users will prioritize free software because it is the right thing to do, in addition to being more secure or cheaper.
What you describe as a failure is not necessarily a failure with regards to the fact that most software is still closed source.
It is definitely a problem that users are wiling to give up their freedoms when it comes to software. The same is true in politics as well. Look at how people will vote in representatives that support higher taxes (giving up economic freedom), more regulation (giving up various different types of freedoms), corporatism (allowing commercial entities to trample their freedoms), the surveillance state (giving up their privacy), etc. If people so willingly give up those freedoms, is it any wonder that the freedoms embodied in software are not really seen to have any worth to the average person?
As to the fact that most software remains closed source, that is an independent issue. The majority of software development is actually for business-specific applications. There are certainly instances where it makes sense to release such software as open source, but in most cases that is a tough sell. There can be a support burden associated with releasing software as open source. Many corporate lawyers are convinced that releasing software as open source exposes the company to liability and the executives listen to the lawyers.
To me, the fact that the critical infrastructure of the Internet, along with the core technology of many very popular platforms is open source is truly amazing. It is better than the situation when Open Source first became a thing: everybody was using closed source tools and platforms to build Open Source. Now everybody uses Open Source tools and platforms to build closed source things.
If MEBx hasn't been configured by the user or by their organization's IT department, the attacker can log into the configuration settings using Intel's default password of "admin." The attacker can then change the password
So, the "flaw" is that the user forgot to set the lock? I am stunned that this is considered a vulnerability/flaw. I mean, when I buy a new gun safe or document safe for my home or office, it comes from the factory with a default combination. I have to set it to one of my choosing. If I choose to not change the default combination, then that is on me.
Now, you might argue that it should be more like keyless entry for an automobile: the manufacturer sets a code a and provides you a device (key fob) for entry. However, if Intel did that, they would be accused of making their products difficult to use or crippling them (because people would certainly lose their AMT key fobs and Intel would either be unable to recover them, or would charge a fee for the service) or taking advantage of the user (because they would certainly lose the key fob). Plus, that would make it an absolute nightmare for central IT, the target audience for this particular feature.
The point is that if you are buying machines that have this capability, then you are buying mid-range to high-end business/professional stuff. AMT is not available on entry-level and most consumer gear. Besides, the people who don't bother setting the MEBx password on their systems (assuming they don't have central management through IT) are probably the same sort of people who buy a wireless AP, turn it on and leave the password set to the default and the admin function accessible over the wireless interface.
Intel has problems, but this one is definitely way down on the list.
But it is silly to suggest they would have been successful if they went digital sooner. They would have lost anyway. Whatever format they created would not have been able to compete with JPEG at a price point of $0.
That may be true based on where the market is today. However, if you look at where the market was 25 years ago, Kodak decided to leave a vacuum and let others shape the future of photography because they didn't realize that they were looking at the future of photography. Incidentally, JPEG was introduced just about 25 years ago.
It is kind of sad to see this. Kodak was once synonymous with photography. Then they developed digital photography, patented the technology, and sat on it for fear of disrupting their lucrative film business. Others eventually developed digital photography as the patents expired and Kodak obstinately clung to their film business. In the end, they went down with their ship and all they had left was some patents, which it turned out weren't worth as much as they thought they were.
I really hope that they turn things around, but this sort of thing is sad, like watching a formerly successful businessman rooting around in the garbage looking for aluminum cans to sell for recycling.
Cryptocurrencies look like they might have some promise, but the way everybody is trying to jump into the space just smacks of a gimmick.
For real. This has shown that these code monkeys know zero about computer architecture. This isn't a flaw in an implementation, this is a flaw in a fundamental principle of CPU design.
You are absolutely correct here and I completely agree.
I'm worried about this 'AMD is safe' bullshit that's been floating around. No, the Meltdown paper specifically says AMD has the same problem - out of order execution of instructions accessing protected memory - they just couldn't get the side channel to work and suggest it may just need some optimization. That doesn't mean AMD is immune, it just means they haven't gotten it working - yet.
You come close here, but still miss the mark. With Meltdown, there are two components at play: out-of-order execution and observable side-effects in cache. Both Intel and AMD implement out-of-order execution. As you point out, it is a fundamental concept in modern CPU design. The problem is not that out-of-order execution takes place. The problem is that some implementations (namely Intel, and one ARM design) fail to properly protect against access to the discarded data. This could be protected against in the CPU by properly clearing the cache of results from instructions that end up being invalidated or by delaying access to those areas until authorization has been verified. I believe that AMD does the latter. The patches that have been discussed on LKML (the kernel page table isolation, or KPTI) sort of forces the CPU to do the first thing (because putting the kernel memory in a different process/address space forces a context switch, which will wipe caches, registers, etc.). So, AMD's claim that their design is immune to Meltdown is completely believable based on the facts to date. That does not mean that another vulnerability will not be found. It just means that Meltdown specifically exploits a design implementation flaw.
In fact, an AMD engineer submitted a patch to the KPTI patch set that disables KPTI for AMD CPUs. I find it extremely doubtful that, given all the publicity and scrutiny with these vulnerabilities, that AMD would come out on LKML and make a public statement of "nah, this does not apply to us" unless that were actually the case. If they are making that up, then they are committing PR suicide.
Meltdown and Spectre depend on the CPU working as intended, and that's the problem. As the papers point out, everyone has long been focused on CPU performance but we may need to accept giving up some of that performance for more security.
This absolutely correct insofar as Spectre is concerned, but not so much for Metldown.
I'm not sure I understand the point of this article.
I agree. This article is not news. Not because it is about something that happened 20 years ago, but because it is a rehash of standard PR spin and maneuvering:
If you made a mistake, make it look like your enemy/competitor/associate actually made the mistake.
If you can't shift the blame entirely to your enemy/competitor/associate, at least make them appear equally responsible.
If you can't even shift the blame partially to your enemy/competitor/associate, at least make it appear you did nothing that was actually wrong. (Bonus if you can make the thing you did wrong look like something you did right.)
If you did something right, you are the only one who had anything to do with it.
If your enemy/competitor/associate did something right, you were actually the one who did something right.
If you can't make it look entirely like you were the one who actually did something right, then at least make it appear that you had equal part with your enemy/competitor/associate in whatever they did right.
This is what companies, organizations, political parties, and countries do.
First, as several others have already pointed out, Congress can make any law it likes, subject to judicial review. So, they can make a law that requires the FCC to implement net neutrality, just like there are laws requiring all sorts of federal agencies to do specific things.
Second, this line is a real gem:
Our elected officials in Congress have the power to reverse what is swiftly becoming one of the U.S. government's most unpopular decisions ever. And if they don't, they'll pay for it come election season(emphasis added)
This statement makes it clear that Evan Greer is unwilling to accept reality. Please name one elected official that "paid for" their action or inaction on any of the following issues:
Implementation of Obamacare
Attempted repeal of Obamacare
Failure to implement meaningful immigration reform
Supporting or not supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Support or opposition for Trump appointees
etc.
The system in the US has become one that so long as a politician adheres to a particular ideology, the voters who adhere to the same ideology will support the politician and those who oppose the ideology will oppose the politician. This is largely the case even in the face if criminal or other behavior which should make someone unsuited for public office.
Look at how many people still voted for Roy Moore in Alabama. Or how many people immediately called for the resignation or removal of a politician or high profile figure of an opposing political party while being silent or slow to speak out against those in their own party.
It is all a complete a mess and believing that net neutrality will be the thing that gets people to put aside their political apathy and vote some bums out of office is beyond laughable.
Practically every mistake in IT is recoverable, except for failing to manage customer expectations.
In particular the two ways in which I can specifically think of that lack of customer expectation management becomes a project killer are lack of solid requirements (e.g., constantly changing requirements), and mismatch between the developer's idea and customer's idea of what the deliverable should look like.
I think that the requirements one is the worse of the two because it is so easy to have this conversation:
cust: Can you just add in this one little change here?
dev: Sure thing
cust: While you're at it....
Code Complete covers this pretty well with the analogy of building a house. "Moving" a wall is really easy when the house is just a drawing on paper. It is considerably more difficult once the foundation is poured, the walls are up and the roof is on. People building houses know that asking to move a wall in the later stages means lots of money and time on the project. However, because software is an intangible and you can't see it taking shape in the same way as a house it is much more difficult (for someone who is not a software developer) to appreciate that things that seem simple might actually be major architectural tasks for the project.
but we know now from Weinstien, Franken, Laurer, and all the rest that the loudest voices for women are always the worst offenders.
You mean the ones crying the loudest about morals are also the worst offenders? It's almost like they're just like the right wing religious nutjobs that get caught cheating on their wife with some guy in a public toilet...
Which goes to show that on all sides of the political spectrum, the sorts of people who get into politics, especially national politics, are possessed of a type of narcissistic self-superiority that exempts them form the very things they try to force on others.
There are plenty of good hard-working liberals who just think that what they do, who they marry, and who immigrates into the US shouldn't really trouble the government very much, just like there are plenty of hard-working conservatives who think that where they go to church, how many guns they own, and how much money they make shouldn't trouble the government very much.
But then you have liberals who advocate taxing the "rich" (which is easy for people like the Clintons to advocate, for example, when the bulk of their money goes through their foundation, and also easy for people with family to advocate since the taxes under discussion always on income, not on wealth), or granting legal status to illegal immigrants (all the while taking advantage of their illegal status to pay them below poverty wages and otherwise take advantage of them). And you also have conservatives crusading for morality while living secret lives awash in the very sins they publicly condemn, and claiming to want to reward hard-working people while perpetuating a crony-capitalist oligarchy.
Either way, the point is that it is par for the course for politicians in general. I am not sure how to fix it, but term limits might be a good start. And not just term limits on a particular office, but something like a 10 year limit on serving in any federal elected office and the same thing for state-level office. I'm not sure what else might work, but as the electorate we have to do something.
We have to quit with the "this person is despicable but I am going to support them anyway because of how much worse I think the other party's person is." That crazy thing about the US 2016 presidential election is that it seems like there were more people voting for Clinton to vote against Trump and more people voting for Trump to vote against Clinton than people that voted in actual support of the candidate for whom they cast their vote. Think about what that says of our political system and our society.
There has been tons of outrage. It's falling on deaf ears.
This is the era of Trump. Public opinion doesn't matter. Truth doesn't matter.
It's an agenda.
I agree. It is eerily reminiscent of the era of Obama. I remember things like "if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor" and "the average American family will save $2500 per year in healthcare costs" and "you will have more and better choices for healthcare under the Affordable Care Act" and "we will cover more people with better coverage and it will cost less".
It turns out that every single one of those things was false, that millions of Americans were outraged at the effort to have government take over healthcare and that outrage fell on deaf ears. Remember the legislative chicanery to get the ACA rammed through the Senate before Senator Ted Kennedy's replacement, Republican Scott Brown, could be seated?
Sheesh. And liberals are upset when the Republicans do things along party lines without Democratic support.
The only hope is that it will be reversed, as soon as possible.
The same can be said of the Affordable Care Act, which is decidedly unaffordable for practically every American it affects.
How Are So Many Security Vulnerabilities Possible?
Do you life in a house or apartment? Go around and look very closely at every aspect of the structure. As you go, make note every flaw you find, however tiny, but paying special attention to things that could be avenues for entering the dwelling from the outside even if everything is locked up. Now imagine 1,000,000 people all working constantly to find ways through those vulnerabilities without you realizing that is going on. Now imagine everybody in your city has an identical dwelling so that when one avenue is compromised, they all are.
we must end our reliance on big telecom monopolies and build decentralized, affordable, locally owned internet infrastructure. The great news is this is currently possible in most parts of the United States
If you want me to join this effort, there are some conditions. First, no Google, Facebook, or the like. Second, no government involvement in setting policy or in enforcement.
You know what? Forget it. I think what I am actually looking for is FidoNet.
So you have a phone where you can't receive calls for 90% of the day. Congratulations.
Actually, he has a PDA (that also plays music, takes pictures, lets you read books/magazines, etc.) that can receive calls 10% of the day. Think about how anybody who works in a white collar profession uses their phone. I bet 90% PDA (that also plays music, takes pictures, lets you read books/magazines, etc.) with 10% phone split pretty accurately describes how most of them use their devices. It is pretty close for me.
Of course some people are tethered to their phone for voice/text connectivity, but there are plenty of folks who view their device as a tool, not a slave master.
Apparently anybody can submit issues, pull requests, and so on to ensure the world gets the benefit of high quality malware with all the goodness of open source.
Slashdot Mirror
The technology is interesting and useful, but cryptocurrency value is just due to the Beanie Baby effect.
I think it more likely that Goldman and/or their buddies went short on cryptocurrencies.
It is strange that the markets can be moved by the analyses/opinions of those who stand to benefit from making the markets move in a particular direction, no?
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, PBS videos will now have the label "publicly funded American broadcaster," while RT will have this disclaimer: "RT is funded in whole or in part by the Russian government."
Though mainstream media in the US aren't directly funded by the US government, they get favors from time to time. Otherwise how would one explain the fact that *all* mainstream media basically regurgitated the government's position in previous [unfortunate and unnecessary] wars?
Not only that, but will videos/ads created by companies that are owned (in whole or in part) by their governments be similarly labeled? I'm thinking of Deusche Telekom, British Telecom (though it is no longer directly owned by the UK.gov), PetroBras, PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela). Sure, they aren't media companies, but what is to stop them from producing "propaganda" that suits their ends?
Also what makes government-funded propaganda so much worse than corporate or political party or any other sort of propaganda?
The situation sucks. Not only in the present but it was make the future suck as well because everyone caught in it are going to feel a crunch come retirement, if they ever do get to retire. There's no guarantees with the mighty 401(k) and IRA that are tied to market forces which we have no command or control over.
I disagree. It allows tremendous freedom to those who prefer that sort of employment arrangement. For example, if you only want to work 6 months out of the year, that is sort of difficult to accomplish with a traditional full-time job. However as a contractor or gig worker, you can easily do that if you want.
Also, if you are concerned about the markets, then invest your IRA or 401(k) in something other than stocks. You do know that you can invest in precious metals, government bonds, real estate, foreign stock markets, or even designate a traditional savings account as your IRA vehicle, right? No need to subject your retirement savings to the risks of the stock market unless you want to.
The summary got me thinking about "what is a number?" I have heard that argument that you should not be able to patent software because that would be equivalent to patenting a mathematical formula. An image, or song, or any other digital representation of anything, though, is just a number. Can I copyright a number? What about the number 7? The number 5,725,783,997,523? What about 2^4357393-1?
If I can't copyright any of those numbers, then why/how can an author copyright an electronic composition, or how can a musician copyright a digital recording of his or her work, or how can a photographer or artist copyright a digital image? Can a movie studio copyright their CSS decryption key so that they can issue takedown requests under the DMCA? Can I only copyright a number if it is sufficiently large and unique? Can the most recently discovered Mersenne prime be copyrighted?
I am not trying to be obtuse. I am genuinely interested in how people think about this rather complex and interesting issue.
Don't buy hardware that doesn't adhere to established, working standards, like USB, USB-C, or 3.5mm jack.
"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from." - Adm. Grace Hopper or Prof. Andrew Tanenbaum (depending on who you ask)
I used to think, being a Canadian, that it was just the Quebec francophones with the hyperactive inferiority complex which manifested like that.
I was going to ask how Academie Francaise is different from Real Academia Española.
In Quebec they are anal about signage to the point of there being ordinances outlining the maximum size of English print on your store front in order to preserve their language (which I won't actually insult France enough to call French and will just call "Quebecois"). They were so adamant about it they had to use a special constitutional opt-out Canadian provinces have called the notwithstanding clause to make it legal notwithstanding a person's right to freedom of expression.
Except I cannot think of any place where Spanish is spoken that they get this pedantic about it, except maybe in academic circles.
I guess I should have finished my thought.
It's not just industrial control systems, but hypervisors, and plain old systems too. It sees like this is an object lesson in how speed (in terms of releasing a fix) comes at a cost of performance/quality. I know people were all in a panic once Meltdown and Spectre became public, but this wasn't just fixing a SQL injection vulnerability in Rails or Django. This fundamentally affected the execution of nearly every instruction to go through affected CPUs.
I suspect that the severity and publicity made a more organized roll out with extensive beta testing impossible for just about every vendor that had affected products.
VMware pulled some of their patches
Note: ESXi patches associated with VMSA-2018-0004 have been pulled down from the online and offline portal.
...
For ESXi hosts that have not yet applied one of the following patches ESXi650-201801402-BG, ESXi600-201801402-BG, or ESXi550-201801401-BG, VMware recommends not doing so at this time. It is recommended to apply the patches listed in VMSA-2018-0002 instead.
...
For servers using the Intel Haswell and Broadwell processors (see Table 1 for the specific list of affected VMware vSphere supported Intel Haswell and Broadwell processors) that have applied ESXi650-201801402-BG, ESXi600-201801402-BG, or ESXi550-201801401-BG VMware recommends the following:
...
VMware is working closely with Intel and the industry to come to a quick resolution of this Intel microcode issue and provide an update to our customers as soon as possible.
Oops!
reference
The Dems are all in favor of this as is the electorate. The trouble with the ACA repeal was that the electorate figured out it meant losing access to healthcare and billions of dollars in insurance subsidies. That's what shut it down.
You paint "the electorate" as some sort of monolith with a single political view on the subject of the ACA. That couldn't be further from the truth. I personally know far more people who have been harmed by ACA-driven changes (higher deductibles, higher premiums, forced to change doctors) than people who have benefited from the ACA. There are many people in the US right who now who are legitimately against the ACA because of the direct harm and damage it has done their healthcare. The reason the ACA repeal fails is more complex than you state. In particular, the early measures that were passed by the Republicans did not have to stand up to much scrutiny from a feasibility perspective because they knew Obama would veto them. Once there was a Republican president willing to sign the repeal, the details became far more important and that was where they had trouble getting everybody onboard. Some Republicans wanted the repeal to go all the way, others wanted a partial repeal, others who were moderate or had constituencies that would be disproportionately harmed by a repeal (and thus endanger their re-election chances) were now leaning more towards a "wait and see" posture.
As to net neutrality, you will find that things are not monolithic there either. As others have pointed out in this thread, people who live in rural areas and already have only one ISP choice (and who probably already look at the government as too big) do not see much point in more government interference in things. In addition to that, I don't think it is possible to get either veto-proof majorities in both houses or simple majorities and a Democrat president without at least some of them getting there without the support of big business that have a stake in keeping the government away from implementing NN.
Who knows? It may go the way you say, but I think the reality has quite a bit of nuance that can spoil the matter.
The Republicans are stronger in the House making restoration unlikely there. Even then Trump will almost certainly veto it. If NN is going to come back the Dems have to take the House and Senate by a wide enough margin to overturn a veto.
And as the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act has shown, it is much easier to gather support for something that has no hope of winning ("look, I can engage in some posturing, support something politically popular with my base without actually being on the hook if things go wrong") than it is to actually change something. So, even if the Democrats take both houses of congress and the next president is a Democrat, it wouldn't be surprising if this falls victim to political maneuvering.
a Twitter representative said "we do not proactively review DMs. Period. A limited number of employees have access to such information, for legitimate work purposes, and we enforce strict access protocols for those employees."
Which would still be 100% true if they just sent it all to the government. Just saying.
I think the primary *failure* here is in the moral and legal dimension where users don't necessarily prioritize their rights. I would sincerely hope that users will prioritize free software because it is the right thing to do, in addition to being more secure or cheaper.
What you describe as a failure is not necessarily a failure with regards to the fact that most software is still closed source.
It is definitely a problem that users are wiling to give up their freedoms when it comes to software. The same is true in politics as well. Look at how people will vote in representatives that support higher taxes (giving up economic freedom), more regulation (giving up various different types of freedoms), corporatism (allowing commercial entities to trample their freedoms), the surveillance state (giving up their privacy), etc. If people so willingly give up those freedoms, is it any wonder that the freedoms embodied in software are not really seen to have any worth to the average person?
As to the fact that most software remains closed source, that is an independent issue. The majority of software development is actually for business-specific applications. There are certainly instances where it makes sense to release such software as open source, but in most cases that is a tough sell. There can be a support burden associated with releasing software as open source. Many corporate lawyers are convinced that releasing software as open source exposes the company to liability and the executives listen to the lawyers.
To me, the fact that the critical infrastructure of the Internet, along with the core technology of many very popular platforms is open source is truly amazing. It is better than the situation when Open Source first became a thing: everybody was using closed source tools and platforms to build Open Source. Now everybody uses Open Source tools and platforms to build closed source things.
If MEBx hasn't been configured by the user or by their organization's IT department, the attacker can log into the configuration settings using Intel's default password of "admin." The attacker can then change the password
So, the "flaw" is that the user forgot to set the lock? I am stunned that this is considered a vulnerability/flaw. I mean, when I buy a new gun safe or document safe for my home or office, it comes from the factory with a default combination. I have to set it to one of my choosing. If I choose to not change the default combination, then that is on me.
Now, you might argue that it should be more like keyless entry for an automobile: the manufacturer sets a code a and provides you a device (key fob) for entry. However, if Intel did that, they would be accused of making their products difficult to use or crippling them (because people would certainly lose their AMT key fobs and Intel would either be unable to recover them, or would charge a fee for the service) or taking advantage of the user (because they would certainly lose the key fob). Plus, that would make it an absolute nightmare for central IT, the target audience for this particular feature.
The point is that if you are buying machines that have this capability, then you are buying mid-range to high-end business/professional stuff. AMT is not available on entry-level and most consumer gear. Besides, the people who don't bother setting the MEBx password on their systems (assuming they don't have central management through IT) are probably the same sort of people who buy a wireless AP, turn it on and leave the password set to the default and the admin function accessible over the wireless interface.
Intel has problems, but this one is definitely way down on the list.
But it is silly to suggest they would have been successful if they went digital sooner. They would have lost anyway. Whatever format they created would not have been able to compete with JPEG at a price point of $0.
That may be true based on where the market is today. However, if you look at where the market was 25 years ago, Kodak decided to leave a vacuum and let others shape the future of photography because they didn't realize that they were looking at the future of photography. Incidentally, JPEG was introduced just about 25 years ago.
It is kind of sad to see this. Kodak was once synonymous with photography. Then they developed digital photography, patented the technology, and sat on it for fear of disrupting their lucrative film business. Others eventually developed digital photography as the patents expired and Kodak obstinately clung to their film business. In the end, they went down with their ship and all they had left was some patents, which it turned out weren't worth as much as they thought they were.
I really hope that they turn things around, but this sort of thing is sad, like watching a formerly successful businessman rooting around in the garbage looking for aluminum cans to sell for recycling.
Cryptocurrencies look like they might have some promise, but the way everybody is trying to jump into the space just smacks of a gimmick.
For real. This has shown that these code monkeys know zero about computer architecture. This isn't a flaw in an implementation, this is a flaw in a fundamental principle of CPU design.
You are absolutely correct here and I completely agree.
I'm worried about this 'AMD is safe' bullshit that's been floating around. No, the Meltdown paper specifically says AMD has the same problem - out of order execution of instructions accessing protected memory - they just couldn't get the side channel to work and suggest it may just need some optimization. That doesn't mean AMD is immune, it just means they haven't gotten it working - yet.
You come close here, but still miss the mark. With Meltdown, there are two components at play: out-of-order execution and observable side-effects in cache. Both Intel and AMD implement out-of-order execution. As you point out, it is a fundamental concept in modern CPU design. The problem is not that out-of-order execution takes place. The problem is that some implementations (namely Intel, and one ARM design) fail to properly protect against access to the discarded data. This could be protected against in the CPU by properly clearing the cache of results from instructions that end up being invalidated or by delaying access to those areas until authorization has been verified. I believe that AMD does the latter. The patches that have been discussed on LKML (the kernel page table isolation, or KPTI) sort of forces the CPU to do the first thing (because putting the kernel memory in a different process/address space forces a context switch, which will wipe caches, registers, etc.). So, AMD's claim that their design is immune to Meltdown is completely believable based on the facts to date. That does not mean that another vulnerability will not be found. It just means that Meltdown specifically exploits a design implementation flaw.
In fact, an AMD engineer submitted a patch to the KPTI patch set that disables KPTI for AMD CPUs. I find it extremely doubtful that, given all the publicity and scrutiny with these vulnerabilities, that AMD would come out on LKML and make a public statement of "nah, this does not apply to us" unless that were actually the case. If they are making that up, then they are committing PR suicide.
Meltdown and Spectre depend on the CPU working as intended, and that's the problem. As the papers point out, everyone has long been focused on CPU performance but we may need to accept giving up some of that performance for more security.
This absolutely correct insofar as Spectre is concerned, but not so much for Metldown.
I'm not sure I understand the point of this article.
I agree. This article is not news. Not because it is about something that happened 20 years ago, but because it is a rehash of standard PR spin and maneuvering:
This is what companies, organizations, political parties, and countries do.
First, as several others have already pointed out, Congress can make any law it likes, subject to judicial review. So, they can make a law that requires the FCC to implement net neutrality, just like there are laws requiring all sorts of federal agencies to do specific things.
Second, this line is a real gem:
Our elected officials in Congress have the power to reverse what is swiftly becoming one of the U.S. government's most unpopular decisions ever. And if they don't, they'll pay for it come election season (emphasis added)
This statement makes it clear that Evan Greer is unwilling to accept reality. Please name one elected official that "paid for" their action or inaction on any of the following issues:
The system in the US has become one that so long as a politician adheres to a particular ideology, the voters who adhere to the same ideology will support the politician and those who oppose the ideology will oppose the politician. This is largely the case even in the face if criminal or other behavior which should make someone unsuited for public office.
Look at how many people still voted for Roy Moore in Alabama. Or how many people immediately called for the resignation or removal of a politician or high profile figure of an opposing political party while being silent or slow to speak out against those in their own party.
It is all a complete a mess and believing that net neutrality will be the thing that gets people to put aside their political apathy and vote some bums out of office is beyond laughable.
Practically every mistake in IT is recoverable, except for failing to manage customer expectations.
In particular the two ways in which I can specifically think of that lack of customer expectation management becomes a project killer are lack of solid requirements (e.g., constantly changing requirements), and mismatch between the developer's idea and customer's idea of what the deliverable should look like.
I think that the requirements one is the worse of the two because it is so easy to have this conversation:
cust: Can you just add in this one little change here? ....
dev: Sure thing
cust: While you're at it
Code Complete covers this pretty well with the analogy of building a house. "Moving" a wall is really easy when the house is just a drawing on paper. It is considerably more difficult once the foundation is poured, the walls are up and the roof is on. People building houses know that asking to move a wall in the later stages means lots of money and time on the project. However, because software is an intangible and you can't see it taking shape in the same way as a house it is much more difficult (for someone who is not a software developer) to appreciate that things that seem simple might actually be major architectural tasks for the project.
but we know now from Weinstien, Franken, Laurer, and all the rest that the loudest voices for women are always the worst offenders.
You mean the ones crying the loudest about morals are also the worst offenders? It's almost like they're just like the right wing religious nutjobs that get caught cheating on their wife with some guy in a public toilet...
Which goes to show that on all sides of the political spectrum, the sorts of people who get into politics, especially national politics, are possessed of a type of narcissistic self-superiority that exempts them form the very things they try to force on others.
There are plenty of good hard-working liberals who just think that what they do, who they marry, and who immigrates into the US shouldn't really trouble the government very much, just like there are plenty of hard-working conservatives who think that where they go to church, how many guns they own, and how much money they make shouldn't trouble the government very much.
But then you have liberals who advocate taxing the "rich" (which is easy for people like the Clintons to advocate, for example, when the bulk of their money goes through their foundation, and also easy for people with family to advocate since the taxes under discussion always on income, not on wealth), or granting legal status to illegal immigrants (all the while taking advantage of their illegal status to pay them below poverty wages and otherwise take advantage of them). And you also have conservatives crusading for morality while living secret lives awash in the very sins they publicly condemn, and claiming to want to reward hard-working people while perpetuating a crony-capitalist oligarchy.
Either way, the point is that it is par for the course for politicians in general. I am not sure how to fix it, but term limits might be a good start. And not just term limits on a particular office, but something like a 10 year limit on serving in any federal elected office and the same thing for state-level office. I'm not sure what else might work, but as the electorate we have to do something.
We have to quit with the "this person is despicable but I am going to support them anyway because of how much worse I think the other party's person is." That crazy thing about the US 2016 presidential election is that it seems like there were more people voting for Clinton to vote against Trump and more people voting for Trump to vote against Clinton than people that voted in actual support of the candidate for whom they cast their vote. Think about what that says of our political system and our society.
There has been tons of outrage. It's falling on deaf ears.
This is the era of Trump. Public opinion doesn't matter. Truth doesn't matter.
It's an agenda.
I agree. It is eerily reminiscent of the era of Obama. I remember things like "if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor" and "the average American family will save $2500 per year in healthcare costs" and "you will have more and better choices for healthcare under the Affordable Care Act" and "we will cover more people with better coverage and it will cost less".
It turns out that every single one of those things was false, that millions of Americans were outraged at the effort to have government take over healthcare and that outrage fell on deaf ears. Remember the legislative chicanery to get the ACA rammed through the Senate before Senator Ted Kennedy's replacement, Republican Scott Brown, could be seated?
Sheesh. And liberals are upset when the Republicans do things along party lines without Democratic support.
The only hope is that it will be reversed, as soon as possible.
The same can be said of the Affordable Care Act, which is decidedly unaffordable for practically every American it affects.
How Are So Many Security Vulnerabilities Possible?
Do you life in a house or apartment? Go around and look very closely at every aspect of the structure. As you go, make note every flaw you find, however tiny, but paying special attention to things that could be avenues for entering the dwelling from the outside even if everything is locked up. Now imagine 1,000,000 people all working constantly to find ways through those vulnerabilities without you realizing that is going on. Now imagine everybody in your city has an identical dwelling so that when one avenue is compromised, they all are.
That is how.
we must end our reliance on big telecom monopolies and build decentralized, affordable, locally owned internet infrastructure. The great news is this is currently possible in most parts of the United States
If you want me to join this effort, there are some conditions. First, no Google, Facebook, or the like. Second, no government involvement in setting policy or in enforcement.
You know what? Forget it. I think what I am actually looking for is FidoNet.
So you have a phone where you can't receive calls for 90% of the day. Congratulations.
Actually, he has a PDA (that also plays music, takes pictures, lets you read books/magazines, etc.) that can receive calls 10% of the day. Think about how anybody who works in a white collar profession uses their phone. I bet 90% PDA (that also plays music, takes pictures, lets you read books/magazines, etc.) with 10% phone split pretty accurately describes how most of them use their devices. It is pretty close for me.
Of course some people are tethered to their phone for voice/text connectivity, but there are plenty of folks who view their device as a tool, not a slave master.
Some malware authors even post their projects in public: https://github.com/microsoft
Apparently anybody can submit issues, pull requests, and so on to ensure the world gets the benefit of high quality malware with all the goodness of open source.