> "it's very likely that Apple will give the Rangers the same answer it gave the FBI in 2016 (in effect, hell no!)..."
That is not the "in effect", the correct "in effect" is "we can't." There is a HUGE difference between "no" and "can't." One is being defiant. The other is stating a limitation.
If they have no backdoors or broken encryption or copies of the stuff, then it is not a matter of "won't give" but "can't give." It is exactly the same type of answer I would have to give if I were given a warrant to hand over the contents of a safe for which I do not have the combination/keys.
>"(the way AVR mfrs. TOTALLY fucked up HDMI audio passthrough and sold dysfunctional gear advertising support for it for 2-3 years, circa 2009-2012, before finally getting it right)."
I am one of those victims. And my $9,000 gear is only a few years old, so it wasn't solved in 2013 at all, not even 2014, or 2015. High-end Samsung TV, high-end Pioneer amplifier (among the various components). Countless hours on the phone with support with both companies, each blaming each other. Could NEVER get return audio from the TV to the amplifier to work reliably. Finally gave up and was forced to use an optical cable. And, of course, now they are dropping optical ports on all the new gear....
>"So, opt in & connect, and see ads for videogames (or whatever else you're into). Do nothing, and see ads for tampons."
Or refuse to watch live TV *EVER* like I did 17 years ago, and use a DVR/TiVo... unless, of course, they somehow make it so that is no longer possible. I noticed that "Digital Watermarking" was included in this new broadcast standard...
The day I am FORCED to watch commercials is the day I will never watch TV again. Doesn't matter if it is broadcast, streamed, or whatever else they come up with. Not doing it.
Also, the day my TV wakes itself up to blast some damn "alert" about some thunderstorm 100 miles away or some lost kid is the day I put a REAL power switch on it.
One of the things that helps is that Google has made their services and clients and apps upgradable. They moved a lot of things out of the base "OS" and into modular packages. So even if you are not on a recent Android, you might still have the most recent Play Services, Maps, Gmail, Gboard, YouTube, Search, Contacts, Phone app, Earth, Chrome, Connectivity Services, Keep, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Fit, Wear, Photos, Calendar, Auto, Pay, GNews, Talkback, Sound Search, messenger, etc, etc, etc, etc. This helps a lot with consistency and security. Of course, this doesn't solve all the problems, but it does help.
Damnit, I made a HUGE error. I was investigating the makeup of the Congress (D/R) and got that mixed up with the voting on the bill. I apologize for the error and thank you for politely pointing it out. I do wish there was a way to edit.
So the numbers tell a different story (one that further supports what I was trying to say)- that it passed with large Democrat support in both houses AND the Executive.
>"While the Clinton Whitehouse did have some input, at the end of the day, they didn't write it, simply signed a bill that had passed with strong majorities."
Do some investigation first, please.
1) It didn't pass with strong majorities in either the Senate nor the House. 2) Clinton could have vetoed it and there is no way it could have been over-ridden (at least not based on party).
"The 1996 Act's stated objective was to open up markets to competition by removing regulatory barriers to entry: The conference report refers to the bill âoeto provide for a pro-competitive, de-regulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapidly private sector deployment of advanced information technologies and services to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competitionâ "
Signed into law by Bill Clinton over 20 years ago (and it would not have sustained a veto override, not even close). THAT is what started the big media companies to consolidate and buy each other and different sectors.
>"Actually, we got to where we are by importing the best and brightest worldwide. Einstein ring a bell? How about Fermi? Oppenheimer? Tesla?"
And were they LEGAL immigrants or ILLEGAL immigrants? Because that is the question everyone seems to be missing. So far, the only real actions have been to try and curtail ILLEGAL immigration (or staying here ILLEGALLY after a visa expires). It seems to me that is a good thing, not bad. As to what constitutes the laws for legal immigration, that is another whole topic, and something barely even mentioned anywhere.
>"Given how Firefox uses services provided by Google, I don't consider it any better than Chrome. In fact, it may be worse, because clearly some people like you have been fooled into wrongly thinking that Firefox is free from "Googleisms and Google tracking".
While some of the information you gave is clearly relevant and informative, I will add:
1) You can't be sure what you have in a binary blob like Chrome. And even if you ARE sure at the moment, all it takes is one auto-update for that to change.
2) You can turn off both location and SafeBrowsing in Firefox in about:config (and I do). And there is no need to wait for them to be triggered, first.
3) There are a LOT more "Googleisms" than just the two you listed (not interested in Mobile, although that can be relevant). And it is far more likely that in Chrome, it will do things with certain settings turned on that do other things, too. Think the way Facebook figures out who you are without even being logged in. And some of the Googleisms can't be disabled UNTIL you are presented with some dialog while it is already enabled (like Safe Browsing).
And you certainly don't have to be an asshole when replying, either:
>"Mark Davis, before you make an asinine claim" >"So don't give us this bullshit" >"is full of bullshit."
But I guess that is to be expected today by many people who post anonymously? In any case, here is a site with some things that can be done to maximize privacy in Chrome:
>"- Firefox added the ability to block auto-play video. *That* won me over."
Except it doesn't really work right and we are still waiting for it to be fixed (2 years and counting). For some of us, it is critical. In the meantime, the "Flashblocker" addon fixed it all.... and now THAT won't work in 57+ (and never will):
>"Congrats Firefox dev team! You've made it so much like chrome that there's no longer any reason to use it!"
1) Is not a binary blob 2) Is community developed (although sometimes hard to tell) 3) Contains no Googleisms and Google tracking 4) Far less likely to contain back doors 5) Still has more UI control options 6) Promotes browser diversity and choice
Had you said "Chromium" instead of "Chrome", that would have helped with a few of the above, but still not really deal with all of it.
+1 Google has been ACTIVELY "left", so why would this surprise anyone? And "left" government officials have done exactly the same type of harassment as this in the past. It is best to be neutral on political things not directly about business.
Actors, too, should keep the hell out of politics. A lot of them look pretty damn stupid going on ads telling us how to vote, or making stupid political commentaries, as if their opinions are somehow more valid, important, or enlightened than the rest of us.
>"The strict protection is arguably bettern than an ad blocker, since it leaves unintrusive ads that support a site but blocks the garbage ones. I don't mind if a site is financed with ads, because server time isn't free."
If the ad is animated in ANY way, or contains video or audio, or follows me down the page, or blocks out HUGE sections of content, or performs some action when moused-over *IT IS INTRUSIVE*! This is regardless of where it is hosted or redirects. So although I think your posting is informative and useful, and I respect your opinion, turning on "Disconnect.me" doesn't solve all the problems that many (including me) have with ads.
If ads didn't do what I described, above, and were hosted locally, then yeah, I would never have installed an ad-blocker in the first place. Most of us woudn't have.
>"Society itself is a "hotbed for racist behavior".
Um, not at all, at least not in the USA. That is a horribly inaccurate generalization. Racism is real, for sure. But it is nowhere near as prevalent as many would assume, and saying otherwise is really just irresponsible. And much of what people label as "racism" isn't at all, it is dislike of observed BEHAVIOR.
And in the case of Tesla, we have yet to see any real proof of racism. There is a HUGE force (the union) trying to create problems that might not even exist. We need to keep an open mind and not jump to conclusions.
Nope. I am a real person, a regular citizen, using my real name. Who are you but an "Anonymous Coward"?? Argue all you want about your feelings, theories, and what might work in other countries, and I can produce verified, repeated, accepted study after study supporting everything I said in my posting as it applies in the USA, which is the topic at hand.
>"The country still gets 40 percent of its energy from coal, a bigger share than most other European countries. "
And, I might add, by percent of their electricity production, Germany uses significantly MORE coal AND natural gas than the USA and LESS nuclear. USA electricity production in 2016:
So the REAL picture is USA CO2= 64.2% Germany CO2= 52%. When you look at it that way, it doesn't seem as impressive, despite all the headlines. Of course, the USA is a much bigger country (almost 4x the population). But, still interesting.
>"Why so negative on the visuals of the browser? WHO GIVES A FLIPPITY DO DAH what the browser looks like? Is that REALLY the criteria you judge software on? The shape of the buttons and tabs?"
It is not just how it looks but how it operates. Some of us want tabs on bottom. Some of us want sane, traditional "file" menus for fast access and easy training. Some of us want a status bar. Some of us want predictable forward, back, reload, and home buttons that are together, don't disappear in context, or are not combined into some moving monster. It is a lot more than just the tabs being curved.
I agree with the whiners that claim they will "move to Chrome" which is, in no way, a suitable replacement (or logical argument). It has the same sucky UI that people don't want to use but ALSO is far more proprietary, has far less user control, and has all kinds of Google-isms built in.
There are alternatives such as Pale Moon, or Waterfox... but even that move can be very painful depending on circumstances (we are not just talking about techie-home-users). And it is unclear if those will ever gain the ACTUAL improvements Mozilla has added to Firefox for performance, memory usage, and security.
>"Samsung's DeX dock lets you connect one of the company's recent phones to an external display, mouse, and keyboard to use your phone like a desktop PC... assuming you're comfortable with a desktop PC that runs Android. "
So if you're not comfortable with Android, you can't connect it to use as desktop?
>"The fact that you are only just started freaking out clearly exemplifies the problem: the general public doesn't care about security until it's too late and they won't listen to experts."
I have been freaking out about it ever since it was introduced, and really believed that it would have been stopped or undone by now. I am not the "general public" but I agree with what you are saying. Now that there are millions of such chips out there, we have lots of ticking time bombs just waiting for the right exploits to appear.
>"No computer running a general purpose OS is secure. None. Security is the antithesis of general purpose computers."
With that type of broad statement, you are correct- NOTHING is really "secure". Security is always matter of degrees. There is no safe that can't be broken into, eventually, with enough effort and resources. And once that method is found, it could quickly enable other safes to be broken. We shouldn't allow some company to have control over our safes and install a bunch of secret "locks" and entrances into those safes.
ME introduces another attack vector/path. And one that is not well known, and not under our (the owner's) control.
Slashdot Mirror
> "it's very likely that Apple will give the Rangers the same answer it gave the FBI in 2016 (in effect, hell no!)..."
That is not the "in effect", the correct "in effect" is "we can't." There is a HUGE difference between "no" and "can't." One is being defiant. The other is stating a limitation.
If they have no backdoors or broken encryption or copies of the stuff, then it is not a matter of "won't give" but "can't give." It is exactly the same type of answer I would have to give if I were given a warrant to hand over the contents of a safe for which I do not have the combination/keys.
>"(the way AVR mfrs. TOTALLY fucked up HDMI audio passthrough and sold dysfunctional gear advertising support for it for 2-3 years, circa 2009-2012, before finally getting it right)."
I am one of those victims. And my $9,000 gear is only a few years old, so it wasn't solved in 2013 at all, not even 2014, or 2015. High-end Samsung TV, high-end Pioneer amplifier (among the various components). Countless hours on the phone with support with both companies, each blaming each other. Could NEVER get return audio from the TV to the amplifier to work reliably. Finally gave up and was forced to use an optical cable. And, of course, now they are dropping optical ports on all the new gear....
>"So, opt in & connect, and see ads for videogames (or whatever else you're into). Do nothing, and see ads for tampons."
Or refuse to watch live TV *EVER* like I did 17 years ago, and use a DVR/TiVo... unless, of course, they somehow make it so that is no longer possible. I noticed that "Digital Watermarking" was included in this new broadcast standard...
The day I am FORCED to watch commercials is the day I will never watch TV again. Doesn't matter if it is broadcast, streamed, or whatever else they come up with. Not doing it.
Also, the day my TV wakes itself up to blast some damn "alert" about some thunderstorm 100 miles away or some lost kid is the day I put a REAL power switch on it.
>"Even if it is news, does it really matter?"
One of the things that helps is that Google has made their services and clients and apps upgradable. They moved a lot of things out of the base "OS" and into modular packages. So even if you are not on a recent Android, you might still have the most recent Play Services, Maps, Gmail, Gboard, YouTube, Search, Contacts, Phone app, Earth, Chrome, Connectivity Services, Keep, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Fit, Wear, Photos, Calendar, Auto, Pay, GNews, Talkback, Sound Search, messenger, etc, etc, etc, etc. This helps a lot with consistency and security. Of course, this doesn't solve all the problems, but it does help.
The bill had large Democrat support in both houses. I did make an error, however- it would have been veto proof.
Damnit, I made a HUGE error. I was investigating the makeup of the Congress (D/R) and got that mixed up with the voting on the bill. I apologize for the error and thank you for politely pointing it out. I do wish there was a way to edit.
So the numbers tell a different story (one that further supports what I was trying to say)- that it passed with large Democrat support in both houses AND the Executive.
>"While the Clinton Whitehouse did have some input, at the end of the day, they didn't write it, simply signed a bill that had passed with strong majorities."
Do some investigation first, please.
1) It didn't pass with strong majorities in either the Senate nor the House.
2) Clinton could have vetoed it and there is no way it could have been over-ridden (at least not based on party).
>"We knew this was coming as soon as Trump got elected."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"The 1996 Act's stated objective was to open up markets to competition by removing regulatory barriers to entry: The conference report refers to the bill âoeto provide for a pro-competitive, de-regulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapidly private sector deployment of advanced information technologies and services to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competitionâ "
Signed into law by Bill Clinton over 20 years ago (and it would not have sustained a veto override, not even close). THAT is what started the big media companies to consolidate and buy each other and different sectors.
>"Actually, we got to where we are by importing the best and brightest worldwide. Einstein ring a bell? How about Fermi? Oppenheimer? Tesla?"
And were they LEGAL immigrants or ILLEGAL immigrants? Because that is the question everyone seems to be missing. So far, the only real actions have been to try and curtail ILLEGAL immigration (or staying here ILLEGALLY after a visa expires). It seems to me that is a good thing, not bad. As to what constitutes the laws for legal immigration, that is another whole topic, and something barely even mentioned anywhere.
>"Given how Firefox uses services provided by Google, I don't consider it any better than Chrome. In fact, it may be worse, because clearly some people like you have been fooled into wrongly thinking that Firefox is free from "Googleisms and Google tracking".
While some of the information you gave is clearly relevant and informative, I will add:
1) You can't be sure what you have in a binary blob like Chrome. And even if you ARE sure at the moment, all it takes is one auto-update for that to change.
2) You can turn off both location and SafeBrowsing in Firefox in about:config (and I do). And there is no need to wait for them to be triggered, first.
3) There are a LOT more "Googleisms" than just the two you listed (not interested in Mobile, although that can be relevant). And it is far more likely that in Chrome, it will do things with certain settings turned on that do other things, too. Think the way Facebook figures out who you are without even being logged in. And some of the Googleisms can't be disabled UNTIL you are presented with some dialog while it is already enabled (like Safe Browsing).
And you certainly don't have to be an asshole when replying, either:
>"Mark Davis, before you make an asinine claim"
>"So don't give us this bullshit"
>"is full of bullshit."
But I guess that is to be expected today by many people who post anonymously? In any case, here is a site with some things that can be done to maximize privacy in Chrome:
https://www.howtogeek.com/1003...
we have to hope it honors those settings. I don't have any evidence to the contrary, however.
>"- Firefox added the ability to block auto-play video. *That* won me over."
Except it doesn't really work right and we are still waiting for it to be fixed (2 years and counting). For some of us, it is critical. In the meantime, the "Flashblocker" addon fixed it all.... and now THAT won't work in 57+ (and never will):
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/s...
>"Congrats Firefox dev team! You've made it so much like chrome that there's no longer any reason to use it!"
1) Is not a binary blob
2) Is community developed (although sometimes hard to tell)
3) Contains no Googleisms and Google tracking
4) Far less likely to contain back doors
5) Still has more UI control options
6) Promotes browser diversity and choice
Had you said "Chromium" instead of "Chrome", that would have helped with a few of the above, but still not really deal with all of it.
> What else do you need?
Flashstopper
Environment Proxy
Classic Theme Restorer
Really? THIS kind of crap is what is modded as "Informative" or "underrated"? Slashdot really is sinking lower and lower.
>"Why companies should stay out of politics"
+1 Google has been ACTIVELY "left", so why would this surprise anyone? And "left" government officials have done exactly the same type of harassment as this in the past. It is best to be neutral on political things not directly about business.
Actors, too, should keep the hell out of politics. A lot of them look pretty damn stupid going on ads telling us how to vote, or making stupid political commentaries, as if their opinions are somehow more valid, important, or enlightened than the rest of us.
>"No, natural gas has half the CO2 emission as does coal to produce same energy."
Good point. Thanks for that info. I was lumping them together. In which case Germany and China are significantly worse % CO2 than USA....
>"The strict protection is arguably bettern than an ad blocker, since it leaves unintrusive ads that support a site but blocks the garbage ones. I don't mind if a site is financed with ads, because server time isn't free."
If the ad is animated in ANY way, or contains video or audio, or follows me down the page, or blocks out HUGE sections of content, or performs some action when moused-over *IT IS INTRUSIVE*! This is regardless of where it is hosted or redirects. So although I think your posting is informative and useful, and I respect your opinion, turning on "Disconnect.me" doesn't solve all the problems that many (including me) have with ads.
If ads didn't do what I described, above, and were hosted locally, then yeah, I would never have installed an ad-blocker in the first place. Most of us woudn't have.
>"Society itself is a "hotbed for racist behavior".
Um, not at all, at least not in the USA. That is a horribly inaccurate generalization. Racism is real, for sure. But it is nowhere near as prevalent as many would assume, and saying otherwise is really just irresponsible. And much of what people label as "racism" isn't at all, it is dislike of observed BEHAVIOR.
And in the case of Tesla, we have yet to see any real proof of racism. There is a HUGE force (the union) trying to create problems that might not even exist. We need to keep an open mind and not jump to conclusions.
>"Wayne Lapierre, is that you?"
Nope. I am a real person, a regular citizen, using my real name. Who are you but an "Anonymous Coward"?? Argue all you want about your feelings, theories, and what might work in other countries, and I can produce verified, repeated, accepted study after study supporting everything I said in my posting as it applies in the USA, which is the topic at hand.
>"The country still gets 40 percent of its energy from coal, a bigger share than most other European countries. "
And, I might add, by percent of their electricity production, Germany uses significantly MORE coal AND natural gas than the USA and LESS nuclear. USA electricity production in 2016:
Natural gas = 33.8%
Coal = 30.4%
Nuclear = 19.7%
Renewables (total) = 14.9%
So the REAL picture is USA CO2= 64.2% Germany CO2= 52%. When you look at it that way, it doesn't seem as impressive, despite all the headlines. Of course, the USA is a much bigger country (almost 4x the population). But, still interesting.
And China's CO2 electricity? 64.1%
>"Why so negative on the visuals of the browser? WHO GIVES A FLIPPITY DO DAH what the browser looks like? Is that REALLY the criteria you judge software on? The shape of the buttons and tabs?"
It is not just how it looks but how it operates. Some of us want tabs on bottom. Some of us want sane, traditional "file" menus for fast access and easy training. Some of us want a status bar. Some of us want predictable forward, back, reload, and home buttons that are together, don't disappear in context, or are not combined into some moving monster. It is a lot more than just the tabs being curved.
I agree with the whiners that claim they will "move to Chrome" which is, in no way, a suitable replacement (or logical argument). It has the same sucky UI that people don't want to use but ALSO is far more proprietary, has far less user control, and has all kinds of Google-isms built in.
There are alternatives such as Pale Moon, or Waterfox... but even that move can be very painful depending on circumstances (we are not just talking about techie-home-users). And it is unclear if those will ever gain the ACTUAL improvements Mozilla has added to Firefox for performance, memory usage, and security.
>"Samsung's DeX dock lets you connect one of the company's recent phones to an external display, mouse, and keyboard to use your phone like a desktop PC... assuming you're comfortable with a desktop PC that runs Android. "
So if you're not comfortable with Android, you can't connect it to use as desktop?
>"The fact that you are only just started freaking out clearly exemplifies the problem: the general public doesn't care about security until it's too late and they won't listen to experts."
I have been freaking out about it ever since it was introduced, and really believed that it would have been stopped or undone by now. I am not the "general public" but I agree with what you are saying. Now that there are millions of such chips out there, we have lots of ticking time bombs just waiting for the right exploits to appear.
>"You have no choice but to adopt whatever they sell, or go back to the stone age and use pen and paper or some old CPU."
There are some other options:
1) Pressure the two companies to stop it
2) Try to pass a law to make them stop it
3) Use white-hatters to break into it and release ways to stop it.
>"No computer running a general purpose OS is secure. None. Security is the antithesis of general purpose computers."
With that type of broad statement, you are correct- NOTHING is really "secure". Security is always matter of degrees. There is no safe that can't be broken into, eventually, with enough effort and resources. And once that method is found, it could quickly enable other safes to be broken. We shouldn't allow some company to have control over our safes and install a bunch of secret "locks" and entrances into those safes.
ME introduces another attack vector/path. And one that is not well known, and not under our (the owner's) control.