All new GM cars come with the OnStar service that aids in dialing 911 when the airbags are deployed. However, they act like the system is disabled after 6 months (or whatever the time period is) if you don't pay for an OnStar subscription.
After this time period, do they really disable this feature? Do they also quit tracking you (e.g. the privacy issue)? Or are both of these issues up to the OnStar god to decide?
Sure, the transmitting antenna should be very high. To establish line-of-sight though, you'd probably be fine with your antenna being 10 or 20 feet above your roof.
FM radio is line-of-sight too...and you don't lose everything when you're parked next to a brick house. Don't expect tree branches blowing across to severely affect your signal strength.
At the TRON 2004 Show Japanese Personal Media Company shows off the T-Cube a pocket-size PC running T-Engine.
T-Engine is somekind of OS standardization project for networked computers in Japan that started in 2002. Seems they want to build something that does not require to license Windows. Don't know why they not just adopt Linux.
The T-Cube runs the current T-Engine OS and uses a CPU from NEC VR5701. The desktop is written for the chinese Market supporting Multi- and Super-Chinese Character sets.
They had all sorts of problems and never worked properly.
And you instantly attribute this to the fact that there is an eMachine label on it? I've heard bad things about these, but know a few people who have them. The first thing I recommended was wiping the harddrive and installing their favorite OS (in their case, Windows XP).
As far as I know, they haven't had any problems with these machines (besides, maybe, their lack of performance). And as far as performance is concerned, it looks like you know what you're getting when you buy it. Not like they're advertising something that's not there.
Have 576 cracked shouldn't worry you unless you have older encrypted data using that.
Confidential data being sent across the Internet should be looked at even more closely. Using an encryption method that is considered secure today may not be enough.
You may get lucky and not find anyone patient enough, but someone could very easily snoop the encrypted data, wait 5 (or 10) years, and crack the encryption scheme on his/her personal computer.
The tougher the encryption, the more time before they will be able to crack it. Eventually, however, it will be easily cracked. Just like anything else, there are pros and cons. You need to decide which encryption level will benefit you the most (processing power/time required to encrypt/decrypt VS amount of time before it's crackable).
It takes a little over 1/10 of a second for light to travel all the way around the Earth. Sure, this is latency, but nothing stops us from sending MORE light. Thus, it takes the same amount of time for the data to arrive, but we can send 100 times the amount of data in the same time.
We can dramatically increase the data transfer rate without increasing the speed of light.
I would anticipate machines being on both networks (this fiber-optic one and the Internet). Once the machine is comprimised from the Internet side, it could basically act as a gateway from the Internet to the fiber-optic.
However, I wouldn't anticipate any kind of e-mail appearing very soon on this fiber optic network, so we have yet to see whether or not a spammer would even want on it.
If you mistype an address, the entire message gets bounced to postmaster@something, which could easily be read by a human.
Okay so you typed the address correctly. If an SMTP server goes down, it gets bounced to postmaster.
Most SMTP connections are not encrypted. Even if you have an encrypted connection to your ISPs SMTP server, the chances of your ISP establishing an encrypted connection with hotmail.com's (or anyone else's) MX server is very close to 0.
If you want your email to be private, use end-to-end encryption (like PGP).
2) Just because spammers "use their own SMTP servers" doesn't mean the ISP can't prevent them from sending email.
The ISP can monitor outgoing TCP (port 25). Virtually all SMTP is on port 25, and snooping (or altogether preventing) these connections would not be difficult. The article gives no indication of whether or not they are doing this.
If hiring a spammer means 0.1% valid responses and 1% invalid responses, then the merchants will eventually catch on and stop hiring the spammers. At some point, this ratio gets so small that it's not worth advertising.
Sure, this may take a some time and some merchants, but eventually it will work its magic.
If there's a firewall on each ATM only allowing connections on a specific port (for communication to the database server), then they` ATM will be unaffected by the RPC exploit.
Blocking inbound ports 135, 139, and 445 will effectively eliminate RPC exploits, including the Nachi worm that apparently infected these ATMs.
Sure, the best way to fix the patch is probably to install the MS patch. But what about the vulnerabilities that aren't known yet? If you're not using all the wonderful MS services, there's no reason you shouldn't block all these ports. They're potential vulnerabilities.
I'm amazed that those ATMs were connected to the Internet, without apparently even a firewall to block all but necessary ports.
The ATMs are not connected to the Internet. They are on an intranet, most likely with other ATMs and their database server, hopefully nothing more.
Agreed there is no firewall. The original idea was probably only to allow trusted machines onto the intranet in the first place. This follows the same logic (or lack-thereof) of people that don't use firewalls because they're behind a NAT.
The problem is allowing machines that were once on the Internet (and thus, may be tainted) onto the intranet. When some employee hooks up his laptop to work on an ATM, it probably connects to the intranet to let the database server know he's messing with it. The problem is that he was on the Internet yesterday and got infected with a worm/virus, which is now spreading itself through the intranet. The result: a tainted machine on a network that was intended only for trusted machines.
I think the idea of a Sygate firewall on every individual machine is a great idea. This will be a rather easy improvement to make (at least for new ATMs) and will give each individual ATM its own security against intranet intruders. Thus, when a tainted machine gets on the trusted network, the ATMs have (at least a little) self-defense.
...and people should not break into these systems...
In theory, this makes some sense. In practice, it does not.
The fact of the matter is that someone will eventually exploit the security hole. I would much rather have it be some computer science students than a criminal. The computer science students will harmlessly inform me of the security hole (or do something resulting in very little damage). The criminal will steal my passwords and credit card numbers and do some serious damage.
Your argument that it is illegal doesn't carry much weight. Once upon a time it was illegal for African Americans to own property too. Our laws can approach perfection, but they can never achieve it. And right now I must wonder if they are even approaching it...
The problem appears to be in the Microsoft development model. I have seen numerous articles claiming that code written and checked by as few as 2 coders (and maybe not even marked as finalized) reaches production. The individual coders may be very hard-working, dedicated, and whatever else.
If the development model sucks, the final product will suck. It looks like this is a problem at the administrative level, not the programmer level. It appears that the Open Source community has figured this out, and I'd imagine Microsoft will follow suit in the near future if it wants to compete.
This is ridiculous. I understand why it's difficult to block spam: the sender makes an effort to be anonymous and unknown. They aren't recognized as legitimate companies and many of them are overseas and not subject to many laws.
Read the title. "FTC Shuts Down Pop-Up Extortion Firm" This is a firm in the United States with one heck of a business model. If what they're doing isn't illegal, it needs to be. The idea that a company could do this for so long and scam so many people certainly doesn't prove the effectiveness of our system to me. Something needs to change.
I hope we all do some research and think twice the next time we hit the polls. Matters like these are the responsibility of many various lawmakers. Let's hope they can earn all those figures and get some work done at the same time. Sure it's difficult, but suck it up for once.
I have long been looking for GPS software to go along with my PocketPC. This would allow me to buy a very inexpensive GPS unit (as it wouldn't need a display or any memory) and, hopefully, have a lot of available memory and maps to use. I see no reason to pay for the elaborate interface of a GPS unit when I already have a PocketPC that can do the job. The only disadvantage is the battery consumption of the PocketPC, but I don't see this being a very large problem.
Unforunately, I haven't been able to find any decent software available at a reasonable price. Has anyone else?
Lots of people are forced to defend against lawsuits these days. Have you heard of that crazy group called the RIAA batch-processing subpoenas and lawsuits? Or DirectTV suing everyone who bought a SmartCard writer?
You better get ready to defend a lawsuit. Because sooner or later you're going to get one.
You would actually consider doing all this stuff? Sure, they sound reasonable and maybe the "proper" thing to do, but who the hell is actually going to go through with all this crap?
Tell me you've actually wrote your "representatives at every level" and "maybe the occasional newspaper" over an issue that no one really cares about and I will be very surprised.
The many buttons are also superior to a PDA with nothing but a touch-screen. Keys are easier to find and easier to use. I don't see too many people with a touch-screen and no keyboard on their desktop PC...
By the way, what stops someone from storing volumes of notes on their calculator? 800KB of available flash it said? That's a lot of text.
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Has anyone come up with software for PDAs that will allow you to roam WiFis and use VoIP?
Or at least work in progress? It seems someone could develop software before Intel could develop (and market) a chip specifically for this purpose.
Still doesn't answer my primary question.
Do they disable the dial 911 feature after your subscription expires?
This may be offtopic, but I'm interested to know.
All new GM cars come with the OnStar service that aids in dialing 911 when the airbags are deployed. However, they act like the system is disabled after 6 months (or whatever the time period is) if you don't pay for an OnStar subscription.
After this time period, do they really disable this feature? Do they also quit tracking you (e.g. the privacy issue)? Or are both of these issues up to the OnStar god to decide?
Sure, the transmitting antenna should be very high. To establish line-of-sight though, you'd probably be fine with your antenna being 10 or 20 feet above your roof.
FM radio is line-of-sight too...and you don't lose everything when you're parked next to a brick house. Don't expect tree branches blowing across to severely affect your signal strength.
i don't buy that a home made 4 cilinder engine was enough to keep Wright brother's airplane in the air.
Do you have some basis for this or are you just making this stuff up?
I see no reason why a 4-cylinder engine couldn't keep a tiny plane like that in the air.
It looks very nice, and appears to be quite an accomplishment. But...who actually wants this thing? And what are you using it for?
I can't think of any large advantages, considering the availability of PocketPCs, laptops, and desktops. What do we need another configuration for?
At the TRON 2004 Show Japanese Personal Media Company shows off the T-Cube a pocket-size PC running T-Engine.
T-Engine is somekind of OS standardization project for networked computers in Japan that started in 2002. Seems they want to build something that does not require to license Windows. Don't know why they not just adopt Linux.
The T-Cube runs the current T-Engine OS and uses a CPU from NEC VR5701. The desktop is written for the chinese Market supporting Multi- and Super-Chinese Character sets.
The T-Cube (tentative name) is supposed to ship in Q1 2004. Press-Release (Raw Translation)
See also the Java Wrist Watches that were presented at the TRON 2004 show in Tokyo.
And you instantly attribute this to the fact that there is an eMachine label on it? I've heard bad things about these, but know a few people who have them. The first thing I recommended was wiping the harddrive and installing their favorite OS (in their case, Windows XP).
As far as I know, they haven't had any problems with these machines (besides, maybe, their lack of performance). And as far as performance is concerned, it looks like you know what you're getting when you buy it. Not like they're advertising something that's not there.
What's the big deal?
Well, for starters, you should avoiding telling people the length of your password...
Confidential data being sent across the Internet should be looked at even more closely. Using an encryption method that is considered secure today may not be enough.
You may get lucky and not find anyone patient enough, but someone could very easily snoop the encrypted data, wait 5 (or 10) years, and crack the encryption scheme on his/her personal computer.
The tougher the encryption, the more time before they will be able to crack it. Eventually, however, it will be easily cracked. Just like anything else, there are pros and cons. You need to decide which encryption level will benefit you the most (processing power/time required to encrypt/decrypt VS amount of time before it's crackable).
It takes a little over 1/10 of a second for light to travel all the way around the Earth. Sure, this is latency, but nothing stops us from sending MORE light. Thus, it takes the same amount of time for the data to arrive, but we can send 100 times the amount of data in the same time.
We can dramatically increase the data transfer rate without increasing the speed of light.
I would anticipate machines being on both networks (this fiber-optic one and the Internet). Once the machine is comprimised from the Internet side, it could basically act as a gateway from the Internet to the fiber-optic.
However, I wouldn't anticipate any kind of e-mail appearing very soon on this fiber optic network, so we have yet to see whether or not a spammer would even want on it.
Why not copy and paste some...copy again, and paste some more...
While you're at it, you can find the optimal number of lines to copy so as to minimize the total number of operations.
If you mistype an address, the entire message gets bounced to postmaster@something, which could easily be read by a human.
Okay so you typed the address correctly. If an SMTP server goes down, it gets bounced to postmaster.
Most SMTP connections are not encrypted. Even if you have an encrypted connection to your ISPs SMTP server, the chances of your ISP establishing an encrypted connection with hotmail.com's (or anyone else's) MX server is very close to 0.
If you want your email to be private, use end-to-end encryption (like PGP).
2) Just because spammers "use their own SMTP servers" doesn't mean the ISP can't prevent them from sending email.
The ISP can monitor outgoing TCP (port 25). Virtually all SMTP is on port 25, and snooping (or altogether preventing) these connections would not be difficult. The article gives no indication of whether or not they are doing this.
I disagree.
If hiring a spammer means 0.1% valid responses and 1% invalid responses, then the merchants will eventually catch on and stop hiring the spammers. At some point, this ratio gets so small that it's not worth advertising.
Sure, this may take a some time and some merchants, but eventually it will work its magic.
Sure firewalls work.
If there's a firewall on each ATM only allowing connections on a specific port (for communication to the database server), then they` ATM will be unaffected by the RPC exploit.
Blocking inbound ports 135, 139, and 445 will effectively eliminate RPC exploits, including the Nachi worm that apparently infected these ATMs.
Sure, the best way to fix the patch is probably to install the MS patch. But what about the vulnerabilities that aren't known yet? If you're not using all the wonderful MS services, there's no reason you shouldn't block all these ports. They're potential vulnerabilities.
I'm amazed that those ATMs were connected to the Internet, without apparently even a firewall to block all but necessary ports.
The ATMs are not connected to the Internet. They are on an intranet, most likely with other ATMs and their database server, hopefully nothing more.
Agreed there is no firewall. The original idea was probably only to allow trusted machines onto the intranet in the first place. This follows the same logic (or lack-thereof) of people that don't use firewalls because they're behind a NAT.
The problem is allowing machines that were once on the Internet (and thus, may be tainted) onto the intranet. When some employee hooks up his laptop to work on an ATM, it probably connects to the intranet to let the database server know he's messing with it. The problem is that he was on the Internet yesterday and got infected with a worm/virus, which is now spreading itself through the intranet. The result: a tainted machine on a network that was intended only for trusted machines.
I think the idea of a Sygate firewall on every individual machine is a great idea. This will be a rather easy improvement to make (at least for new ATMs) and will give each individual ATM its own security against intranet intruders. Thus, when a tainted machine gets on the trusted network, the ATMs have (at least a little) self-defense.
This is coming from Microsoft. They declared that "DOS is DEAD" back when Windows 95 came out.
Yeah...right...
...and people should not break into these systems...
In theory, this makes some sense. In practice, it does not.
The fact of the matter is that someone will eventually exploit the security hole. I would much rather have it be some computer science students than a criminal. The computer science students will harmlessly inform me of the security hole (or do something resulting in very little damage). The criminal will steal my passwords and credit card numbers and do some serious damage.
Your argument that it is illegal doesn't carry much weight. Once upon a time it was illegal for African Americans to own property too. Our laws can approach perfection, but they can never achieve it. And right now I must wonder if they are even approaching it...
Were these the guys that brought us Windows 95?
Yes, they did.
The problem appears to be in the Microsoft development model. I have seen numerous articles claiming that code written and checked by as few as 2 coders (and maybe not even marked as finalized) reaches production. The individual coders may be very hard-working, dedicated, and whatever else.
If the development model sucks, the final product will suck. It looks like this is a problem at the administrative level, not the programmer level. It appears that the Open Source community has figured this out, and I'd imagine Microsoft will follow suit in the near future if it wants to compete.
This is ridiculous. I understand why it's difficult to block spam: the sender makes an effort to be anonymous and unknown. They aren't recognized as legitimate companies and many of them are overseas and not subject to many laws.
Read the title. "FTC Shuts Down Pop-Up Extortion Firm" This is a firm in the United States with one heck of a business model. If what they're doing isn't illegal, it needs to be. The idea that a company could do this for so long and scam so many people certainly doesn't prove the effectiveness of our system to me. Something needs to change.
I hope we all do some research and think twice the next time we hit the polls. Matters like these are the responsibility of many various lawmakers. Let's hope they can earn all those figures and get some work done at the same time. Sure it's difficult, but suck it up for once.
I have long been looking for GPS software to go along with my PocketPC. This would allow me to buy a very inexpensive GPS unit (as it wouldn't need a display or any memory) and, hopefully, have a lot of available memory and maps to use. I see no reason to pay for the elaborate interface of a GPS unit when I already have a PocketPC that can do the job. The only disadvantage is the battery consumption of the PocketPC, but I don't see this being a very large problem.
Unforunately, I haven't been able to find any decent software available at a reasonable price. Has anyone else?
Lots of people are forced to defend against lawsuits these days. Have you heard of that crazy group called the RIAA batch-processing subpoenas and lawsuits? Or DirectTV suing everyone who bought a SmartCard writer?
You better get ready to defend a lawsuit. Because sooner or later you're going to get one.
You would actually consider doing all this stuff? Sure, they sound reasonable and maybe the "proper" thing to do, but who the hell is actually going to go through with all this crap?
Tell me you've actually wrote your "representatives at every level" and "maybe the occasional newspaper" over an issue that no one really cares about and I will be very surprised.
The many buttons are also superior to a PDA with nothing but a touch-screen. Keys are easier to find and easier to use. I don't see too many people with a touch-screen and no keyboard on their desktop PC...
By the way, what stops someone from storing volumes of notes on their calculator? 800KB of available flash it said? That's a lot of text.