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User: mrchaotica

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  1. Re:The police are above the law on When It Comes To Spy Gear, Many Police Ignore Public Records Laws · · Score: 1

    Go fuck yourself, you goddamn sniveling coward.

    The freedoms enumerated by the Bill of Rights are absolute and not up for debate. You and the other authoritarian bootlickers can either accept them, or you can GTFO to North Korea where the government suits your preferences.

  2. Re:Law does not equal justice on Federal Court: Theft of Medical Records Not an 'Imminent Danger' To Victim · · Score: 1

    Why? It perfectly fits the government's 1984-inspired naming convention, just like the Department of Defense (née War*) and the Department of Homeland Security.

    (* It was renamed in 1949 in an amendment to the National Security Act of 1947, which was the law that established the CIA, among other things. Coincidence?)

  3. Re:You guys are pretty brave on Federal Court: Theft of Medical Records Not an 'Imminent Danger' To Victim · · Score: 1

    Why not? Apparently, doxing isn't actually illegal!

    You could argue that it's not a smart thing to do because a Federal judge might have enough power to get somebody raided with a no-knock warrant and arrested even though the charges wouldn't stick, though.

  4. Re:Banned from our approved vendors list on Lenovo To Wipe Superfish Off PCs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It also wouldn't affect the corporate world because business-grade PCs were never infected with it in the first place.

    However, the real issue -- the one that makes competent companies completely justified in shit-listing Lenovo -- is the argument that if a company is capable of exercising such poor judgement now, then who knows what other poor judgement they might show in the future. Maybe the next "oops" will be a hardware keylogger in Thinkpads or a compromised WiFi firmware or something.

    Lenovo may have backpedaled this time, but the malware only happened to begin with because somebody at Lenovo thought it was a good idea. That, by itself, poses an unacceptable risk to any sane customer.

  5. Re: Any ideas how long these exploits have existed on Superfish Security Certificate Password Cracked, Creating New Attack Vector · · Score: 1

    (Note: I'm the grandparent AC.)

    Right, half the point of this would be to defeat the Ken Thompson hack (which is what you're talking about) by cross-compiling with three different, independently-developed systems, or "ideally... by writing a simple bootstrapping C compiler in assembly (and an assembler in machine language) yourself." Maybe I wasn't clear above: the goal is not to compile three different sets of software using the three machines; the goal is to use disparate hardware and software to compile bit-for-bit identical sets of software that can be trusted because three different machines are telling you it's correct.

    In other words, the hope is that even if one of the systems is infected with a compromised compiler, not all three are and thus you can detect that it's trying to insert the backdoor in the output by comparing it against the compilers whose output is clean.

  6. Re:Lenovo didn't learn from Sony's root kit on Superfish Security Certificate Password Cracked, Creating New Attack Vector · · Score: 1

    Sure they did! Sony still exists, after all, which means they learned that big companies can do whatever the fuck they want with no real, lasting repercussions whatsofuckingever!

  7. Re:WTF? on Duplicate SSH Keys Put Tens of Thousands of Home Routers At Risk · · Score: 1

    The answer to both those questions (and more!) is the same: users are stupid, so make the router as easy as possible to configure even at the cost of security (assuming the programmer even notice that the security got fucked up).

    I'm surprised the damn things don't have public-facing telnet or UPnP (and for all I know, they might).

  8. Re:Web site gets hacked... on Jamie Oliver's Website Serving Malware · · Score: 1

    You can! You just have to hit "Preview" to enable that functionality.

  9. Re:Glad I Cancelled My Lenovo Order on Lenovo Allegedly Installing "Superfish" Proxy Adware On New Computers · · Score: 1

    I ordered a Thinkpad X60 from back when they were still IBM and got the same kind of fluctuating ship date BS (although I didn't respond by cancelling my order)... I guess nothing's changed.

  10. Re:Isn't slashdot's reaction interesting... on 'Babar' Malware Attributed To France · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As an American, I have the right, duty and obligation to complain about the NSA's illegal bullshit because they're (ostensibly) claiming to represent me as a citizen, while acting against my interests as a citizen. France, on the other hand, is a sovereign foreign nation, in which I have no standing to complain.

    The spying is bad no matter who's doing it, but it's the French citizens' job to fix France's spying, not mine, just as it's American citizens' job to fix the USA's spying, not theirs.

  11. Re:Business problem != technology problem on Ask Slashdot: Version Control For Non-Developers? · · Score: 1

    Is it possible to hook OpenOffice to SVN, so that you can do your version control of .odt files with SVN but use OpenOffice for diff merging?

  12. Re:As we say: Go Dumb on Privacy: the 21st Century's Newest Luxury Item · · Score: 1

    since you own the device

    LOL, you naive fool! Don't you know there's a "War On Property" going on, where copyright holders everywhere are trying their damnedest to make their Imaginary Property rights superior to your right to control the physical device that their Imaginary Property happens to be in?

    "Your" computer? You don't own it. "Your" cellphone? You don't own it. "Your" TV? You don't own it. Even your car? Fuck, you're lucky they even let you open the hood without being a "Manufacturer Certified mechanic!" (It'll already allegedly void the warranty -- even though the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act says it shouldn't -- but at least it isn't entirely illegal... yet.)

    And the "Internet of Things?" Well, the manufacturers have realized that if a device doesn't have Imaginary Property in it, then "consumers" will still own it, and that's intolerable. So what's their solution? Infect every product with Imaginary Property! Pretty soon, the only place you'll be able to buy anything without being forced to electronically consent to some bullshit contract of adhesion will be places like Goodwill and Craigslist... at least until the Copyright Cartel finishes making it illegal to resell used goods.

    (You know, a few years ago if I read something like the above I'd think the writer was a paranoid lunatic. But now I'm forced to believe it. Fuck.)

  13. Re:OsmAnd on OpenStreetMap.org Gets Routing · · Score: 2

    There is a free and a paid version, the difference being the number of maps you can download.

    And, if I understand correctly, the F-Droid repository has a free version (named OsmAnd~) with the limitations removed so that it's equivalent to Google Play's paid version.

  14. Re:Phenomenal score and video! on Five Glorious Years of Sun Images In a Four-Minute Video · · Score: 3, Informative

    I was expecting more of a stationary time lapse vid covering five years

    Here ya go.

  15. "Four boxes" on Trans-Pacific Partnership Enables Harsh Penalties For Filesharing · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As the saying goes: "There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury and ammo. Please use in that order."

    But treaties circumvent three of those boxes.

    Guess which one is left.

  16. Re:Own your own cable modem on Ask Slashdot: Affordable Large HD/UHD/4K "Stupid" Screens? · · Score: 1

    Comcast don't have to let you buy theirs, but they shouldn't be able to stop you from buying one from a third-party (e.g. a TiVo or an HDHomeRun + HTPC). Of course, their bribery has convinced the FCC to allow them to encrypt, which means you still have to get a CableCard from them.

  17. Re:Is it just me? on Ask Slashdot: Affordable Large HD/UHD/4K "Stupid" Screens? · · Score: 1

    You say "small pickup" as if you think such a thing still exists....

  18. Re:Own your own cable modem on Ask Slashdot: Affordable Large HD/UHD/4K "Stupid" Screens? · · Score: 1

    Allowing customer-owned equipment is required by law! The issue is that the FCC can't be bothered to enforce the law. (And by "can't be bothered," I mean "bribed not to.")

  19. Re:Yes... on Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What They Do? · · Score: 2

    as a bay area resident, I'm an ignorant bigot who thinks everywhere in the South is like a scene out of the movie "Deliverance."

    FTFY.

    FYI, Atlanta and other urban parts of the South (which are where the programming jobs are) are just as liberal as Silly Valley, and I'm sure rural/small town California (e.g. Redding) is just as conservative as the rural South. The only real difference that makes California "blue" and Georgia "red" is that California has a larger proportion of urban population.

    I get value from the area I live in and I can relate to the people in my area

    Yeah, I get value from my walkable, transit-friendly area and can relate to my hippie / hipster / gay / progressive / multiracial / environmentalist / whatever neighbors too.

    I would have nothing at all in common with typical southern attitudes

    What, you Californians think you have some sort of monopoly on enlightened values? You need to check your hypocrisy, mister "more-tolerant-than-thou!"

  20. Re:About 1 in 20 ? on Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What They Do? · · Score: 1

    It's similar to you saying you built a piano and I ask you to play some Chopin or Bach for me. But you never claimed to know how play it, you just built in. If I wanted to know about your ability to build pianos I should ask questions about the construction and internal workings of it.

    How do you know if the piano you built works (or indeed, that it is even a piano at all) without playing it?

    I'm not saying playing some Chopin or Bach is necessary, but you should at least be able to manage something like "Chopsticks" or "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

  21. Re:Your company is probably shit on Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What They Do? · · Score: 1

    How many deployment avenues don't use cryptographic signatures? Usually you're either producing downloadable code, in which case the packages or tarballs are generally signed, or deploying to an HTTP or similar server, in which case you should at least understand what the purpose of TLS is.

    Okay, so you've explained why the couple of guys who are responsible for deployment need to understand cryptography. Why should the other several dozen programmers in the office, who are neck-deep in business logic (or whatever little corner of the system they're responsible for is) 99% of the time, have to care about it?

  22. Re:Yes... on Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What They Do? · · Score: 2

    Mod parent up. Is there some part of West Bumfuck in the state of Nowhere that has a horde of kick-ass programmers that is unemployed? If so, clue us all in and companies will shower them with six figure jobs.

    Yes, they're everywhere that isn't northern California.

    I, for one, would be perfectly happy to work for some stereotypical silicon valley tech company... but I'm not about to trade my $100k 3-bedroom house in Atlanta for a million-dollar shoebox-sized shithole to do it. You want my skills? You come to me.

  23. Re:Just don't connect to a network on Ask Slashdot: Affordable Large HD/UHD/4K "Stupid" Screens? · · Score: 1

    You clearly aren't master of the obvious, since you missed the fact that forcing someone to accept "terms" to use his own goddamn property is offensive and downright dangerous to society (because it's attacking the very concept of property rights).

  24. Re:#1 use for goto in c on Empirical Study On How C Devs Use Goto In Practice Says "Not Harmful" · · Score: 1

    You can always turn

    ret_type function_1(type1 param1, type2 param2, ... typeN paramN) {...}

    into

    typedef struct function_1_params {
    type1 param1;
    type2 param2;
    ...
    typeN paramN;
    } function_1_params;

    ret_type function_1(function_1_params params) {...}

    In fact, you would (ideally) notice that the params in your struct have something in common (other than merely being arguments of the same function), name your struct accordingly, and then start using it in other places where it makes sense. You can also even group your N arguments into M structs, where 1 < M < N and the arguments within each group are more related to each other than to the arguments in the other groups.

  25. Re:#1 use for goto in c on Empirical Study On How C Devs Use Goto In Practice Says "Not Harmful" · · Score: 1

    Though the number of arguments to the new subfunction may be an argument against doing it that way.

    If your function takes too many arguments, then you're probably suffering from a lack of encapsulating data structures (or trying to do too much in one function).