Really? This is hardly scary, and only effective against the most inept likely, which probably couldn't figure out out to torrent anything in the first place. I suspect most ransomware is used against older non-tech savvy folks, which isn't really the pirating demographic anyway.
I mean, there are so many ways to potentially defeat their "technology". Clearing you settings, using a different browser, re-installing you browser, re-installing your OS, likely would be picked up by various anti malware/adware/virus scan for removal... All of which might be irritating, but none of which are really all that hard to do.
Unless they really do something at the ISP level, that is less in your control, all they can really do is be annoying.
Though as many point out the dubious legality of all this anyway.
However say what you want about him, but he has been pretty successful building the "Trump" brand. If all he did was S&P he might be worth more money, however he would also be unknown and probably not running pretty successfully for President (relatively speaking).
Considering so many important things in the world is based on perceived value, confidence, and opinion, Trump has a way of lying pretty successfully...
However when your competition (republicans) is so terrible, it is hard not to come off smelling like roses no matter what you do or say. I expect the Democrats to win by probably one of the largest landslides in US history. Perhaps that will shake up the republican party enough into reality.
Quebec due to its unique nature has a lopsided amount of political power in Canada. As a result so does much of the industry. Many of the scandals stem from Quebec industry trying to capitalize on that advantage, more less because they can.
As for this particular example, I don't see it so much as a scandal as just hypocritical really. If it weren't for many of the states in the US also with a similar ideology on online gambling (at least on the face of it) it probably wouldn't be tolerated for competition reasons.
However if similar legislation has proven anything these sorts of things rarely work well, if at all. There are numerous ways around "blocked" sites, with more created constantly, not to mention the lack of enforcement, largely because it is very difficult to do so, and then you will have folks playing with the definition of what exactly is "gambling" anyway VS "entertainment". Online "entertainment" is a multi-Billion dollar industry in the US despite the fact that online "gambling" is illegal in most places... Draft Kings is a perfect example.
So for all those reasons and more, I say "meh" to the whole issue.
The basic premise is that the more successful and smart you are, the less kids you have, and that the poorer and stupid you are, the more kids you have. You take this principle, and fast forward hundreds of years, and what they are predicting is a world full of dummies.
So paying people more money, making them more successful, and upwardly mobile, able to better pay for things like nutrition, education, healthcare, etc... would be enabling the opposite of Idiocracy. Employing a large amount of wage slaves without a living wage, with little advantage or hope is pretty much what leads to electing Terry Crews president, and destroying your agriculture with electrolytes...
I'll cite the emergence of Donald Trump as a likely contender for President as proof that the current system of low wages the past couple decades isn't really working towards avoiding the Idiocracy future...
Sounds like the app trend of micropayments.... Sure you can play for free, but to build that refinery, it will take 24h to complete, OR you could pay 2.99 for 25 gems which you can then use to complete that refinery right now! However if you want to be competitive at all, you pretty much *have* to make the payments, or not bother playing the game at all...
Well yes it is a mature technology. If you are a warship. If you are an American or Russian warship. With the one exception being Russian Icebreakers.
Also if you have MASSIVE amounts of money. Compare relative costs of either, and who can afford to build them (i.e. Russia and America).
Also if you want some Somali pirates to obtain nuclear material to sell on the black market (though probably irradiating themselves in the process). Unless of course you start providing them all with escorts, and weapon systems.
The one exception being Russian Icebreakers again. However 1) There are no pirates (Ice Pirates?) that I am aware of in the arctic, it isn't like seals or polar bears are much of a threat, and 2) They are Russian, and they probably are armed. Personally I think Canada should have ordered some Russian Icebreakers in the recent past, they are quite awesome.
Anyway, on the surface it might make sense to use nuclear freighters, but it really isn't all that feasible realistically. For large scale shipping no one is getting away from diesel anytime soon.
Intel and "Tick-Tock" basically ground AMD into dust. With AMD unable to keep up R&D development, they are no longer really competitive in many of the CPU segments. Meaning that Intel doesn't need to bother anymore (or at least for awhile), as they are really only competing against themselves. Not only are most of Intel CPU offerings "good enough" they are also "better than anything else" so why bother...
LOL! That ship sailed a long time ago. Have you ever tried to do that? Talk to one of your poorer friends that has no credit, and they will tell you how easy it is. Sure there is a bit of a grey market using cash for certain jobs and people, folks in the service industry and not claiming tips, and building contractors and the like accepting cash and having some creative accounting... but that is about it, and even they are not "outside" the financial system. Any large amount is very difficult to keep anywhere without being electronic. About the only example I can think of is if you invested just about everything into property, which would largely still be "paper" in that you would have deeds, are are physical things (or at least places) etc...
I'm not sure we will ever get away from cash, however even over the last decade or so, its use has dwindled, and likely that trend will continue until it is used only in a niche settings for say emergencies or something (remember travelers checks, does anyone still use those?)...
My old desktop PC is faster and more capable than the newest mac. It has by far more capacity, a real graphics card which is pretty much non-existent in modern macs, and an aging, but decent CPU that does the job required, I also have double the RAM any mac is likely to have...
So why again should I as a poor PC user go run out and buy a new mac? Because it is shiny and hip? Who is the sad one here?
If they want to make that argument that OS X is better than Windows X well that is something else, which I'll leave for someone else to comment on. However if we are talking about hardware, well one shouldn't throw stones when one lives in a glass house...
Well I'll give them that usually the rhetoric is something like "OMG, coldest/hottest day/year in the last 100 years!"... At least with 66 million they are starting to talk a bit more in geologic time scales... However, for perspective, life on earth has been around producing CO2 for approximately 3.5 to 4 BILLION years. For the numerically challenged that is 3500-4000 million years. So the last 66 million is about 1.5% of that period of time.
Not trying to downplay what they are trying to say, only trying to give some perspective as to what that 66 million number actually means, Also CO2 levels are also influenced by other geologic events such as active periods of vulcanization (not sure if I am using that word correctly), would obviously spew out large amounts of CO2, just like periods of glaciation which likely involve large die backs of life would certainly limit CO2 production.
I have no doubt that human industrialization has certainly had an impact, perhaps even a very large one, however the big question I thing we struggle with is what does this all mean really, and it isn't helped by dealing with scales of time we usually don't deal with and many have a hard time conceptualizing.
Blackberry's fall had nothing to do with security. It remains one of the most secure forms of communication today. It has always allowed for legal access for governments to its secure servers. India demanded more access than they were used to, and they gave it. "Legal" varies from country to country. However when that definition of "legal" is beyond what they are willing to do, they have made the business decision to withdraw from the entire market, just as they did with Pakistan.
The reason why Blackberry failed, was because while Apple and Android were advancing both their hardware and software, BB did not keep pace with either. They have since corrected this more or less, but have suffered a bad branding issue for several years which it may never recover from.
Yeah if Fallout 4 is the savior of AI, I am a lot less scared of AI taking over the world.
Me: Creeping slowly so as to not arouse the massive KillBot machine of death that I know is in the basement, whilst detecting and carefully disarming each of the shit ton of land mines that happen to be all over the floor.
My AI companion: Hey! Lets run in and wake up Mr KillBot! Can I also run circles around you so that I step on all the landmines, and set them all off killing you over and over! Sounds like fun! Weeeeeee! Leeeeeerrrooooooyyyyy Jennnnkinnnnsss!
facepalm. repeat.
My eventual decision to intentionally kill my AI before proceeding past that point was a hard, but necessary choice...
Also, Blackberry has always allowed legal access to secure servers. What "legal" means can vary from Country to Country. However they have absolutely shown that when that "legal" interpretation is beyond what they think is acceptable, they have made business decisions counter to simply profit. Pakistan for example, wanted full access to all live communication. Not being comfortable with that, Blackberry withdrew all business from Pakistan. That is taking more of a stand than anyone else, with the exception of Google and China.
As you say, Blackberry's downfall had nothing to do with how secure their phone/network is, in fact it remains one of the most secure around. Simply look at it's use in various governments, including the USA and Obama. Blackberry's downfall had more to do with their software and hardware not keeping pace with technological norms, which they have corrected now, but suffered a branding issue because of it.
Finland tried, and look how that turned out. I think they're owned by Microsoft now or something.
However, the Blackberry (Canada) has always had strong encryption (for irony I believe Obama had one for that very reason), and has been up front about it. They have fallen on hard times the last few years. Perhaps if Apple capitulates and becomes less secure, Blackberry might innovate something and become more successful again.
It was a PITA. Had to go through the recovery process and change all my passwords, before I could play DOTA2 again... All for what, so some Russian teen can root through my account, and see I have nothing worth stealing? This is the first time it has happened to me, but I have had about 5 or 6 recent attempts prior to that. Lame. Seems to be getting worse. If Steam wants to continue growing, they are going to have to deal with this issue.
I've said as much as soon as people started talking about electric cars in any meaningful way. Oil used for personal transportation may go away, but there are plenty of things we depend on too heavily in our current way of life to go anywhere.
Planes being one as you mentioned. Passenger planes use oil, no getting around it. Unless we want to go back to Zeppelins that take a week to get anywhere, there isn't much for alternatives.
Ocean Shipping. You like the global market, and getting widgets from China, well you need huge shipping vessels. These things run on oil. They have things like twin 30,000HP engines running them. You are not replacing them with anything... Millions of sailing ships perhaps, but then costs make it worthless.
The other thing is fertilizer, oil is used in it's production, and to a lesser extent tractors and other mechanized farming equipment that due to how we grow food today globally, isn't something we can just stop doing.
Oil won't get expensive, quite the opposite for a very long time. Demand will be going down, while reserves will still be very high. Sure companies won't be expanding, but only because they won't need to. Some of that economy of scale will make it more expensive to produce perhaps, and there could be some turmoil with failing companies and others being bought out (more consolidation if you can believe it probably)... Anyway all of this is very far out, as you say at least 30 years. Anyway I don't see oil ever going truly away unless A) some here to unknown magic technology suddenly makes it irrelevant, or B) we remarkably change the way in which we live, like back to the stone ages (well prior to the industrial revolution anyway) with much less population etc...
A tank, or a plane, or a drone, or anything really that has been in common usage in a modern military in say the last 75 years...
Your standing militia with civilian arms may have made sense when armies used muskets, however the argument doesn't really make any sense anymore.
They are really only a danger to themselves and other civilians. If the government and the US army/navy/airforce decided that you or your group should be a smoking crater, having easy access to firearms is going to make very little difference. In fact given rules of engagement, probably your best defense is *not* having a gun!
Jim Jefferies makes a pretty good point for an Aussie. Americans like guns, we get it, but don't try an call it something other than that. Gun crime? Easy, make them harder to get, more expensive, and you will pretty much eliminate that. Most deaths are from accidents.
300 IT people just left, Hertz can't find them anyway. Said something grumbling about not paying them or something. Pretty much had to go to India after that.
As I understand, it is basically a PR war between the FBI and Apple which the FBI instigated to establish legal precedent and authority. 1) The phone in question is an older model. Apple certainly can crack it, FBI probably can also with a bit of effort. 2) Apple doesn't want the impression that their phones are not secure. 3) Apple's new phones *are* secure, Apple may not be able to crack it, FBI likely cannot. 4) By making this a legal issue, the FBI are basically using the highly publicized terrorist incident to try and force a legal decision... 5) The idea being that this is about the future. I think they can get into the phone, they are just using it as leverage to try and force Apple to legally give them access to their new phones into the future, which they currently do not have.
This has less to do with technology and more about using legal and public opinion about a similar issue to force a non-technological future solution to encryption. Basically the XKCD comic about using a wrench, but where that is a euphemism for legal action prompted by public opinion on a recent event.
I wouldn't be surprised if the research is really only concentrated in two areas: 1) Missile defense technologies to counter NK 2) Navel defense technologies to counter China
Though realistically the second I don't really see as a "counter" so much as it is to apply pressure and to posture over territorial claims.
Slashdot Mirror
Hoo hoo hoo! :)
Really? This is hardly scary, and only effective against the most inept likely, which probably couldn't figure out out to torrent anything in the first place. I suspect most ransomware is used against older non-tech savvy folks, which isn't really the pirating demographic anyway.
I mean, there are so many ways to potentially defeat their "technology". Clearing you settings, using a different browser, re-installing you browser, re-installing your OS, likely would be picked up by various anti malware/adware/virus scan for removal... All of which might be irritating, but none of which are really all that hard to do.
Unless they really do something at the ISP level, that is less in your control, all they can really do is be annoying.
Though as many point out the dubious legality of all this anyway.
True.
However say what you want about him, but he has been pretty successful building the "Trump" brand. If all he did was S&P he might be worth more money, however he would also be unknown and probably not running pretty successfully for President (relatively speaking).
Considering so many important things in the world is based on perceived value, confidence, and opinion, Trump has a way of lying pretty successfully...
However when your competition (republicans) is so terrible, it is hard not to come off smelling like roses no matter what you do or say. I expect the Democrats to win by probably one of the largest landslides in US history. Perhaps that will shake up the republican party enough into reality.
Probably the one with the one true god...
I for one welcome the teachings of Xel'Nor* the Great!
So what you're saying is that we went from creating food, to sharing pictures about it...
Quebec due to its unique nature has a lopsided amount of political power in Canada. As a result so does much of the industry. Many of the scandals stem from Quebec industry trying to capitalize on that advantage, more less because they can.
As for this particular example, I don't see it so much as a scandal as just hypocritical really. If it weren't for many of the states in the US also with a similar ideology on online gambling (at least on the face of it) it probably wouldn't be tolerated for competition reasons.
However if similar legislation has proven anything these sorts of things rarely work well, if at all. There are numerous ways around "blocked" sites, with more created constantly, not to mention the lack of enforcement, largely because it is very difficult to do so, and then you will have folks playing with the definition of what exactly is "gambling" anyway VS "entertainment". Online "entertainment" is a multi-Billion dollar industry in the US despite the fact that online "gambling" is illegal in most places... Draft Kings is a perfect example.
So for all those reasons and more, I say "meh" to the whole issue.
You pretty much didn't understand Idiocracy then.
The basic premise is that the more successful and smart you are, the less kids you have, and that the poorer and stupid you are, the more kids you have. You take this principle, and fast forward hundreds of years, and what they are predicting is a world full of dummies.
So paying people more money, making them more successful, and upwardly mobile, able to better pay for things like nutrition, education, healthcare, etc... would be enabling the opposite of Idiocracy. Employing a large amount of wage slaves without a living wage, with little advantage or hope is pretty much what leads to electing Terry Crews president, and destroying your agriculture with electrolytes...
I'll cite the emergence of Donald Trump as a likely contender for President as proof that the current system of low wages the past couple decades isn't really working towards avoiding the Idiocracy future...
Sounds like the app trend of micropayments.... Sure you can play for free, but to build that refinery, it will take 24h to complete, OR you could pay 2.99 for 25 gems which you can then use to complete that refinery right now! However if you want to be competitive at all, you pretty much *have* to make the payments, or not bother playing the game at all...
Well yes it is a mature technology. If you are a warship. If you are an American or Russian warship. With the one exception being Russian Icebreakers.
Also if you have MASSIVE amounts of money. Compare relative costs of either, and who can afford to build them (i.e. Russia and America).
Also if you want some Somali pirates to obtain nuclear material to sell on the black market (though probably irradiating themselves in the process). Unless of course you start providing them all with escorts, and weapon systems.
The one exception being Russian Icebreakers again. However 1) There are no pirates (Ice Pirates?) that I am aware of in the arctic, it isn't like seals or polar bears are much of a threat, and 2) They are Russian, and they probably are armed. Personally I think Canada should have ordered some Russian Icebreakers in the recent past, they are quite awesome.
Anyway, on the surface it might make sense to use nuclear freighters, but it really isn't all that feasible realistically. For large scale shipping no one is getting away from diesel anytime soon.
Intel and "Tick-Tock" basically ground AMD into dust. With AMD unable to keep up R&D development, they are no longer really competitive in many of the CPU segments. Meaning that Intel doesn't need to bother anymore (or at least for awhile), as they are really only competing against themselves. Not only are most of Intel CPU offerings "good enough" they are also "better than anything else" so why bother...
LOL! That ship sailed a long time ago. Have you ever tried to do that? Talk to one of your poorer friends that has no credit, and they will tell you how easy it is. Sure there is a bit of a grey market using cash for certain jobs and people, folks in the service industry and not claiming tips, and building contractors and the like accepting cash and having some creative accounting... but that is about it, and even they are not "outside" the financial system. Any large amount is very difficult to keep anywhere without being electronic. About the only example I can think of is if you invested just about everything into property, which would largely still be "paper" in that you would have deeds, are are physical things (or at least places) etc...
I'm not sure we will ever get away from cash, however even over the last decade or so, its use has dwindled, and likely that trend will continue until it is used only in a niche settings for say emergencies or something (remember travelers checks, does anyone still use those?)...
My old desktop PC is faster and more capable than the newest mac. It has by far more capacity, a real graphics card which is pretty much non-existent in modern macs, and an aging, but decent CPU that does the job required, I also have double the RAM any mac is likely to have...
So why again should I as a poor PC user go run out and buy a new mac? Because it is shiny and hip? Who is the sad one here?
If they want to make that argument that OS X is better than Windows X well that is something else, which I'll leave for someone else to comment on. However if we are talking about hardware, well one shouldn't throw stones when one lives in a glass house...
He he, yeah, I did a double take as I read it as "hurling of boulders by giants", and was like this shit just got real!
Well I'll give them that usually the rhetoric is something like "OMG, coldest/hottest day/year in the last 100 years!"... At least with 66 million they are starting to talk a bit more in geologic time scales... However, for perspective, life on earth has been around producing CO2 for approximately 3.5 to 4 BILLION years. For the numerically challenged that is 3500-4000 million years. So the last 66 million is about 1.5% of that period of time.
Not trying to downplay what they are trying to say, only trying to give some perspective as to what that 66 million number actually means, Also CO2 levels are also influenced by other geologic events such as active periods of vulcanization (not sure if I am using that word correctly), would obviously spew out large amounts of CO2, just like periods of glaciation which likely involve large die backs of life would certainly limit CO2 production.
I have no doubt that human industrialization has certainly had an impact, perhaps even a very large one, however the big question I thing we struggle with is what does this all mean really, and it isn't helped by dealing with scales of time we usually don't deal with and many have a hard time conceptualizing.
Blackberry's fall had nothing to do with security. It remains one of the most secure forms of communication today. It has always allowed for legal access for governments to its secure servers. India demanded more access than they were used to, and they gave it. "Legal" varies from country to country. However when that definition of "legal" is beyond what they are willing to do, they have made the business decision to withdraw from the entire market, just as they did with Pakistan.
The reason why Blackberry failed, was because while Apple and Android were advancing both their hardware and software, BB did not keep pace with either. They have since corrected this more or less, but have suffered a bad branding issue for several years which it may never recover from.
Yeah if Fallout 4 is the savior of AI, I am a lot less scared of AI taking over the world.
Me: Creeping slowly so as to not arouse the massive KillBot machine of death that I know is in the basement, whilst detecting and carefully disarming each of the shit ton of land mines that happen to be all over the floor.
My AI companion: Hey! Lets run in and wake up Mr KillBot! Can I also run circles around you so that I step on all the landmines, and set them all off killing you over and over! Sounds like fun! Weeeeeee! Leeeeeerrrooooooyyyyy Jennnnkinnnnsss!
facepalm. repeat.
My eventual decision to intentionally kill my AI before proceeding past that point was a hard, but necessary choice...
Also, Blackberry has always allowed legal access to secure servers. What "legal" means can vary from Country to Country. However they have absolutely shown that when that "legal" interpretation is beyond what they think is acceptable, they have made business decisions counter to simply profit. Pakistan for example, wanted full access to all live communication. Not being comfortable with that, Blackberry withdrew all business from Pakistan. That is taking more of a stand than anyone else, with the exception of Google and China.
As you say, Blackberry's downfall had nothing to do with how secure their phone/network is, in fact it remains one of the most secure around. Simply look at it's use in various governments, including the USA and Obama. Blackberry's downfall had more to do with their software and hardware not keeping pace with technological norms, which they have corrected now, but suffered a branding issue because of it.
Finland tried, and look how that turned out. I think they're owned by Microsoft now or something.
However, the Blackberry (Canada) has always had strong encryption (for irony I believe Obama had one for that very reason), and has been up front about it. They have fallen on hard times the last few years. Perhaps if Apple capitulates and becomes less secure, Blackberry might innovate something and become more successful again.
It was a PITA. Had to go through the recovery process and change all my passwords, before I could play DOTA2 again... All for what, so some Russian teen can root through my account, and see I have nothing worth stealing? This is the first time it has happened to me, but I have had about 5 or 6 recent attempts prior to that. Lame. Seems to be getting worse. If Steam wants to continue growing, they are going to have to deal with this issue.
I've said as much as soon as people started talking about electric cars in any meaningful way. Oil used for personal transportation may go away, but there are plenty of things we depend on too heavily in our current way of life to go anywhere.
Planes being one as you mentioned. Passenger planes use oil, no getting around it. Unless we want to go back to Zeppelins that take a week to get anywhere, there isn't much for alternatives.
Ocean Shipping. You like the global market, and getting widgets from China, well you need huge shipping vessels. These things run on oil. They have things like twin 30,000HP engines running them. You are not replacing them with anything... Millions of sailing ships perhaps, but then costs make it worthless.
The other thing is fertilizer, oil is used in it's production, and to a lesser extent tractors and other mechanized farming equipment that due to how we grow food today globally, isn't something we can just stop doing.
Oil won't get expensive, quite the opposite for a very long time. Demand will be going down, while reserves will still be very high. Sure companies won't be expanding, but only because they won't need to. Some of that economy of scale will make it more expensive to produce perhaps, and there could be some turmoil with failing companies and others being bought out (more consolidation if you can believe it probably)... Anyway all of this is very far out, as you say at least 30 years. Anyway I don't see oil ever going truly away unless A) some here to unknown magic technology suddenly makes it irrelevant, or B) we remarkably change the way in which we live, like back to the stone ages (well prior to the industrial revolution anyway) with much less population etc...
A tank, or a plane, or a drone, or anything really that has been in common usage in a modern military in say the last 75 years...
Your standing militia with civilian arms may have made sense when armies used muskets, however the argument doesn't really make any sense anymore.
They are really only a danger to themselves and other civilians. If the government and the US army/navy/airforce decided that you or your group should be a smoking crater, having easy access to firearms is going to make very little difference. In fact given rules of engagement, probably your best defense is *not* having a gun!
Jim Jefferies makes a pretty good point for an Aussie. Americans like guns, we get it, but don't try an call it something other than that. Gun crime? Easy, make them harder to get, more expensive, and you will pretty much eliminate that. Most deaths are from accidents.
Perhaps they are trying to defect with their top secret "unicorn" drive? I've heard it was designed by their glorious leader himself!
300 IT people just left, Hertz can't find them anyway. Said something grumbling about not paying them or something. Pretty much had to go to India after that.
Pretty sure I would pull a Milton after that.
As I understand, it is basically a PR war between the FBI and Apple which the FBI instigated to establish legal precedent and authority.
1) The phone in question is an older model. Apple certainly can crack it, FBI probably can also with a bit of effort.
2) Apple doesn't want the impression that their phones are not secure.
3) Apple's new phones *are* secure, Apple may not be able to crack it, FBI likely cannot.
4) By making this a legal issue, the FBI are basically using the highly publicized terrorist incident to try and force a legal decision...
5) The idea being that this is about the future. I think they can get into the phone, they are just using it as leverage to try and force Apple to legally give them access to their new phones into the future, which they currently do not have.
This has less to do with technology and more about using legal and public opinion about a similar issue to force a non-technological future solution to encryption.
Basically the XKCD comic about using a wrench, but where that is a euphemism for legal action prompted by public opinion on a recent event.
I wouldn't be surprised if the research is really only concentrated in two areas:
1) Missile defense technologies to counter NK
2) Navel defense technologies to counter China
Though realistically the second I don't really see as a "counter" so much as it is to apply pressure and to posture over territorial claims.
But does it only automatically drive to Poland?