Some routers aren't "locked" particularly well, for example I have a WR841N v11 here which had supposedly FCC locked firmware, but it was relatively simple to install open firmware on it using the TFTP firmware recovery procedure
True, but NASA seems to have taken the position "We're not even going to bother looking to see if there is anything of significance."
Actually, their official position is something along the lines of "these tapes are so molded to shit they're quite frankly a health hazard, we already have known backups of the labelled tapes, so we're not going to spend the time and money trying to scrape data off tapes that are probably completely unreadable anyway."
From the published discussions they decided that because there was no evidence of historically significant data it wasn't worth the effort to try to restore the severely molded tapes.
As I said, "Local cold snaps don't disprove that, can you point to any researchers who have claimed that climate change will prevent local cold snaps? The average temperatures speak for themselves, expect to boneheads and oil shills."
No, it's hard to have a have rational discussions on the merits of AGW when politicians toss snowballs around the senate as proof that climate change isn't happening.
The 5 hottest years on record have all been since 2010. 11 of the 12 hottest years have been since 2000.
Local cold snaps don't disprove that, can you point to any researchers who have claimed that climate change will prevent local cold snaps? The average temperatures speak for themselves, expect to boneheads and oil shills.
Don't want to hear it? Then you'll have to prove the work of a vast number of scientists working for a vast number institutes in a vast number of countries all wrong.
Oh and in case anyone feels the need to claim scientists are just protecting their research grants, the only reason this research is needed is because politicians are pushing back on the findings. If the world had acted on carbon emissions in the 80s like it did on CFCs then there wouldn't be the need for this research would there?
And we would let them know any of that why and how again??? Come on, think it through. You don't need to let on to any of that to gain some benefit from both sides.
So, if you're not sharing any information about cyber attacks, then what actual benefit is there for the other side? What would the point be of having a joint cyber security unit if there's no "joint" about it?
848 documented criminal convictions [amazonaws.com], and this is just a sampling.
Only 6 of those are from the 2016 election.
Or perhaps you'd like to hear from the Pew Trusts and their finding of "Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state." [pewtrusts.org], not to mention millions of dead still registered to vote... Is that enough evidence for you?
Steve Bannon, Tiffany Trump, Sean Spicer, Jared Kushner and Steven Mnuchin are all registered to vote in more than one state. Does that prove they committed voter fraud? Or could it be that being registered twice doesn't mean they tried to vote twice? How many of those 2.76 million registered in multiple states voted twice? Or even know they're registered twice? How many dead people voted? Given that records of who voted are publicly available it should be incredibly easy to show any massive voter fraud... <crickets>
I think the idea is they're trying to force manufacturers to release buildable sourcecode for those loadable binary blobs to get their certification, but of course companies don't give a crap about the certification so it doesn't happen.
But yeah it's a tricky question, as I agree with the FSF that having loadable binary blobs encourages hardware companies to stick loads of bloat in their firmware as they can release whatever buggy mess and just patch it later, but having access to a loadable firmware binary should also make it easier to reverse engineer and create tailored firmware...
Yeah will be nice to finally get the completed version of StarFox 2, but there has been a leaked mostly complete beta of StarFox 2 out there for a while.
You don't understand the concept of tailoring a recommendation to the customer do you?
And you don't appear to understand the concept of consumer protection do you? If there were no consumer protection laws and no consumer advocacy do you think the standard of products sold would be higher or lower than it is now?
Yep I can also find plenty of places selling heroin. If you don't understand the history of the pentalobe screw then please go and do some reading
You made the claim, it's on you to back it up.
Your recommendation should suit the scenario of the end user or you're simply making a shit recommendation.
My recommendation is that we don't support companies who try to lock down the PC industry with un repairable proprietary bullshit. Your recommendation is that they're doing a good thing for consumers.
These devices are not meant to be immortal. They are meant to last a few years
I expect to be able to use a $2000 laptop for more than just a few years, why do you want to turn the PC industry into overpriced disposable garbage?
I'm outta here. You haven't really paid attention to a single thing I have said the entire conversation.
So you lose all your arguments and you can't back your claims up, I'm not surprised running away either.
But then you do touch on something interesting. Yes there are many people in the world that I can guarantee will NEVER need to have their device repaired.
So because some people treat their computers as disposable you want to force everyone to treat their computers as disposable? Real classy.
Welded shut? Quite happy to. Welds are standard parts that are fixed in standard ways. If car hoods were welded shut I'm sure every repair shop will have a welder.
You keep trying to justify this by saying repair shops just need the right tools, please show me what tool would allow the surface laptop to be opened without damaging the pelt material.
Don't be dense. The popularity of thin and sleek outweighs the desire for repairability by a long shot. You can see that with the Surface's sales figured combined with the fact that they never got more than a 1/10 on iFixit.
Oh please, if even Apple can make their ultra-slim laptop's openable then what's Microsoft's excuse?
Yes. Sod them.
So literally anti-consumer. Thanks for clearing that up.
There are other companies and other products that feed the needs of those who do. If you want to design by committee to please everyone you will end up with a product wanted by no one.
You have utterly failed to show us a single way in which being repairable is worse for the consumer. Glued together tablets are one thing, but if Apple can make premium laptops that are possible to open then why can't MS?
Negative. You can legitimately buy the required welders.
I'm not talking about the weld joints, I'm talking about the glued down pelt surface that has to be chewed up to open it. There's no "off the shelf tool" to undo that damage.
You can't legitimately buy pentalobe screwdrivers without the risk of Apple coming and shutting you down.
Citation needed. I can find a lot of places selling pentalobe compatible screwdrivers, and nothing about any possible legal problems using them. Yes it's a shitty move making you buy extra screwdrivers, but not as shitty as making you destroy the surface of your laptop to open it.
Not immortal. Just long enough to be reasonable. I've had my laptop for 3 years now. If anything even slightly goes wrong with it, it is going in the bin and I'm getting another one. A device doesn't need to be immortal to not warrant repairing.
You can spend up to $2,000 on premium configurations, and you'd be happy to bin it after 3 years?? If my $400 3 year old refurb laptop broke I would probably (if it's not something easy to replace like the SSD) bin in, but if I had spent $2000 on a top of the line laptop I would bloody well expect to be able to get it fixed without being shafted on the repair price. Not to mention that MS only actually give you a 1 year warranty, and I can't even tell if that includes the cost of part replacements.
Right after you show me someone other than a few people on Slashdot and businesses who's requirements include "device must be easily openable for cheap repair".
So because technically consumers don't need cheap repairs, because they can either get shafted on the repair cost from the 1st party or just throw their expensive premium laptop away, that makes being anti-consumer ok does it?
By the way it's a laptop. WTF is "maintenance"
Li-ion batteries have a limited lifespan. Replacing a worn battery is maintenance that all laptops have to undergo sooner or later. If you're happy to throw away a premium $2000 laptop that's up to you, but forcing that attitude on everyone is completely anti-consumer, and the sooner Apple and now Microsoft are forced to stop shitting on consumers like that the better.
So don't recommend a product to a customer because of some other unrelated business who is quite likely never to get business from the customer in the first place?
So you can guarantee that someone will never need to have their device repaired, and will not need to use it on battery power once the battery inevitably degrades? Or perhaps you'd be happy to make up the difference in cost if they do?
Seriously what next, don't buy cars because the farriers will go out of business?
The car industry is a good analogy for this - would you be comfortable buying a car with a welded shut bonnet, where if anything goes wrong no matter how minor you have to send it back to the manufacturer and pay to have the entire engine replaced?
It is nothing of the sort. This is very much the exact opposite, a company listening to exactly what consumers wanted: unlimited power, paper thin, and with style. There's a reason Surface, Macbooks, and all the many clones of the designs of both of them do far better in sales than traditional square "you can open this by removing these 30 screws" models, outside of business settings where this stuff is valued of course.
Oh please, spare me your forced sales pitch. They could have hidden screws under the rubber feet to release the keyboard and it would have added just a few grams to the weight here and a few microns thickness there. Sure consumers that haven't yet been bitten by unrepairability don't currently actively look out for it, but no-one is going to not buy a consumer laptop just because it's actually possible to open it. There is literally no tangible advantage to the consumer for this, it is absolutely an anti-consumer move.
We asked for this. We did so through sales figures promoting products with certain design features.
Who? Show me someone who asked for a device to not be easily repairable.
We did so through repair figures showing that few people bought after market batteries.
So your answer is "sod everyone who needs their device repaired because they are in the minority". Classy.
Not giving a shit about 3rd party companies that offer a service that shouldn't be needed is not anti-competitive.
Please do explain how offering repairs shouldn't be needed? Are these devices immortal? Will Microsoft offer a free lifetime warranty for all faults, accidental damage and battery wear?
Unless companies like Caterpillar are anti-competitive too with their shock proof crush proof water proof everything proof phone design.
MS doesn't have a monopoly on repairs. They simply produced a design that is hard to re-close once opened. A repair shop is more than welcome to go out and buy the necessary tools, they aren't proprietary. There's no well controlled pentalobe screws here. It's just hard to open, and that in itself doesn't give MS a monopoly on anything.
Oh please, this goes well beyond being "hard to re-close", you literally have to damage the top surface beyond repair to get it open, meaning any time you want to get in there you have to buy another top casing from MS, if they even sell those parts.
Even those damn pentalobe screws are infinitely better as you can use the screwdriver to open as many screws as you like, and you can even reuse the screws afterwards! What an amazing concept, a reusable way to open a computer!
My recommendations depend on the requirements of the end user, not some side industry that the end user shouldn't have to use regardless of what he buys.
Please show me a single person whose end user requirements include "guaranteed more expensive repairs and maintenance".
The number of people who actually upgrade their laptops or open them up can be measured in parts per million.
It's not just end users though, this also affects professional 3rd party repair shops. What could be a relatively simple fix for minor water damage becomes an expensive "send it back to Microsoft to replace" because it's impossible to open the thing.
It's anti-consumer and it's anti-competitive; Having a monopoly on repairs can only be bad for the consumer.
If by "IoT shit" you mean your router, your network switch, your PVR, your car, your industrial control system, your ship navigation eqipment, your medical equipment etc.
OK. I agree delineating the law in the edge cases is near impossible.
Well exactly, you're defending Sharia in so much as it's full of perfectly legal rules that cannot be made illegal in a fair way.
Why no outrage about FGM? We have new cases coming out. Not a peep; Why no outrage at "kill gays". We have tons of video. Why no outrage at the misogyny? Look at all the outrage of Trump BSing in a lockerroom (pu$$ygrabbing) and yet.... nothing. Why no outrage at Muslims saying we want the caliphate here (US and England). We have tons of video.
There's already a lot of outrage about all of those things, have you ever heard progressives *supporting* one of those things? Just because right now most progressives are directing outrage at different things doesn't mean anything. Why be outraged at things there is already mainstream outrage about? Especially if Conservatives are trying to use that outrage as an excuse to take away freedoms. Why not be outraged at things you see as wrong but that there isn't yet wide outrage about?
When was the last time you showed public outrage about drink driving? How about vehicular homicide? Ever shown outrage at fatalities caused by fire safety violations? Medical malpractice? Corporate corruption?
Why does everyone have to show public outrage at everything bad brown people do if you don't show outrage at everything everyone does?
Oh and that reminds me, where is the conservative outrage about male genital mutilation? Why are conservatives only outraged at the mutilation of children's genitals when it's brown people doing it?
Slashdot Mirror
Some routers aren't "locked" particularly well, for example I have a WR841N v11 here which had supposedly FCC locked firmware, but it was relatively simple to install open firmware on it using the TFTP firmware recovery procedure
True, but NASA seems to have taken the position "We're not even going to bother looking to see if there is anything of significance."
Actually, their official position is something along the lines of "these tapes are so molded to shit they're quite frankly a health hazard, we already have known backups of the labelled tapes, so we're not going to spend the time and money trying to scrape data off tapes that are probably completely unreadable anyway."
From the published discussions they decided that because there was no evidence of historically significant data it wasn't worth the effort to try to restore the severely molded tapes.
Here's the full discussion of the find and analysis of the tapes (which were found to be too badly damaged by mold to attempt data recovery). All sounds pretty reasonable, no point spending a lot of money on discarded hardware and damaged tapes that there are existing better copies of.
Apaprently the tapes were in extremely poor condition (mold etc)
What am I missing. Who thought we already had funding in place to go to Mars?
Trump supporters.
Of course maybe if he'd given his $15 billion military budget increase to NASA instead it would actually happen...
So different data sets show the same trend, yet somehow that casts doubt on global warming? No evidence that it is false != unfalsifiable.
As I said, "Local cold snaps don't disprove that, can you point to any researchers who have claimed that climate change will prevent local cold snaps? The average temperatures speak for themselves, expect to boneheads and oil shills."
No, it's hard to have a have rational discussions on the merits of AGW when politicians toss snowballs around the senate as proof that climate change isn't happening.
The 5 hottest years on record have all been since 2010. 11 of the 12 hottest years have been since 2000.
Local cold snaps don't disprove that, can you point to any researchers who have claimed that climate change will prevent local cold snaps? The average temperatures speak for themselves, expect to boneheads and oil shills.
Don't want to hear it? Then you'll have to prove the work of a vast number of scientists working for a vast number institutes in a vast number of countries all wrong.
Oh and in case anyone feels the need to claim scientists are just protecting their research grants, the only reason this research is needed is because politicians are pushing back on the findings. If the world had acted on carbon emissions in the 80s like it did on CFCs then there wouldn't be the need for this research would there?
The Chinese have boats with 4 chimneys, we must not allow a chimney gap!
And we would let them know any of that why and how again??? Come on, think it through. You don't need to let on to any of that to gain some benefit from both sides.
So, if you're not sharing any information about cyber attacks, then what actual benefit is there for the other side? What would the point be of having a joint cyber security unit if there's no "joint" about it?
That's not how broadcasting works, that's not how any of this works!
Show me a single shred of evidence that voter fraud is anywhere near that high, voting records are public so it should be very easy for you to do.
Tell me, do you believe that Steve Bannon, Tiffany Trump, Sean Spicer, Jared Kushner and Steven Mnuchin committed voter fraud?
848 documented criminal convictions [amazonaws.com], and this is just a sampling.
Only 6 of those are from the 2016 election.
Or perhaps you'd like to hear from the Pew Trusts and their finding of "Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state." [pewtrusts.org], not to mention millions of dead still registered to vote... Is that enough evidence for you?
Steve Bannon, Tiffany Trump, Sean Spicer, Jared Kushner and Steven Mnuchin are all registered to vote in more than one state. Does that prove they committed voter fraud? Or could it be that being registered twice doesn't mean they tried to vote twice? How many of those 2.76 million registered in multiple states voted twice? Or even know they're registered twice? How many dead people voted? Given that records of who voted are publicly available it should be incredibly easy to show any massive voter fraud... <crickets>
I think the idea is they're trying to force manufacturers to release buildable sourcecode for those loadable binary blobs to get their certification, but of course companies don't give a crap about the certification so it doesn't happen.
But yeah it's a tricky question, as I agree with the FSF that having loadable binary blobs encourages hardware companies to stick loads of bloat in their firmware as they can release whatever buggy mess and just patch it later, but having access to a loadable firmware binary should also make it easier to reverse engineer and create tailored firmware...
Yeah will be nice to finally get the completed version of StarFox 2, but there has been a leaked mostly complete beta of StarFox 2 out there for a while.
You don't understand the concept of tailoring a recommendation to the customer do you?
And you don't appear to understand the concept of consumer protection do you? If there were no consumer protection laws and no consumer advocacy do you think the standard of products sold would be higher or lower than it is now?
Yep I can also find plenty of places selling heroin. If you don't understand the history of the pentalobe screw then please go and do some reading
You made the claim, it's on you to back it up.
Your recommendation should suit the scenario of the end user or you're simply making a shit recommendation.
My recommendation is that we don't support companies who try to lock down the PC industry with un repairable proprietary bullshit. Your recommendation is that they're doing a good thing for consumers.
These devices are not meant to be immortal. They are meant to last a few years
I expect to be able to use a $2000 laptop for more than just a few years, why do you want to turn the PC industry into overpriced disposable garbage?
I'm outta here. You haven't really paid attention to a single thing I have said the entire conversation.
So you lose all your arguments and you can't back your claims up, I'm not surprised running away either.
But then you do touch on something interesting. Yes there are many people in the world that I can guarantee will NEVER need to have their device repaired.
So because some people treat their computers as disposable you want to force everyone to treat their computers as disposable? Real classy.
Welded shut? Quite happy to. Welds are standard parts that are fixed in standard ways. If car hoods were welded shut I'm sure every repair shop will have a welder.
You keep trying to justify this by saying repair shops just need the right tools, please show me what tool would allow the surface laptop to be opened without damaging the pelt material.
Don't be dense. The popularity of thin and sleek outweighs the desire for repairability by a long shot. You can see that with the Surface's sales figured combined with the fact that they never got more than a 1/10 on iFixit.
Oh please, if even Apple can make their ultra-slim laptop's openable then what's Microsoft's excuse?
Yes. Sod them.
So literally anti-consumer. Thanks for clearing that up.
There are other companies and other products that feed the needs of those who do. If you want to design by committee to please everyone you will end up with a product wanted by no one.
You have utterly failed to show us a single way in which being repairable is worse for the consumer. Glued together tablets are one thing, but if Apple can make premium laptops that are possible to open then why can't MS?
Negative. You can legitimately buy the required welders.
I'm not talking about the weld joints, I'm talking about the glued down pelt surface that has to be chewed up to open it. There's no "off the shelf tool" to undo that damage.
You can't legitimately buy pentalobe screwdrivers without the risk of Apple coming and shutting you down.
Citation needed. I can find a lot of places selling pentalobe compatible screwdrivers, and nothing about any possible legal problems using them. Yes it's a shitty move making you buy extra screwdrivers, but not as shitty as making you destroy the surface of your laptop to open it.
Not immortal. Just long enough to be reasonable. I've had my laptop for 3 years now. If anything even slightly goes wrong with it, it is going in the bin and I'm getting another one. A device doesn't need to be immortal to not warrant repairing.
You can spend up to $2,000 on premium configurations, and you'd be happy to bin it after 3 years?? If my $400 3 year old refurb laptop broke I would probably (if it's not something easy to replace like the SSD) bin in, but if I had spent $2000 on a top of the line laptop I would bloody well expect to be able to get it fixed without being shafted on the repair price. Not to mention that MS only actually give you a 1 year warranty, and I can't even tell if that includes the cost of part replacements.
Right after you show me someone other than a few people on Slashdot and businesses who's requirements include "device must be easily openable for cheap repair".
So because technically consumers don't need cheap repairs, because they can either get shafted on the repair cost from the 1st party or just throw their expensive premium laptop away, that makes being anti-consumer ok does it?
By the way it's a laptop. WTF is "maintenance"
Li-ion batteries have a limited lifespan. Replacing a worn battery is maintenance that all laptops have to undergo sooner or later. If you're happy to throw away a premium $2000 laptop that's up to you, but forcing that attitude on everyone is completely anti-consumer, and the sooner Apple and now Microsoft are forced to stop shitting on consumers like that the better.
So don't recommend a product to a customer because of some other unrelated business who is quite likely never to get business from the customer in the first place?
So you can guarantee that someone will never need to have their device repaired, and will not need to use it on battery power once the battery inevitably degrades? Or perhaps you'd be happy to make up the difference in cost if they do?
Seriously what next, don't buy cars because the farriers will go out of business?
The car industry is a good analogy for this - would you be comfortable buying a car with a welded shut bonnet, where if anything goes wrong no matter how minor you have to send it back to the manufacturer and pay to have the entire engine replaced?
It is nothing of the sort. This is very much the exact opposite, a company listening to exactly what consumers wanted: unlimited power, paper thin, and with style. There's a reason Surface, Macbooks, and all the many clones of the designs of both of them do far better in sales than traditional square "you can open this by removing these 30 screws" models, outside of business settings where this stuff is valued of course.
Oh please, spare me your forced sales pitch. They could have hidden screws under the rubber feet to release the keyboard and it would have added just a few grams to the weight here and a few microns thickness there. Sure consumers that haven't yet been bitten by unrepairability don't currently actively look out for it, but no-one is going to not buy a consumer laptop just because it's actually possible to open it. There is literally no tangible advantage to the consumer for this, it is absolutely an anti-consumer move.
We asked for this. We did so through sales figures promoting products with certain design features.
Who? Show me someone who asked for a device to not be easily repairable.
We did so through repair figures showing that few people bought after market batteries.
So your answer is "sod everyone who needs their device repaired because they are in the minority". Classy.
Not giving a shit about 3rd party companies that offer a service that shouldn't be needed is not anti-competitive.
Please do explain how offering repairs shouldn't be needed? Are these devices immortal? Will Microsoft offer a free lifetime warranty for all faults, accidental damage and battery wear?
Unless companies like Caterpillar are anti-competitive too with their shock proof crush proof water proof everything proof phone design.
You seriously picked the wrong example there...
MS doesn't have a monopoly on repairs. They simply produced a design that is hard to re-close once opened. A repair shop is more than welcome to go out and buy the necessary tools, they aren't proprietary. There's no well controlled pentalobe screws here. It's just hard to open, and that in itself doesn't give MS a monopoly on anything.
Oh please, this goes well beyond being "hard to re-close", you literally have to damage the top surface beyond repair to get it open, meaning any time you want to get in there you have to buy another top casing from MS, if they even sell those parts.
Even those damn pentalobe screws are infinitely better as you can use the screwdriver to open as many screws as you like, and you can even reuse the screws afterwards! What an amazing concept, a reusable way to open a computer!
My recommendations depend on the requirements of the end user, not some side industry that the end user shouldn't have to use regardless of what he buys.
Please show me a single person whose end user requirements include "guaranteed more expensive repairs and maintenance".
The number of people who actually upgrade their laptops or open them up can be measured in parts per million.
It's not just end users though, this also affects professional 3rd party repair shops. What could be a relatively simple fix for minor water damage becomes an expensive "send it back to Microsoft to replace" because it's impossible to open the thing.
It's anti-consumer and it's anti-competitive; Having a monopoly on repairs can only be bad for the consumer.
It has existed since 2004, and has apparently sold reasonably well
If by "IoT shit" you mean your router, your network switch, your PVR, your car, your industrial control system, your ship navigation eqipment, your medical equipment etc.
How much money do developers who let their damn IDE do the indenting for them make? :)
OK. I agree delineating the law in the edge cases is near impossible.
Well exactly, you're defending Sharia in so much as it's full of perfectly legal rules that cannot be made illegal in a fair way.
Why no outrage about FGM? We have new cases coming out. Not a peep; .... nothing.
Why no outrage at "kill gays". We have tons of video.
Why no outrage at the misogyny? Look at all the outrage of Trump BSing in a lockerroom (pu$$ygrabbing) and yet
Why no outrage at Muslims saying we want the caliphate here (US and England). We have tons of video.
There's already a lot of outrage about all of those things, have you ever heard progressives *supporting* one of those things? Just because right now most progressives are directing outrage at different things doesn't mean anything. Why be outraged at things there is already mainstream outrage about? Especially if Conservatives are trying to use that outrage as an excuse to take away freedoms. Why not be outraged at things you see as wrong but that there isn't yet wide outrage about?
When was the last time you showed public outrage about drink driving? How about vehicular homicide? Ever shown outrage at fatalities caused by fire safety violations? Medical malpractice? Corporate corruption?
Why does everyone have to show public outrage at everything bad brown people do if you don't show outrage at everything everyone does?
Oh and that reminds me, where is the conservative outrage about male genital mutilation? Why are conservatives only outraged at the mutilation of children's genitals when it's brown people doing it?