Other broadcaster have to chip money into the pot for, yes, our socialist approach to fostering local arts. Many Canadians *support* this idea and we're not too fond of an American company trying to wreck the system of local content production.
And many Canadians are also tired of local content producers whining and bitching that they can't compete with global markets, and need special tax dollars just to ensure our oh-so delicate culture is maintained.
I'm sorry, but if you think our cultural identity is so weak that it needs some utterly crap TV shows and movies mandated into creation in order to survive, then you really don't think much of Canada. I'm all in favor of NO public money being spent on local content production (other than news), and I hope Netflix succeeds in bypassing the CRTC.
While I agree with your final sentiment (for other reasons), if you think our cultural identity isn't so weak that it needs stuff mandated into creation in order to survive, you haven't been looking at the rest of the world and how it bears up under the constant torrent of American Media. The countries that keep a decent cultural heritage seem to do it by similar methods to what Canada uses; places like Australia however, are influenced by it to such a degree that they're becoming more American than the Americans.
It doesn't really matter if most of the shows are crap; it's giving Canadians an arena in which to explore this that's important.
I'm pretty sure you'll find that percentage-wise, Canada does significantly better than the US in content creation that isn't crap -- it's just that it's at least one order of magnitude smaller, so you have less choice in non-crap results to consume. But if that venue were gone altogether, we wouldn't get the non-crap stuff either -- they'd just move to the US and join the non-crap syndicates down there, targeting what goes over as American culture instead of Canadian culture.
And that's not even mentioning that Canadian culture actually has quite a strong influence on American culture because of this. And I'm not talking about Obamacare.
Case in point: Most people with kids know about Treehouse -- or at least about some of their publications like The Cat in the Hat knows A Lot About That.
And then there's Canadian comedians that spawned things like Saturday Night Live, which might be familiar to some Americans.
Interestingly, a lot of those guys even went to the same Canadian post secondary school, subsidized by the Canadian government (and then got their foot in the door via Canadian Arts Council grants): http://particle.physics.ucdavi...
Seems to indicate that the bat species can be a host, but doesn't show the symptoms. Studies have also shown antibodies to previous strains of ebola in the areas where the matching outbreaks occurred.
It's worse than that though -- many of these areas mistrust the doctors and also believe that the only way for a person's soul to be safe after death is with a ritual burial that involves physical contact with the dead. That's why they're hiding many of the dead, and why they have the "worst case" scenario in the first place.
The interesting thing about ebola is that it is aggressive enough that it generally DOES burn itself out, counting on other carriers (appears to be fruit bats from latest studies) to incubate the disease until the next outbreak in primates.
How is Netflix wrong here? They're an American company operating in the US, they have licenses to allow people to request streams from Canada, but the Canadians have no jurisdiction over what an American firm operating out of America does.
This is a regulatory overreach the way that that asinine media tax to pay for piracy is. If the customers lose out, it's because their regulators are incompetent.
Netflix doesn't allow Canadians to access Netflix USA -- they instead have a service called Netflix Canada that is only available to Canadians. Where this crosses the border is that they bank through a Canadian bank to process orders, therefore they are operating out of Canada.
Regulatory overreach would be the CRTC going after Netflix USA for something they're doing in the US; this is trade happening in Canada, so that's why they're involved.
That said, the CRTC likely doesn't have the right to step in here in the first place, even though they can, and have not been slapped down by the government in the past for doing similar things. That's because they're supposed to regulate broadcasting; the rest of their remit is on very shaky ground/legislation.
The interesting thing here is that while the CRTC clarified the definition of broadcasting here, they've also expanded their role beyond broadcasting. What Netflix is challenging here (rightly) is whether they actually have the right to do so. I'd say they don't, but the government has given them a LOT of leeway over the years.
They're not legislating anyone; they don't have that power. What they're trying to do is assert commecial control over Netflix Canada who isn't backing up their claims with actual numbers.
CRTC is very much involved in the Canadian part of the Internet, just like they are in Canadian imports of other things such as optical media and digital storage in general.
In case you didn't get it yet...
This is about Canadian companies (not Netflix USA, who Netflix doesn't let Canadians use) fighting for control over who gets to decide how/how much Canadian content is made available in Canada, and how.
When it's American broadcasters going after Canada's icravetv, American courts had no problem getting a US court order that basically ended the service, because it was a rebroadcaster.
Can anyone seriously argue that Netflix isn't also rebroadcasting TV content?
Two weights, two measures. What a mess! And really, whatever solution will be a mess.
The difference is that NetFlix gets permission for rebroadcasting -- they have a license. That's why they don't have the same selection that other rebroadcasters do -- because they're licensing content on a show-by-show basis, not taking the OTA stream and routing it over the Internet.
This case is kind of unfortunate, as both the CRTC and Netflix are in the wrong, and both sides are unwilling to back down and come to a reasonable compromise, as that would threaten their power base.
The problem here is that the CRTC can stop all payment via Canadian credit cards to Netflix, and Netflix can support customers paying via alternate methods who are willing to stream over a VPN -- so the result of this conflict is that both sides lose, and the citizen (not consumer, although them too) loses even more.
But this whole thing is really about Rogers and Shaw lobbying the CRTC to block foreign competition for their new Shome project. CRTC is probably quite happy to be flexing their "muscle" in this situation after continually taking a beating from US lobbying interests on allowing US content onto Canadian networks.
Think of it this way... design a blueprint of your building in something like sketchup, and tag all the different surfaces according to type. Then put antennas in strategic places in the structure (could do 3 in each room, or surround the entire building) and turn on the multiband antennas.
The RF interference should be able to be mapped in this way fairly easily; especially if you set state and then open/close doors, turn WiFi on/off, turn on lights/heaters, etc.
Record all this state information, and then with minimal training, the system should be able to identify all mobile objects and when they moved.
If you toss in the RFID chips here, you could serialize each major mobile item, and actively track them anywhere in the structure.
This isn't new, and doesn't need all that much knowledge of RF, just a good AI that can learn.
I've got a solution that will make everyone happy: Have NetFlix partner with the NFB to distribute NFB content... globally. Nothing like providing global access to Canadian content. NetFlix could even provide it for free to everyone in Canada with an account but no current subscription. Under this setup, the CRTC wouldn't have a leg to stand on, as at that point, they will get their Canadian Content on NetFlix (not sure about the French/English ratio though).
HOWEVER
I'm pretty sure this really has nothing to do with NetFlix and EVERYTHING to do with the new consortium raising a Canadian NetFlix "competitor" (Shomi) whispering nasty things in the CRTC's ear. Yes, blame Rogers/Shaw for this fracas, as they're likely where the blame really lies.
Hmm... scratch that; it's not a re-branding, as the Dreamer uses more filament types, is heated, and has a few other goodies missing in the Builder. And it's only $200 more.
Oh, and it appears to be a re-branded one of these http://www.flashforge-usa.com/... which say they support Linux. I'm guessing that FlashForge Dreamer drivers for Linux would drive the Idea Builder without much modification.
If it works with OS X and Vista, that means you should be able to reverse engineer the protocol and make it work with Linux without too many issues. The drivers seem to work with AutoCAD tools, so my guess is the drivers aren't proprietary either but use a common protocol.
Have you ever used a dremel tool? For the most part they're crap. Perhaps before the '80s thay had good stuff but it's been downhill for a long time.
I'll bite. I've used a Dremel-brand dremel tool in the late 90's, and found it solid (if made of a lot of plastic), dependable, and accurate. The accessories were way too expensive, but Black & Decker accessories are of the same quality and fit in the Dremel opening.
B&D, Ryobi, Makita and similar manufacturer's dremel tools though -- I've found to be underpowered, made of cheap components, and have a shaft locking mechanism that is abysmal, not holding the shaft in a centred manner at all. DeWalt is also pretty good.
Likewise, I've had hit-and-miss experience with Dremel's other offerings -- some are good, some aren't. But their original tool still works as well as it ever did.
True... which is why talking about large-bit encryption isn't really the issue; it's the implementations that are the issue. I was mostly rebutting the part about exponential difficulty with bitsize making your encryption more secure. I'd give *properly implemented* AES-256 another decade at least before it has any security issues whatsoever. By the time AES-256 can be cracked via brute force, the entire algorithm will be out of date, so increasing bitsize won't be much of a gain.
But it doesn't matter how many bits are used or what algorithm, or even what implementation, if even one password at, or above your level on the system being protected is in the Adobe password file, people.
This actually is a good idea for an Apple Accessory(TM) -- make a line of jewelery that can store your passcode in a "hidden" compartment. Any attacker would need to get both the jewelery and the phone to gain access, which is better than nothing at all.
However, the device unlocking problem has already been solved on iPhones: TouchID. You don't need your passcode to unlock a device, you need your passcode to manage the device in cases where your thumb is missing or you're not actually on the device, but need access to its remotely-stored data.
As such, it makes much more sense to make your passcode really long, write it down, and store it in a safety deposit box. Day to day, you won't need it. But if you do, one trip to the bank and 10 min in the safe room with your phone will be enough to recover from whatever situation you've got yourself into.
I think this requires clarification: If you back up to iCloud instead of your personal computer, the backups are encrypted with keys that Apple has. And anyone who has your UUID (which they can likely pick up by sitting on the same open WiFi as you) can spoof your device for a restore of said backup, without requiring 2-factor authentication (they'll still need to figure out your Apple ID and password, or have those given to them by Apple).
If you back up locally, you control the backup key, and it never gets broadcast over a rogue WiFi AP, as any backup attempts (even if you enable WiFi backup) have to happen to a local server, and are not tied to your UUID.
One other thing to note: on iDevices, if you select a non-simple passcode that is only numbers, the device still presents the simple PIN screen instead of a full keypad. The difference is that it sticks an "OK" button in the text field that you press when you're done.
This provides a passcode of uncertain length (X choose 10, 0 x 4096 or so, realistically 16) that is still relatively easy to enter. It's not as secure as a full-on textual passcode, but it beats a 4-digit PIN even if you only use a 4-digit PIN -- as the attacker has no means to know how many digits long your PIN is -- as it *could* be "11151111" or even "1231230123123" which is pretty quick and easy to enter on a PIN pad (almost as fast as 12345), is 13 characters long, and really difficult to guess.
4096-bit encryption sounds great, but there are always ways to shave orders of magnitude off of the actual sample space, such that encryption strength really tends to grow at about the same rate as processing power.
Once you get encryption keys of that size, you've got storage and transmission issues, which increase the probability of other attack vectors working. Plus, your PRNG has to be REALLY random -- and there isn't really all that much true entropy to go around when you get right down to it.
The issue here is that as your random seed gets larger, the probability that it isn't truly random also increases, and analysis of data encrypted with this seed becomes easier through replay analysis. It won't remove the actual entropy, but forces acting on the values generated will create patterns that will still limit the amount of true entropy stored in the resulting value.
Kind of like if you flip a coin once, anyone guessing really doesn't know if it'll come up heads or tails. But if you flip a coin ten times, the method you use for flipping the coin and the environmental factors will start to have an impact on which side comes up more often, and also on the pattern of what influences a heads or tails result. If you flip the coin 2^4096 times, you'd probably be able to pretty accurately predict the result before the coin had even fully launched into the air.
Yeah; the coin experiment is often used as an example of how entropy is entropy and the probability doesn't change from toss to toss. But if you take all other factors into consideration, you limit the effect of entropy such that your guess on a given toss can actually improve over time. Try it, and you'll see I'm correct.
The whole argument that "Hollywood" always gets history wrong in favor of the Americans when making fictional films is just petty jingoistic whining. If it really bothers you that much, go make your own films and set the record straight.
True as far as it goes, but "Hollywood" is a subsidized arm of the US government that mass exports modified propaganda to the rest of the world -- it's why the prevailing view of many Chinese of the US prior to the Internet was based on 1950's films. The result is not that everyone believes the movies (although if you repeat something false often enough, a large portion of the listening population will begin to take it as fact), but that everyone's perception of the subjects of the movies is strongly shaped by them (so as a result, people become wary of giant robots because they might possibly beat us to the moon).
Jingoistic whining is one thing, but oversimplifying herd dynamics isn't much better and helps nobody.
If petty jingoistic whining really bothers you that much, complain about it on slashdot -- not that this will stop the whining.
Exactly. This also means that any data exfiltration HAS to be targeted, unless Apple is forced to install a keylogger on/in every device (which is possible, what with secret courts/warrants/etc). As soon as you have real targeting, warrants come back in full force, and you have a working set of checks and balances. The issue here isn't with governments gaining access to targeted data, it's with governments gaining access to everyone's data and then rummaging around to see what they can find that is "bad" or "useful". In short, there's less room for abuse, and more transparency with regards to any actions actually taken.
1) Sue, claiming that the government can neither force you to design your software differently, nor require them to sell a specific software. It is a very different thing than the existing system where people are required to provide access to existing backdoors, rather than being required to create backdoors.
Except that now that Apple's warrant canary is gone, it appears they've been served secret orders, which could include such things, and not allow them to sue in public. So this choice is gone
2) Move your corporate headquarters off shore. Then tell them they have no authority over you, but if they want to sue your country or publicly demand you stop selling your product in the US, they can do it - but your warrant requiring secrecy does not affect them in any way shape or form.
This one is possible, but risky, as your competitors who are willing to sell out will gain an immense tactical advantage, especially in the US. The advantage increases even further as the government then stops being willing to share its intel with you that gives your coproration an advantage in the marketplace, but begins to provide your competitors with inside information about your company.
3) Separate the hardware and software, using different sub-companies to produce each one. Then have the software company declare it is hereby closed, and will provide no more updates. Tell the government that they can't force you to be in business anymore. Hire a new company to provide software and REPEAT.
Actually, Sony does something similar to this, using a vast web of companies and contractors. It seems to work pretty well for them, except that I think they also allow the local companies to share local intel/advantages with the host company. But it means that the US can't get Sony Electronics USA to do something that will affect Sony Electronics Japan or Sony Entertainment USA -- the co-operation would have to flow out of the country for this to work. It would really be in, say, Apple and Google's best interests to begin restructuring themselves in a similar manner -- but they'd have to move the parent corporations offshore, which would have its own issues.
The reason you don't think it's even close to a two way street is precisely due to the fact that the necessities of rural living are subsidized.
If they weren't, cost of living would skyrocket... and suddenly, all natural resources would be unaffordable to most people in urban areas.
This fundamentally doesn't make any sense. Say current subsidies to rural areas are $X. Those are clearly enough to get people to live there, work in agriculture, mining, etc. If the subsidies went away, then prices for some goods would rise, but they wouldn't rise by, in aggregate, any more than $X, by definition.
As you state, current subsidies of $X are clearly enough to get people to live there and do work. If the subsidies went away, then Y% of the workers (guessing close to 100%, but that's just a guess) would also go away, resulting in the prices for some goods to approach infinity -- those goods being tied to energy production, food production, and the like.
This would eventually balance by wages for some of the jobs increasing such that some of Y would return to work, increasing costs of products Z, which would then go back to the urban areas at adjusted market value A.
The end result would be that instead of things like milk and electricity being at prices low income wage earners in the city can afford, it would be set at higher values.
The result of that is that the minimum wage floor would need to be increased so that the urban support workers could afford to make a living. This means that urban products and services would increase in price.
Basically, keeping rural costs low subsidizes the few so that each person up the line who takes a cut of the profits is taking a cut of a smaller pie, keeping cost of living lower. Increase the costs of the initial resources, and you create relative scarcity and create accumulation of wealth at the top of the monetary chain.
How does this not fundamentally make sense? It even follows the laws of physics -- we don't live in a world with no friction, and if you increase the coefficient at the start, the point at which things come to a standstill via waste energy happens much sooner.
Slashdot Mirror
And many Canadians are also tired of local content producers whining and bitching that they can't compete with global markets, and need special tax dollars just to ensure our oh-so delicate culture is maintained.
I'm sorry, but if you think our cultural identity is so weak that it needs some utterly crap TV shows and movies mandated into creation in order to survive, then you really don't think much of Canada. I'm all in favor of NO public money being spent on local content production (other than news), and I hope Netflix succeeds in bypassing the CRTC.
While I agree with your final sentiment (for other reasons), if you think our cultural identity isn't so weak that it needs stuff mandated into creation in order to survive, you haven't been looking at the rest of the world and how it bears up under the constant torrent of American Media. The countries that keep a decent cultural heritage seem to do it by similar methods to what Canada uses; places like Australia however, are influenced by it to such a degree that they're becoming more American than the Americans.
It doesn't really matter if most of the shows are crap; it's giving Canadians an arena in which to explore this that's important.
I'm pretty sure you'll find that percentage-wise, Canada does significantly better than the US in content creation that isn't crap -- it's just that it's at least one order of magnitude smaller, so you have less choice in non-crap results to consume. But if that venue were gone altogether, we wouldn't get the non-crap stuff either -- they'd just move to the US and join the non-crap syndicates down there, targeting what goes over as American culture instead of Canadian culture.
And that's not even mentioning that Canadian culture actually has quite a strong influence on American culture because of this. And I'm not talking about Obamacare.
Case in point: Most people with kids know about Treehouse -- or at least about some of their publications like The Cat in the Hat knows A Lot About That.
And then there's Canadian comedians that spawned things like Saturday Night Live, which might be familiar to some Americans.
Interestingly, a lot of those guys even went to the same Canadian post secondary school, subsidized by the Canadian government (and then got their foot in the door via Canadian Arts Council grants): http://particle.physics.ucdavi...
http://www.who.int/mediacentre...
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/artic...
https://simple.wikipedia.org/w...
Seems to indicate that the bat species can be a host, but doesn't show the symptoms. Studies have also shown antibodies to previous strains of ebola in the areas where the matching outbreaks occurred.
It's worse than that though -- many of these areas mistrust the doctors and also believe that the only way for a person's soul to be safe after death is with a ritual burial that involves physical contact with the dead. That's why they're hiding many of the dead, and why they have the "worst case" scenario in the first place.
The interesting thing about ebola is that it is aggressive enough that it generally DOES burn itself out, counting on other carriers (appears to be fruit bats from latest studies) to incubate the disease until the next outbreak in primates.
How is Netflix wrong here? They're an American company operating in the US, they have licenses to allow people to request streams from Canada, but the Canadians have no jurisdiction over what an American firm operating out of America does.
This is a regulatory overreach the way that that asinine media tax to pay for piracy is. If the customers lose out, it's because their regulators are incompetent.
Netflix doesn't allow Canadians to access Netflix USA -- they instead have a service called Netflix Canada that is only available to Canadians. Where this crosses the border is that they bank through a Canadian bank to process orders, therefore they are operating out of Canada.
Regulatory overreach would be the CRTC going after Netflix USA for something they're doing in the US; this is trade happening in Canada, so that's why they're involved.
That said, the CRTC likely doesn't have the right to step in here in the first place, even though they can, and have not been slapped down by the government in the past for doing similar things. That's because they're supposed to regulate broadcasting; the rest of their remit is on very shaky ground/legislation.
The interesting thing here is that while the CRTC clarified the definition of broadcasting here, they've also expanded their role beyond broadcasting. What Netflix is challenging here (rightly) is whether they actually have the right to do so. I'd say they don't, but the government has given them a LOT of leeway over the years.
They're not legislating anyone; they don't have that power. What they're trying to do is assert commecial control over Netflix Canada who isn't backing up their claims with actual numbers.
CRTC is very much involved in the Canadian part of the Internet, just like they are in Canadian imports of other things such as optical media and digital storage in general.
In case you didn't get it yet...
This is about Canadian companies (not Netflix USA, who Netflix doesn't let Canadians use) fighting for control over who gets to decide how/how much Canadian content is made available in Canada, and how.
When it's American broadcasters going after Canada's icravetv, American courts had no problem getting a US court order that basically ended the service, because it was a rebroadcaster.
Can anyone seriously argue that Netflix isn't also rebroadcasting TV content?
Two weights, two measures. What a mess! And really, whatever solution will be a mess.
The difference is that NetFlix gets permission for rebroadcasting -- they have a license. That's why they don't have the same selection that other rebroadcasters do -- because they're licensing content on a show-by-show basis, not taking the OTA stream and routing it over the Internet.
This case is kind of unfortunate, as both the CRTC and Netflix are in the wrong, and both sides are unwilling to back down and come to a reasonable compromise, as that would threaten their power base.
The problem here is that the CRTC can stop all payment via Canadian credit cards to Netflix, and Netflix can support customers paying via alternate methods who are willing to stream over a VPN -- so the result of this conflict is that both sides lose, and the citizen (not consumer, although them too) loses even more.
But this whole thing is really about Rogers and Shaw lobbying the CRTC to block foreign competition for their new Shome project. CRTC is probably quite happy to be flexing their "muscle" in this situation after continually taking a beating from US lobbying interests on allowing US content onto Canadian networks.
So yeah; it's a huge mess to sort out.
Think of it this way... design a blueprint of your building in something like sketchup, and tag all the different surfaces according to type. Then put antennas in strategic places in the structure (could do 3 in each room, or surround the entire building) and turn on the multiband antennas.
The RF interference should be able to be mapped in this way fairly easily; especially if you set state and then open/close doors, turn WiFi on/off, turn on lights/heaters, etc.
Record all this state information, and then with minimal training, the system should be able to identify all mobile objects and when they moved.
If you toss in the RFID chips here, you could serialize each major mobile item, and actively track them anywhere in the structure.
This isn't new, and doesn't need all that much knowledge of RF, just a good AI that can learn.
See: http://www.extremetech.com/ext... for one way it's been done.
I presume you read this?
http://idle.slashdot.org/story...
I've got a solution that will make everyone happy:
Have NetFlix partner with the NFB to distribute NFB content... globally. Nothing like providing global access to Canadian content. NetFlix could even provide it for free to everyone in Canada with an account but no current subscription. Under this setup, the CRTC wouldn't have a leg to stand on, as at that point, they will get their Canadian Content on NetFlix (not sure about the French/English ratio though).
HOWEVER
I'm pretty sure this really has nothing to do with NetFlix and EVERYTHING to do with the new consortium raising a Canadian NetFlix "competitor" (Shomi) whispering nasty things in the CRTC's ear. Yes, blame Rogers/Shaw for this fracas, as they're likely where the blame really lies.
Hmm... scratch that; it's not a re-branding, as the Dreamer uses more filament types, is heated, and has a few other goodies missing in the Builder. And it's only $200 more.
Oh, and it appears to be a re-branded one of these http://www.flashforge-usa.com/... which say they support Linux. I'm guessing that FlashForge Dreamer drivers for Linux would drive the Idea Builder without much modification.
If it works with OS X and Vista, that means you should be able to reverse engineer the protocol and make it work with Linux without too many issues. The drivers seem to work with AutoCAD tools, so my guess is the drivers aren't proprietary either but use a common protocol.
Have you ever used a dremel tool?
For the most part they're crap. Perhaps before the '80s thay had good stuff but it's been downhill for a long time.
I'll bite. I've used a Dremel-brand dremel tool in the late 90's, and found it solid (if made of a lot of plastic), dependable, and accurate. The accessories were way too expensive, but Black & Decker accessories are of the same quality and fit in the Dremel opening.
B&D, Ryobi, Makita and similar manufacturer's dremel tools though -- I've found to be underpowered, made of cheap components, and have a shaft locking mechanism that is abysmal, not holding the shaft in a centred manner at all. DeWalt is also pretty good.
Likewise, I've had hit-and-miss experience with Dremel's other offerings -- some are good, some aren't. But their original tool still works as well as it ever did.
True... which is why talking about large-bit encryption isn't really the issue; it's the implementations that are the issue. I was mostly rebutting the part about exponential difficulty with bitsize making your encryption more secure. I'd give *properly implemented* AES-256 another decade at least before it has any security issues whatsoever. By the time AES-256 can be cracked via brute force, the entire algorithm will be out of date, so increasing bitsize won't be much of a gain.
But it doesn't matter how many bits are used or what algorithm, or even what implementation, if even one password at, or above your level on the system being protected is in the Adobe password file, people.
This actually is a good idea for an Apple Accessory(TM) -- make a line of jewelery that can store your passcode in a "hidden" compartment. Any attacker would need to get both the jewelery and the phone to gain access, which is better than nothing at all.
However, the device unlocking problem has already been solved on iPhones: TouchID. You don't need your passcode to unlock a device, you need your passcode to manage the device in cases where your thumb is missing or you're not actually on the device, but need access to its remotely-stored data.
As such, it makes much more sense to make your passcode really long, write it down, and store it in a safety deposit box. Day to day, you won't need it. But if you do, one trip to the bank and 10 min in the safe room with your phone will be enough to recover from whatever situation you've got yourself into.
I think this requires clarification: If you back up to iCloud instead of your personal computer, the backups are encrypted with keys that Apple has. And anyone who has your UUID (which they can likely pick up by sitting on the same open WiFi as you) can spoof your device for a restore of said backup, without requiring 2-factor authentication (they'll still need to figure out your Apple ID and password, or have those given to them by Apple).
If you back up locally, you control the backup key, and it never gets broadcast over a rogue WiFi AP, as any backup attempts (even if you enable WiFi backup) have to happen to a local server, and are not tied to your UUID.
One other thing to note: on iDevices, if you select a non-simple passcode that is only numbers, the device still presents the simple PIN screen instead of a full keypad. The difference is that it sticks an "OK" button in the text field that you press when you're done.
This provides a passcode of uncertain length (X choose 10, 0 x 4096 or so, realistically 16) that is still relatively easy to enter. It's not as secure as a full-on textual passcode, but it beats a 4-digit PIN even if you only use a 4-digit PIN -- as the attacker has no means to know how many digits long your PIN is -- as it *could* be "11151111" or even "1231230123123" which is pretty quick and easy to enter on a PIN pad (almost as fast as 12345), is 13 characters long, and really difficult to guess.
4096-bit encryption sounds great, but there are always ways to shave orders of magnitude off of the actual sample space, such that encryption strength really tends to grow at about the same rate as processing power.
Once you get encryption keys of that size, you've got storage and transmission issues, which increase the probability of other attack vectors working. Plus, your PRNG has to be REALLY random -- and there isn't really all that much true entropy to go around when you get right down to it.
The issue here is that as your random seed gets larger, the probability that it isn't truly random also increases, and analysis of data encrypted with this seed becomes easier through replay analysis. It won't remove the actual entropy, but forces acting on the values generated will create patterns that will still limit the amount of true entropy stored in the resulting value.
Kind of like if you flip a coin once, anyone guessing really doesn't know if it'll come up heads or tails. But if you flip a coin ten times, the method you use for flipping the coin and the environmental factors will start to have an impact on which side comes up more often, and also on the pattern of what influences a heads or tails result. If you flip the coin 2^4096 times, you'd probably be able to pretty accurately predict the result before the coin had even fully launched into the air.
Yeah; the coin experiment is often used as an example of how entropy is entropy and the probability doesn't change from toss to toss. But if you take all other factors into consideration, you limit the effect of entropy such that your guess on a given toss can actually improve over time. Try it, and you'll see I'm correct.
The whole argument that "Hollywood" always gets history wrong in favor of the Americans when making fictional films is just petty jingoistic whining. If it really bothers you that much, go make your own films and set the record straight.
True as far as it goes, but "Hollywood" is a subsidized arm of the US government that mass exports modified propaganda to the rest of the world -- it's why the prevailing view of many Chinese of the US prior to the Internet was based on 1950's films. The result is not that everyone believes the movies (although if you repeat something false often enough, a large portion of the listening population will begin to take it as fact), but that everyone's perception of the subjects of the movies is strongly shaped by them (so as a result, people become wary of giant robots because they might possibly beat us to the moon).
Jingoistic whining is one thing, but oversimplifying herd dynamics isn't much better and helps nobody.
If petty jingoistic whining really bothers you that much, complain about it on slashdot -- not that this will stop the whining.
Exactly. This also means that any data exfiltration HAS to be targeted, unless Apple is forced to install a keylogger on/in every device (which is possible, what with secret courts/warrants/etc). As soon as you have real targeting, warrants come back in full force, and you have a working set of checks and balances. The issue here isn't with governments gaining access to targeted data, it's with governments gaining access to everyone's data and then rummaging around to see what they can find that is "bad" or "useful". In short, there's less room for abuse, and more transparency with regards to any actions actually taken.
You have several choices here.
1) Sue, claiming that the government can neither force you to design your software differently, nor require them to sell a specific software. It is a very different thing than the existing system where people are required to provide access to existing backdoors, rather than being required to create backdoors.
Except that now that Apple's warrant canary is gone, it appears they've been served secret orders, which could include such things, and not allow them to sue in public. So this choice is gone
2) Move your corporate headquarters off shore. Then tell them they have no authority over you, but if they want to sue your country or publicly demand you stop selling your product in the US, they can do it - but your warrant requiring secrecy does not affect them in any way shape or form.
This one is possible, but risky, as your competitors who are willing to sell out will gain an immense tactical advantage, especially in the US. The advantage increases even further as the government then stops being willing to share its intel with you that gives your coproration an advantage in the marketplace, but begins to provide your competitors with inside information about your company.
3) Separate the hardware and software, using different sub-companies to produce each one. Then have the software company declare it is hereby closed, and will provide no more updates. Tell the government that they can't force you to be in business anymore. Hire a new company to provide software and REPEAT.
Actually, Sony does something similar to this, using a vast web of companies and contractors. It seems to work pretty well for them, except that I think they also allow the local companies to share local intel/advantages with the host company. But it means that the US can't get Sony Electronics USA to do something that will affect Sony Electronics Japan or Sony Entertainment USA -- the co-operation would have to flow out of the country for this to work. It would really be in, say, Apple and Google's best interests to begin restructuring themselves in a similar manner -- but they'd have to move the parent corporations offshore, which would have its own issues.
You're probably not too far off with this:
https://gigaom.com/2014/09/18/...
Is it a coincidence that the warrant canary vanishes right when Apple releases an update that prevents regular data requests?
The reason you don't think it's even close to a two way street is precisely due to the fact that the necessities of rural living are subsidized.
If they weren't, cost of living would skyrocket... and suddenly, all natural resources would be unaffordable to most people in urban areas.
This fundamentally doesn't make any sense. Say current subsidies to rural areas are $X. Those are clearly enough to get people to live there, work in agriculture, mining, etc. If the subsidies went away, then prices for some goods would rise, but they wouldn't rise by, in aggregate, any more than $X, by definition.
As you state, current subsidies of $X are clearly enough to get people to live there and do work. If the subsidies went away, then Y% of the workers (guessing close to 100%, but that's just a guess) would also go away, resulting in the prices for some goods to approach infinity -- those goods being tied to energy production, food production, and the like.
This would eventually balance by wages for some of the jobs increasing such that some of Y would return to work, increasing costs of products Z, which would then go back to the urban areas at adjusted market value A.
The end result would be that instead of things like milk and electricity being at prices low income wage earners in the city can afford, it would be set at higher values.
The result of that is that the minimum wage floor would need to be increased so that the urban support workers could afford to make a living. This means that urban products and services would increase in price.
Basically, keeping rural costs low subsidizes the few so that each person up the line who takes a cut of the profits is taking a cut of a smaller pie, keeping cost of living lower. Increase the costs of the initial resources, and you create relative scarcity and create accumulation of wealth at the top of the monetary chain.
How does this not fundamentally make sense? It even follows the laws of physics -- we don't live in a world with no friction, and if you increase the coefficient at the start, the point at which things come to a standstill via waste energy happens much sooner.