...personally I dont pirate movies or games myself, Im perfectly happy with paying for indie games and watching netflix for a few dimes a month, that aside...Cisco must seriously want to die. Not did they get accused of that built in backdoor sometime back in history, but now they want to do this as well? Jeeze Cisco, you guys produce some serious quality hardware but youre literally begging the world to never ever endorse your products ever.
I supported her for several months on a weekly basis because of her virus woes and constant update and install issues. I was noticing that her computer was getting old and dated, and suggested for her to get a new computer. I suggested an iMac. (And interestingly enough, Im an Apple hater, I really hate macs!).
Why did I then suggest her one of those overpriced thingies? The darn thing cost her 2500 USD and didnt even come with an SSD in 2016. But the thing was, I knew she wouldnt get more worms and viruses...because Mac is like 10 percent of the worlds PC sales, and the viruses usually dont survive that far when the percentage of ownership is that low, so I thought...that ought to get her off my support case...
The only thing she ever contacted me about after that, was the bluetooth keyboard running out of battery juice after 3 months of not being plugged in, we fixed that and she was back to happy.
See the picture here? PC and old people = trouble because of the numerous technical issues, updates, plugins, viruses, worms etc...with her Apple...all she had to do is...well..use the damn thing.
Me? I still prefer PC, and I still hate the Apple company with a passion...but at least they got their audience right, idiots that cant figure out the slightest thing, and they pay the premium for it too!
Pretty much. Ever since I built my new PC I experienced the Samsung 850 SSD at 550 MB/s and life was simply not the same.
Then I upgraded to the Samsung 950 Pro 512 GB (M.2. SSD) and performance went trough the roof with 2543 MB/s read and 1550 MB/s write. Huge games now take seconds to load, not minutes. I then put my "old" Samsung 850 on my 9 year old Quad Core (Q6600) pc, and it blew it away...booting Mint Linux 17.3 in less than 6 seconds, yay!
Not to mention the total lack of endless disk-trashing. Im never going back to HDD.
Thats what I used 2 years before I was forced to go to Windows 10 because of my Virtual Reality Setup Htc Vive with GeForce 1070 Gtx.
And Windows 10, unlike mint linux, sucked from day one by not even having drivers for the network card of a perfectly brand new motherboard, gave me several blue screens with the wonderful QR code smiley during the 2 weeks, screwed up the drivers so the HTC vive froze, untill I screamed so loud at windows support that they sneakily exported 369.09 Nvidia drivers trough the Control Panel update (not the regular update) even before that driver was available on the Nvidia site...
And of course denied denied and denied.
I cant wait untill Valve have drivers for the HTC vive on their Steam Os...ack...I mean Linux...so...I can DITCH this horrible experience called windows.
Everything has limits, and since you don't know what is going on exactly in this device, and more importantly, how many JOULES of energy it can shove down your USB port's throat, you are simply talking out your ass.
Everything has been described pretty informatively, and I just love when random people like yourself claim that someone is talking out of their ass, possibly knowing exactly what I know or less. I find you amuzing, but please don't take offense, there is so many other things in life that could potentially do that. Not worth it.
Guess who decided to drop this post a message? Its me! Someone with actual knowledge of electronics. The device you see there is 99% incapable of destroying anything but an USB port at best. Most modern motherboards today come with high voltage protection, this is the usual anti-static protection that has been implemented in chips for years. You know...when you walk around with wool clothes on a carpet, your body is essentially ONE big capacitor walking around with potentially kilovolts in your body. Have you ever greeted someone and...ops...sparks fly...and a shock was felt? How come your computer survives those jolts every day? Easy, they ALL have this kind of overvoltage protection.
If this device as described in the OP does as its advertised, then its no more than that, at best it will kill your USB port, or as usual...it will just make your resettable autofuse react as long as your computer is on, and when its turned off and on again, everything will be back to normal, nothing to see here...move along.
Now, if you REALLY wanted to make an USB device that actually destroys your or anyones computer, youd want it to come with the latest in worms and computer virus technology, preferably those that can exploit any firmware/software bugs known to mankind, bonus points if you can activate the sleeping all-in-one-computers that resides inside intel processors.
100 people extra to fill the already overfilled prison population industry, yes...I wrote industry.
Oh, and everything we write in here (slashdot.org is also social media) will now be subject to scrutiny the next time we visit the U.S. So I'll probably be apprihended for what I just wrote here. Oh heck, the way it's going over there...I might not apply for a Green Card anymore, I'm happy here in Scandinavia. *(Still love American citzens though).
What else is new? Every banner for every campaign I've ever seen, every special offer, every 100s spam mail I get from anyone, MS or otherwise, is always "US" only when you read the fine print.
Can we get a "US" news filter here so we can filter out the news that have offers only exlusive to US citizens? Please?
As our prison system wasnt filled with enough criminals, we need thought criminals, people who point fingers, complainers, bullies, next door neighbors that we dont like etc. Lockem all up and GET OFF MY LAWN.
...to hide their real agenda, total user survellance.
user data is a goldmine, way more worth than any copyright breach, but the copyright breach paves the way for alienating every users civil rights to privacy and freedom.
What I guess might have fooled me could be that after I preview and click submit, it "pretends" to be there, it was even there in my profile, but after I came back it was gone. Happened twice to me lately.
I've tried to accept all things from this site with Adblocker, but every time I accept, there's always new ones to accept...accept...and then when I am in edit mode there's more to accept, even in preview mode.
I don't know what's wrong with Slashdot these days, but 50% of all my posts "magically vanish" these days.
I'll try again, shorter story but you'll get the geist of it:
This isn't new. Your camera, your keyboard and virtually any gadget has an embedded system in it, they have an entire computer in it if you like, they can easily fit a whole server gateway in there. But it's not as easy to do this as it might seem, so most of you have very little to worry about. Example. Say your monitor now has been successfully infiltrated with malicious code now, it still has to "hack" your windows installation and place a relay daemon there that'll have to avoid being detected by your anti-virus software or windows defender. Furthermore, if the malware is neatly compressing and transporting the image from your monitor on a separate protocol layer, you still have to have some kind of hidden client that can relay these packets to the network card or windows socket for the network card...or use the drivers, or inject into a stream of packets...all these things opens up an entirely new can of worms. Not even Windows knows all the networks in the world, I have a relatively modern computer...one of the most high end, and yet Windows 10 that came on a USB memory didn't even know what network chip my computer had, imagine a small embedded system entirely on its own...trying to figure out how to operate your computers network card, yay...good luck with that.
It's not as dangerous as it seems, I'd worry more about that little independent computer that reside inside your INTEL processor.
After 2 days in hell trying to install Windows 10 that came brand new on an USB install disk without network drivers for a brand new MSI Gaming motherboard, I thought everything was fine... On this machine everything worked brilliantly for months on Mint Linux 17.3 64 bit edition. But I was forced to go purchase Windows 10 for my shiny new Virtual Reality headset...HTC VIVE.
Finally windows 10 was stable for roughly 2 weeks, I was in Virtual Reality heaven playing the latest and the greatest, Raw Data, Space Pirate Trainer, The Lab, Portal stories VR and whatnot...
And there came Windows update 1607 that changed everything.
This is the anniversary update to Windows 10. After a long install, everything SEEMED to work fine, heck I even loved the speed and the look of it...except here came my first problem. All of a sudden - Steam VR froze up...the Virtual Reality image in the HDM goggles froze... Windows 10 ran fine despite this, but after restarting the Steam VR...it froze after a few minutes gameplay again. This hasn't happened A SINGLE DAY during those 2 weeks with the original Windows 10.
Panic time...Googling everywhere, and reads HUNDREDS of angry HTC Vive customers that now desperately try to warn others of DO NOT UPGRADE TO ANNIVERSARY 1607 Of Windows 10 - it will DESTROY your VR experience.
Unfortunately I read that too late, I'm now with windows support - and as I can read of this thread...and experience myself, Windows support is what windows support is...like read from a script. Being the polite dummy I am...I am following their instruction step by step, but my Windows 10 is fine...works perfect according to all tests. Except Steam VR that worked PERFECTLY before the update.
Now, I read the 100s of people and what they have tried, everything from re-installing the entire HTC VIVE packet and drivers, to removing and installing USB drivers, to reinstalling Steam and Steam VR... endless support threads with various game creators who are completely clueless to what's going on.
Ok, I'll go over to the corner and cry a little now and look at my 3500$ brick-VR computer. Thanks WINDOWS! Thanks MS!!!!
I think a lot of people understand this, the question however is: where do we draw the limit? It's our job to protect free speech, and if a medium is public (available to the public masses), should it be censored? I can understand sensorship of pure trash like people trash talking like "blahblablap, OP is a moron and should be killed" etc...I mean...c'mon, that is kinda obvious. But when you get censored for criticising the gov, police or the people that have unlimited access to our data - then we're going down the wrong route.
ModBot: I am sorry, but your message was removed because of Violation of rule #157792 - negative opinion on political minority group.
ModBot: I am sorry, but your message was removed because of Violation of rule #151734 - negative opinion of product. Be fruitful!
ModBot: I am sorry, but your message was removed because of Violation of rule #191727 - hate speech: you voiced an opinion on criminals. Let's leave that to our law enforcement, right? Be well!
ModBot: I am sorry, but your message was removed because of Violation of rule #1 - Personal Opinion. We encourage our citizens to support each other, personal opinions are best kept to yourself, be well citizen!
...The ESP 8266-12E has a nifty 1V analogue input where you can attach a microphone to it with very little extra parts (we're talking a resistor and a cap here), and you have a powerful WiFi unit with an onboard 80MHz processor and 4mbit ram...guess what? It can connect to an encrypted WiFI connection, costs less than 2 dollars and with Arduino is so easy to code that a kid can do it.
You know...welcome to the brave new world where EVERYONE can listen to ANYONE.
I use those ESP8266 (12E) myself, but I've really come to question the low price level of these. They are crazy awesome for what you get, 4Mbit flash ram, WiFi Chip (with encryption to sport!) and a 32 bit microcontroller you can code with whatever you toss at it...
But if we stop and think about it - the WiFi chip itself could harbour some malicious code to "phone home" some information about our networks...now...imagine these deployed in every experimenters bedroom anywhere...all over the world, just saying...
Interesting, you're implying you're one of them? Well - every time you decide to ditch Linux support - it really is a nail in the coffin for the company's future.
...because they still don't support Linux with their official logins, tax, banking etc. services.
In fact - BankID which is the most used login method just came out and said they'll drop Linux (which they did) support as the userbase was too small.
I also use Telia ID card login - with a card reader, even this is "hackishly" supported (officially unsupported, but I've gotten it to sorta kinda work), so people with Linux can't officially even register at the unemployment offices unless they have windows or a smartphone.
But hey, hopefully we're heading in the right direction - I've been a registered Linux user since 1998, and now exclusively use Linux for my Desktop. Every time I go to work and use Windows - I'm constantly reminded of an inferior system with endless updates, endless disk-trashing and endless limitation as a user.
Slashdot Mirror
...personally I dont pirate movies or games myself, Im perfectly happy with paying for indie games and watching netflix for a few dimes a month, that aside...Cisco must seriously want to die. Not did they get accused of that built in backdoor sometime back in history, but now they want to do this as well? Jeeze Cisco, you guys produce some serious quality hardware but youre literally begging the world to never ever endorse your products ever.
...my neighbor had a PC, shes 70 years old.
...well..use the damn thing.
I supported her for several months on a weekly basis because of her virus woes and constant update and install issues. I was noticing that her computer was getting old and dated, and suggested for her to get a new computer. I suggested an iMac. (And interestingly enough, Im an Apple hater, I really hate macs!).
Why did I then suggest her one of those overpriced thingies? The darn thing cost her 2500 USD and didnt even come with an SSD in 2016. But the thing was, I knew she wouldnt get more worms and viruses...because Mac is like 10 percent of the worlds PC sales, and the viruses usually dont survive that far when the percentage of ownership is that low, so I thought...that ought to get her off my support case...
The only thing she ever contacted me about after that, was the bluetooth keyboard running out of battery juice after 3 months of not being plugged in, we fixed that and she was back to happy.
See the picture here? PC and old people = trouble because of the numerous technical issues, updates, plugins, viruses, worms etc...with her Apple...all she had to do is
Me? I still prefer PC, and I still hate the Apple company with a passion...but at least they got their audience right, idiots that cant figure out the slightest thing, and they pay the premium for it too!
...isnt iPhone specific. Technically any smartphone with a camera can become "augmented reality" with the right software.
In the phones case its simply just 3D graphics overlay, with plane/movement/motion tracking software.
Pretty much. Ever since I built my new PC I experienced the Samsung 850 SSD at 550 MB/s and life was simply not the same.
Then I upgraded to the Samsung 950 Pro 512 GB (M.2. SSD) and performance went trough the roof with 2543 MB/s read and 1550 MB/s write. Huge games now take seconds to load, not minutes. I then put my "old" Samsung 850 on my 9 year old Quad Core (Q6600) pc, and it blew it away...booting Mint Linux 17.3 in less than 6 seconds, yay!
Not to mention the total lack of endless disk-trashing. Im never going back to HDD.
Thats what I used 2 years before I was forced to go to Windows 10 because of my Virtual Reality Setup Htc Vive with GeForce 1070 Gtx.
And Windows 10, unlike mint linux, sucked from day one by not even having drivers for the network card of a perfectly brand new motherboard, gave me several blue screens with the wonderful QR code smiley during the 2 weeks, screwed up the drivers so the HTC vive froze, untill I screamed so loud at windows support that they sneakily exported 369.09 Nvidia drivers trough the Control Panel update (not the regular update) even before that driver was available on the Nvidia site...
And of course denied denied and denied.
I cant wait untill Valve have drivers for the HTC vive on their Steam Os...ack...I mean Linux...so...I can DITCH this horrible experience called windows.
Everything has limits, and since you don't know what is going on exactly in this device, and more importantly, how many JOULES of energy it can shove down your USB port's throat, you are simply talking out your ass.
Everything has been described pretty informatively, and I just love when random people like yourself claim that someone is talking out of their ass, possibly knowing exactly what I know or less. I find you amuzing, but please don't take offense, there is so many other things in life that could potentially do that. Not worth it.
Nope, nope and nope.
...ops...sparks fly...and a shock was felt? How come your computer survives those jolts every day? Easy, they ALL have this kind of overvoltage protection.
Guess who decided to drop this post a message? Its me! Someone with actual knowledge of electronics. The device you see there is 99% incapable of destroying anything but an USB port at best. Most modern motherboards today come with high voltage protection, this is the usual anti-static protection that has been implemented in chips for years. You know...when you walk around with wool clothes on a carpet, your body is essentially ONE big capacitor walking around with potentially kilovolts in your body. Have you ever greeted someone and
If this device as described in the OP does as its advertised, then its no more than that, at best it will kill your USB port, or as usual...it will just make your resettable autofuse react as long as your computer is on, and when its turned off and on again, everything will be back to normal, nothing to see here...move along.
Now, if you REALLY wanted to make an USB device that actually destroys your or anyones computer, youd want it to come with the latest in worms and computer virus technology, preferably those that can exploit any firmware/software bugs known to mankind, bonus points if you can activate the sleeping all-in-one-computers that resides inside intel processors.
...Cowboy Neal.
What would the difference be anyway? Yay, we found POSSIBLE sign of life 65 billion years from where we live, or its just business as usual?
100 people extra to fill the already overfilled prison population industry, yes...I wrote industry.
Oh, and everything we write in here (slashdot.org is also social media) will now be subject to scrutiny the next time we visit the U.S. So I'll probably be apprihended for what I just wrote here. Oh heck, the way it's going over there...I might not apply for a Green Card anymore, I'm happy here in Scandinavia. *(Still love American citzens though).
What else is new? Every banner for every campaign I've ever seen, every special offer, every 100s spam mail I get from anyone, MS or otherwise, is always "US" only when you read the fine print.
Can we get a "US" news filter here so we can filter out the news that have offers only exlusive to US citizens? Please?
As our prison system wasnt filled with enough criminals, we need thought criminals, people who point fingers, complainers, bullies, next door neighbors that we dont like etc. Lockem all up and GET OFF MY LAWN.
...to hide their real agenda, total user survellance.
user data is a goldmine, way more worth than any copyright breach, but the copyright breach paves the way for alienating every users civil rights to privacy and freedom.
This makes sense to me. That could be it.
What I guess might have fooled me could be that after I preview and click submit, it "pretends" to be there, it was even there in my profile, but after I came back it was gone. Happened twice to me lately.
I've tried to accept all things from this site with Adblocker, but every time I accept, there's always new ones to accept...accept...and then when I am in edit mode there's more to accept, even in preview mode.
I don't know what's wrong with Slashdot these days, but 50% of all my posts "magically vanish" these days.
I'll try again, shorter story but you'll get the geist of it:
This isn't new. Your camera, your keyboard and virtually any gadget has an embedded system in it, they have an entire computer in it if you like, they can easily fit a whole server gateway in there. But it's not as easy to do this as it might seem, so most of you have very little to worry about. Example. Say your monitor now has been successfully infiltrated with malicious code now, it still has to "hack" your windows installation and place a relay daemon there that'll have to avoid being detected by your anti-virus software or windows defender. Furthermore, if the malware is neatly compressing and transporting the image from your monitor on a separate protocol layer, you still have to have some kind of hidden client that can relay these packets to the network card or windows socket for the network card...or use the drivers, or inject into a stream of packets...all these things opens up an entirely new can of worms. Not even Windows knows all the networks in the world, I have a relatively modern computer...one of the most high end, and yet Windows 10 that came on a USB memory didn't even know what network chip my computer had, imagine a small embedded system entirely on its own...trying to figure out how to operate your computers network card, yay...good luck with that.
It's not as dangerous as it seems, I'd worry more about that little independent computer that reside inside your INTEL processor.
After 2 days in hell trying to install Windows 10 that came brand new on an USB install disk without network drivers for a brand new MSI Gaming motherboard, I thought everything was fine...
On this machine everything worked brilliantly for months on Mint Linux 17.3 64 bit edition. But I was forced to go purchase Windows 10 for my shiny new Virtual Reality headset...HTC VIVE.
Finally windows 10 was stable for roughly 2 weeks, I was in Virtual Reality heaven playing the latest and the greatest, Raw Data, Space Pirate Trainer, The Lab, Portal stories VR and whatnot...
And there came Windows update 1607 that changed everything.
This is the anniversary update to Windows 10. After a long install, everything SEEMED to work fine, heck I even loved the speed and the look of it...except here came my first problem. All of a sudden - Steam VR froze up...the Virtual Reality image in the HDM goggles froze... Windows 10 ran fine despite this, but after restarting the Steam VR...it froze after a few minutes gameplay again. This hasn't happened A SINGLE DAY during those 2 weeks with the original Windows 10.
Panic time...Googling everywhere, and reads HUNDREDS of angry HTC Vive customers that now desperately try to warn others of DO NOT UPGRADE TO ANNIVERSARY 1607 Of Windows 10 - it will DESTROY your VR experience.
Unfortunately I read that too late, I'm now with windows support - and as I can read of this thread...and experience myself, Windows support is what windows support is...like read from a script. Being the polite dummy I am...I am following their instruction step by step, but my Windows 10 is fine...works perfect according to all tests. Except Steam VR that worked PERFECTLY before the update.
Now, I read the 100s of people and what they have tried, everything from re-installing the entire HTC VIVE packet and drivers, to removing and installing USB drivers, to reinstalling Steam and Steam VR... endless support threads with various game creators who are completely clueless to what's going on.
Ok, I'll go over to the corner and cry a little now and look at my 3500$ brick-VR computer. Thanks WINDOWS! Thanks MS!!!!
I think a lot of people understand this, the question however is: where do we draw the limit? It's our job to protect free speech, and if a medium is public (available to the public masses), should it be censored? I can understand sensorship of pure trash like people trash talking like "blahblablap, OP is a moron and should be killed" etc...I mean...c'mon, that is kinda obvious. But when you get censored for criticising the gov, police or the people that have unlimited access to our data - then we're going down the wrong route.
...get ready for the ultimate PC society:
ModBot: I am sorry, but your message was removed because of Violation of rule #157792 - negative opinion on political minority group.
ModBot: I am sorry, but your message was removed because of Violation of rule #151734 - negative opinion of product. Be fruitful!
ModBot: I am sorry, but your message was removed because of Violation of rule #191727 - hate speech: you voiced an opinion on criminals. Let's leave that to our law enforcement, right? Be well!
ModBot: I am sorry, but your message was removed because of Violation of rule #1 - Personal Opinion. We encourage our citizens to support each other, personal opinions are best kept to yourself, be well citizen!
...The ESP 8266-12E has a nifty 1V analogue input where you can attach a microphone to it with very little extra parts (we're talking a resistor and a cap here), and you have a powerful WiFi unit with an onboard 80MHz processor and 4mbit ram...guess what? It can connect to an encrypted WiFI connection, costs less than 2 dollars and with Arduino is so easy to code that a kid can do it.
You know...welcome to the brave new world where EVERYONE can listen to ANYONE.
Pardon me my paranoia...
...imagine these deployed in every experimenters bedroom anywhere...all over the world, just saying...
I use those ESP8266 (12E) myself, but I've really come to question the low price level of these. They are crazy awesome for what you get, 4Mbit flash ram, WiFi Chip (with encryption to sport!) and a 32 bit microcontroller you can code with whatever you toss at it...
But if we stop and think about it - the WiFi chip itself could harbour some malicious code to "phone home" some information about our networks...now
I'd have a bunch of those and use them as give-away business cards / presentation USB / Car windows ICE scraper.
"...us developers..."
Interesting, you're implying you're one of them? Well - every time you decide to ditch Linux support - it really is a nail in the coffin for the company's future.
https://www.linuxcounter.net/a...
It died briefly, but got resurrected again, still - I registered back in 1998 when the page was: counter.li.org
...because they still don't support Linux with their official logins, tax, banking etc. services.
In fact - BankID which is the most used login method just came out and said they'll drop Linux (which they did) support as the userbase was too small.
I also use Telia ID card login - with a card reader, even this is "hackishly" supported (officially unsupported, but I've gotten it to sorta kinda work), so people with Linux can't officially even register at the unemployment offices unless they have windows or a smartphone.
But hey, hopefully we're heading in the right direction - I've been a registered Linux user since 1998, and now exclusively use Linux for my Desktop. Every time I go to work and use Windows - I'm constantly reminded of an inferior system with endless updates, endless disk-trashing and endless limitation as a user.
WOW, are you me? It's like I wrote that in a parallel universe and parallel dimension me got to read what you (me) wrote.
95-97 range here too (after buying the house)...Jeezus you spoked me out today.