Xamarin simply sponsored Mono, but that doesn't necessarily grant the ability to kill it. How would they "pull the plug" on an open-source and free project? Besides, it would just scare people away from.NET in general, so I just don't see that happening.
Microsoft is simply embracing other platforms, especially mobile, as they well understand they don't really have a serious dog in that fight with Windows mobile. They'd like to keep developers on Windows, and offering high-quality tools for multi-platform development is a way to do that, because yes, both Visual Studio and Windows (for PC) are important products still, despite overall waning importance of the PC platform. At the very least, keeping mobile developers in the VS environment certainly won't *hurt* their own product line, as they may get some ports they otherwise wouldn't have.
Even so, when your company is focusing on services like Azure to a much greater extent, the client's platform doesn't really matter quite as much. I really don't think it's anything more complicated than that. People keep looking for deep, nefarious reasons for what MS does, when most of it can be explained by reasonably straightforward business strategies or strategic goals.
As far as I understood, it's simply a way to use C# to develop cross-platform mobile apps - nothing as grandiose as you're suggesting. That a space that, at least initially, Microsoft wasn't interested in filling. However, given Microsoft's recent focus on cross-platform development, this actually makes a lot of sense for both companies. For Microsoft, it means not having to duplicate work that's already been done, and for Xamarin, frankly, it means not having to compete with a space Microsoft wants to get in.
Historically speaking, I'd argue that Mono has been the alternative to Microsoft's proprietary implementation of C#, along with whatever other languages it supports. Also, now that Microsoft has open-sourced the.NET core, there might end up being a waning demand for an alternative implementation, although that's admittedly just a guess.
Keep in mind that the advantages of first-generation internal combustion engines were far less obvious, being large, expensive, noisy, under-powered, and unreliable. We tend to take the reliability of modern engines for granted and of course have the advantage of hind-sight, but even just thirty years ago, cars needed a LOT more maintenance and were FAR less reliable than today. We're witnessing a lot of teething pain with a new technology as companies get to grips with how to properly use it. Remember that the internet was just a big experiment just twenty years ago which no one really knew how to capitalize on - it seems sort of ridiculous today. A lot of silly things were tried (remember CueCat?), and the ones that weren't feasible disappeared over time.
Most of this IoT nonsense is just that - nonsense that will disappear over time. You're correct in that many of these things are a "solution in search of a problem", but that's how a lot of product R&D is. You don't really know exactly what will stick and what will fade into obscurity until you give it a try. Yes, I'm also highly doubtful that much of this IoT craze will result in much good, but you can almost assuredly bet that someone will figure out at least a couple of killer applications for it, and in another decade, we'll all be taking the existence of those products or features for granted. It's just a little annoying right now because of the ridiculous type it's getting in the tech world - along with 3D printing, I suppose.
My irritation is that security is STILL something that's routinely ignored. It's not 1999, when we don't still really understand the implications of networked security, or have perfectly functioning standards and examples of how to do with right.
It's definitely feasible to write a game completely by yourself (I'm currently doing it), but you have to be somewhat creative to mask any of your deficiencies with a game design suited to your particular talents. For instance, if art isn't your strongest suit, you can make a highly stylized game that isn't quite as art-intensive, perhaps even working that into an advantage with an aesthetic that's abstract, or generates visuals programmatically. One thing that's changed over the years is improvements of both language, language tools, and game design & art tools - those all combine into a real game development force multiplier, allowing me to do so much more than I was able to do twenty years ago.
I've also worked on games that required a team of 100+ people years to make, not to mention a bunch of games in the middle ground on everything from handhelds to consoles to PCs. I have to say, it's pretty interesting to have worked on both extremes in terms of size and scope. They're both a lot of fun to work on, but for rather different reasons. The sheer amount of work that goes into the largest of modern AAA videogames is probably well beyond what most people even imagine.
Even so, nothing but respect for those early devs who wrote (mostly) amazing games with such unbelievable constraints in time and memory/capabilities in hardware. Those guys helped to instill my love of videogames, and are the reason I became a professional game dev myself.
There is no difference, which is why Apple has already offered to provide evidence, provide experts and information. However, that's not what the DoJ is requiring.
Compulsion of speech. The DoJ is requiring that Apple create software, which they do not have, in order to facilitate a cracking attempt by the DoJ. Creating code is speech, and compulsion of speech is something that has both been upheld and defeated in the courts.
Well stated. I think that sums up the core argument against this action better than I did. In case it's not clear, I actually agree with you. Like I said, I was simply playing devil's advocate a bit, and demonstrating that there are counter-arguments to be made, albeit ones I tend to disagree with.
In fairness to the masses, this is a complicated issue for non-technical people to grasp, and the FBI, while they have their issues, is generally seen as being on the side of good, not evil. Many people, I think, want to trust that our law enforcement agencies have their best interest at heart, so when issues like this come up, will tend to side with said agencies in lieu of more compelling information. Siding with them by default is probably a bit easier than siding with a giant international mega-corporation, unless you *really* love Apple for some reason.
You've got a slight (maybe large) problem with your understanding - at least as far as I know. This is not a warrant. It's a writ, a judge's orders - I think this is based on a motion for discovery. What confuses me is that how are they able to do this if nobody has been formally charged?
My bad for not being more clear on this point. I wasn't trying to imply that a warrant was issued in this particular case, just that warrants are generally needed in order to search private property. Naturally, this case is largely about the precedent of requiring Apple to assist in that unlocking rather than the fact of unlocking, of course, so a warrant doesn't apply. In discussing this issue, many people seem to be acting as though law enforcement has no right search an individual's phone, which is not only a ridiculous argument, but it's not even what this whole thing is really about. Make sense?
The police (FBI in this case) are not allowed to use the system for fishing expeditions.
By any reasonable definition, you can't really call this a "fishing expedition". The question of the attacker's crimes really aren't even in doubt - probable cause has certainly been established. "Fishing expedition" only applies if you don't even know if a crime has been committed. It's not applied when you're searching for evidence in a follow-up investigation. That's what every police investigation ever does. Think that argument through logically - if it's a "fishing expedition" before you know what evidence you'll find, you could never do any investigating... ever. Or, to put it another way, do you believe law enforcement had enough probable cause to search the attacker's residence? It's the same thing.
Don't be mislead - this has nothing to do with the phone and what data is or isn't on it. They're trying to establish a legal precedent here. Arguing that the FBI doesn't have the right you search your phone is entirely the wrong argument to make - it's right there in the Constitution. If they get a legal court order (meaning they can demonstrate probable cause), they can search anything you own. Instead, we need to make sure that the government doesn't ban unbreakable encryption, which is what they're trying to do in a roundabout way.
this phone is so important that it is worth throwing our 4th amendment rights into the toilet and flushing until it overflows?
As many people have previously stated, I believe it has nothing to do with the data on the phone. It has everything to do with the FBI setting a legal precedent.
Just to play devil's advocate, how is unlocking a phone any different than our existing warrant-based searches? Warrant-based searches are explicitly supported in the fourth amendment you site. We've lived with court-ordered warrants since the country was founded, which strikes a reasonable balance between the needs of law enforcement to obtain evidence against the sanctity and privacy of our homes and personal property. At this moment, if a judge ordered it, law enforcement could come into your home and demand access to absolutely everything you own. What is it, in your opinion, that makes a phone different than anything else that we consider personal or private?
I ask this because, quite honestly, even though I support Apple here, I can't really make a case that the FBI shouldn't be allowed to unlock someone's phone. However, I think it's another matter entirely as to whether or not the government should be able to compel an individual or a corporation to purposefully design a system that guarantees the ability of the government to gain access on demand.
The government regulates all sorts of things in our lives, especially in nearly all aspects of business and commerce... unfortunately, that ship has long since sailed. And now we're going to demand that the government is unconstitutionally disallowed to regulate this particular aspect? That's mighty convenient, wrapping the Constitution around us when we want its protection, and ignoring it (or simply re-interpreting it in a more convenient way) the rest of the time. When you cede so much regulatory power to the government, you take the bad with the good, and this is some of the bad.
While I understand people are passionate about this, I don't believe it to be a simple black and white issue. To do so is to completely miss many of the nuances involved and simply marginalizes those who feel differently than you while convincing no one.
Keep in mind that most people don't understand the nuances of the technology at all. They don't understand that any chink in the encryption armor means their own security is also at risk. As for the social aspects, try to explain to people how this is any different than a warrant allowing the government to unlock a safe. I've listed to some conversations about this on the radio, and those two aspects seem to be the foundation of most of the "Apple should unlock phone" arguments.
One issue I've not heard addressed so much is what the implications of a backdoor would mean for the larger world, and honestly, I wonder if this is part of the reason Apple is fighting so hard against this - they don't want be in a position of having to collaborate. That is, if the US demands the ability to unlock an iPhone, China is sure as hell going to demand the same ability, and I'm going to bet they'll be a lot less discerning about the legalities before asking to do so (not that our government is some shining beacon at this point either, I guess). There are actually some larger human rights issues involved. One could make an argument that it's worth incurring a very tiny risk that we can't unlock a terrorist's phone in order to safeguard the many people who rely on encryption to keep much more oppressive governments from spying on their own citizens.
And don't worry... the liberal socialists are quite ready to give all the power in the world to that very same government that's currently spying on us and regulating us to death - all for our own good, of course. I've never understood that disconnect. The conservatives are just as bad in reverse, claiming to hate big government, but kowtowing to any agency or department involved in law enforcement or defense.
You can assume almost every Pro Audio hardware manufacturer designs and tests on Macs & OS X *first*, and then hacks together a Windows ASIO & (maybe) WDM driver as an afterthought. All your 'regular' Windows apps will be using WDM - games, Skype, what have you, and all your Pro apps will be using ASIO. Two different drivers for two different sets of applications. On a Mac? CoreAudio is the same for everyone. Games and 'regular' apps use the same backend as Pro Tools or Ableton or Logic.
tl;dr: I tried the whole 'Linux DAW' thing years ago, gave up, got a Mac, actually spent my time getting stuff done and not fighting broken systems/drivers.
It seems like Windows is a bit more prevalent in the audio/music DAW world than it used to be. Macs certainly used to reign supreme, but that was quite a few years ago - it's a lot more even footing, at least from what I've seen. Granted, my view may be biased since the audio pros I know are mostly game developers. As such, they'd naturally tend to gravitate towards Windows, that being the primary development platform our industry uses.
For my part, I've been using Cakewalk software since DOS days, and moved with it to Windows. The notion of switching to some other platform and program would mean abandoning a lifetime of composition work as well. It's simply not happening. Not to mention, I've got many tens of thousands of dollars invested in sample libraries with their associated audio plugins, some of them with hardware-based DRM dongles (yuck), and again, only Mac and Windows support. That's the reality of things - there's no equivalent to many of those high-end products on Linux.
I've never actually seen a Linux based DAW before, or heard about an audio pro that used one. Most professionals have enough on their plate simply trying to get and keep things working reliably on a supported platform. DAWs tend to be high-end, complicated beasts because of their real-time requirements, often with high-end audio cards or other hardware that requires very explicit driver support. I'm pretty sure it's not impossible to create a Linux-based DAW - just not with the software I'd be comfortable using. I think you'd need to be pretty dedicated to using Linux (or avoiding proprietary OSes) to make it happen.
I don't doubt there may be good reasons that juror pay is on the low side - I can certainly see the line of reasoning you're presenting. Honestly, it's not a topic I've given a lot of thought to, so I'm more than willing to consider reasonable arguments on both sides of the issue.
Also, my handle reflects my ancestral heritage + my love of gaming. My grandparents were all from Holland. One fought in WWII (very briefly, obviously), while the other was sent to a German work camp, and subsequently escaped and fled back to Holland, where he remained in the Dutch underground for the remainder of the war - really an amazing story. I can also appreciate a quality firearm, as I have a few myself, but I wasn't actually familiar with that model, despite my name. My grandparents may have actually used a rifle like this, so thanks a lot for the link.
Yep, I also did jury duty as a civic duty, although I've only been ever called up once - and was selected. The pay was rather laughable, but I still felt it was important to do. Honestly, I wish they'd pay better, as I think they'd get more and better qualified candidates who wouldn't try so hard to avoid it, but I suppose that can't be helped. When those government bureaucracies are being funded, do you really think that paying jurors more is at the top of their priority list?
It was both a positive experience and an unpleasant experience all at the same time. It's good to see the system actually working as intended, even if only at a very small level. It was a minor case, but it's obviously hugely important to those involved, and everyone took their job very seriously. The unpleasantness comes from having to wallow in someone's alleged crimes for the length of the trial (mine was just a single day), after which you want to go home and take a shower. The case I was a juror for involved a young ex-couple, a baby, custody disputes, and allegations of physical abuse. Bleh.
Agreed. One of my former employers actually threatened to have me blacklisted. I'd *never* talk about them publicly (well, I'm doing it now, but not many people know who I am in real life). It's not worth it. I still have a great relationship with my last employer (much nicer, this last one) - essentially a standing offer to come back to work for them if I ever decide to pack up my current self-employment project. It's most definitely possible to remain on good terms with former employers, and it's just savvy in today's world, as you never know - things might change, and you may want to give them a second look. Or, you might find yourself working at a new place with former colleagues, as has happened to me on several occasions.
Young people today have grown up sharing anything and everything about themselves online, and many of them are shocked when they learn there can be real-world repercussions for doing so when you have actual employers who care about their public image, and how you as an employee may reflect on that image. Yes, it's cathartic to be able to vent online, but doing so may have a cost. I'm not saying it's right or wrong - it's the way of the world today.
I don't know the whole story, and I don't want to defend Yelp, but it certainly sounds like this young women hasn't made the wisest choices in her life recently either. I hope another employer gives her a chance, and I hope she takes the opportunity to reflect on her own actions and what she might have done differently as well.
Yep, Samsung has entertained the world with their concept "smart fridge" each year for the past few years, with wireless connectivity, built-in cameras and LCD displays. We laugh now, but probably in the near future they'll be built into nearly ALL new fridges, just like they're built into nearly all new TVs these days. Just give it time, I suppose. Fortunately, keeping devices OFF the network is still easy - just don't give them the WPA key. At the very least, you probably need to make sure those stupid things are on an isolated network that can't interact with your main network. Samsung and most other hardware manufacturers have demonstrated themselves to be woefully inept when it comes to security and privacy issues time and time again.
Honestly, even though I don't own many Apple devices (just one mac mini for development purposes), Apple is probably one of the few companies I'd trust to get the security AND privacy issues right. They've got the technical chops for the security thanks to iOS-related experience, and because they'd charge enough for the devices themselves, they probably wouldn't feel the need to siphon up our personal data for advertising revenue. I'm much more comfortable with a business model that makes money just selling hardware at a decent markup. So many other business models quickly turn slimy and privacy-invading.
What bothers me is that "telemetry" is now becoming a bad word thanks to MS. Telemetry is a feature that's extremely useful for developers, and in a roundabout way, can even benefit the user with improved software as well. It must obviously be designed to send completely anonymous data and to avoid sending any potentially sensitive user data (otherwise it's just spyware), and it should contain an option to turn this off completely for those not comfortable with those services. Telemetry services typically gathers information about the way people actually use the software out in the real world, so the developers have a good feel for what the most popular and least popular features are, how those features are used, if and where the software is crashing (sending crash dumps), and providing other useful feedback. For instance, in Visual Studio, you can even send feedback reports yourself with optionally attached screenshots (even with a built-in cropping tool) and attached files for those reports. This sort of thing helps developers to make informed decisions when deciding which features to enhance, or which ones aren't worth focusing on.
Microsoft screwed up by pushing mandatory telemetry library updates to Windows 7 and 8 at a time when people are very sensitive about privacy issues in Windows, and didn't bother communicating what those changes were for and their privacy implications. My understanding is that these are simply backported updates to telemetry libraries / services, and this enables individual applications to use those telemetry services if they choose across the various Windows platform. The OS itself also uses these services (note that this isn't new by any means). In most cases I can think of, applications allow you to opt-out of sending this sort of telemetry data (on a per-application basis). Why they don't allow users to globally opt out of telemetry is beyond me, because most people will never bother doing this anyhow. Hell, their own TELEMETRY DATA should tell them how many people don't bother changing default settings!
Honestly, I'm not going to tell anyone that their fears are overblown. If someone doesn't trust Microsoft not to surreptitiously spy on them, then they obviously shouldn't use Windows if they can avoid it. I feel Microsoft has done more harm than good in pushing Windows 10 so aggressively, which is a real shame. Once you turn off all the cloud-based crap, Windows 10 has actually been a pretty decent OS so far.
The Disney Caribbean cruise travels first to a port in Mexico, then essentially sails around to the other side of Cuba to either Grand Cayman and/or Jamaica, depending on the cruise you book. All the interesting islands in the Caribbean essentially surround Cuba. See for yourself:
Formatting is important - it indicates to human programmers what the *intent* of code is supposed to be, at least in whitespace-neutral languages like C. This doesn't sound like a bug in the analysis software. I would definitely want a product to flag (albeit with low priority) any instances of that sort of misleading indentation in my code, because either it works correctly but looks wrong, or it works incorrectly but looks fine. The former is less serious than the latter obviously, but both should be fixed, IMO.
The rest of the article is worth a read, even if you disagree with the first style-related issues. There are a lot of other issues that can only be definitively labeled as bugs by the BSD developers who know the codes, but if they aren't bugs, they sure look like them. There are cases where both branches lead to duplicate, identical code being executed. There are null pointer checks that come after the pointer dereference. There are flags set that do nothing. There are variables corrupted because operator precedence was misunderstood. Even if some of these happen to work correctly, it's likely only because of chance or it's in rarely exercised code. And worse, fragile code means it's more likely to break in the future when minor changes are made.
All in all, it's a fairly impressive list of finds, at least from an outside perspective. I'd be curious to see how many of these are deemed as bugs by the BSD and get fixed.
What? Try reading it again. He's right there with his own quotes. He first goes off on a completely irrelevant (if true) tangent about how much personal data all the evil corporations have on you, and then reverts to nonsensical and vague platitude that sound just like every other candidate when pressed on the issue.
I actually liked some of his articles, as they seems reasonably approachable for lay-persons like myself who are mildly interested in astronomy. A lot of people complained about medium.com, but I never quite understood what the beef was there. As I stated, my issue is with people that post articles and never follow up with any discussion, and he's sort of a poster-child for that. But on the "don't care" to "flaming tirade" scale of concerns, it's still pretty low.
I mean, he's certainly no Bennett Haselton, using Slashdot as his personal lunatic rant blog (and moderators going along with it for so long for whatever reason - I suspected we were being trolled). And thank goodness we can now actually mention the words "ad-blocker" or "hosts file" without being subjected to an APK attack.
Speaking of Forbes and ad-blockers, I just checked out Forbes.com, and it appears they're not blocking the site's content even though I'm using an ad-blocker (ublock-origin). Did they get enough backlash that they've done a reversal here? Sorry... drifting way off topic here, but I'm curious if anyone else has heard anything. When I search, I only get links to the original story of their ads serving up malware.
With the government. Maybe except Bernie, I'd guess. This is a surprise? They are the government.
(...reads TFA...)
In fact, only one candidate, Marco Rubio, seemed to allow for any nuance on the issue.
Holy shit... really?
Rubio:
Here's the thing though, if you require by law – if we passed a law that required Apple and these companies to create a backdoor, number one, criminals could figure that out and use it against you. And number two, there's already encrypted software that exists, not only now but in the future created in other countries. We would not be able to stop that.
If you create a backdoor, there is a very reasonable possibility that a criminal gang could figure out what the backdoor is. That possibility is – if you create a backdoor, you're creating a vulnerability. And what you're not going to chance is the fact that other companies around the world who are not subject to U.S. laws – they could create encryption technology that we'll never be able to get access to.
Wow... someone has an actual technology adviser worth a damn on his staff.
Honestly, I'm not all that sympathetic with the people who did this. But lets get real... hanging banners in a place you aren't supposed to is about as minor a crime as you can perform and still call it a "crime", possibly just shy of jaywalking. Unless, of course, you're Greenpeace and you stomp all over an incredibly fragile natural treasure, scarring it permanently. But this was a banner hung on an office building.
We'll see if anything comes of this investigation other than a slap on the wrist - my bet is there will be a whole lot of nothing... just a large fine that someone has to pay, which will probably go right back into the coffers of the regulatory agency that didn't properly monitor things in the first place. In the meantime, people have been forced to evacuate their homes. We'll see if anything manages to trickle back down to those folks who have been inconvenienced.
Slashdot Mirror
Xamarin simply sponsored Mono, but that doesn't necessarily grant the ability to kill it. How would they "pull the plug" on an open-source and free project? Besides, it would just scare people away from .NET in general, so I just don't see that happening.
Microsoft is simply embracing other platforms, especially mobile, as they well understand they don't really have a serious dog in that fight with Windows mobile. They'd like to keep developers on Windows, and offering high-quality tools for multi-platform development is a way to do that, because yes, both Visual Studio and Windows (for PC) are important products still, despite overall waning importance of the PC platform. At the very least, keeping mobile developers in the VS environment certainly won't *hurt* their own product line, as they may get some ports they otherwise wouldn't have.
Even so, when your company is focusing on services like Azure to a much greater extent, the client's platform doesn't really matter quite as much. I really don't think it's anything more complicated than that. People keep looking for deep, nefarious reasons for what MS does, when most of it can be explained by reasonably straightforward business strategies or strategic goals.
As far as I understood, it's simply a way to use C# to develop cross-platform mobile apps - nothing as grandiose as you're suggesting. That a space that, at least initially, Microsoft wasn't interested in filling. However, given Microsoft's recent focus on cross-platform development, this actually makes a lot of sense for both companies. For Microsoft, it means not having to duplicate work that's already been done, and for Xamarin, frankly, it means not having to compete with a space Microsoft wants to get in.
Historically speaking, I'd argue that Mono has been the alternative to Microsoft's proprietary implementation of C#, along with whatever other languages it supports. Also, now that Microsoft has open-sourced the .NET core, there might end up being a waning demand for an alternative implementation, although that's admittedly just a guess.
Keep in mind that the advantages of first-generation internal combustion engines were far less obvious, being large, expensive, noisy, under-powered, and unreliable. We tend to take the reliability of modern engines for granted and of course have the advantage of hind-sight, but even just thirty years ago, cars needed a LOT more maintenance and were FAR less reliable than today. We're witnessing a lot of teething pain with a new technology as companies get to grips with how to properly use it. Remember that the internet was just a big experiment just twenty years ago which no one really knew how to capitalize on - it seems sort of ridiculous today. A lot of silly things were tried (remember CueCat?), and the ones that weren't feasible disappeared over time.
Most of this IoT nonsense is just that - nonsense that will disappear over time. You're correct in that many of these things are a "solution in search of a problem", but that's how a lot of product R&D is. You don't really know exactly what will stick and what will fade into obscurity until you give it a try. Yes, I'm also highly doubtful that much of this IoT craze will result in much good, but you can almost assuredly bet that someone will figure out at least a couple of killer applications for it, and in another decade, we'll all be taking the existence of those products or features for granted. It's just a little annoying right now because of the ridiculous type it's getting in the tech world - along with 3D printing, I suppose.
My irritation is that security is STILL something that's routinely ignored. It's not 1999, when we don't still really understand the implications of networked security, or have perfectly functioning standards and examples of how to do with right.
It should work out just as well as any other perpetual motion system.
It's definitely feasible to write a game completely by yourself (I'm currently doing it), but you have to be somewhat creative to mask any of your deficiencies with a game design suited to your particular talents. For instance, if art isn't your strongest suit, you can make a highly stylized game that isn't quite as art-intensive, perhaps even working that into an advantage with an aesthetic that's abstract, or generates visuals programmatically. One thing that's changed over the years is improvements of both language, language tools, and game design & art tools - those all combine into a real game development force multiplier, allowing me to do so much more than I was able to do twenty years ago.
I've also worked on games that required a team of 100+ people years to make, not to mention a bunch of games in the middle ground on everything from handhelds to consoles to PCs. I have to say, it's pretty interesting to have worked on both extremes in terms of size and scope. They're both a lot of fun to work on, but for rather different reasons. The sheer amount of work that goes into the largest of modern AAA videogames is probably well beyond what most people even imagine.
Even so, nothing but respect for those early devs who wrote (mostly) amazing games with such unbelievable constraints in time and memory/capabilities in hardware. Those guys helped to instill my love of videogames, and are the reason I became a professional game dev myself.
There is no difference, which is why Apple has already offered to provide evidence, provide experts and information. However, that's not what the DoJ is requiring.
Compulsion of speech. The DoJ is requiring that Apple create software, which they do not have, in order to facilitate a cracking attempt by the DoJ. Creating code is speech, and compulsion of speech is something that has both been upheld and defeated in the courts.
Well stated. I think that sums up the core argument against this action better than I did. In case it's not clear, I actually agree with you. Like I said, I was simply playing devil's advocate a bit, and demonstrating that there are counter-arguments to be made, albeit ones I tend to disagree with.
In fairness to the masses, this is a complicated issue for non-technical people to grasp, and the FBI, while they have their issues, is generally seen as being on the side of good, not evil. Many people, I think, want to trust that our law enforcement agencies have their best interest at heart, so when issues like this come up, will tend to side with said agencies in lieu of more compelling information. Siding with them by default is probably a bit easier than siding with a giant international mega-corporation, unless you *really* love Apple for some reason.
You've got a slight (maybe large) problem with your understanding - at least as far as I know. This is not a warrant. It's a writ, a judge's orders - I think this is based on a motion for discovery. What confuses me is that how are they able to do this if nobody has been formally charged?
My bad for not being more clear on this point. I wasn't trying to imply that a warrant was issued in this particular case, just that warrants are generally needed in order to search private property. Naturally, this case is largely about the precedent of requiring Apple to assist in that unlocking rather than the fact of unlocking, of course, so a warrant doesn't apply. In discussing this issue, many people seem to be acting as though law enforcement has no right search an individual's phone, which is not only a ridiculous argument, but it's not even what this whole thing is really about. Make sense?
The police (FBI in this case) are not allowed to use the system for fishing expeditions.
By any reasonable definition, you can't really call this a "fishing expedition". The question of the attacker's crimes really aren't even in doubt - probable cause has certainly been established. "Fishing expedition" only applies if you don't even know if a crime has been committed. It's not applied when you're searching for evidence in a follow-up investigation. That's what every police investigation ever does. Think that argument through logically - if it's a "fishing expedition" before you know what evidence you'll find, you could never do any investigating... ever. Or, to put it another way, do you believe law enforcement had enough probable cause to search the attacker's residence? It's the same thing.
Don't be mislead - this has nothing to do with the phone and what data is or isn't on it. They're trying to establish a legal precedent here. Arguing that the FBI doesn't have the right you search your phone is entirely the wrong argument to make - it's right there in the Constitution. If they get a legal court order (meaning they can demonstrate probable cause), they can search anything you own. Instead, we need to make sure that the government doesn't ban unbreakable encryption, which is what they're trying to do in a roundabout way.
this phone is so important that it is worth throwing our 4th amendment rights into the toilet and flushing until it overflows?
As many people have previously stated, I believe it has nothing to do with the data on the phone. It has everything to do with the FBI setting a legal precedent.
Just to play devil's advocate, how is unlocking a phone any different than our existing warrant-based searches? Warrant-based searches are explicitly supported in the fourth amendment you site. We've lived with court-ordered warrants since the country was founded, which strikes a reasonable balance between the needs of law enforcement to obtain evidence against the sanctity and privacy of our homes and personal property. At this moment, if a judge ordered it, law enforcement could come into your home and demand access to absolutely everything you own. What is it, in your opinion, that makes a phone different than anything else that we consider personal or private?
I ask this because, quite honestly, even though I support Apple here, I can't really make a case that the FBI shouldn't be allowed to unlock someone's phone. However, I think it's another matter entirely as to whether or not the government should be able to compel an individual or a corporation to purposefully design a system that guarantees the ability of the government to gain access on demand.
The government regulates all sorts of things in our lives, especially in nearly all aspects of business and commerce... unfortunately, that ship has long since sailed. And now we're going to demand that the government is unconstitutionally disallowed to regulate this particular aspect? That's mighty convenient, wrapping the Constitution around us when we want its protection, and ignoring it (or simply re-interpreting it in a more convenient way) the rest of the time. When you cede so much regulatory power to the government, you take the bad with the good, and this is some of the bad.
While I understand people are passionate about this, I don't believe it to be a simple black and white issue. To do so is to completely miss many of the nuances involved and simply marginalizes those who feel differently than you while convincing no one.
Keep in mind that most people don't understand the nuances of the technology at all. They don't understand that any chink in the encryption armor means their own security is also at risk. As for the social aspects, try to explain to people how this is any different than a warrant allowing the government to unlock a safe. I've listed to some conversations about this on the radio, and those two aspects seem to be the foundation of most of the "Apple should unlock phone" arguments.
One issue I've not heard addressed so much is what the implications of a backdoor would mean for the larger world, and honestly, I wonder if this is part of the reason Apple is fighting so hard against this - they don't want be in a position of having to collaborate. That is, if the US demands the ability to unlock an iPhone, China is sure as hell going to demand the same ability, and I'm going to bet they'll be a lot less discerning about the legalities before asking to do so (not that our government is some shining beacon at this point either, I guess). There are actually some larger human rights issues involved. One could make an argument that it's worth incurring a very tiny risk that we can't unlock a terrorist's phone in order to safeguard the many people who rely on encryption to keep much more oppressive governments from spying on their own citizens.
And don't worry... the liberal socialists are quite ready to give all the power in the world to that very same government that's currently spying on us and regulating us to death - all for our own good, of course. I've never understood that disconnect. The conservatives are just as bad in reverse, claiming to hate big government, but kowtowing to any agency or department involved in law enforcement or defense.
You can assume almost every Pro Audio hardware manufacturer designs and tests on Macs & OS X *first*, and then hacks together a Windows ASIO & (maybe) WDM driver as an afterthought. All your 'regular' Windows apps will be using WDM - games, Skype, what have you, and all your Pro apps will be using ASIO. Two different drivers for two different sets of applications. On a Mac? CoreAudio is the same for everyone. Games and 'regular' apps use the same backend as Pro Tools or Ableton or Logic.
tl;dr: I tried the whole 'Linux DAW' thing years ago, gave up, got a Mac, actually spent my time getting stuff done and not fighting broken systems/drivers.
It seems like Windows is a bit more prevalent in the audio/music DAW world than it used to be. Macs certainly used to reign supreme, but that was quite a few years ago - it's a lot more even footing, at least from what I've seen. Granted, my view may be biased since the audio pros I know are mostly game developers. As such, they'd naturally tend to gravitate towards Windows, that being the primary development platform our industry uses.
For my part, I've been using Cakewalk software since DOS days, and moved with it to Windows. The notion of switching to some other platform and program would mean abandoning a lifetime of composition work as well. It's simply not happening. Not to mention, I've got many tens of thousands of dollars invested in sample libraries with their associated audio plugins, some of them with hardware-based DRM dongles (yuck), and again, only Mac and Windows support. That's the reality of things - there's no equivalent to many of those high-end products on Linux.
I've never actually seen a Linux based DAW before, or heard about an audio pro that used one. Most professionals have enough on their plate simply trying to get and keep things working reliably on a supported platform. DAWs tend to be high-end, complicated beasts because of their real-time requirements, often with high-end audio cards or other hardware that requires very explicit driver support. I'm pretty sure it's not impossible to create a Linux-based DAW - just not with the software I'd be comfortable using. I think you'd need to be pretty dedicated to using Linux (or avoiding proprietary OSes) to make it happen.
I don't doubt there may be good reasons that juror pay is on the low side - I can certainly see the line of reasoning you're presenting. Honestly, it's not a topic I've given a lot of thought to, so I'm more than willing to consider reasonable arguments on both sides of the issue.
Also, my handle reflects my ancestral heritage + my love of gaming. My grandparents were all from Holland. One fought in WWII (very briefly, obviously), while the other was sent to a German work camp, and subsequently escaped and fled back to Holland, where he remained in the Dutch underground for the remainder of the war - really an amazing story. I can also appreciate a quality firearm, as I have a few myself, but I wasn't actually familiar with that model, despite my name. My grandparents may have actually used a rifle like this, so thanks a lot for the link.
You might enjoy reading this "open letter response".
https://medium.com/@StefWillia...
Yep, I also did jury duty as a civic duty, although I've only been ever called up once - and was selected. The pay was rather laughable, but I still felt it was important to do. Honestly, I wish they'd pay better, as I think they'd get more and better qualified candidates who wouldn't try so hard to avoid it, but I suppose that can't be helped. When those government bureaucracies are being funded, do you really think that paying jurors more is at the top of their priority list?
It was both a positive experience and an unpleasant experience all at the same time. It's good to see the system actually working as intended, even if only at a very small level. It was a minor case, but it's obviously hugely important to those involved, and everyone took their job very seriously. The unpleasantness comes from having to wallow in someone's alleged crimes for the length of the trial (mine was just a single day), after which you want to go home and take a shower. The case I was a juror for involved a young ex-couple, a baby, custody disputes, and allegations of physical abuse. Bleh.
Agreed. One of my former employers actually threatened to have me blacklisted. I'd *never* talk about them publicly (well, I'm doing it now, but not many people know who I am in real life). It's not worth it. I still have a great relationship with my last employer (much nicer, this last one) - essentially a standing offer to come back to work for them if I ever decide to pack up my current self-employment project. It's most definitely possible to remain on good terms with former employers, and it's just savvy in today's world, as you never know - things might change, and you may want to give them a second look. Or, you might find yourself working at a new place with former colleagues, as has happened to me on several occasions.
Young people today have grown up sharing anything and everything about themselves online, and many of them are shocked when they learn there can be real-world repercussions for doing so when you have actual employers who care about their public image, and how you as an employee may reflect on that image. Yes, it's cathartic to be able to vent online, but doing so may have a cost. I'm not saying it's right or wrong - it's the way of the world today.
I don't know the whole story, and I don't want to defend Yelp, but it certainly sounds like this young women hasn't made the wisest choices in her life recently either. I hope another employer gives her a chance, and I hope she takes the opportunity to reflect on her own actions and what she might have done differently as well.
Yep, Samsung has entertained the world with their concept "smart fridge" each year for the past few years, with wireless connectivity, built-in cameras and LCD displays. We laugh now, but probably in the near future they'll be built into nearly ALL new fridges, just like they're built into nearly all new TVs these days. Just give it time, I suppose. Fortunately, keeping devices OFF the network is still easy - just don't give them the WPA key. At the very least, you probably need to make sure those stupid things are on an isolated network that can't interact with your main network. Samsung and most other hardware manufacturers have demonstrated themselves to be woefully inept when it comes to security and privacy issues time and time again.
Honestly, even though I don't own many Apple devices (just one mac mini for development purposes), Apple is probably one of the few companies I'd trust to get the security AND privacy issues right. They've got the technical chops for the security thanks to iOS-related experience, and because they'd charge enough for the devices themselves, they probably wouldn't feel the need to siphon up our personal data for advertising revenue. I'm much more comfortable with a business model that makes money just selling hardware at a decent markup. So many other business models quickly turn slimy and privacy-invading.
What bothers me is that "telemetry" is now becoming a bad word thanks to MS. Telemetry is a feature that's extremely useful for developers, and in a roundabout way, can even benefit the user with improved software as well. It must obviously be designed to send completely anonymous data and to avoid sending any potentially sensitive user data (otherwise it's just spyware), and it should contain an option to turn this off completely for those not comfortable with those services. Telemetry services typically gathers information about the way people actually use the software out in the real world, so the developers have a good feel for what the most popular and least popular features are, how those features are used, if and where the software is crashing (sending crash dumps), and providing other useful feedback. For instance, in Visual Studio, you can even send feedback reports yourself with optionally attached screenshots (even with a built-in cropping tool) and attached files for those reports. This sort of thing helps developers to make informed decisions when deciding which features to enhance, or which ones aren't worth focusing on.
Microsoft screwed up by pushing mandatory telemetry library updates to Windows 7 and 8 at a time when people are very sensitive about privacy issues in Windows, and didn't bother communicating what those changes were for and their privacy implications. My understanding is that these are simply backported updates to telemetry libraries / services, and this enables individual applications to use those telemetry services if they choose across the various Windows platform. The OS itself also uses these services (note that this isn't new by any means). In most cases I can think of, applications allow you to opt-out of sending this sort of telemetry data (on a per-application basis). Why they don't allow users to globally opt out of telemetry is beyond me, because most people will never bother doing this anyhow. Hell, their own TELEMETRY DATA should tell them how many people don't bother changing default settings!
Honestly, I'm not going to tell anyone that their fears are overblown. If someone doesn't trust Microsoft not to surreptitiously spy on them, then they obviously shouldn't use Windows if they can avoid it. I feel Microsoft has done more harm than good in pushing Windows 10 so aggressively, which is a real shame. Once you turn off all the cloud-based crap, Windows 10 has actually been a pretty decent OS so far.
Don't hold this woman to the standards that you would someone who has learned about systems of government from textbooks.
Communism has always sounded much more viable when described in a textbook than when implemented in practice.
Yes, but that's about $1.72 in dog-dollars, so they're doing pretty good.
The Disney Caribbean cruise travels first to a port in Mexico, then essentially sails around to the other side of Cuba to either Grand Cayman and/or Jamaica, depending on the cruise you book. All the interesting islands in the Caribbean essentially surround Cuba. See for yourself:
http://disneycruiselineblog.co...
Formatting is important - it indicates to human programmers what the *intent* of code is supposed to be, at least in whitespace-neutral languages like C. This doesn't sound like a bug in the analysis software. I would definitely want a product to flag (albeit with low priority) any instances of that sort of misleading indentation in my code, because either it works correctly but looks wrong, or it works incorrectly but looks fine. The former is less serious than the latter obviously, but both should be fixed, IMO.
The rest of the article is worth a read, even if you disagree with the first style-related issues. There are a lot of other issues that can only be definitively labeled as bugs by the BSD developers who know the codes, but if they aren't bugs, they sure look like them. There are cases where both branches lead to duplicate, identical code being executed. There are null pointer checks that come after the pointer dereference. There are flags set that do nothing. There are variables corrupted because operator precedence was misunderstood. Even if some of these happen to work correctly, it's likely only because of chance or it's in rarely exercised code. And worse, fragile code means it's more likely to break in the future when minor changes are made.
All in all, it's a fairly impressive list of finds, at least from an outside perspective. I'd be curious to see how many of these are deemed as bugs by the BSD and get fixed.
What? Try reading it again. He's right there with his own quotes. He first goes off on a completely irrelevant (if true) tangent about how much personal data all the evil corporations have on you, and then reverts to nonsensical and vague platitude that sound just like every other candidate when pressed on the issue.
I actually liked some of his articles, as they seems reasonably approachable for lay-persons like myself who are mildly interested in astronomy. A lot of people complained about medium.com, but I never quite understood what the beef was there. As I stated, my issue is with people that post articles and never follow up with any discussion, and he's sort of a poster-child for that. But on the "don't care" to "flaming tirade" scale of concerns, it's still pretty low.
I mean, he's certainly no Bennett Haselton, using Slashdot as his personal lunatic rant blog (and moderators going along with it for so long for whatever reason - I suspected we were being trolled). And thank goodness we can now actually mention the words "ad-blocker" or "hosts file" without being subjected to an APK attack.
Speaking of Forbes and ad-blockers, I just checked out Forbes.com, and it appears they're not blocking the site's content even though I'm using an ad-blocker (ublock-origin). Did they get enough backlash that they've done a reversal here? Sorry... drifting way off topic here, but I'm curious if anyone else has heard anything. When I search, I only get links to the original story of their ads serving up malware.
With the government. Maybe except Bernie, I'd guess. This is a surprise? They are the government.
(...reads TFA...)
In fact, only one candidate, Marco Rubio, seemed to allow for any nuance on the issue.
Holy shit... really?
Rubio:
Here's the thing though, if you require by law – if we passed a law that required Apple and these companies to create a backdoor, number one, criminals could figure that out and use it against you. And number two, there's already encrypted software that exists, not only now but in the future created in other countries. We would not be able to stop that.
If you create a backdoor, there is a very reasonable possibility that a criminal gang could figure out what the backdoor is. That possibility is – if you create a backdoor, you're creating a vulnerability. And what you're not going to chance is the fact that other companies around the world who are not subject to U.S. laws – they could create encryption technology that we'll never be able to get access to.
Wow... someone has an actual technology adviser worth a damn on his staff.
Honestly, I'm not all that sympathetic with the people who did this. But lets get real... hanging banners in a place you aren't supposed to is about as minor a crime as you can perform and still call it a "crime", possibly just shy of jaywalking. Unless, of course, you're Greenpeace and you stomp all over an incredibly fragile natural treasure, scarring it permanently. But this was a banner hung on an office building.
We'll see if anything comes of this investigation other than a slap on the wrist - my bet is there will be a whole lot of nothing... just a large fine that someone has to pay, which will probably go right back into the coffers of the regulatory agency that didn't properly monitor things in the first place. In the meantime, people have been forced to evacuate their homes. We'll see if anything manages to trickle back down to those folks who have been inconvenienced.