My comment regarding DiFi is because she is the only sitting congressperson that I have personally written a letter to on the topic and received a response that completely ignored the issue. (I did get a well reasoned response from Barbara Boxer, and Nancy Pelosi said something that was mildly on-topic and relevant.)
Now, magnitude of potential compromise... not sure it really matters any more. A hole is a hole. We don't know if it is mischief or accidental.
I would argue the headline is the effect. Hopefully it will be another notch in the idea that this data is too powerful for people to hold, or that it is worthless. Either outcome works.
But it is all risk management-- this outcome has such-and-such probability and will cost $X to address with a n% chance of eliminating the threat. Nobody can commit infinite sums to data security; it is unreasonable for them to commit even their annual revenue to the cause.
So, what is the alternative? Don't keep anything useful?
In theory, sure. The companies keep too much information and therefore make it too valuable, right?
The problem is now it is easy enough for a hacker to crack multiple (softer) targets and assemble much of the same data. Perfect security is impossible, and the problem gets worse the further down you go. Once you talk about employee exfiltration of data they had the right to access, things become darn near impossible.
I sure hope the (US) politicians can potentially learn from this. On so many levels, this is what they created in their ignorance and arrogance. DiFi, you are the worst on this... it is your own constituents you have hurt.
I actually liked the article, flaws and all. On the temperature and providence thing, I remember when Dallas Semiconductor first came out with the 1-Wire iButtons, proposing to solve some of these very issues. I still smile when I see them in these applications some 20 years later-- they work. They are the right type of solution to the first two problems-- sufficiently low cost to embed in things, and integrate encryption.
Physical vs virtual is a pretty good dividing line. Cash, even low value transactions, can be done effectively with Blockchain-- it just can't be universal.
I can’t think of how many times I need to actually make eye contact with the cop in order for him to clarify his signal. I wonder how the AI does that...
You make several valid points, but you miss one of the biggest issues: residential energy consumption is much less than all other uses.
As a simple example, peak electrical demand late at night is about 20GW in California, divided by approximately 12 million households = 1.7kW/household. At that same time, the average household is consuming less than 0.5kW. You can do a similar calculation at different times of day, but residential energy consumption is really only about 1/3 of the total, even in a state with good and long-standing commercial energy codes compared to the majority of the country.
The other important item missing is the time-of-day portion is variable— 20kWh over 8 hours at night is less of an impact than 20kWh in an hour.
Ultimately though, if we switch to 100% wind and solar energy, it will be cheapest to charge your car between 11am and about 6pm, when both sources are available and abundant. Throw in some hydroelectric for night only, and you are in business for a sustainable, economical grid.
I loved my 17” MacBook Pro back in the day... but I can’t believe I allocated that much weight to backpacking around Southeast Asia back in the day. About 8.5 pounds when the power cords and stuff were factored in.
Now I have moved on. MacBook Air and a couple iPads really serve me better. A dock with a 27” monitor is a hell of a lot better ergonomically than the laptop form factor, and portability really trumps all for a laptop.
They are a sham outfit for sure, but the raw NHTSA data isn’t a great metric for the impact of Autopilot on safety, since it includes both miles where autopilot can be used and miles that it can’t. The miles where it can’t be used are generally higher accident rates, so of course the rate is going to be lowere when comparing to miles that autopilot is engaged.
It gets a lot more complicated when your business works with SIP trunks. Adding/deleting/modifying DIDs can be done pretty much in real time. Traffic also might not be routed to the expected endpoint, although it is still valid.
I have my staples for news-- local paper, BBC, and a few other occasional sources. I use Apple Stocks on my mac, and aside from hating Business Insider as a miserable source of business news, appreciate the ostensibly greater variety of news sources. (I also have an ad blocker and a few simple tools to avoid paywalls.) My wife does pay for another newspaper subscription, and I would kind of like access to another news source that I can't avoid the paywall easily.
The value to the publishers all comes down to how much I am willing to pay as a customer for an aggregator. I might be an anomaly, but I think that there is a good chance my spend would be higher with a reasonably priced source, as long as it is ad-free.
And the money to be spent was primarily to electrify, address at-grade crossing safety, and shift the terminus to a point where connections to BART and Metro could be made, as well as to a point where a higher percentage of passengers could walk to their final destination.
Caltrain has a number of huge flaws and challenges, but it is far better to start with something and go from there. Look at Eurostar as an example— two thirds of the travel time to Paris was originally getting through London when it opened, but now it is pretty much what it should be.
Perfection is the enemy of good, and all that crap.
Oddly enough people that housing is being built there and the communities are growing, but it just proliferates more sprawl rather than being a sustainable community. If your mortgage is half what it would be in the basin, a number of people would do it.
Caltrain actually has daily ridership already; spending money on it made and makes sense; the improvements boosted system speed and throughput and as I understand has improved ridership, until at least when the transbay terminal beam cracked.
The goal has to be long-term, with meaningful steps forward. The money squandered in the central valley is what is lost.
The approach was flawed from the outset. To take a "train" today from San Diego to Sacramento you spend 5 hours in a bus, between Los Angeles and Fresno due to the mountains. Your two options are to hug the coast which doesn't provide value to inland communities, or figure out a way through the mountain, which would be about a 40-mile tunnel through a seismically active area. (Yes, tunnels are safe places to be during earthquakes, unless they cross fault lines, which this would.)
But, if they pulled it off, they would suddenly have a tunnel to Antelope Valley/Palmdale, which would provide a huge economic impact on the region and allow for a metric shit-ton of affordable housing with a 20-minute commute to downtown LA. The problem is that just that section would cost about $20-40 billion.
On the upside, once it is done, (and you have presumably purchased the right-of-way to Fresno already) the rest of the project is easy to make incrementally.
The real problem is when an airport like (say) Reno is paying $300 for every ticket sold to the airline. Reno only gives the money for the passengers that arrive, so the pricing included a subsidy that the airline didn't get.
Not really... it is about charging a premium on hub-hub routes to subsidize the cost of more price sensitive outlying city-hub routes. The game makes the aviation market "fairer" for everyone. For the airline, it also dis-incentivizes taking flights in banks that are well timed for onward connections.-- go earlier or later and maybe the hub-hub flight is cheaper.
But, when you are the flier, you might as well do everything you can to get a better deal. The airline isn't looking out for you.
I have been in two of their “black sites” for other projects, and it is funny that Lyft’s maps have the building code addresses. I was really surprised when standing next door that it knew its code already. Just funny how hard people sometimes work to keep obvious secrets hidden.
(Hint— look for the security guards with logo jackets.)
Slashdot Mirror
Yes; they have procedures for flames in the cabin— extinguishers and bags apparently. Won’t work for a large battery, hence the size limits.
My comment regarding DiFi is because she is the only sitting congressperson that I have personally written a letter to on the topic and received a response that completely ignored the issue. (I did get a well reasoned response from Barbara Boxer, and Nancy Pelosi said something that was mildly on-topic and relevant.)
Now, magnitude of potential compromise... not sure it really matters any more. A hole is a hole. We don't know if it is mischief or accidental.
I would argue the headline is the effect. Hopefully it will be another notch in the idea that this data is too powerful for people to hold, or that it is worthless. Either outcome works.
But it is all risk management-- this outcome has such-and-such probability and will cost $X to address with a n% chance of eliminating the threat. Nobody can commit infinite sums to data security; it is unreasonable for them to commit even their annual revenue to the cause.
So, what is the alternative? Don't keep anything useful?
In theory, sure. The companies keep too much information and therefore make it too valuable, right?
The problem is now it is easy enough for a hacker to crack multiple (softer) targets and assemble much of the same data. Perfect security is impossible, and the problem gets worse the further down you go. Once you talk about employee exfiltration of data they had the right to access, things become darn near impossible.
I sure hope the (US) politicians can potentially learn from this. On so many levels, this is what they created in their ignorance and arrogance. DiFi, you are the worst on this... it is your own constituents you have hurt.
I actually liked the article, flaws and all. On the temperature and providence thing, I remember when Dallas Semiconductor first came out with the 1-Wire iButtons, proposing to solve some of these very issues. I still smile when I see them in these applications some 20 years later-- they work. They are the right type of solution to the first two problems-- sufficiently low cost to embed in things, and integrate encryption.
Physical vs virtual is a pretty good dividing line. Cash, even low value transactions, can be done effectively with Blockchain-- it just can't be universal.
I can’t think of how many times I need to actually make eye contact with the cop in order for him to clarify his signal. I wonder how the AI does that...
You make several valid points, but you miss one of the biggest issues: residential energy consumption is much less than all other uses.
As a simple example, peak electrical demand late at night is about 20GW in California, divided by approximately 12 million households = 1.7kW/household. At that same time, the average household is consuming less than 0.5kW. You can do a similar calculation at different times of day, but residential energy consumption is really only about 1/3 of the total, even in a state with good and long-standing commercial energy codes compared to the majority of the country.
The other important item missing is the time-of-day portion is variable— 20kWh over 8 hours at night is less of an impact than 20kWh in an hour.
Ultimately though, if we switch to 100% wind and solar energy, it will be cheapest to charge your car between 11am and about 6pm, when both sources are available and abundant. Throw in some hydroelectric for night only, and you are in business for a sustainable, economical grid.
While it didn’t register, I was able to come up with Advanced Persistant Threat on my own given the summary.
As long as you are using the same aspect ratio it factors out...
I loved my 17” MacBook Pro back in the day... but I can’t believe I allocated that much weight to backpacking around Southeast Asia back in the day. About 8.5 pounds when the power cords and stuff were factored in.
Now I have moved on. MacBook Air and a couple iPads really serve me better. A dock with a 27” monitor is a hell of a lot better ergonomically than the laptop form factor, and portability really trumps all for a laptop.
They are a sham outfit for sure, but the raw NHTSA data isn’t a great metric for the impact of Autopilot on safety, since it includes both miles where autopilot can be used and miles that it can’t. The miles where it can’t be used are generally higher accident rates, so of course the rate is going to be lowere when comparing to miles that autopilot is engaged.
Because generally reporting a burglary doesn’t do any good. The only real reason to report is for insurance purposes.
Venmo might be the catalyst now for PayPal...
It gets a lot more complicated when your business works with SIP trunks. Adding/deleting/modifying DIDs can be done pretty much in real time. Traffic also might not be routed to the expected endpoint, although it is still valid.
Yeah.... now Moreno Valley is a "desirable" place to live too. 2008-9 isn't a good time to judge by.
I have my staples for news-- local paper, BBC, and a few other occasional sources. I use Apple Stocks on my mac, and aside from hating Business Insider as a miserable source of business news, appreciate the ostensibly greater variety of news sources. (I also have an ad blocker and a few simple tools to avoid paywalls.) My wife does pay for another newspaper subscription, and I would kind of like access to another news source that I can't avoid the paywall easily.
The value to the publishers all comes down to how much I am willing to pay as a customer for an aggregator. I might be an anomaly, but I think that there is a good chance my spend would be higher with a reasonably priced source, as long as it is ad-free.
And the money to be spent was primarily to electrify, address at-grade crossing safety, and shift the terminus to a point where connections to BART and Metro could be made, as well as to a point where a higher percentage of passengers could walk to their final destination.
Caltrain has a number of huge flaws and challenges, but it is far better to start with something and go from there. Look at Eurostar as an example— two thirds of the travel time to Paris was originally getting through London when it opened, but now it is pretty much what it should be.
Perfection is the enemy of good, and all that crap.
Oddly enough people that housing is being built there and the communities are growing, but it just proliferates more sprawl rather than being a sustainable community. If your mortgage is half what it would be in the basin, a number of people would do it.
Caltrain actually has daily ridership already; spending money on it made and makes sense; the improvements boosted system speed and throughput and as I understand has improved ridership, until at least when the transbay terminal beam cracked.
The goal has to be long-term, with meaningful steps forward. The money squandered in the central valley is what is lost.
The approach was flawed from the outset. To take a "train" today from San Diego to Sacramento you spend 5 hours in a bus, between Los Angeles and Fresno due to the mountains. Your two options are to hug the coast which doesn't provide value to inland communities, or figure out a way through the mountain, which would be about a 40-mile tunnel through a seismically active area. (Yes, tunnels are safe places to be during earthquakes, unless they cross fault lines, which this would.)
But, if they pulled it off, they would suddenly have a tunnel to Antelope Valley/Palmdale, which would provide a huge economic impact on the region and allow for a metric shit-ton of affordable housing with a 20-minute commute to downtown LA. The problem is that just that section would cost about $20-40 billion.
On the upside, once it is done, (and you have presumably purchased the right-of-way to Fresno already) the rest of the project is easy to make incrementally.
The real problem is when an airport like (say) Reno is paying $300 for every ticket sold to the airline. Reno only gives the money for the passengers that arrive, so the pricing included a subsidy that the airline didn't get.
Not really... it is about charging a premium on hub-hub routes to subsidize the cost of more price sensitive outlying city-hub routes. The game makes the aviation market "fairer" for everyone. For the airline, it also dis-incentivizes taking flights in banks that are well timed for onward connections.-- go earlier or later and maybe the hub-hub flight is cheaper.
But, when you are the flier, you might as well do everything you can to get a better deal. The airline isn't looking out for you.
I have been in two of their “black sites” for other projects, and it is funny that Lyft’s maps have the building code addresses. I was really surprised when standing next door that it knew its code already. Just funny how hard people sometimes work to keep obvious secrets hidden.
(Hint— look for the security guards with logo jackets.)