Show me an automated approval section, or alternatively a user-submitted list of services they would like on the unlimited channel, and you'll see me happily recede into the shadows.
You can find out how to request that a service be added to Binge-On here by clicking the link titled "Request a video streaming service to Binge On
" and following the instructions in the resultant lightbox. I'll even save you the trouble of clicking; here's what it says:
Want to see your favorite video streaming service added to Binge On?
We want all of your favorite video streaming services to be included as a part of Binge On. If your go-to video streaming service isn’t part of the program yet, tweet us your favorite service @TMobile, along with the hashtag #BingeOn. If they meet our requirements, we’ll investigate the feasibility of adding them. No one pays to join and no money is exchanged.
If you are a streaming service provider Click here, send us an email and we’ll get back to you to begin the process. For more information about technical criteria, Click here.
T-Mobile will review all submissions to ensure identification of video stream and technical requirements, including optimization for mobile viewing.
Only T-Mobile is committed to maximizing YOUR choice and providing access to as many great providers as possible.
It would appear that the list you are requesting is available by searching Twitter for the hashtag #BingeOn. Alternately, you can probably click the mailto: link provided and email them to request that list.
So the biggest complaint you have is "people have to say they want it"?
And the hypocrisy, here, is that he'd likewise complain if you were giving out free punches to the face or kicks to the groin and didn't confirm that he wanted one before delivering it.
basically what you're saying is: "It's not against Net Neutrality because I trust this particular corporation!"
I think what's being said is actually "It's not against Net Neutrality because T-Mobile is operating from a neutral position, accepting any and every application that meets the technical requirements, not charging for participation, and not directly competing with program participants."
It's a problem when Comcast throttles Netflix while demanding payment from them because Comcast offers a competing service. It's a problem when AT&T or Verizon zero-rate their own services while not allowing other services to apply for the same preferential treatment. It would not be a problem if AT&T or Verizon operated a similar program and, similarly, accepted any and every application that met the technical requirements, didn't charge, and wasn't in direct competition with program participants.
It is not T-Mobile's fault, nor their problem, that AT&T and Verizon have positioned themselves to be legally unable to provide this type of service.
A) Can't identify video streamed over stateless protocols like UDP; they need a process (like oh, say, an application) for providers to let them know about these streams
B) Can't identify video streamed over encrypted protocols like HTTPS; they need a process (like oh, say, an application) for providers to let them know about these streams
C) Can't legally re-compress (modify) copyrighted content without the consent of the copyright holder or their agent; they need a process (like oh, say, an application) for providers to provide consent for this
Those are the three biggest reasons. There are more. Should I go on?
Try it, I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised. I know I was when they allowed me to register my personal music server for Music Freedom back when I was on the 2GB plan; they could have just as well said "no, pay us another $30/mo for unlimited" but they didn't, they just said "what's the domain and current IP address?"
Oh and as for the list of denied sites, there's no transparency there, we'll never know until it makes headlines on Slashdot.
Maybe you'll never know unless it makes headlines on Slashdot, but most of us refer to other sources and/or actually work in the industry. With all the controversy surrounding Binge-On, do you really not think the first provider to be denied for a non-technical reason, or to not receive T-Mobile's promised assistance in resolving such technical issues, won't run to the news outlets with their story? Really?
Being the first Binge-On decline would be a massive PR opportunity for a streaming provider and it would be idiotic not to report the occurrence. If it happened, we'd know within minutes. Maybe you wouldn't find out for a day or two when it was finally posted to Slashdot, but the rest of the world would be well aware.
How does someone on AT&T benefit from T-Mobile dropping a service? I guess their ego benefits, as T-Mobile customers would no longer have a superior offering available to them, but AT&T's offering doesn't actually improve.
If your streaming provider of choice doesn't meet the technical requirements because, say, they use a stateless protocol like UDP, or an encrypted protocol like HTTS, so T-Mobile can't detect their video without their help in doing so, you'd rather they be unable to participate at all and you miss out on the benefit of Binge-On for that provider? Hulu streams via HTTPS, Netflix streams via HTTPS, YouTube streams via HTTPS or UDP depending on whether it is a live stream or a file. Those are just three examples, but they're the biggest three, and they could not participate in Binge-On if there were no application process.
And how is T-Mobile to know whether a given provider can support a 1.5Mbps or lower stream? What automated process can they implement that won't introduce quality issues for the user? They can't just look at how fast the server sends data, because a server firing off packets at, say, 10Mbps could be sending parts of a 1.5Mbps stream in advance for buffering, or it could be sending a 10Mbps stream in realtime. They can't just throttle to 1.5Mbps and call it good because a service that doesn't support a bitrate that low will spend a lot of time buffering but T-Mobile only seens a constant flow of data, they don't see the spinner on your screen that indicates buffering.
They absolutely need an application process, to allow companies to declare their preferences and to ensure that they're detecting video streams properly and not causing service issues for video providers. There are two options for participation and two options for non-participation; the first "non-participation" option is to simply do nothing, ignore Binge-On, and T-Mobile will throttle your service but not zero-rate; this is fine if your service supports 1.5Mbps streaming and you just don't care. The second "non-participation" option is to opt out of the throttling, which is what you'd want to do if your service doesn't support 1.5Mbps or lower bitrates (which, incidentally, also means you're unable to serve the 63% of US households who are on 1.5Mbps or slower connections). The two "participation" options involve either providing 1.5Mbps or slower stream options, in which case you can use one of the caveat protocols referred to in my first paragraph as your stream won't need to be modified by T-Mobile, or allowing T-Mobile to modify (re-compress) your stream in-transit, in which case you have to stream in plain HTTP so T-Mobile can intercept it for re-compression.
Since that latter option runs afoul of copyright if done without permission, T-Mobile, again, must have an application process in place in order to obtain that permission.
And, by the way, you don't have to be a company to apply; just as with Music Freedom, you can register your personal video server. I can't find the link at the moment but I read about someone doing this with Music Freedom at one point, which prompted me to do the same back when I was still on the 2GB plan, so I can personally confirm it to be true. Whether or not you'll believe me is another issue, but I couldn't really care less about that.
You're missing the point, which is that it's unreasonable for an "application" to be necessary in the first place.
When not every service can stream at 1.5Mbps or less and one of the ways Binge-On works is to re-compress the video stream in those instances, they absolutely do need explicit permission to modify the copyrighted content traversing their network. That is just one purpose served by the application process. This is something T-Mobile can, for legal reasons, not automatically do.
Further, if served over HTTPS, which they can't read, or a stateless protocol like UDP, they can't detect the video stream in the first place, let alone re-compress it if necessary. The application process also includes steps that help T-Mobile identify these streams. One way they enable this is by allowing the video provider to provide a list of hosts from which their content is streamed, so T-Mobile can know to throttle (if necessary) and count that data in Binge-On. The application process also serves to ensure that these video streams, which they otherwise can't throttle or zero-rate in the first place, don't begin experiencing issues once they become part of the program. This is done by working with the video provider to ensure that their streams sent to T-Mobile's network use a bitrate of 1.5Mbps or less on average. This is something T-Mobile can, for technical reasons, not automatically do.
So you're saying it's unreasonable for T-Mobile to seek permission to modify copyrighted content they do not own, rather than simply ignoring copyright, and seek assistance in identifying otherwise unidentifiable content, rather than waving their magic wand and making it so. I'm sorry, I just can't entertain that as a serious argument.
Having Youtube's people coordinate with T-Mobile's people is one thing; having Joe Random Admin with a Shoutcast server in his basement coordinate with Bob's Internet Service and Bait Shop in Bumfuckistan, North Dakota is quite another!
And one of those has nothing, whatsoever, to do with what we're talking about.
7 billion billion per day is still 2^63, 58 orders of magnitude short of 2^256, 135 orders of magnitude short of 2^512.
You must've stopped reading before you finished my first paragraph... I actually admit as much.
The extra layer of protection offered by asymmetric encryption will be moot once a key secure hash falls.
Not if the asymmetric encryption isn't vulnerable to the same exploit as the failed hash. Seriously, think about that for half a second; if you're able to keep up an argument on this topic (and I'd say you've been doing a fine job of it until now) you shouldn't need any longer than that. You're a smart fella, act like it.
They are under some impression that only selected few can actually stream on this low bandwidth so those who build a business model out of large bandwidth streaming will be prejudiced.
And my answer to that argument, whenever I see it, is that 63% of US households are still on 1.5Mbps or slower wireline connections. Those companies have no right to complain about opportunity cost if they're already unable to serve over half of their potential market due to their inability to stream at Binge-On eligible bitrates of 1.5Mbps or lower. I usually post references as well, but, as I'm not arguing here, I'm not going to waste the time.
That usually sets them right the hell off, they throw a fit, try to discredit my sources, fail, call me names, take their ball, and go home.
Cherry picking certain services is a naked grab for money and control.
And that's not what T-Mobile is doing. They don't pick, they process applications for participation. Thus far they've denied nobody who was technically capable of participating (e.g. they could identify the video content and it was available at an acceptable bitrate) and those who were denied on technical grounds were offered assistance from T-Mobile, at no charge, to help fix the technical issues.
But it wasn't Comcast extorting Netflix, it was Comcast extorting their own customers to shill for them and pressure Netflix to pay up. It was Comcast's own customers who Comcast had by the balls.
I implore either of you to show me a single application that was denied on non-technical grounds, or even one denied on technical grounds for which T-Mobile didn't offer to work with the applicant to come to a solution. Just because a fork can be used to determine who lives and dies (fork to the aorta, for example) doesn't mean we disallow forks; we outlaw that particular use of a fork and get on with our lives. Likewise, we don't prevent a company from offering this type of service in the manner in which T-Mobile is, we simply make it illegal to institute unfair policies around the service, which we've already done, and we get on with our lives, which some of us have yet to do.
If I could ask T-Mobile to compress and zero-rate all video streaming, both from big providers like Youtube and Netflix and from any random small server (or when streaming video from the phone to elsewhere, for that matter), then I would have no objection to it whatsoever.
And if T-Mobile wouldn't run afoul of copyright laws by automatically doing that without explicit permission from the providers, I'm sure they'd offer it. However, unless a provider opts in and, in doing so, agrees to allow T-Mobile to alter their content, T-Mobile legally can not do so, as that would be a violation of net neutrality and copyright.
What you're principled against, then, is the application of copyright to the field of network management, as it prevents such a consumer-friendly system from even being implemented in a net-neutral manner.
Last time I had a credit due from PG&E they applied it as a bill credit to the account at my new address. Haven't tried to get a check out of them and hopefully I'll never have to.
This is extremely painful for me, as I'm actually supporting Comcast in this instance (though it's Comcast Business, which is a different entity with a different billing system and different policies) but when I moved in April I got a check from them that I didn't even know I was owed. Check showed up in the mail when I had assumed it would be applied as a bill credit to the new account, as they did with my last move. Never called them or fought with them about it.
On the other hand, when I moved from MI to OH, Comcast did dick me around for 6mo over a much smaller refund. Comcast Residential and Comcast Business are two very different animals, apparently; and the Business division is much more customer-friendly... which is really hard to swallow when you consider the multi-year contracts they insist on for business customers, and that they restart the clock if you happen to move during the term of your existing contract.
GPUs of 2014 were able to calculate a little over 100 million SHA-512 hashes per second, dual GPUs double that per system. We can expect that this number has doubled yearly for the past 2 years, giving us 400 million per GPU, per second; 800 million per dual-GPU system. 100k such systems (well within the reach of a government budget) would be able to churn through 80 trillion hashes per second, roughly 7 quintillion (7 billion billion) hashes per day. That is quite a number of years, indeed, to brute-force.
That assumes that someone backed by a government budget doesn't have access to an exploit against the SHA-512 algorithm.
Mind you, my point here is to keep the area tinfoil-free, so I'm not going to claim that it's likely that such an exploit exists. However, it's certainly within the realm of possibility and should be assumed to be the case if you're actually taking security against state actors in any way seriously. Keeping the kernel cache encrypted adds just one more layer of security.
If I were the conspiracy theorist type, I'd be pointing to the removal of encryption form the iOS kernel cache as meaning two things: A) That Apple and some government agency are working together to backdoor iOS and B) That said government agency has a working exploit for the hash being used. But, again, I'm trying to keep this a tinfoil-free area.
Just because, as far as we know, the hash used is perfectly secure, that's no excuse to remove a very cheap and effective additional layer of protection. That's really the only point I'm making. Some day, SHA-512 will be broken and that encrypted kernel cache will have made all the difference.
T-Mobile's system for issuing refunds does suck a huge rotten egg. I dealt with 3 reps, a supervisor, and a billing manager, then went into a store who called a billing manager; I actually saw on the screen, they did the work to request the refund and the system flat out refused it. Both billing managers advised, if the system rejected the refund, to issue a chargeback. I asked for that in writing (which bypasses the bank's need to investigate beyond authenticating that document) and they were more than happy to fax it to the store within minutes; I walked out with a statement that they had no intention to dispute a chargeback in the amount of $X (whatever the double-billed amount was) for the transaction ID of the second charge, walked into the bank, handed the teller the letter, who then handed it to a banker who walked me to her desk, read the letter, issued the temporary credit and opened the chargeback, called T-Mobile's billing department to verify, and closed the chargeback right then and there. Including travel time from the store and travel time back home from the bank, it took less than 20 minutes.
Total time spent dealing with T-Mobile's inept support? 4 hours.
Hell, I had the IRS fail to deduct an automatic payment for a payment plan I have with them, then summarily cancel the payment plan and send me a Notice of Intent to Levy Assets. The difference between the IRS and your typical cable company is that, when you call the IRS and speak to the person on the other end of the line like a human being with some dignity, they do the same; and they work quickly to sort out the issue. Less than 15 minutes on the phone and the Intent to Levy was dropped, some interest and fees disappeared, they held my account (meaning no more interest or fees) until the payment plan could be reinstated, gave me a deadline of 30 days for them to complete the process, mailed me a letter on day 28 apologizing for missing the deadline and assuring me they were still working on it, followed by another letter on day 29 (within the deadline) letting me know everything was done and that my payment plan would resume in two months. End result, I spent 15 minutes on the phone with them and didn't have to pay them anything for 3mo, no fees or interest.
If businesses ran the way the IRS does, there would be a lot fewer disgruntled customers out there. Not that the IRS is all puppies and roses, but they certainly don't deserve a lot of the bad rap they get; if you have a legitimate issue and you talk to them like human beings with a bit of dignity, they'll bend over backwards to help you. One guy even filled out the forms for me (since he had all the info in front of him) and faxed them to me to sign and fax back. I did check his work, but it was literally just a matter of writing down what was already on my 1040. Where else can you go, that's not a scam or rip-off of some sort (some will argue that the IRS is, I won't entertain the argument because I honestly have mixed feelings; they carry the weight of law and I rather like having my belongings and not being in prison, so I follow the applicable laws) that will fill out the paperwork for you and have you just sign it? I can think of very few places; the only place, in recent memory, that I've seen it was when I bought a car back in October, but I'm not sure that fits the "not a rip-off" qualifier.
The OCR should be looking at the account number and, if the account is closed, instructing the processing equipment to route it to an actual human for review. I'm fairly certain this is how it actually works, which means the checks were reviewed by an actual human.
Also, and I'm not sure why I didn't think of this earlier, it's not necessary to load a modified kernel with the same hash; it would be much easier to move the kernel and replace it with a binary that loads the kernel, patches it in RAM, then hands off execution. The binary itself would be small, leaving plenty of "slack" which can be modified as needed to match the hashes, while allowing the file size to remain constant.
Anyone with a basic understanding of hashing algorithms knows that to brute-force any hash is a 2^n proposition, where n is the number of bits in the hash. I seem to recall something about a datacenter being built in Utah in the past year or two by an organization that might be interested in the subject.
Slashdot Mirror
Show me an automated approval section, or alternatively a user-submitted list of services they would like on the unlimited channel, and you'll see me happily recede into the shadows.
You can find out how to request that a service be added to Binge-On here by clicking the link titled "Request a video streaming service to Binge On " and following the instructions in the resultant lightbox. I'll even save you the trouble of clicking; here's what it says:
Want to see your favorite video streaming service added to Binge On?
We want all of your favorite video streaming services to be included as a part of Binge On. If your go-to video streaming service isn’t part of the program yet, tweet us your favorite service @TMobile, along with the hashtag #BingeOn. If they meet our requirements, we’ll investigate the feasibility of adding them. No one pays to join and no money is exchanged. If you are a streaming service provider Click here, send us an email and we’ll get back to you to begin the process. For more information about technical criteria, Click here. T-Mobile will review all submissions to ensure identification of video stream and technical requirements, including optimization for mobile viewing. Only T-Mobile is committed to maximizing YOUR choice and providing access to as many great providers as possible.
It would appear that the list you are requesting is available by searching Twitter for the hashtag #BingeOn. Alternately, you can probably click the mailto: link provided and email them to request that list.
Just a quick browse through those search results reveals the following user requests: beIN Sports, Amazon Video (which is already participating), twitch.tv, Periscope, DiSH Network (interestingly, DirecTV participates), byutv, MSNBC, CNN, Watch ABC, and FOX NOW. That's 10, all requested in the past 10 days; the list, of course, goes on.
So the biggest complaint you have is "people have to say they want it"?
And the hypocrisy, here, is that he'd likewise complain if you were giving out free punches to the face or kicks to the groin and didn't confirm that he wanted one before delivering it.
basically what you're saying is: "It's not against Net Neutrality because I trust this particular corporation!"
I think what's being said is actually "It's not against Net Neutrality because T-Mobile is operating from a neutral position, accepting any and every application that meets the technical requirements, not charging for participation, and not directly competing with program participants."
It's a problem when Comcast throttles Netflix while demanding payment from them because Comcast offers a competing service. It's a problem when AT&T or Verizon zero-rate their own services while not allowing other services to apply for the same preferential treatment. It would not be a problem if AT&T or Verizon operated a similar program and, similarly, accepted any and every application that met the technical requirements, didn't charge, and wasn't in direct competition with program participants.
It is not T-Mobile's fault, nor their problem, that AT&T and Verizon have positioned themselves to be legally unable to provide this type of service.
Because they:
A) Can't identify video streamed over stateless protocols like UDP; they need a process (like oh, say, an application) for providers to let them know about these streams
B) Can't identify video streamed over encrypted protocols like HTTPS; they need a process (like oh, say, an application) for providers to let them know about these streams
C) Can't legally re-compress (modify) copyrighted content without the consent of the copyright holder or their agent; they need a process (like oh, say, an application) for providers to provide consent for this
Those are the three biggest reasons. There are more. Should I go on?
Try it, I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised. I know I was when they allowed me to register my personal music server for Music Freedom back when I was on the 2GB plan; they could have just as well said "no, pay us another $30/mo for unlimited" but they didn't, they just said "what's the domain and current IP address?"
Oh and as for the list of denied sites, there's no transparency there, we'll never know until it makes headlines on Slashdot.
Maybe you'll never know unless it makes headlines on Slashdot, but most of us refer to other sources and/or actually work in the industry. With all the controversy surrounding Binge-On, do you really not think the first provider to be denied for a non-technical reason, or to not receive T-Mobile's promised assistance in resolving such technical issues, won't run to the news outlets with their story? Really?
Being the first Binge-On decline would be a massive PR opportunity for a streaming provider and it would be idiotic not to report the occurrence. If it happened, we'd know within minutes. Maybe you wouldn't find out for a day or two when it was finally posted to Slashdot, but the rest of the world would be well aware.
How does someone on AT&T benefit from T-Mobile dropping a service? I guess their ego benefits, as T-Mobile customers would no longer have a superior offering available to them, but AT&T's offering doesn't actually improve.
If your streaming provider of choice doesn't meet the technical requirements because, say, they use a stateless protocol like UDP, or an encrypted protocol like HTTS, so T-Mobile can't detect their video without their help in doing so, you'd rather they be unable to participate at all and you miss out on the benefit of Binge-On for that provider? Hulu streams via HTTPS, Netflix streams via HTTPS, YouTube streams via HTTPS or UDP depending on whether it is a live stream or a file. Those are just three examples, but they're the biggest three, and they could not participate in Binge-On if there were no application process.
And how is T-Mobile to know whether a given provider can support a 1.5Mbps or lower stream? What automated process can they implement that won't introduce quality issues for the user? They can't just look at how fast the server sends data, because a server firing off packets at, say, 10Mbps could be sending parts of a 1.5Mbps stream in advance for buffering, or it could be sending a 10Mbps stream in realtime. They can't just throttle to 1.5Mbps and call it good because a service that doesn't support a bitrate that low will spend a lot of time buffering but T-Mobile only seens a constant flow of data, they don't see the spinner on your screen that indicates buffering.
They absolutely need an application process, to allow companies to declare their preferences and to ensure that they're detecting video streams properly and not causing service issues for video providers. There are two options for participation and two options for non-participation; the first "non-participation" option is to simply do nothing, ignore Binge-On, and T-Mobile will throttle your service but not zero-rate; this is fine if your service supports 1.5Mbps streaming and you just don't care. The second "non-participation" option is to opt out of the throttling, which is what you'd want to do if your service doesn't support 1.5Mbps or lower bitrates (which, incidentally, also means you're unable to serve the 63% of US households who are on 1.5Mbps or slower connections). The two "participation" options involve either providing 1.5Mbps or slower stream options, in which case you can use one of the caveat protocols referred to in my first paragraph as your stream won't need to be modified by T-Mobile, or allowing T-Mobile to modify (re-compress) your stream in-transit, in which case you have to stream in plain HTTP so T-Mobile can intercept it for re-compression.
Since that latter option runs afoul of copyright if done without permission, T-Mobile, again, must have an application process in place in order to obtain that permission.
And, by the way, you don't have to be a company to apply; just as with Music Freedom, you can register your personal video server. I can't find the link at the moment but I read about someone doing this with Music Freedom at one point, which prompted me to do the same back when I was still on the 2GB plan, so I can personally confirm it to be true. Whether or not you'll believe me is another issue, but I couldn't really care less about that.
You're missing the point, which is that it's unreasonable for an "application" to be necessary in the first place.
When not every service can stream at 1.5Mbps or less and one of the ways Binge-On works is to re-compress the video stream in those instances, they absolutely do need explicit permission to modify the copyrighted content traversing their network. That is just one purpose served by the application process. This is something T-Mobile can, for legal reasons, not automatically do.
Further, if served over HTTPS, which they can't read, or a stateless protocol like UDP, they can't detect the video stream in the first place, let alone re-compress it if necessary. The application process also includes steps that help T-Mobile identify these streams. One way they enable this is by allowing the video provider to provide a list of hosts from which their content is streamed, so T-Mobile can know to throttle (if necessary) and count that data in Binge-On. The application process also serves to ensure that these video streams, which they otherwise can't throttle or zero-rate in the first place, don't begin experiencing issues once they become part of the program. This is done by working with the video provider to ensure that their streams sent to T-Mobile's network use a bitrate of 1.5Mbps or less on average. This is something T-Mobile can, for technical reasons, not automatically do.
So you're saying it's unreasonable for T-Mobile to seek permission to modify copyrighted content they do not own, rather than simply ignoring copyright, and seek assistance in identifying otherwise unidentifiable content, rather than waving their magic wand and making it so. I'm sorry, I just can't entertain that as a serious argument.
Having Youtube's people coordinate with T-Mobile's people is one thing; having Joe Random Admin with a Shoutcast server in his basement coordinate with Bob's Internet Service and Bait Shop in Bumfuckistan, North Dakota is quite another!
And one of those has nothing, whatsoever, to do with what we're talking about.
7 billion billion per day is still 2^63, 58 orders of magnitude short of 2^256, 135 orders of magnitude short of 2^512.
You must've stopped reading before you finished my first paragraph... I actually admit as much.
The extra layer of protection offered by asymmetric encryption will be moot once a key secure hash falls.
Not if the asymmetric encryption isn't vulnerable to the same exploit as the failed hash. Seriously, think about that for half a second; if you're able to keep up an argument on this topic (and I'd say you've been doing a fine job of it until now) you shouldn't need any longer than that. You're a smart fella, act like it.
Bah, they're both fun.
They are under some impression that only selected few can actually stream on this low bandwidth so those who build a business model out of large bandwidth streaming will be prejudiced.
And my answer to that argument, whenever I see it, is that 63% of US households are still on 1.5Mbps or slower wireline connections. Those companies have no right to complain about opportunity cost if they're already unable to serve over half of their potential market due to their inability to stream at Binge-On eligible bitrates of 1.5Mbps or lower. I usually post references as well, but, as I'm not arguing here, I'm not going to waste the time.
That usually sets them right the hell off, they throw a fit, try to discredit my sources, fail, call me names, take their ball, and go home.
Cherry picking certain services is a naked grab for money and control.
And that's not what T-Mobile is doing. They don't pick, they process applications for participation. Thus far they've denied nobody who was technically capable of participating (e.g. they could identify the video content and it was available at an acceptable bitrate) and those who were denied on technical grounds were offered assistance from T-Mobile, at no charge, to help fix the technical issues.
But it wasn't Comcast extorting Netflix, it was Comcast extorting their own customers to shill for them and pressure Netflix to pay up. It was Comcast's own customers who Comcast had by the balls.
I implore either of you to show me a single application that was denied on non-technical grounds, or even one denied on technical grounds for which T-Mobile didn't offer to work with the applicant to come to a solution. Just because a fork can be used to determine who lives and dies (fork to the aorta, for example) doesn't mean we disallow forks; we outlaw that particular use of a fork and get on with our lives. Likewise, we don't prevent a company from offering this type of service in the manner in which T-Mobile is, we simply make it illegal to institute unfair policies around the service, which we've already done, and we get on with our lives, which some of us have yet to do.
If I could ask T-Mobile to compress and zero-rate all video streaming, both from big providers like Youtube and Netflix and from any random small server (or when streaming video from the phone to elsewhere, for that matter), then I would have no objection to it whatsoever.
And if T-Mobile wouldn't run afoul of copyright laws by automatically doing that without explicit permission from the providers, I'm sure they'd offer it. However, unless a provider opts in and, in doing so, agrees to allow T-Mobile to alter their content, T-Mobile legally can not do so, as that would be a violation of net neutrality and copyright.
What you're principled against, then, is the application of copyright to the field of network management, as it prevents such a consumer-friendly system from even being implemented in a net-neutral manner.
Last time I had a credit due from PG&E they applied it as a bill credit to the account at my new address. Haven't tried to get a check out of them and hopefully I'll never have to.
This is extremely painful for me, as I'm actually supporting Comcast in this instance (though it's Comcast Business, which is a different entity with a different billing system and different policies) but when I moved in April I got a check from them that I didn't even know I was owed. Check showed up in the mail when I had assumed it would be applied as a bill credit to the new account, as they did with my last move. Never called them or fought with them about it.
On the other hand, when I moved from MI to OH, Comcast did dick me around for 6mo over a much smaller refund. Comcast Residential and Comcast Business are two very different animals, apparently; and the Business division is much more customer-friendly... which is really hard to swallow when you consider the multi-year contracts they insist on for business customers, and that they restart the clock if you happen to move during the term of your existing contract.
GPUs of 2014 were able to calculate a little over 100 million SHA-512 hashes per second, dual GPUs double that per system. We can expect that this number has doubled yearly for the past 2 years, giving us 400 million per GPU, per second; 800 million per dual-GPU system. 100k such systems (well within the reach of a government budget) would be able to churn through 80 trillion hashes per second, roughly 7 quintillion (7 billion billion) hashes per day. That is quite a number of years, indeed, to brute-force.
That assumes that someone backed by a government budget doesn't have access to an exploit against the SHA-512 algorithm.
Mind you, my point here is to keep the area tinfoil-free, so I'm not going to claim that it's likely that such an exploit exists. However, it's certainly within the realm of possibility and should be assumed to be the case if you're actually taking security against state actors in any way seriously. Keeping the kernel cache encrypted adds just one more layer of security.
If I were the conspiracy theorist type, I'd be pointing to the removal of encryption form the iOS kernel cache as meaning two things: A) That Apple and some government agency are working together to backdoor iOS and B) That said government agency has a working exploit for the hash being used. But, again, I'm trying to keep this a tinfoil-free area.
Just because, as far as we know, the hash used is perfectly secure, that's no excuse to remove a very cheap and effective additional layer of protection. That's really the only point I'm making. Some day, SHA-512 will be broken and that encrypted kernel cache will have made all the difference.
T-Mobile's system for issuing refunds does suck a huge rotten egg. I dealt with 3 reps, a supervisor, and a billing manager, then went into a store who called a billing manager; I actually saw on the screen, they did the work to request the refund and the system flat out refused it. Both billing managers advised, if the system rejected the refund, to issue a chargeback. I asked for that in writing (which bypasses the bank's need to investigate beyond authenticating that document) and they were more than happy to fax it to the store within minutes; I walked out with a statement that they had no intention to dispute a chargeback in the amount of $X (whatever the double-billed amount was) for the transaction ID of the second charge, walked into the bank, handed the teller the letter, who then handed it to a banker who walked me to her desk, read the letter, issued the temporary credit and opened the chargeback, called T-Mobile's billing department to verify, and closed the chargeback right then and there. Including travel time from the store and travel time back home from the bank, it took less than 20 minutes.
Total time spent dealing with T-Mobile's inept support? 4 hours.
Hell, I had the IRS fail to deduct an automatic payment for a payment plan I have with them, then summarily cancel the payment plan and send me a Notice of Intent to Levy Assets. The difference between the IRS and your typical cable company is that, when you call the IRS and speak to the person on the other end of the line like a human being with some dignity, they do the same; and they work quickly to sort out the issue. Less than 15 minutes on the phone and the Intent to Levy was dropped, some interest and fees disappeared, they held my account (meaning no more interest or fees) until the payment plan could be reinstated, gave me a deadline of 30 days for them to complete the process, mailed me a letter on day 28 apologizing for missing the deadline and assuring me they were still working on it, followed by another letter on day 29 (within the deadline) letting me know everything was done and that my payment plan would resume in two months. End result, I spent 15 minutes on the phone with them and didn't have to pay them anything for 3mo, no fees or interest.
If businesses ran the way the IRS does, there would be a lot fewer disgruntled customers out there. Not that the IRS is all puppies and roses, but they certainly don't deserve a lot of the bad rap they get; if you have a legitimate issue and you talk to them like human beings with a bit of dignity, they'll bend over backwards to help you. One guy even filled out the forms for me (since he had all the info in front of him) and faxed them to me to sign and fax back. I did check his work, but it was literally just a matter of writing down what was already on my 1040. Where else can you go, that's not a scam or rip-off of some sort (some will argue that the IRS is, I won't entertain the argument because I honestly have mixed feelings; they carry the weight of law and I rather like having my belongings and not being in prison, so I follow the applicable laws) that will fill out the paperwork for you and have you just sign it? I can think of very few places; the only place, in recent memory, that I've seen it was when I bought a car back in October, but I'm not sure that fits the "not a rip-off" qualifier.
The OCR should be looking at the account number and, if the account is closed, instructing the processing equipment to route it to an actual human for review. I'm fairly certain this is how it actually works, which means the checks were reviewed by an actual human.
Huh, interesting. Learn something every day...
Also, and I'm not sure why I didn't think of this earlier, it's not necessary to load a modified kernel with the same hash; it would be much easier to move the kernel and replace it with a binary that loads the kernel, patches it in RAM, then hands off execution. The binary itself would be small, leaving plenty of "slack" which can be modified as needed to match the hashes, while allowing the file size to remain constant.
Who would take that chance? The more than 90% of the population who doesn't have backups.
I wouldn't say swipe cards are dead, 2 of mine still haven't been replaced with chips.
Anyone with a basic understanding of hashing algorithms knows that to brute-force any hash is a 2^n proposition, where n is the number of bits in the hash. I seem to recall something about a datacenter being built in Utah in the past year or two by an organization that might be interested in the subject.