Not only is there no actual evidence of anyone (most particularly not "Apple loyalists") looking at the System76 website, it's just a horrible comparison. Like, Apple to something-else-with-a-comparable-computer would have been better. According to System76, the "Onyx" system is 5.5 pounds and.9-1.1 inches thick. They're made of black plastic. Part of what people are paying Apple for is a sleek.59 inch thick 3 pound machine carved from a solid aluminum block. That will cost extra. It will also fit fewer hard drives and ports.
A much better comparison would have been to something like, perhaps, the HP Spectre (which also has only USB-C ports it appears....).
Here, I'll read the article for you. The "toothbrush test" = requirement that the company only ship products used daily by billions of people.
Oh, what's that you say? I didn't even have to read the article; it's right there in the summary? Next time maybe they should just put the whole summary in the title.
According to the article, the research isn't over. They just aren't going to sell the robotic arm. This doesn't even mean the robotic arm won't get sold--if Google decides it has no use for this, it can just sell the IP to someone else to develop and bring to market. Google just doesn't want to be in the robotic arm selling business right now.
I have to admit that I don't buy this. It's comparing normal car crashes reported to police versus google car crashes, which get included in the "14" statistic no matter how minor. Also, you could compare google car crashes with injuries (1 out of 14--too small for meaningful analysis) versus normal crashes with injuries (1 out of 4). Or you could compare the number of crashes caused by humans (almost all) versus those caused by the google car (1).
wires will always remain a better transmission medium
Depends what you mean by "better." I think you mean "faster" and/or "less risk of data loss" and/or "less risk of data interception." If you're talking about connecting your computer to a router in another room without a good way to run a wire through the floor or ceiling, I think a person might reasonably argue that wires in that case are not "better." Or if you're talking about using your phone on the train or in Walmart, I think one could reasonably argue that, even though the wifi connection is slower, less reliable, and could be hacked, it's still better than being wired.
Marissa Mayer has to be post-menopausal and likely has short mannish hair. Bonus points if she's fat like all the other americans too!
Seriously? Live under a rock much? Not only does she have three very young kids, she is seriously attractive (in my opinion.... Actually, no, she is objectively, factually attractive). She might run tech companies equally as poorly as Meg Whitman, but she is way, way better looking than 99.8% of CEOs.
I think the bigger deal isn't the risk of unauthorized people accessing ancient unupdated MySpace pages. I think the bigger deal is that a lot of people are using the that same password, now disclosed online, for their email login, bank login, etc. And the MySpace leak gives everyone the ability to look up a large swath of the population's passwords. A lot of not very tech-savvy people had MySpace accounts, and I haven't looked at the file, but it seems that a less-than-honest person could match people to passwords in a lot of these cases and then have that person's passwords for a lot of different sites.
Somebody marked this -1!? Mod parent up, please! Notate as "funny."
Some people just don't understand completely appropriate humor. That said, the parent is wrong: there will not be even a few Tanzanians that make money from this. The management of the mining company will be American. The life-threatening labor will be performed by Tanzanians not in exchange for money, but in exchange for not being killed, and if they're lucky, for a portion of bread per day, of which the worker will eat a bite and send the rest to his wife and children if they aren't enslaved with him.
Personally, I am wondering how the results would stack up with Opera thrown in with the power saving mode turned on.
The article points out that Edge does pretty darn well without the need for any power saving mode. Like, ok, but perhaps it makes sense to have a full featured, powerful browser (which Opera is becoming again, though for a long time that was really questionable) with the ability to flip a switch that reduces the "power" (reducing activity of background tabs, wake CPU less often, pause unused extensions, etc) and increases battery life. Also there's the built in ad-blocker, which I'd think would substantially reduce power consumption.
I bought a used car in which the original cell subscription ran out. The only way to continue service was through the car company (which provides the service through T-Mobile) for, I think it was $30 per month or a lump sum of $450 for 3 years. It takes a T-Mobile sim card.
I tried getting the $10 per month T-Mobile sim card, but it didn't function in the car.
Since I am not up for paying that kind of money for the services, I didn't subscribe. If I ordered the service it provides:
Google maps in the navigation interface (though without the cell connection, the navigation interface is fine--it even shows speed limits) Makes a mobile hotspot available in the car (which I can do from my phone for free) Probably the only useful thing is: the car would be connected to the internet even when I am not in there. So, I could control some things about my car from my phone and also send a Google Maps route to the car from my home computer or my phone.
It seems to me that some of the features could be made available by better utilizing the bluetooth connection with my phone, but then I wouldn't have as much incentive to pay $30/mo. Which is a rip-off in my mind, since the data connection they want me to buy costs $10 directly from T-Mobile. Anyway, so far so good without paying the subscription. I don't feel like I'm missing out on much.
Keep in mind that "average" is just that. And it isn't a wealth versus poverty issue--plenty of wealthy parents take a stand against giving kids smart phones at a young age. That said, keep in mind that I think in most cases we aren't talking about a parent deciding to go out a buy an iPhone for a 10 year old. We're talking about parents upgrading their phone and giving their old phone to their kid instead of selling it, and adding a line to the family plan for $10 per month.
My oldest will be 10 next year and I can guaranty you he will not have a smart phone for several years. That said, my wife's parents did buy him an iPad mini and my old lap top is essentially his now....
You've got it backward. They haven't "already added fast.com" to the whitelist, they just haven't added it to the "throttle list." Netflix gets throttled, bittorrent gets throttled, speed test sites and most other sites don't get put on the "throttle list."
That said, I have Cox on the 100 MB/sec down plan and have not had any throttling issues, even when well above their soft data cap.
I think "cash only" could work for LLC #2, but not for LLC number 1. It's the one that has to earn the money to pay LLC #2's rent and internet and electricity. Under my proposal, you've got to have LLC #1 do something to get money from the outside--like renting someplace. Perhaps it can set up a hot dog stand instead of a rental place so it can plausibly be cash only. You'll have to run the hot dog stand (including hiring someone to man it) via anonymous letters and email. And pay the person manning it by having him keep a cut of the money and mailing the rest to an the Nevada PO Box. But then, that money has to be forwarded someplace.
I now thinking the VPN is the best idea too. The problem there appears to be finding one that is and remains non-logging. From what I can gather on the internet, you need to keep your eye on your VPN--sometimes they get sued and start logging, in which case you need to go find a different VPN.
Every ISP I've dealt with has required a physical address. And it has to be real. Whenever I give a fake address for my internet service, I end up getting no service at my real address. Also, every ISP I've dealt with has required real payment. Whenever I give the ISP fake payment information, the ISP doesn't get paid and then cuts off my service.
Here is what you can do:
1) Set up a Nevada LLC and use nominee management and registered agent services and get the "physical address in NV" service, which gets you a mailbox with a physical address in NV. 2) Set up an online bank account for the LLC in which you deposit $100,000 in various increments under $10,000 over time. 3) Have the Nevada LLC purchase a house someplace that it can rent for a profit. 4) Using only typed letters and/or an anonymous free email address, get the house rented. 5) Have the LLC set up another LLC, which second LLC will also open a bank account. Rent profits from the first LLC will be depsosited into the account of the second LLC. 6) The second LLC will, using only typed letters and anonymous emails, will rent an apartment adjacent to yours (did I mention you have to live in an apartment complex with an empty apartment next door?). Leave the door unlocked and throw away the keys. Furnish the apartment so it looks legit if searched--you don't want the police to search the apartment and find it furnished solely with a wireless router. Maybe even let a squater liver there for a few days. 7) Have the second LLC order internet for the apartment. 8) Set up a strong wireless router in the apartment with open access. Use that for all your illigitimate stuff. Dont ever use personally identifying information when hooked in to that signal. 9) Also make sure you have your own internet service that you use for the legitimate stuff. 10) When ISP kicks you off for doing illigitimate stuff, have your first LLC set up another largely hidden LLC and bank account, transfer the lease to the new LLC (via letters and emails). Set up new internet service.
The main problem I see with this is the bank accounts. You'll probably need a tax ID number, so you'll need a real SS# for the IRS. And the bank will need a signatory on the account. I don't think of a good way to set this up truly anonymously.
5 years ago, using a 5 year old computer could be rough. All but the most powerful machines seemed to be largely unusable by that age. But 5 years ago, 64 bit multiple core processors became common. 8 gigs of ram or more was suddenly commonplace. Hard drives under hundreds of GBs were uncommon. And then cheap SSDs came on the scene, reviving old hardware everywhere.
So, yeah, anymore a 5 year old computer is commonplace. I purchased my home desktop in 2010 (Dell XPS 8300, if I recall correctly, with a core i7 and 8 gigs of RAM), I added a 100 GB SSD in 2013 for use as the boot/OS drive, a second monitor around the same time, and a 4 TB drive for media storage in 2015. Although I am a relatively techie person, I see no need whatsoever to purchase a new computer within the next few years. Normally I want to be up with the times, but I am having a hard time seeing what I am missing out on. USB C, I guess? I can't think of anything else.
Technical question--since the iPhone only uses NFC for Apple Pay (at present, anyway), is NFC on the iPhone even broadcasting at all when Apple Pay isn't activated? If so, what would it be broadcasting?
If NFC on the iPhone isn't broadcasting at all when the user hasn't told it to broadcast (by double-clicking the home button to activate Apple Pay), then a person's concerns about NFC on the iPhone are unfounded.
Also, it appears that Apple Pay deliveres only specific data to merchants. I imagine that is all that would be broadcast from NFC--I can't broadcast, for example, my SS# on an iPhone NFC. So, if you just didn't enter any data into passbook, it would have no data to broadcast about you.
You haven't been reading the news. The FBI says that it wants certain security measures removed from one particular phone. It wants Apple to write a modified version of iOS to be used only by the FBI in a secured environment to flash the iOS of this one phone, so the FBI can brute force the password (and use software to assist) without risking the encryption key being destroyed (there is a possibility that a feature on the phone is turned on that would disable unlocking of the phone altogether after 10 wrong guesses (though there are methods around this as well, but still it would be slow)).
That is what the DOJ said anyway. But then other district attorneys said that they are in the same situation with something like 112 other iPhones. They said this to support the DOJ's need for the modified software, but obviously it damaged the government's argument that this is a one time thing.
This is very different from Apple's earlier assistance to the government because this is the first time the DOJ has demanded that Apple actually create a modified, inherently less secure version of iOS. Apple would have to actually pay engineers to write code to create a version of iOS that must, must, must not ever be released to the public. It would have to be used only in a contained environment on Apple's campus not connected to the outside world--which Apple would have to build just for this purpose. Otherwise it would have to rely on the government to not accidentally release the modified iOS to bad actors.
The government is trying to use something called the "All Writs Act" to say that it can basically force anyone to do anything.
AND the government is basically saying that it is requiring that all systems (including the ones used by it) are not secure. This, in particular, is odd. I remember when the news was that Pres. Obama could not use his phone of choice shortly after he was elected because it was not sufficiently secure. I've hear similar comments on Maricopa County, which declared that it would no longer use iPhones due to Apple's refusal to downgrade the security on Farook's device. The inevitable conclusion is that Maricopa County wants hackable phones.
On a side note, a technical question has been nagging at me. Farook didn't own the phone the government wants to hack--it was owned by his employer. Presumably, then, the organization had the normal enterprise controls over some aspects of the phone (for example, most organizations require a password, some require encryption of the hard drive, etc. Though perhaps now the government entities are realizing they don't actually want any of this). Could his employer have used its enterprise phone management tools to make its employees could not lock the employer out? So the phone would lock, but the owner of the phone always has the key. That's been the biggest sticking point for me on this whole Farook thing--why did the owner of the phone allow the phone to be made inaccessible to the owner of the phone?
I also attended BYU and loved it and agree that is has serious free speech issues (which surprises no one), but it is apparent you either didn't read the article closely or misunderstood the purpose of the list. The purpose of the list is to point out recent egregious acts, so BYU has surely been on the list in prior years (and Liberty, and other strict religious colleges) but the makers of the list are looking for fresh meat every year. It isn't an actual top 10 list, but rather a venue to point out recent events that are concerning to the authors. Most schools on the list only have one event detailed for the basis of landing them on the list at all. Also, this type of conduct is expected from someplace like BYU, which makes it less newsworthy, but Northwestern, etc?--That is pretty noteworthy.
From TFA: "Based on the posted list, an unfortunate detail becomes rather clear; either the passwords were poorly secured and easily reversed, or they were stored in clear text inside the database."
Slashdot Mirror
Not only is there no actual evidence of anyone (most particularly not "Apple loyalists") looking at the System76 website, it's just a horrible comparison. Like, Apple to something-else-with-a-comparable-computer would have been better. According to System76, the "Onyx" system is 5.5 pounds and .9-1.1 inches thick. They're made of black plastic. Part of what people are paying Apple for is a sleek .59 inch thick 3 pound machine carved from a solid aluminum block. That will cost extra. It will also fit fewer hard drives and ports.
A much better comparison would have been to something like, perhaps, the HP Spectre (which also has only USB-C ports it appears....).
Here, I'll read the article for you. The "toothbrush test" = requirement that the company only ship products used daily by billions of people.
Oh, what's that you say? I didn't even have to read the article; it's right there in the summary? Next time maybe they should just put the whole summary in the title.
According to the article, the research isn't over. They just aren't going to sell the robotic arm. This doesn't even mean the robotic arm won't get sold--if Google decides it has no use for this, it can just sell the IP to someone else to develop and bring to market. Google just doesn't want to be in the robotic arm selling business right now.
I have to admit that I don't buy this. It's comparing normal car crashes reported to police versus google car crashes, which get included in the "14" statistic no matter how minor. Also, you could compare google car crashes with injuries (1 out of 14--too small for meaningful analysis) versus normal crashes with injuries (1 out of 4). Or you could compare the number of crashes caused by humans (almost all) versus those caused by the google car (1).
wires will always remain a better transmission medium
Depends what you mean by "better." I think you mean "faster" and/or "less risk of data loss" and/or "less risk of data interception." If you're talking about connecting your computer to a router in another room without a good way to run a wire through the floor or ceiling, I think a person might reasonably argue that wires in that case are not "better." Or if you're talking about using your phone on the train or in Walmart, I think one could reasonably argue that, even though the wifi connection is slower, less reliable, and could be hacked, it's still better than being wired.
Marissa Mayer has to be post-menopausal and likely has short mannish hair. Bonus points if she's fat like all the other americans too!
Seriously? Live under a rock much? Not only does she have three very young kids, she is seriously attractive (in my opinion.... Actually, no, she is objectively, factually attractive). She might run tech companies equally as poorly as Meg Whitman, but she is way, way better looking than 99.8% of CEOs.
I think the bigger deal isn't the risk of unauthorized people accessing ancient unupdated MySpace pages. I think the bigger deal is that a lot of people are using the that same password, now disclosed online, for their email login, bank login, etc. And the MySpace leak gives everyone the ability to look up a large swath of the population's passwords. A lot of not very tech-savvy people had MySpace accounts, and I haven't looked at the file, but it seems that a less-than-honest person could match people to passwords in a lot of these cases and then have that person's passwords for a lot of different sites.
Wow--a bit overly-serious much?
Somebody marked this -1!? Mod parent up, please! Notate as "funny."
Some people just don't understand completely appropriate humor. That said, the parent is wrong: there will not be even a few Tanzanians that make money from this. The management of the mining company will be American. The life-threatening labor will be performed by Tanzanians not in exchange for money, but in exchange for not being killed, and if they're lucky, for a portion of bread per day, of which the worker will eat a bite and send the rest to his wife and children if they aren't enslaved with him.
Personally, I am wondering how the results would stack up with Opera thrown in with the power saving mode turned on.
The article points out that Edge does pretty darn well without the need for any power saving mode. Like, ok, but perhaps it makes sense to have a full featured, powerful browser (which Opera is becoming again, though for a long time that was really questionable) with the ability to flip a switch that reduces the "power" (reducing activity of background tabs, wake CPU less often, pause unused extensions, etc) and increases battery life. Also there's the built in ad-blocker, which I'd think would substantially reduce power consumption.
Please re-run the test.
Removing it virtually doubled my battery life.
If the battery life savings were only virtual, that's no good to me. I need real change.
I bought a used car in which the original cell subscription ran out. The only way to continue service was through the car company (which provides the service through T-Mobile) for, I think it was $30 per month or a lump sum of $450 for 3 years. It takes a T-Mobile sim card.
I tried getting the $10 per month T-Mobile sim card, but it didn't function in the car.
Since I am not up for paying that kind of money for the services, I didn't subscribe. If I ordered the service it provides:
Google maps in the navigation interface (though without the cell connection, the navigation interface is fine--it even shows speed limits)
Makes a mobile hotspot available in the car (which I can do from my phone for free)
Probably the only useful thing is: the car would be connected to the internet even when I am not in there. So, I could control some things about my car from my phone and also send a Google Maps route to the car from my home computer or my phone.
It seems to me that some of the features could be made available by better utilizing the bluetooth connection with my phone, but then I wouldn't have as much incentive to pay $30/mo. Which is a rip-off in my mind, since the data connection they want me to buy costs $10 directly from T-Mobile. Anyway, so far so good without paying the subscription. I don't feel like I'm missing out on much.
Keep in mind that "average" is just that. And it isn't a wealth versus poverty issue--plenty of wealthy parents take a stand against giving kids smart phones at a young age. That said, keep in mind that I think in most cases we aren't talking about a parent deciding to go out a buy an iPhone for a 10 year old. We're talking about parents upgrading their phone and giving their old phone to their kid instead of selling it, and adding a line to the family plan for $10 per month.
My oldest will be 10 next year and I can guaranty you he will not have a smart phone for several years. That said, my wife's parents did buy him an iPad mini and my old lap top is essentially his now....
You've got it backward. They haven't "already added fast.com" to the whitelist, they just haven't added it to the "throttle list." Netflix gets throttled, bittorrent gets throttled, speed test sites and most other sites don't get put on the "throttle list."
That said, I have Cox on the 100 MB/sec down plan and have not had any throttling issues, even when well above their soft data cap.
Can I sue for "journalistic malpractice"?
I think "cash only" could work for LLC #2, but not for LLC number 1. It's the one that has to earn the money to pay LLC #2's rent and internet and electricity. Under my proposal, you've got to have LLC #1 do something to get money from the outside--like renting someplace. Perhaps it can set up a hot dog stand instead of a rental place so it can plausibly be cash only. You'll have to run the hot dog stand (including hiring someone to man it) via anonymous letters and email. And pay the person manning it by having him keep a cut of the money and mailing the rest to an the Nevada PO Box. But then, that money has to be forwarded someplace.
I now thinking the VPN is the best idea too. The problem there appears to be finding one that is and remains non-logging. From what I can gather on the internet, you need to keep your eye on your VPN--sometimes they get sued and start logging, in which case you need to go find a different VPN.
Every ISP I've dealt with has required a physical address. And it has to be real. Whenever I give a fake address for my internet service, I end up getting no service at my real address. Also, every ISP I've dealt with has required real payment. Whenever I give the ISP fake payment information, the ISP doesn't get paid and then cuts off my service.
Here is what you can do:
1) Set up a Nevada LLC and use nominee management and registered agent services and get the "physical address in NV" service, which gets you a mailbox with a physical address in NV.
2) Set up an online bank account for the LLC in which you deposit $100,000 in various increments under $10,000 over time.
3) Have the Nevada LLC purchase a house someplace that it can rent for a profit.
4) Using only typed letters and/or an anonymous free email address, get the house rented.
5) Have the LLC set up another LLC, which second LLC will also open a bank account. Rent profits from the first LLC will be depsosited into the account of the second LLC.
6) The second LLC will, using only typed letters and anonymous emails, will rent an apartment adjacent to yours (did I mention you have to live in an apartment complex with an empty apartment next door?). Leave the door unlocked and throw away the keys. Furnish the apartment so it looks legit if searched--you don't want the police to search the apartment and find it furnished solely with a wireless router. Maybe even let a squater liver there for a few days.
7) Have the second LLC order internet for the apartment.
8) Set up a strong wireless router in the apartment with open access. Use that for all your illigitimate stuff. Dont ever use personally identifying information when hooked in to that signal.
9) Also make sure you have your own internet service that you use for the legitimate stuff.
10) When ISP kicks you off for doing illigitimate stuff, have your first LLC set up another largely hidden LLC and bank account, transfer the lease to the new LLC (via letters and emails). Set up new internet service.
The main problem I see with this is the bank accounts. You'll probably need a tax ID number, so you'll need a real SS# for the IRS. And the bank will need a signatory on the account. I don't think of a good way to set this up truly anonymously.
Since this page couldn't have existed yet when the story was submitted, I salute lxrocks as having superior /. talents.
5 years ago, using a 5 year old computer could be rough. All but the most powerful machines seemed to be largely unusable by that age. But 5 years ago, 64 bit multiple core processors became common. 8 gigs of ram or more was suddenly commonplace. Hard drives under hundreds of GBs were uncommon. And then cheap SSDs came on the scene, reviving old hardware everywhere.
So, yeah, anymore a 5 year old computer is commonplace. I purchased my home desktop in 2010 (Dell XPS 8300, if I recall correctly, with a core i7 and 8 gigs of RAM), I added a 100 GB SSD in 2013 for use as the boot/OS drive, a second monitor around the same time, and a 4 TB drive for media storage in 2015. Although I am a relatively techie person, I see no need whatsoever to purchase a new computer within the next few years. Normally I want to be up with the times, but I am having a hard time seeing what I am missing out on. USB C, I guess? I can't think of anything else.
Technical question--since the iPhone only uses NFC for Apple Pay (at present, anyway), is NFC on the iPhone even broadcasting at all when Apple Pay isn't activated? If so, what would it be broadcasting?
If NFC on the iPhone isn't broadcasting at all when the user hasn't told it to broadcast (by double-clicking the home button to activate Apple Pay), then a person's concerns about NFC on the iPhone are unfounded.
Also, it appears that Apple Pay deliveres only specific data to merchants. I imagine that is all that would be broadcast from NFC--I can't broadcast, for example, my SS# on an iPhone NFC. So, if you just didn't enter any data into passbook, it would have no data to broadcast about you.
No.
You haven't been reading the news. The FBI says that it wants certain security measures removed from one particular phone. It wants Apple to write a modified version of iOS to be used only by the FBI in a secured environment to flash the iOS of this one phone, so the FBI can brute force the password (and use software to assist) without risking the encryption key being destroyed (there is a possibility that a feature on the phone is turned on that would disable unlocking of the phone altogether after 10 wrong guesses (though there are methods around this as well, but still it would be slow)).
That is what the DOJ said anyway. But then other district attorneys said that they are in the same situation with something like 112 other iPhones. They said this to support the DOJ's need for the modified software, but obviously it damaged the government's argument that this is a one time thing.
This is very different from Apple's earlier assistance to the government because this is the first time the DOJ has demanded that Apple actually create a modified, inherently less secure version of iOS. Apple would have to actually pay engineers to write code to create a version of iOS that must, must, must not ever be released to the public. It would have to be used only in a contained environment on Apple's campus not connected to the outside world--which Apple would have to build just for this purpose. Otherwise it would have to rely on the government to not accidentally release the modified iOS to bad actors.
The government is trying to use something called the "All Writs Act" to say that it can basically force anyone to do anything.
AND the government is basically saying that it is requiring that all systems (including the ones used by it) are not secure. This, in particular, is odd. I remember when the news was that Pres. Obama could not use his phone of choice shortly after he was elected because it was not sufficiently secure. I've hear similar comments on Maricopa County, which declared that it would no longer use iPhones due to Apple's refusal to downgrade the security on Farook's device. The inevitable conclusion is that Maricopa County wants hackable phones.
On a side note, a technical question has been nagging at me. Farook didn't own the phone the government wants to hack--it was owned by his employer. Presumably, then, the organization had the normal enterprise controls over some aspects of the phone (for example, most organizations require a password, some require encryption of the hard drive, etc. Though perhaps now the government entities are realizing they don't actually want any of this). Could his employer have used its enterprise phone management tools to make its employees could not lock the employer out? So the phone would lock, but the owner of the phone always has the key. That's been the biggest sticking point for me on this whole Farook thing--why did the owner of the phone allow the phone to be made inaccessible to the owner of the phone?
I also attended BYU and loved it and agree that is has serious free speech issues (which surprises no one), but it is apparent you either didn't read the article closely or misunderstood the purpose of the list. The purpose of the list is to point out recent egregious acts, so BYU has surely been on the list in prior years (and Liberty, and other strict religious colleges) but the makers of the list are looking for fresh meat every year. It isn't an actual top 10 list, but rather a venue to point out recent events that are concerning to the authors. Most schools on the list only have one event detailed for the basis of landing them on the list at all. Also, this type of conduct is expected from someplace like BYU, which makes it less newsworthy, but Northwestern, etc?--That is pretty noteworthy.
From TFA: "Based on the posted list, an unfortunate detail becomes rather clear; either the passwords were poorly secured and easily reversed, or they were stored in clear text inside the database."