Posts by Charles 9

Is Oomi the all-in-one smart home system we've been waiting for?

Re: One small concern

"The weakness with your example is the glass window a few feet away..."

With burglar bars on them. Anyone determined enough to wrench burglar bars out of the studs are willing to just tear the place down and would be better served just ramming through the wall.

"and ease of use is compromised when you lose your keys while out for a walk."

Which is why I keep them in the same place in my pocket every time. And if I lose track, I can retrace my steps. Could also employ a key alarm as an alternative. All else fails, fail safe. Better NO ONE gets in than EVERYONE. You can always call the locksmith or wait for your significant other.

Re: smart not-smart

Then you're asking for true AI that's smarter than us, given how difficult it is for US to correctly ascertain a given situation, especially when edge cases occur.

Re: One small concern

Since when are security and ease of use tied to the laws of physics? I mean, deadbolt locks seem like a reasonable combination of security and ease of use, with reinforced door frames a potential addition. Where's the happy medium here?

Re: One small concern

"Security or ease of use - pick one."

Why can't we have both at the same time?

Expert gives Congress solution to vote machine cyber-security fears: Keep a paper backup

Re: Bleeding obvious

Unless they make a SECOND audit trail, complete with details. I don't think it's outside the realm of a sufficiently-resourced adversary.

Re: open votes please!

"They can't, because there are too many people on the other sides (parties) who don't want them to do it."

Unless they really AREN'T and they're actually in cahoots.

"Swapping one box of physical ballots is probably feasible. Swapping enough boxes to make a meaningful difference is effectively impossible."

A hotly-contested election would mean only one or two would suffice. As for more boxes, never underestimate the scope of major political parties.

Re: Anonymous - why?

And if a sufficiently-resourced adversary can switch the votes without my knowledge, then there was no vote either.

Only someone with political power forcing a result.

Either way, you lose.

Re: The paper trail will say what the machine SAYS

They can't do 100% security or accuracy in hand-counting, either. So you lose either way.

Re: infamous "hanging chad"

Except they can still be switched with a sufficiently-resourced and -determined adversary.

Re: Why vote anyway?

So you're willing to give up the fight and be a wage slave all your life?

Re: open votes please!

I disagree, especially given the size and scope of today's political parties. I believe if they REALLY wanted to, they could fake all they want to fake and blackmail all the rest to swear by it.

Re: Anonymous - why?

But that presents a dilemma. There's no way to be sure your vote STAYS yours, and that happens to be EQUALLY important (you can't have both because anonymity prevents attribution and vice versa). So you have to choose which is more important: a FREE vote or a TRUE vote.

No, manual counts can be challenged, too, subject to misinterpretations, corruption, etc. Remember that the manual recount of the infamous "hanging chad" election was itself challenged. And due to the human condition, there's probably no real way to satisfy everyone of note. After all, ALL voting machines are man-made.

Badass alert: 1 in 5 Brits don't give a damn about webpage crypto-miners

Re: Considering what the "legal" Javascript malware does...

No, what we REALLY really need is to go back to a passive Web which just displayed data and nothing else. Interactivity should be left to other protocols like VNC.

As for paying via mining, why not simply demand a payment in Monero or whatever? Then you get the client of your choice to mine and pay the toll.

US politicos wake up to danger of black-box algorithms shaping all corners of American life

The end result will be that #1 or #2 will be the only ones left to bid. Exclude them and there will likely be no bidders. End result is the same: a TERopoly becomes a DUopoly. Would you prefer that?

Re: Not just credit scores...prison sentences.

Ever considered many of those sentences are actually justified? Do we know what percent of the population got a serious, violent conviction such as for ADW, rape, kidnapping, or murder?

Re: The System of Legal Fraud

So now you gotta rent until you can actually save enough to buy a home all cash on hand (which the rent will eat into in the meantime)? Have to buy your car with cash on hand? Out of work and in the hole? Remember debtor's prisons?

Hey girl, what's that behind your Windows task bar? Looks like a hidden crypto-miner...

Re: Block js.miners via hosts file on your router or OS

Many of us can't access the HOSTS file (computers that aren't ours tend to restrict access for obvious reasons). And what about mobile devices you don't want to root?

Re: browser popups

Most do, but there are ways around it.

Not talking NoScript. They actually keep things simple. It's the Poper Blocker homepage I'm complaining about. And by my philosophy, if you can't get by without begging, you're in the wrong line of business.

Re: Finally, a reason to move the task bar

Even without a taskbar, it may be possible to "shade" the window by putting it right on the edge so you'd have to spot a very thin line in order to know the window's there. Actually, a taskbar will be of help here since it can make you aware a browser window's still open.

Re: Because you can't be arsed

But if you read the article, you'll note that the process itself is mostly platform-agnostic. It's just that the "secret" window may find it harder to hide in unfamiliar territory, but given that most systems possess some kind of taskbar or analogue, browser fingerprinting can potentially allow it to hide virtually anywhere. Failing that, it could try to find ways to position the window along an edge so only a very obscure line would be visible.

Dawn of The Planet of the Phablets in 2019 will see off smartphones

Re: Wot about the wearables?

Wearables will never be in until they can make a computer that can do Crysis 3 at least at 1080p @ 60fps, without fans or heatsinks, and still be cool to the touch. You see, HEAT is the primary obstacle to a practical wearable.

Re: doubt it

And there are others like myself who find many phones TOO SMALL. I happen to like the Note 4's size. Big viewable screen that I can still hold in my big hand. Also makes typing easier for my big fingers.

Re: Anything smaller than 5.5 inches just won't satisfy

"It's not the size of the boat but the motion of the ocean."

"That may be true, but it takes a long time to get to England in a rowboat." - Jeff Foxworthy.

Google Chrome vows to carpet bomb meddling Windows antivirus tools

Re: @bigtimehustler

Some things can't help but be potentially harmful. It just comes with the territory. Like a gun or a car capable of moving.

'Break up Google and Facebook if you ever want innovation again'

Re: disrupt

The thing with large enough firms, though, is that they can see disruptive techs coming and smother them with things like offers you can't refuse. Look what happened to Snapchat.

Re: end the monetary system, abandon ownership, open source all knowledge.

That's essentially communism, though. The human condition doesn't allow for true communism on a large scale.

Re: Implementing his solution via tax policy? Dream on...

But we already know their response: move their operations to smaller countries that can operate on lower expenses and can therefore predate larger countries with lower tax rates. Your idea would just accelerate that process. Remember, it's cheaper for them to weasel their way around taxes than to actually pay them. Probably will always be that way, meaning it's going to be damn hard to get them to pay anything worthwhile. Same is true of anyone of importance, as they'll just switch to untaxable methods of payment.

But without patent protection, how will innovators protect their inventions without them being copycatted?

As for nonphysical patents, the solution there is not to ban them but to shorten them to reflect the speed of their pertinent industries. Protecting a nonphysical patent for, say, only two or three years can be a good middle ground: long enough to still encourage innovation but not so long as to stifle it.

Re: He is correct

But consider this. The current AT&T and Verizon both came about through the RE-merging of the various Baby Bells that were created from the breakup of the original AT&T. The point is, mergers and acquisitions are a natural course of business since with size comes scale and integration that smaller companies can't do. And there's no way to predict how much is too much, so the end result is that any serious breakup just starts coming back together again, around any laws that get in their way.

Re: The river of progress

But what if Google and the like aren't a boulder but a crevasse? You can't flow around a sheer crack in your path, and since water always flows DOWN, there's no natural way to the other side anymore.

Another possibility is a dam: a huge one capable of stopping even the river of progress such that even if it builds enough to go over the top, everything behind it would've been flooded to ruin in the interim.

Re: Can you think of ONE bit of positive reporting on Google?

"4. Android STILL lets you set up a phone to install applications "not from the store""

But they DON'T allow you to designate any other "trusted" repository other than Google. Meaning repos like F-Droid and independent apps like Amazon have to take roundabout approaches to updating themselves and so on.

"5. Search engine has "privacy mode" if you want it."

ONLY because it's paper-thin and they're able to glean as much as they need simply from the search request itself (which is baseline HTTP and therefore impossible to avoid; no scripts means NoScript won't save you). I suspect Facebook takes the same approach to its buttons, able to glean much just from the baseline request.

"6. google drive/docs gives you free storage and (user-based) file sharing for limited online storage that's a fairly large capacity (last I checked). businesses can pay extra for business-related cloud storage stuff."

But that means they get carte blanche on your data. Same with Gmail.

Re: JohnFen Never going to happen.

ONLY when it's convenient for them to honey up to the US government. Look what happened in China; conditions got too hostile so Google bailed out of there. Google is approaching Sprawl levels of power, becoming transnational and almost sovereign unto itself, able to persuade, threaten, and in the extreme leave a country that won't help them, taking their jobs and tax revenues with them (10% of something versus 100% of nothing).

Re: Yes kudos on "faecebook"

Put it this way. Think of the business world like a poker tournament. At some point, someone gets a big lead and can use that lead to bully everyone else off the table unless the opponent gets lucky ("Next Big Thing" paradigm shifts like Facebook); what's barely a decimal point to them becomes all-in do-or-die for you.

Net neutrality nonsense: Can we, please, just not all lose our minds?

Well, they're trying to make it permanent so that, even if more neutrality-minded people replace them, they'll be powerless to actually change it.

"There is a reason that so many people are "cord-cutting," jettisoning their cable packages and moving to streaming, and this comment of Kieren's hand-waves it completely. Life under Big Cable already was a dystopian nightmare; now it's going to be one with government support."

Except you forget the wireless providers are no saints, either. Consider the data caps. I've yet to see a wireless provider state in writing that their service has no limits other than purely physical ones.

Re: Winning which argument?

"Dehumanizing the people who run the ISP's doesn't constitute a legitimate argument for NN."

As the saying goes, "Whatever works." And touching nerves ans stoking fears works.

Re: Posturing

"In many of these 'debates' what happens is various people take a relatively extreme position and toss accusations of perfidious actions against the others. In reality, the ideal policy is probably a 'half-a-loaf' for both sides but neither are willing to actually talk."

Part of the problem is that the increasing number of "echo chambers" is causing extreme viewpoints to be reinforced, justifying the perspectives and making them unlikely to waver because now they have "proof" they were right all along. It's reinforced delusion that seeps into fundamental identities, meaning challenging viewpoints are turned into existential threats.

Re: Not a broadcasting issue

Until the powerful usurp the government, which is what's happening now. Then we're basically screwed because there's no escape anymore.

Re: the reason for insanity

More, specifically, FEAR wins, especially PRIMAL fear. And since it's instinctive, it's also hard to shake off.

Re: Not a broadcasting issue

But the thing is, more public information is being transmitted over PRIVATE media (local channels, for example), thus the FCC has to step in with things like local carry obligations; otherwise, we'll just have the DSS "regular antenna" mess again. KISS sounds fine until you remember the GIlded Age.

Problem is that it's not the government that builds the last mile (not that many Americans trust the government to get it right), plus there's the major issue of rural coverage (particularly bad in the US given its geography). Plus the major ISPs have enough clout to influence the government itself, just like Big Oil (think "better 10% of something than 100% of nothing").

Pro tip: You can log into macOS High Sierra as root with no password

"Ubuntu & derivatives. No password but root logins disabled. You're supposed to use sudo and re-enter your own password so if you're in sudoers and someone gets your password they've got root. Wonderful. I don't often use Ubuntu these days."

Wouldn't they have enough access under similar systems since the group that would include sudo'ers here would likely be the ones with significant group access otherwise? At least with sudo it's like UAC, the high-level access isn't on all the time.

PS. sudo doesn't have to be root. You can sudo as other users, too, with their own access restrictions. Again, this creates a temporary privilege escalation, but one you can control better.

PSS. The sudoers file is also how users can be restricted using sudo, even regarding the root privilege. So instead of it being an all-or-nothing thing like su, it can be turned into a tuned ACL.

'Treat infosec fails like plane crashes' – but hopefully with less death and twisted metal

Re: Nothing Like A Plane Crash

I think your idea is physically impossible. For a flying squad to be that effective, they'll need response times in MINUTES, not hours (by which time by most measures the hackers have already dug in too deep to remove). Fact is, reaction times are just impossibly slow (by the times symptoms appears, it's usually already too late), and proactive measures won't help against determined and/or resourced adversaries capable of playing perfect imposter. It's much like arriving late to a suicide bombing; after the fact, there's little to be done but pick up the pieces.

Re: Economics is the problem

What I'M saying is that this is a subject where there's no middle ground. Either NO attention is paid to it...or ALL EYES are on it, and it all hinges on a crisis. While nothing happens, it's an "out of sight, out of mind" issue to the average user. Then it starts killing people and it pushes everyone's panic button. There's unfortunately no real way to reach a middle ground that the average person can comprehend.

Linus Torvalds on security: 'Do no harm, don't break users'

Re: Security

Two problem.

One, the government itself wants the info, and fat chance getting them to limit their own abilities. Far more likely they'll enact enabling legislation, and since ALL sides want it, good luck getting in a government that will do anything to stop it.

Two, foreign sovereignty can get in the way. How do you enforce such a law are in the servers where the practice is allowed, if not mandated on penalty of prison?

You mean Google updated its smartwatch OS and nobody noticed?

But it also can't be used on a PIN pad meaning you could leave most of your wallet at home.

PS. That said, not at current asking prices. Plus I'm leery of the built-in battery. I wish there was a law mandating that all rechargeable batteries be removable for safety reasons.

Don't shame idiots about their idiotically weak passwords

Or they simply have terrible memories and couldn't remember a mnemonic, let alone a PIN or safe combination, to save their lives. I've yet to see a system that is effective for people with REALLY BAD memories: such that "correcthorsebatterystaple" easily becomes "donkeyenginepaperclipwrong" or any of a million other permutations they constantly get mixed up.

iPhone X Face ID fooled again by 'evil twin' mask

Re: Obligatory

I would think the masochist would mash his own face and fingers. Meanwhile, the wimp's face will likely become too ashen and his fingers too cold (low blood pressure) to be taken as genuine.