Posts by DerekCurrie 595 posts • joined 6 Apr 2012
Kuo has been wrong, of course. But he nailed the Apple precipice dive into ARM Macs. Considering that ill-considered move by Apple, I could believe they'd pull the boner move of yanking their wired headphones. *grumble*
This isn't Steve Jobs' Apple any more, of course. But Apple has been perfecting its methods of how to tick off customers over the course of the last four years. *sigh*
There are a few apps that can't stop tripping over their own security failures, over and over and over again. Whatsapp is one of them. I cringe when people ask me to chat using WhatsApp. I only keep the thing on my computer to make them happy. Otherwise it would join my list of verboten apps. The best current alternative is still Signal.
Another popular problem app:
Zoom. User be wary.
On Mac, FaceTime is the superior alternative.
On Windows, the battle for best alternative limps onward.
...IPv6 had been designed to be backwards compatible with IPv4!
Didn't that occur to the Internet Engineering Task Force? Why not?
Considering how popular IPv6 has not become, maybe it's time for IPv7 that IS backwards compatible with both IPv6 and IPv4?!
Internet Engineering Task Force
*Awaken*
So far, there is NO evidence that 5G can fry your baby's head. HOWEVER! The reason there is no evidence is because ALL the testing so far has been preliminary, mainly on rodents, not humans, not human baby's heads. IOW: No adequate research so far.
This leaves the possibility of 5G damage to human tissues wide open. I've ridiculously had to explain this to tech journalists I once thought were 'professionals', with references to existing, verified studies that prove cancer can and does happen in mice under specific test situations. That's a fact. Don't let ignorant people tell you otherwise. If you want the pile of reference links, it will be my pleasure. Just ask in a reply, nicely.
But any effects of 5G radiation are going to vary according to the usual FOUR FACTORS:
1) The type of radiation being emitted, specifically its wavelength or frequency. This is variable with 5G as there is no single standard wavelength used.
2) The amplitude of the radiation, akin to the volume or amount of radiation that reaches the subject of concern.
3) The length of time of exposure.
4) The sensitifity of the subject tissue to a specific type of radiation.
It may turn out that 5G radiation is as innocuous as the radio waves we've had traveling around and through us for over a century! OR, under certain circumstances, 5G may actually fry your baby's head. We still don't know.
The single best thing anyone can do is INSIST to their government that TESTING be done NOW. (Sound familiar?) Otherwise, the politicos will ignore the subject while the technical ignorami ignore science and chatter on about mere rumors.
#MyStupidGovernment, which is to say #MyConstitutionallyIlliterateGovernment is assaulting TWO US Constitutional Amendments at the same time. For those concerned:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
♪♪ You can't have one without the other! ♫
Apparently iPhones aren't any more secure, they're just more expensive.
This is an ignorant statement in may ways. But irrational Apple Hate goes on forever. And yes, Apple deserves real anger and hate for many Apple Bungles over the years. It's just that Apple has never even remotely come up to the level of Bungles and outright carelessness of Microsoft and now Google.
Q1: Are iPhones found to have malware discovered on a weekly basis, like Android malware?
A1: Of course not.
Q2: Does the iPhone suffer from OS version fragmentation like Android phones, resulting in unclosed and frequently exploited security holes?
A2: Of course not.
Q3: Considering the usable life as well as functionality of iPhones, are they more expensive than Android phones.
A3: Of course not.
Q4: Which mobile phones are most often on the cutting edge of innovation? iPhones or Android phones?
Q4: iPhones of course.
. . . And so on. I could point out battery explosions, bendable/breakable screens, IP ripoffs, user surveillance tech vs privacy, warranty service, attitude toward customers . . .
And again yes, Apple has committed plenty of blunders. Apple is never perfect. Apple is simply the best. √ Fact.
But there are fake VPNs, government corrupted VPNs, and liar VPNs amidst the crowd.
PureVPN is an example of a liar VPN. They said thet didn't keep logs of user data. Except they do and they turned that data over to the FBI upon request.
Any VPN within the Five Eyes nations is obliged to turn over user data, if they keep any, upon request. Five Eyes consists of the USA, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Recently Five Eyes has been expanding. The last I heard, there are 14 Eyes nations. Be wary.
There are nations that have no data sharing treaties with other nations. Research the current situation and use VPNs from nations not cooperating with world surveillance of the Internet.
Then there's China. Any and every VPN in China must legally fork over all user data, which by law must be kept, upon government request. As such, don't use Chinese VPNs, including those in Hong Kong and Taiwan, sad to say.
The FBI have been known to have their own man-in-the-middle surveillance hubs on the Internet within the USA for at least a decade. They don't have to rely on the NSA's data, seeing as they are known to have their own.
And yes, collection of such data without a warrant is unconstitutional.
Another source of data is every ISP (Internet Service Provider) in the USA. The Congress Republicans shoved through what is called S.J.R. 34 in 2017 that allows all ISPs to collect customer Internet use data to be saved and even SOLD by the ISP. Of course the anti-constitutional surveillance skunks love it.
Surveil me. I'm an actual patriot.
I'm sick of posting the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. So please look them up yourselves. What they provide is PRIVACY that cannot be taken away from any citizen without a legal court order, and if that doesn't provide the data, then any citizen can refuse to offer up any further data on the grounds that it may incriminate them.
What's going on is the generation of piles of lawsuits over the constitutionality of this infernal nonsense.
"...the more controversial aspects of spying laws introduced after the September 11, 2001 attacks..." <-- And we now clearly know that 9/11 was a federally enabled event on many levels. That the PATRIOT act was created in response to that act of treason is sick and demented.
Known facts of 9/11 so far: Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth
Surveil me. I'm an actual patriot.
This fits right in with the overall era of Apple Bungles that started 4 years ago. This is so incredibly stupid and easy to have fixed. Apple knows how to do this right, no question about it. That they let this slide is profoundly lazy, incompetent, irresponsible and asinine on their part.
It's long overdue for a management overhaul at Apple regarding ALL things Macintosh.
Shameful.
And yes, I'm a very long time Apple fanatic. When Apple screws up, we shout about it loud, long and clear. Dammit.
19-1/2 In X 14-1/2 In 200 Lb. Capacity Polypropylene Dolly @Harbor Freight: $13.00
"PRODUCT OVERVIEW
This mover's dolly has a solid platform for supporting furniture legs or moving narrow items. The furniture dolly is constructed from lightweight polypropylene with a ridged slip-resistant surface. Swivel casters let you move this platform dolly in all directions.
Lightweight high-impact polypropylene platform supports narrow loads
Ridged non-skid surface
Built-in hand grip for easy positioning
Two 3 in. swivel casters, two 3 in. fixed casters"
"Daming" is not a word. If it was, it would be applied to The Queen dubbing women as 'Dames' of the Empire.
And yes, ICANN is now a victim of Corporatocracy, aka the ruination of any sense of We The People in the world. It's now We The Corporations, IOW Idiocracy. The ICANN leadership system is a blatant failure that must be reinvented into something sane, fair and technologically literate.
Let's make certain these US rights aren't violated.
Meanwhile: ENCRYPT your data before it goes to the cloud. It's your right to privacy.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
--> Make a backup!
Backup 1: Local, for quick access.
Backup 2: Away from your locale, for safety.
If you backup properly and regularly, you LAUGH at ransomware, among other profound benefits.
Apparently, it's a waste of time pointing this out to 1/3 of computer users. (o_0)
If you don't backup, you get what you deserve. --> You should not be using a computer. You're not qualified. Seriously.
#MyStupidGovernment @work.
Check this out and realize...
The FBI Got Data From A Locked iPhone 11 Pro Max—So Why Is It Demanding Apple Unlock Older Phones?
IASSOTS
#MyStupidGovernment @work.
Check this out and realize...
The FBI Got Data From A Locked iPhone 11 Pro Max—So Why Is It Demanding Apple Unlock Older Phones?
IASSOTS
"Apple has made it clear that they can and will change the underlying architecture at any time, and they're only going to provide backwards compatibility for a short time."
13 years of supporting 32-bit software on 64-bit hardware is hardly a 'short time.' Note the introduction of Core Duo Macs in late 2006.
List of Macintosh models grouped by CPU type
"...Everyone knows by now that the next move is to ARM"
No. There is in fact no indication whatsoever that Apple has even considered the possibility of moving Macs to ARM RISC processors. There are only ragged old fabricated rumors. That rumor has been stomped to death here at The Register as well as across the rest of the Internet. The first such rumor was posted in 2013, and here we are in 2020. What Apple has done instead is hybridize the Mac with both Intel and ARM chips, each used for separate duties. Meanwhile, any graduate of Computing 101 knows the tremendous time, difficulty, inconvenience, expense and licensing that would be required for Apple to ditch CISC based Intel chips for RISC ARM chips. (Please don't ask me to go over the raft of details again. You'll find them prolifically posted on the net since 2013).
We still have another year of infamous Adobe Flash to endure. When Apple began in 2007 to move from using old PowerPC RISC based Carbon code to Cocoa code for programming in Mac OS X, Adobe dragged their feet upgrading until 2010. Have no tears for Adobe going 64-bit. All new Mac hardware went 64-bit at the end of 2006. Adobe has dragged its feet catching up with 64-bit for 13 (thirteen) years.
Of course you posted anonymously. I have no idea what you're talking about. I bet you don't either. Below is are links to Apple's Open Source pages where anyone can find what open source projects Apple sponsors as well as which are integrated into Apple's software.
https://opensource.apple.com
https://developer.apple.com/opensource/
Swift programming language, created at Apple as a successor to all things C, made Open Source in 2015:
https://opensource.apple.com
Webkit is Apple's Open Source branch off Linux's Konquerer web rendering engine. It's the foundation of Google's subsequent branch, Blink, used in all flavors of Chromium, including Microsoft Edge:
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/DisplayWebContent/DisplayWebContent.html
CUPS is the Open Source printing system developed and maintained by Apple for all flavors of UNIX-like operating systems, which includes Linux.
https://www.cups.org
ResearchKit...
CareKit...
Bonjour...
MacPorts...
Darwin...
Apple Lossless Audio Codec...
MacRUBY...
XQuartz...
That's enough to negate your nonsense. But please continue through the lists Apple provides at the links above. macOS itself currently integrates about 200 Open Source projects.
IOW: Skip it for now. Apple's having similar problems with iOS 10.13 as well, which still has significant bugs, despite Apple's rapid updating.
All in all, this has been the worst Autumn of new Apple OS updates in several years. They are clearly overwhelmed with problems. If only they took beta-testing seriously, which I contend from personal experience they have not. The result is forced beta-testing by their users, a horrific abuse of user's patience. Stay out of the fray until Apple's latest OS update cycle is actually Ready for Prime Time.
Please wake up and keep up Apple.
This core FAILure of Object-Oriented coding has been blatant and well known for decades. O-O turned into Uh Oh!
If you pull code you didn't write from anywhere and stuff it in with your own, expect problems. That's the lesson of Object-Oriented coding. And of course, there is the usual litany of why this is the case:
1) Inadequate Coding Tools and languages.
2) Code-By-Committee, which is the default these days for mammoth projects, with consequential incoherence.
3) Code complexity beyond the comprehension of any single human.
4) Poor or no code documentation. This is commonly for the sake of the usual short term thinking of profit over code quality.
5) Lack of adequate code QA.
6) Lack of vetting of incoming foreign or internal code objects. IOW blind faith.
7) . . . Add your own . . .
• Political thinking lives on a 1-Dimensional line. No wonder it promotes the most ignorant of human thought.
• Real life for all of us is 3-Dimensional, including how we think.
Crazies to the Left of me. Crazies to the Right of me. I thought for myself and walked away...
...Who knew the astroturfed 'positive' kill-net-neutrality feedback was FRAUD, I'm easily willing to bet. So much for "We The People" being in charge of our own government. FRAUD abuses the citizenry and benefits crooks.
If you can't win... CHEAT! <-- The con-job politician's motto. In this case, the con-job was perpetrated by irrational-right Republican corporate puppets.
Cut Their Strings!
Restore Real Net Neutrality NOW!
"...isn't that it 'doesn't work'. It does. Rather well, in fact."
Sorry but: No, it doesn't. Having it work rather well with your iPhone isn't translating into it working well out on the street amidst thousands of faces. I have yet to read of public facial recognition systems actually working at a level anyone would call 'competent'. Examples:
Facial recognition flunks ID test at New York City's RFK Bridge, report says
98% Failure Rates: Why Police Facial Recognition is so Terrible
Android devices: Vastly less secure. Why?
1) Devices are rarely capable of installing Android OS updates. Google's Project Treble is supposed to solve that and... Where is it?
2) Massive malware is constantly being discovered in the Google Play Store, despite Google's claims to be vetting all apps. Millions of infected devices are reported typically on a weekly basis.
3) Anyone can jailbreak any Android device. So long US constitutional rights to privacy and freedom from self-incrimination.
Thus the blessed, but never perfect, Apple iOS Walled Garden. I'll keep mine, for my purposes. You keep your public weed plot for your's.
And: Knowing rodents are capable of getting loose in Apple's walled-garden does not please me in the least. Thankfully, I've been using massive, ungainly, random passwords for years. IOW: There are still no rats in my garden. *grin*
But for $2000?
This device takes hype and 'Gee Whiz!' bleeding edge purchasing to a whole new level of bizarre and disappointment, IMHO of course. That it's a 5G mobile device adds industrial waste icing to the cake, 5G being another big disappointment of 2019.
"We tested it for 200,000 times folding and unfolding,"
So are these test subjects what they're showing as demo models? Again, fold artifacts are there to see in the demo photo (the one with the white glove, which itself accentuates the fragility of the device, IMHO). Double disappointment: 5G mobile is also not what it's hyped up to be. Let's hope both technologies mature to a state of joyful usability. So far, no.
According to the Release notes for the Undecimus jailbreak exploit from the discoverer of the security flaw, pwn20wnd, iOS 11 through iOS 12.4 are ALL vulnerable! iOS 12.3 is NOT immune. This brings into question Apple's 'patch' in iOS 12.3.
GitHub/pwn20wndstuff/Undecimus
"v3.4.1 Release... Add iOS 12.3~b1 support to the jailbreak (Verified working on iPhone 5s)"
"v3.5.4 Release... Fix instant or random reboots after jailbreaking with the SockPuppet3.0 exploit on A7-A12X devices on iOS 11.0-12.4"
Note: "iOS 11.0-12.4".
We now know that:
A) All of the foldable 'phones' are subject to screen warping. This was evident on Day 1 of the demo models being revealed inside their no-touching demo cases. We only had to bother looking at the screens after they'd been folded.
B) The marketing for the foldable 'phones' has been some of the most horrendous exaggeration ever seen in the tech industry. P.T. Barnum could not have done better, or worse.
C) The pricing may well express an approximation of the actual cost to design and manufacture the devices. But the pricing in no way represents the utility or longevity of these flimsy experiments perpetrated upon the public.
D) The only thing going for these devices at this stage is the GEE WHIZ! Factor. I see no reason why the initial RUSH of consumerist euphoria will not be swiftly followed by "I Hate This Fragging P.O.S!"
E) The foldables are guaranteed to have visibly scratched and potted screens within the first month of normal use, they are that soft.
F) The costs of return for repair and replacement of these things are going to eat their manufacturers alive, that is unless their exorbitant price already has the cost of repair and replacement included. Could be!
IOW: Pay no attention to the hollering hype. Check back in a year for possible progress.
If you disagree with my ongoing assessments of this tech, all I can say is to sit back and watch it all unfold. I'm not interested in being right. I'm interested in bad/insufficient tech staying out of the marketplace.
I say this because of our general misunderstanding of the term 'Hacking'. People typically assume there's bad software or hardware involved when someone gets their computer or cloud data 'hacked'. But there are OTHER things that get hacked as well. Again, again, again with iCloud accounts, it's PEOPLE who get hacked. It's called Social Engineering. We humans are Wetware, as opposed to software or hardware.
For ambitious avengers of wetware hacking, you can forward phishing email pretending to be from Apple to this address:
reportphishing@apple.com
Apple will then evaluate and castrate the culprits.
I've successfully installed and am running Reaper in Chrome, Chromium and Brave. I'm won't be testing other Chromium variants (such as Opera). But I expect it is safe to assume Reaper installs and runs fine with them as well. Go for it!
NOTE: With Brave you have to change the command "chrome://***" to "brave://***" when setting up and installing Reaper. The regular "chrome://" command works fine with both Chrome and Chromium.
Thank you NIST! If only the rest of my US government paid heed to your computer security recommendations!
5G is going to be a disappointment on many levels. The fact that it's signal distance is relatively tiny compared to laying fibre optical cable, that it's penetration through physical barriers is abysmal, that the cost of placing all the required repeaters in a neighborhood is expensive, that extended exposure to the 5G wavelength range has been verified to be dangerous to the health of at least mice... All of this indicates a likely bad time ahead for 5G.
Suggestion: Read the specs and studies regarding 5G and totally ignore all the marketing hype. Then wait for it to become actually available. Then read the reviews and further test results. It is by no means any kind of solution for rural Internet users unless they can get an optical cable laid to their locality.
There is a department within the US Government that sets and publishes computer security standards. They are NIST, The National Institute of Standards and Technology. You can access their vast list of publications (49205, 100 of which deal with cybersecurity) HERE:
National Institute of Standards and Technology
A couple excellent starter publications:
1) 2017 ANNUAL REPORT NIST/ITL CYBERSECURITY PROGRAM
2) Considerations for Managing Internet of Things (IoT) Cybersecurity and Privacy Risks
Sadly, few elected officials bother to read NIST's publications or adhere to their security standards advice. This is very old news. The hashtag: #MyStupidGovernment was born out of the events of 2007. Since 1998, China: Criminal Nation, was known and documented to have been hacking into US federal computers. In 2007, after nine years of hacking, my government decided to admit that every single government Windows computer exposed to the Internet had been infested with bots that sent every document on those computers to the Red Hacker Alliance of China, a hacking group that is now integrated into the Chinese military. 'Shameful' doesn't cover the damage caused by my government's cybersecurity incompetence. Even worse was China's 2013 cyber-theft of records from the OPM, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. That data included names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, financial data, family status and job descriptions of every US federal government employee, including those working for US security and intelligence services as well as those applying for security clearance. The number affected by this hack was eventually discovered to be more than 22 million people.
It consistently astounds me how computer security oblivious even the best scientists remain in our continuing Dark Age of Computing. Of course get off the Windows already! But do it because you demand better OS security! CERN inviting hackability? That's disturbing.
... of Maine's and every US citizen's concern.
This unconstitutional abomination was perpetrated in April, 2017. The Republicans went out of their way to blatantly and admittedly lie about the situation in order to shove this resolution through both the US Senate and House of Representatives. The prominent lie was that the US FCC (Federal Trade Commission) does not have jurisdiction over ISP's (Internet service provider) use of customer data. That instead it is the providence of the FTC, Federal Trade Commission. Therefore, the only the FTC can make rules regarding how ISP customer data is handled. Specifically, Tennessee Representative Marsha Blackburn was caught in this lie during the House debate on the resolution. Blackburn admitted that the FTC has no jurisdiction over ISP's collection and use of customer data and that a federal law would have to be drafted and passed in order to provide the FTC with this ability. The unconstitutional resolution passed anyway, due to the Republicans controlling both the Senate and the House at the time. (I watched the entire proceedings via C-Span).
The main result of this resolution was the allowance of ISPs to both collect any and all customer data and to both give it upon request to the US government AND to sell it to whomever they please. That is the current state of affairs in the USA.
After this resolution passed, the FTC itself has repeatedly reiterated that it has no jurisdiction over ISP's collection and use of customer data. Meanwhile, there has been no bill to provide either the FTC or the FCC with jurisdiction over ISP customer data privacy. This is considered part of ongoing contention regarding REAL Net Neutrality (vs the BS Republicans foist as "Net Neutrality"). The US government has an overall interest in keeping S.J.Res.34 in place, despite it being unconstitutional, in order to have a quick and easy source of private US citizen data for the purpose of surveillance, both legal and illegal. Note that Edward Snowden proved the NSA has been repeatedly engaged in illegal US citizen surveillance.
Here are a couple relevant links for those interested in reading and understanding S.J.Res.34:
Repeat after me, the Motto of the Corrupt Politician:
"If You Can't Win, CHEAT!"
Why is S.J.Res.34 unconstitutional? Please refer to both the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the US Constitution. Both are violated by this resolution.
Disgusting... They're trying real hard to take a large company out of business without any evidence of said company doing anything wrong.
I need to put this on a rubber stamp:
Your naïveté regarding China does not qualify you to judge this situation.
Please do your homework and research:
A) The lack of creative incentive of 'communist' countries
B) The resulting requirement to steal IP in order to catch up with creative countries
C) The stagnation of the world that results if IP robbery is allowed to continue
D) The vast and consistent Chinese surveillance of and IP robbery from the world over the past 20 years.
Everything is documented on the Internet for anyone to find, read and understand. Please catch up.
Apparently, Trump conveniently forgets that the Chinese holds US Treasury debt.
The better to get out from under China ASAP rather than make the matter worse!
Add to that the ever more encroaching consequences of the US government to stop the leftist and rightist budget busting games and keep the thing constantly balanced for a change. BOTH worthless parties are guilty of the grotesque US debt, each for their own inane reasons.
Meanwhile, whenever I discuss the consequences of US debt with anyone, the typical answer is: "We'll just print more money! Really? The consequence of that would be grotesque inflation.
It's peril all ways 'round. But the immediate imperative is to STOP China's surveillance of and robbery of the world. If you think money is a more important factor, you're delusional. In fact, the better financial future results from disconnecting China from stealing the vast IP they are incapable of creating themselves.
"Kennedy said... We would see the world split into Chinese and non-Chinese tech hemispheres."
More precisely, we would demonstrably see the world split into a stagnant Chinese tech hemisphere (for the most part) and an innovative non-Chinese tech hemisphere.
Why? Because the nature of China's current totalitarian, 'communist' government destroys incentive to create. Historically, this is the consistent and immediate result of all 'communist' governments. I know of no exceptions. If everything belongs to everyone, and the government is constantly spying on its citizens as a method control, what's the point in creating anything new? Instead, the incentive is to steal from everyone else. If that is allowed to happen, the rest of the world also adopts the attitude of what's the point in creating anything new if its only going to be stolen, resulting in minimal reward?
Of course halting the robbery of the world's creative IP is imperative in order for creativity in technology to progress. And of course the Chinese government always has a stranglehold on all of its citizens, especially technology corporations, in order for the country to catch up with the creative countries. It is absurd to assume Huawei would be any exception.
I've been following China's hacking and surveilling of the world for over a dozen years. It has been documented that China has directed hacking and surveilling the world since 1998, the year the USA provided China with 'Most Favored Nation' status. All of this documentation is available on the Internet for anyone to research, read and understand. I therefore see no point in arguing the issue. Instead, I can only suggest those who don't understand the relationship between China, its citizens, its corporations and the rest of the world please do their homework, relieving their naiveté.
And still, no doubt, there will be short-term thinkers who want short-term profit from selling to China, obvious to or uncaring of the consequences. They burn the future.
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