Posts by Charles 9 16605 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
"Well, those "hatters gonna hate" dudes (and dudettes)(let's call them "sickos" for brevity) have to obtain funding, training, shelter... . "
Well, the Islamic State doesn't seem to be having any difficulty getting men, material, or money. And all for a "Caliphate or Catastrophe" mission, it seems.
"Outside of the "5 eyes" the amount of "slurping, snooping and pooping" by the rest of the world is minuscule in comparison."
I don't recall Russia or China being part of the 5 Eyes, yet we KNOW they have Big Brother ambitions.
"Where countries have signed and ratified international treaties they are expected to be bound by those treaties. So in theory governments have to also answer to those treaties that they have signed up for. In practice the powerful countries have trampled on the sovereign rights of weak countries, and at the same time disregard the international laws to which they have signed."
Those treaties are between sovereign states. And like I said, most of these come after the two-plus countries end up butting heads with each other over some issue. What actually enforces those treaties is the threat of retaliation from the other party. Finally, as noted, the treaty has to be ratified or otherwise accepted by the sovereign state to have any force (IOW, it has to submit to the agreement. And what happens if a country decides to withdraw from or otherwise ignore a treaty as ink on a page?
"Also, the more times the subject gets mentioned, the more chance that Joe Public will realise there is a problem."
But there's a chance of a backfire. Mention it enough times and Joe Public, just interested in the nightly news and the football game (whichever form it may take), will tune it out and ignore it the next time it's heard. Cry Wolf Syndrome I think it's called?
Which is just a load of hot air because all the governments involved carry sovereign power. They are each their own highest authority so answer to no one except another sovereign nature, and only if they butt heads. The UN does not have sovereign authority, and if it did it would by definition usurp sovereign power from everyone else.
IOW, trying to tell a sovereign power what to do is like dictating terms to the landlord.
Only trouble is some of the plods aren't stupid. They'll just turn around and go, "OK, now give us the other password. You know, the one that reveals where the REAL contraband is located." Which poses a problem if you're honestly NOT using a hidden volume.
In an office environment, perhaps cell tech isn't what's called for. WiFi-based tech is and will remain the preferred setup for closed environments (like an office floor). You can set up masts, boosters, and so on, link it to your landline, set up enterprise-grade encryption, certificates, and so on, and with some investment in time and capital come up with something within reason that can perhaps give you a return on not having to run cables and conduits from the drop ceiling.
While 5G may WANT to do everything, to borrow an idiom, not everything is best done with a hammer.
"What do you mean? You can use PS3 and PS4 controllers on Android devices."
Last I checked, not without some fiddling, compatibility is not guaranteed, plus if you don't have a Sony phone, you have to pay for the Sixaxis interface app (and it only works on rooted phones). You tend to have better luck with Wiimotes or a dedicated gamepad (they make Bluetooth gamepads with built-in cradles for your phone, and they're not too expensive, either).
Actually, nearly 20 years ago I was able to preserve a lot of C64 and C128 data I had by shuttling the data from the C128 to a nearby 486 using modems and a phone cable. Okay, it was slow and tedious at 1200bps using Xmodem, but at least it worked.
As for the Mac HFS format, I recall there are Windows programs capable of reading them since around 1995.
"And as before, the real benefit to having memory cards in those sizes is that they fit into the current generation of electronics. If electronics continue to shrink physically, then we may get to the point where even microSD cards are too big and it's unlikely that we'll reverse course and electronics will get larger."
Except, as the article notes, we're approaching the physical limit of just how small we can pack these things. Think why the device is 200GB and not (as tradition would dictate) 256GB. So IOW we're reaching the point where they couldn't make it smaller even if they wanted to. So an about-face may be forced upon an industry clamoring for more portable storage.
"8GB memory card as 8GB with 8GB capacity which I can use to put 8GB of data on. Windows shows the same card incorrectly as 7.4GB when it actually means 7.4GiB."
I've always been of the impression that ANY capacity listed on a package is listed as its RAW capacity (that is, the capacity prior to formatting). After-formatting capacity cannot be used because reformatting it under a different filesystem can change the overhead (and thus the amount of free space on the device afterward).
As for the Windows under-reporting the size, I actually appreciate this since I prefer conservative measurements when calculating "Will It Fit?"
Actually, in the SSD sphere, reliability is a key metric, so the manufacturers use more conservative tech and include better redundancy to ensure the SSD lasts for a while. They also include stuff to better manage heat. SSDs are expected to keep running for years, even when at full tilt. Do we expect the same from a high-capacity MicroSD card? I know with my phone I only employ the external SD occasionally.
" it DOESN'T MATTER what bills you pass to undo this, the President owns your ass!"
Unless the Republicans find a way to cajole or blackmail enough Democrats to side with them on an override. OR they attach the proviso to a must-sign bill such as a debt ceiling increase or (like yesterday) a DHS funding bill. If they can achieve the former (odds are slim; if they tried, the Democrats would likely counter), then Obama's powerless. Achieving the latter would put him in a bind, especially if the bill is time-sensitive: he must either sign the bill with the rider or veto it and cause a shutdown which the GOP will harp about.
"In principle, the threat to the free market is that municipalities will operate the local ISP at a loss, subsidizing it with tax revenues and precluding or destroying competition by private sector companies."
Can not a conglomerate or other large firm be able to perform similar chicanery by using excess revenues from captive markets to offset any losses due to predatory pricing in competitive markets? That's a big problem upstarts have against incumbents: the incumbents can leverage their size to smother the competition.
Maybe not in ISPs, but I'll give you two concrete examples of the state taking an industry away from the private sector: Police and Firefighting. The reason for both industries were the same: private enterprise found it more lucrative to turn them into protection rackets ("Shame what could happen to your business, eh...?")
IOW, there are somethings for which money is NOT the best angle. When it isn't, then it's a possible thing for the state to run because the state isn't as concerned about money as private enterprise. And the "overhead" we lose becomes the price we pay for, say, a guaranteed minimum level of service.
Actually, it's closer to all or nothing than you think. If it ain't one thing recording you, it's another, and you have no control over what happens in public streets where it's a free-for-all. Heck, thanks to satellites and aerial photography, they can even take multiple pictures (including infrared) of a mountain retreat miles from any electricity. So no, retreating to the mountains is becoming less viable of an option.
I've tried WD Live, but its format support isn't up to snuff and its upscaler is the pits. I'd be more inclined to use one of those newer Pi' 2s to install Kodi (I tried it with the original B, but even with 2.1A backing it up it couldn't seem to remain stable; perhaps the stronger 2 can better handle it).
In the late 90's, QIC-based tape drives were actually within reach in the consumer sphere. I once had a Travan TR-3 drive from a brand called Eagle. For their day, they could hold a decent amount of data, and some clever folks found ways to extend the capacity with oversized cartridges. Shame tape niched into pretty much an enterprise-only affair (which this new device does nothing to fix).
Two counterpoints:
a) If you note my icon, I was playing Devil's Advocate. Playing along with the hypothetical scenario.
b) As recent open-source snafus have shown, open-source is no panacea. And as Stuxnet has noted, not everyone at the TLA agencies are stupid (it's not everyday someone can design a malware that can jump an air gap in a high-security setting). If someone were really clever, they can hide the malware code in plain sight, perhaps by (1) breaking the whole works down into a gestalt of tine little pieces scattered all over the code and (2) disguising each piece as an innocuous if not serious feature.
"American consumers pay more for internet access (and slower access at that) than virtually any industrialized and many non-industrialized countries."
The thing about Internet access is that it costs money to lay down cable. Therefore, geography matters. In case you haven't noticed, the US not only has hundreds of millions of people but is also pretty damn big: near the top of the list in terms of sheer land area. Off the top of my head, only Canada and Russia are bigger, and I don't hold their internet standards as paragons of quality, either.
"Really? I suppose that's why gasoline prices tend to fluctuate at gas/petrol stations that are across the street from each other, and never go up or down in unison...uhhh, wait a minute...."
That's mostly down to "gentlemen's agreements" between gas stations that sit on corners of the same intersection. Otherwise, you end up with one loss leading incident turning into a price war which can ruin ALL the gas stations.
I think the main reason they won't make the text public is that, should it be made public, the GOP lawmakers will find SOMETHING in the text that will give them enough gristle to either (a) invoke some part of the Telecommunications Act that DOESN'T require a presidential signature or (b) pass it along to big Telecom so they can start suing in in half the Federal Circuit Courts, thus giving precedence to get the vote blocked indefinitely. Once the vote takes place, momentum favors the FCC instead because Congress then can't overrule the FCC without a full Act: requiring Obama's signature, plus even if the telecoms sue, the odds of an injunction are now unlikely unless there is a full ruling which isn't a certainty since the FCC can easily argue (especially thanks to VoIP) that the Internet can and must be treated like a telephone company.
You just hit a HARD problem in computer security. It basically boils down to a question of "Who can you trust?" Because the first rule to having ANY form of trust system (chain, web, et al) is the need to trust someone or something; IOW, someone has to play the role of Trent. Only problem is, given sufficient resources, Mallory (or Gene) can impersonate anyone: including Trent. So ask yourself, "What now?"
"-3 day battery life (good for relieving me of battery anxiety)"
This may clash with one of your other requests:
"-fits in my child-like hand more easily than the last one but the screen's still big enough"
The only ways, physically, for the screen to be the same size yet fit your hand better are to (1) reduce the bezel and (2) thin the phone out, but (2) means you can't put in the big battery you really need to have a 3-day practical working life.
"-easier to read in sunlight than the last (though still utter pants compared to paper)"
Again, a tradeoff. A display that's good for transmissive light (ie. backlight) is generally bad for reflective light (ie. sunlight). While inroads into this are being made, there have generally been tradeoffs. The closest we've come to is Qualcomm's Mirasol display, as seen (albeit very briefly) in the Toq smartwatch (Where is Mirasol now?), but even that trades off night visibility to an extent.
But no one wants to be the among the 9/10 getting the shaft, doing it gradually is too slow, and many cultures still place great emphasis on children, especially when it comes to children caring for the elderly. How does an aging populace continue to live comfortably without enough children? And note, seniors tend to be active voters (they have nothing else to do), so telling them they can just go somewhere and die is a nonstarter.
Trouble is that a device driver by necessity has to go to the metal (as they are by definition the interface between the software and the hardware). Least privilege in this case IS the kernel, which should be the only thing able to go to the metal. This is why device drivers have always been a sticking point regardless of the OS.
Any device that doesn't require an absolute date simply needs to be coded to be aware of a rollover and recalculate time differences accordingly. A pretty simple yet sane way to check is if the new time has the high bit nut the old time doesn't (assuming they're signed, the new time is now negative). Unless the device literally has to consider time intervals of over 34 years, it should be safe to assume this is a rollover case, which you can still solve with an adjusted calculation.
It only gets complicated when a device must know the absolute time for clock or logging purposes AND relies on it being exactly four bytes long for alignment purposes (such as for disk I/O).
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