Posts by Charles 9

Re: Only retail copies of Win7 and Win8 are eligible.

Well, given that Win7 was preselling at $49—for a retail box—there may be more eligible copies out there than you think.

Re: Tin Foil is tha answer to the question @theodore

I recall that bit of regulation. Under FCC rules, a device cannot emit EM radiation such that it interferes with another device, nor can it reflect EM energy coming from outside (it must absorb or shunt the energy, to its detriment if need be; it's part of the same rule). Thing is, while metal shields were great for EM protection (both blocking internal radiation and shunting external radiation), it also attracted heat, another Bad Thing for electronics. IINM, the Commodore 128 suffered heat issues due to its EM shield.

The Cuban Missile Crisis happened too quickly for the clock to be reset. It was basically over in a matter of days, and the rate of the clock's change spans years per shift.

The closest the clock's been is two 'til. That was in 1953 when both the US and USSR tested H-bombs.

"Using the MVVM pattern, the front-end is entirely separate from the logic which is entirely separate from the data storage/online API/whatever."

The problem is that they can interrelate in fundamental ways. IOW, the front-end may force you to alter the logic. Same for the storage since an online app may have to cope with lack of online availability and so on.

IOW, the desktop and mobile ecosystems may not have as much in common as developers would like to believe, and the end result is that it may be better to think of them as separate worlds altogether.

Re: remote admin

Not if you use a drive-by attack to set up a proxy connection between you and the router from the inside. Also, many routers have demonstrated exploits that can expose the admin console to the WAN side.

Re: Header noise

I suspect Verizon is savvy enough to be able to authenticate its real token via phone-specific information and be able to easily scrub the false ones. The length of the key is indicative of a hash value which could be derived from your phone's identity plus a secret key of Verizon's. About the only way to avoid Verizon's tagging is to use a VPN or not use Verizon, which may not be an option for, say, businesses under contract and so on. And with a pro-business Congress in session, there will be no relief from the government on this.

Re: Words, words, words

"The reason hgih-speed broadband is so crappy in New York City - and especially Manhattan - is very simple: Time Warner Cable is a de facto monopoly for Broadband Internet. There is zero competition - unless you count Verizon's crappy FiOS which is even worse than TWC's Cable Broadband."

You just contradicted yourself. You mentioned Verizon (and I was expecting this since one-half of Verizon was GTE). FiOS is supposed to be Fiber To The Premises: just about as good as you can get in terms of consumer broadband. I have that available where I live, and the quality is excellent enough to make it a viable competitor to the cable company. Yet you denounce this supposedly top of the line as "crappy". That indicates something is interfering with the quality of FiOS where you live, and I have to suspect it's the infrastructure.

Which goes to my point about no implosion demolition. Manhattan has been dug up so many times there's no telling what's underneath you. Meaning disturbing the ground can result in unintended consequences, and this also goes to getting right of way and especially digging permissions. Meaning Verizon is probably having a hard time putting down all the fiber it needs for good FiOS service (my location, not nearly so built up, was much easier to transition).

GPS accuracy drops when the sky's blocked, and the engine can be disengaged from the drivetrain (neutral/clutch up) which requires access to the tachometer to know. Also, what if the speedometer's not calibrated right?

Re: Let's make more fun of it, it's just our lives at stake

But a SMART unjust ruler remembers to keep nipping opposition in the bud. Sure, there can be a clash or two, but as long as they're too small to deal with, they're under control. Put it this way. They have the overwhelming force, you don't. And they're willing to send it your way and salt the earth if you blink the wrong way. Syria's still not overthrown, and no one's figured out how to deal with Boko Haram, who seems to not care what anyone else thinks; they'll just wipe you out if they don't like you, and they're savvy enough to keep themselves in places where overwhelming force leads to unacceptable collateral damage. I mean, how do you deal with an opposition with lots of force and no scruples?

Re: The horse bolted the stable long ago!

How broad are these commercial codes in terns of vocabulary and the ability to convey diverse or voluminous information if necessary? How efficient are they as in how much cover material is needed to conceal the ciphertext without it being seen as suspicious?

Re: I dont believe the spam problem will ever be solved.

So if you get a legitimate but unannounced e-mail from someone, they're screwed since e-mail is the only way they can get the message through?

Re: Confession as evidence

In many other places, the confession is admissible but only as circumstantial evidence: taken with a grain of salt. Barring it being part of a guilty plea, it's usually up to the prosecution to support the testimony with more reliable evidence.

Re: Build the test track between Houston and Dallas

The gamble is that it will cost less than the existing technology whose price tags make many voters blanch. And just to prove himself, this test isn't supposed to be government supported, so it's being done at little to no taxpayer cost.

All I can say at this point is, "Good luck. I suspect you'll need it."

Re: If my memory serves me right...

Two reasons. One, Steam has its own content distribution system separate and apart from any Linux package manager (and well predates Steam on Linux, for that matter). Second, game updates can be very piecemeal, particularly when the update concerns game content rather than program code, so Valve recently updated its content system to reflect this. It reduces update package sizes most of the time: a kind consideration for people with limited bandwidth allotments.

Re: cable companies

What goes wrong is that then the smaller communities can't get wired up since this is usually the only way they CAN get wired up, due to the poor return on investment.

IOW, better crappy Internet than NO Internet.

Re: Numpty Scrub

You're not bargain hunting enough if $160 is the lowest you're getting for a used 360 with 250GB hard drive. A little bargain hunting showed me price points closer to $100. Plus you've focused on two games with relatively simple graphics. If you were to give your systems something more demanding like, say, FF13 or GTA5, I think the differences in architecture will probably become more profound. Meanwhile, my point still stands in regards to the current generation. And just to be sure, I also checked Steam Machines, none of which can match the price/spec combination of either the PS4 or XB1.

Re: So what the world needs is more TOR exit nodes.

Trouble is, just about any place you could put a TOR exit node has a snoopy government ready to demand access. If it isn't the US or UK, it's Russia, China, or whomever else is in charge.

"For the supersimian, OpenVPN is still free if memory serves and has a free Android & IOS app"

Any host not owned by you is likely to be backdoored by whoever government runs the country the server's hosted in. As for making your own, that can be tricky. I'd love to use the one built into my home router, but it only supports TAP mode, and TAP support on Android 4 and up is only possible through a convoluted method that, frankly, doesn't work yet with the router.

JAMMING is against FCC rules. SHUNTING (which is what the Faraday cage does) is not.

The difference is that the former is an active method that involves flooding the airwaves with garbage. Since that has inevitable knock-on effects, doing that has been considered bad radio behavior since the tuned circuit was invented. And the FCC takes a firm stance that you're not allowed to interfere with anyone else's radio business without government sanction (and they usually reserve those for emergencies).

The latter is completely passive and, so long as it's only applied on a person's property, reflects a stance of the owner and doesn't usually affect anything outside the shunt. About the only exception I could see is if such a shunt stands between you and the transmitter.

Re: pouring billions into US broadband infrastructure ...@ Charles 9

Probably because the municipal government wouldn't agree to an exclusive agreement. That's part of the problem.

Re: Not new

"This solution just seems to systemically embed the generally ambivalent prevailing social attitude towards genuine privacy and security. People don't value what they have in meatspace and aren't bothered about ensuring it online."

IOW, you hit the meatbag problem, "How do you educate people who don't care yet can threaten you with their imcompetence?"

Re: I'm more interested in the geopolitics of it

That's probably because coal mines aren't exactly the cleanest or most neighborly of industries. Just ask Buffalo Creek, West Virginia.