Posts by Wilhelm Lindt

Unjustifiable

"As for the landlords, the advantages to a smartphone app system are significant. They no longer have to swap out locks when tenants leave, or worry about getting their keys back. They can block tenants who fail to pay their rent. Building owners can get a log of entry into and out of their building and so, potentially, improve security and don't have to worry about lost keys."

Surprising to find El Reg trying to make the landlord's case for smart locks, when all those advantages are possible with an old-fashioned proximity card lock.

Tenants should be able to beat this landlord strictly on the basis of the app's T&C's, which that landlord has no right to impose as a condition of tenancy.

Break stuff

Linus changed the value of HZ and broke all kinds of stuff in the process, to show developers that their assumptions were bad. Why not now?

The "0day robot" has nothing to do with 0days

Strange as it may seem, none if its tests have anything to do with security.

https://01.org/lkp/documentation/0-day-test-service

Beancounters

More than one engineer at JetBlue must have said, "Hey, let's not put all our critical operational infrastructure into one data center."

But the beancounters won.

Not really Verizon's fault, in the end.

Acronyms

Berkeley Internet Name What? El Reg botches another DNS story.

"Penta-core"? Come on, El Reg.

The secrecy of a steganographic technique is not important if the encoded data is also encrypted.

"But the new Viewsonic Viewad 10e may be the exception"

Viewsonic ViewAd? Sounds about right.

How can this article be complete without mentioning the United States? China, Iran, India, and Pakistan are easy targets because their rulers don't stage photo ops at the Twitter offices. But the USA seizes domain names without due process, stages helicopter raids on mansions in foreign countries, and more, just to shut down web sites. Breaking the law to protect commercial interests in the USA is no more just than protecting royal interests in Thailand.

DNStards

I don't think The Register has published a single article on DNS that wasn't embarrassingly ill-informed. Add this one to the list. Is domaintools.com the only way El Reg knows how to look up a domain? Their capitalization is dictionary-based and has nothing to do with the actual registration.

What's really going on here

Verizon: "Our goal is an Internet policy framework that ensures openness and accountability."

FCC: "Freedom and openness of the Internet for consumers and entrepreneurs"

Is Verizon saying we need more "accountability" on the Internet? That sure matches up with Eric Schmidt's "true anonymity is too dangerous." Meanwhile the FCC is only looking out for the "consumers and entrepreneurs" when they're consuming and producing. What about the Internet as a free platform for all kinds of innovation outside the consumption bubble? Lots of slippery language from all sides, but none of the players here are denying their desire for Internet to become a controlled platform centered on commerce.

Guess what, people? The producers and consumers are not going to save the world. Personal freedom, good communication, and de-financialization will save us. Pushing the Internet even an inch towards the direction of cable TV is idiocy — just more of the same authoritarian nonsense spreading like bacteria into life these days. Are you smart enough to understand this and buck the trend, Google?