Posts by JohnFen 5648 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Feb 2015
"The fully automated McDs may be a horrifying vision or a utopian ideal"
While I consider McDonald's to be pretty much an "emergency restaurant" (that is, I'll eat there if I'm hungry and have no other options) and so I'm not representative of McDonald's customers, I already hate the amount of automation they current have (particularly those horrid kiosks). Any more and it won't even be my emergency restaurant.
"the pin pitch on those things in tiny and needs specialist kit and skills to replace."
To a small degree. The "specialist kit" needed is a hot air rework station, and the skills needed aren't really that hard to learn. BGA chips can be a bit of a pain, but it is something that a dedicated hobbyist can do.
Surface mount chips that aren't BGA are often even easier to solder/desolder than through-hole chips.
"most companies up until now have made remote workers independent contractors just to limit their liability."
But are they really independent contractors, or are the companies doing this just fudging a bit in order to reduce their costs? If the company is setting the work hours, providing the equipment, and forbidding the "contractors" from doing similar work for other companies (among other things), then they aren't really independent contractors no matter what the company may claim.
(I'm talking generally, not about the California ruling)
"it's your network, you can block the IPs of the DoH servers"
Yeah, good luck with that. Anybody, including attackers, can easily set up their own DoH server and use that. Trying to block DoH servers via IP is a game of whack-a-mole that requires you to constantly monitor your router logs in order to suss them out.
"It is only a (theoretical) blow to security/privacy for technically competent users"
I disagree. DoH opens a hole that allows software to be able to phone home without the users being able to detect or control that. That's why it's forced me to MITM all HTTPS connections in my home network, so I can manage DNS.
"And such users are smart enough to flip the configuration switch to 'off'."
That doesn't solve the problem, because the problem is that DoH is effectively a standard. How any particular piece of software uses it, or the controls that software provides, is not relevant to the problem.
But this is all academic at this point. The damage is done.
"if Cloudflare "turns evil" no doubt Firefox would switch their default"
I'm not so sure about that, to be honest.
"Firefox is starting out non-evil in their DoH implementation"
In my view, DoH itself is, while not exactly evil, a blow to security and privacy regardless of how its implemented in Firefox.
"We may still understand your location using things like check-ins, events and information about your internet connection"
Understand your location sounds a lot friendlier than the more accurate determine your location.
Facebook is a detestable company. I genuinely wonder how people can stomach working for them.
Advertising really does influence people's behaviors. If it didn't, then it wouldn't be a multbillion dollar business.
The irony is that a lot of people will claim it doesn't work on them -- but statistically speaking, people who believe that tend to be even easier to influence through advertising than those who don't.
I agree that everyone should vote. Whether or not it makes a difference (and I think it does, although not as much of one as it should) is irrelevant. Voting is one of the most basic responsibilities that comes with citizenship.
As the old saying goes, "voting may not make any difference, but it's essential that you do it anyway."
"If you've done this much then you've the right to bitch and complain and rail against those in power"
We differ here, though. Everyone has that right whether or not they vote. Also, this line of thinking lets people off the hook too easily -- they can just say "OK, then, I won't bitch", which just makes things worse.
"blocking *ALL* ads, however innocent"
And how are people supposed to be able to tell which ads are "innocent" and which aren't? Without the ability to determine that, blocking everything seems a reasonable response.
Personally, I don't block ads as such. I block Javascript and references to external sites (to block beacons) instead, because I don't object to the ads, I object to the tracking. That doing this also blocks almost all ads is just a side-effect, and one that I'm not concerned about in the least.
The ad industry brought this on themselves by spending years (and a lot of money and effort) being evil. They (and websites that inflict that industry on us) can suck it.
"these should be forbidden from getting your 'agreement' by adding something to their T&Cs (that few read and fewer can understand)."
This. I don't think that a reasonable argument can be made that a few lines in terms & conditions or a privacy policy can count as "informed consent".
"Walk a few miles in those weary shoes and see if you'd make the same moral choice when balanced against your families well being."
I have! The couple of times when companies I've worked for have required me to do things that I felt were bad for customers or society at large, I've quit those jobs. Temporary disruption and hardship while looking for a replacement job is a small price to pay in order to avoid doing unethical things or otherwise becoming part of the problem.
"We are getting something for it, and google maps / earth / books / search / gmail and all other "free" stuff (ah, yes, that android thingy too) is this something."
In that case, I'm getting nothing from it as I don't use any of those things. So why should I have to be spied on as well?
"advertisers know probably more about me than my wife, do I care about that? No not really."
Cool, then you don't have to worry about these issues.
A lot of people (including myself) do care, though. Whether or not anyone has suffered direct harm (and how could such a thing be shown either way?) is irrelevant.
The relevant point is that if data about me or my machines is being collected about me without my fully informed consent, then I'm being spied on. I object to being spied on. I wouldn't be happy with some company installing cameras in house to watch me, either, even if they never otherwise harmed me by doing so. Would you?
I honestly don't care about getting updates at all, mostly because I don't consider these devices to be even close to adequately secure whether or not they have the latest updates (and often, these updates bring their own additional security problems, not to mention often unwanted functionality additions/changes).
So I already have to engage in strenuous additional methods to make things reasonably secure on mobile devices anyway, rendering the need to have the very latest security updates less important.
"where's the harm in letting wealthy people buy them, and thus pay for a chunk of the R and D, if they choose?"
There is none, and speaking personally, if people want to buy something like this at that price point, more power to them! It's their money. I will, however, continue to laugh at them, much like I laugh whenever I see someone spend a lot of money on flash.
"Which gives the impression that those people who took the course a year or two ago have knowledge that is now obsolete."
Only if your interest is purely in producing products. In terms of actually learning a field, though, there's no such thing as "obsolete". Everything that was taught on this topic years ago is still stuff that you would want to learn and doesn't become a waste of time.
In a fast changing field, though, you also need to do what everyone in the software industry has always needed to do -- continually update your knowledge and skills. That doesn't mean that what you learn at a university isn't valuable.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
