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Comment Re:Bad Summary, Only new part is the sharing optio (Score 5, Interesting) 487

First, we're only talking Windows 10 PHONE

ERROR: INCORRECT

First: This is in Windows 10 desktop, as detailed here, complete with screenshots: http://www.howtogeek.com/21970...

Second: Even if this were only confined to Windows Phone 10, it would still be monumentally stupid.

Comment Re:third solution the MS doesn't want to mention (Score 3, Insightful) 487

ERROR: INCOMPLETE SOLUTION

There is no provision in this "killer feature" that establishes whether the person doing the sharing is the network administrator, i.e. the person who grants authorization to use their network. So if you share your WAP credentials with a friend, and that friend uses Windows 10 with Wi-Fi Sense enabled, than that friend has just compromised your WAP.

Comment Re:No (Score 5, Informative) 487

ahhhh no, for networks you have SELECTED to share it can do it. [ ... ]

ERROR: MISLEADING.

Wi-Fi Sense's default settings are to share everything, all the time. Indeed, Microsoft's rules for shipping Windows Phone 8.1 requires OEMs to turn this "killer feature" fully on. Expecting users to have the presence of mind to turn this off is willfully disingenuous.

Submission + - Windows 10 to Share WiFi Credentials by Default?

ewhac writes: Even those of us who reflexively (and correctly) bash Microsoft every chance we get are having trouble wrapping our heads around this one. It seems that the latest build of Windows 10 has a new feature called Wi-Fi Sense which, by default, will share your WiFi connection profiles and credentials with all your Facebook friends, and Skype and Outlook.com contacts.

Wi-Fi Sense is apparently a feature that first appeared on Windows Phone 8.1, and is described by Managing Editor Sam Sabri in this Windows Central article from last year — without irony or sarcasm — as a, "killer feature." The apparent use case for this "killer feature" is to more conveniently share the connection credentials to your own WAP with your friends. If, however, you would prefer your WAP's info to not be shared, you have but to append the string "_optout" to your SSID (no solution is provided for people whose SSIDs are already near the 32-character limit). The WinPhone version of Wi-Fi Sense reportedly does not display the WAP's password to recipients but, since recipients can connect, the password is (probably) stored using a symmetric cipher and, thus, can be easily extracted. Wi-Fi Sense will also automagically click through any ToS page that typically appears on public WiFi access points (thus destroying any remaining illusion of meaningful assent to such so-called contracts).

Wi-Fi Sense can apparently be turned off completely, but its default state appears to be enabled and sharing everything. It is unclear how much, if any, of this "killer feature" will be in the final release of Windows 10.

Comment Re:Hire That Programmer Immediately! (Score 1) 456

Ummm good programmers always free every malloc.

Actually, I've heard the contrary argued on occasion: "Don't bother wasting code space on cleanup; the OS will do that when you exit."

Maybe the programer didn't use any dynamically allocated memory and just put everything on the stack?

Uh, no. Amiga's default stack size was 4 KiB (4096 bytes), and did not auto-extend. So nothing of any significant size was going on the stack.

Comment Hire That Programmer Immediately! (Score 4, Insightful) 456

Please to remember: Amiga had pre-emptive multitasking, but no memory protection and no resource tracking. Diving through bad pointers would take out the entire system; and not meticulously free()ing every malloc() would lead to unrecoverable memory leaks which would... take out the entire system.

So anyone who can write a program for that platform that is still running problem-free after 30 years deserves to be making stacks of cash in the embedded/IoT space.

Also, shameless plug: http://amiga30.com/

Comment Re:Failed CEO and Gubernatorial Candidate (Score 1) 553

Uh, no. Fiorina ran for US Senate. You're thinking of Meg Whitman, who tried to click "Buy It Now" on the California Governorship ($150 million campaign). But your confusion is understandable, since they're both from the tech sector, and they both spout buzzword-bingo gibberish.

Whitman lost to Jerry Brown, BTW, thus earning Brown the singular distinction of having to clean up the mess left by a B-grade movie actor twice.

Comment Re:How I manage these calls (Score 3, Insightful) 227

Sounds like my algorithm.

Very very occasionally, if the description sounds interesting, I'll paste the description/requirements into Google. Most of these spamming third-party recruiters just copy-paste from public job postings, so Google can usually find the original posting on the employer's Web site.

Comment Re:Still Waiting for The Other Shoe (Score 1) 322

They've clarified this many times.

No, they haven't. All the "clarifications" I can find are simply regurgitations of the same ambiguous phrasing.

When you realize that Microsoft have been openly discussing a subscription-based version of Windows, then the phrase, "Free for the first year," takes on an entirely different meaning, now doesn't it? Microsoft has not clarified this, even to discredit it.

And even if MS isn't planning on a subscription-based flavor of Windows, they still have been abundantly less than clear exactly which version of Windows 10 you'll be receiving for free. Will it be a kind-for-kind trade (Home version for Home version, "Pro" version for "Pro" version, etc.), or will everyone get the lowest tier SKU available, probably with Bing plastered everywhere?

It would be nice if I were wrong about this. But Microsoft's history demands that I be very suspicious of Gateses bearing gifts.

Comment Still Waiting for The Other Shoe (Score 0) 322

A few week ago we heard that upgrades from Win7 and Win8 to Windows 10 would be "free for the first year," a deliberately ambiguous phrasing that they have yet to clarify. Now they're offering "free" Win10 upgrades from unsanctioned copies of Win[78] as well.

All of which makes me deeply suspicious of what this "free" version of Windows actually is. We clearly haven't been told the whole story yet.

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