Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Lead By Example (Score 1) 147

What key? Sibling languages, alternative alphabets, and unconventional word choices don't have a key. If they want to learn shorthand, they can take a course at the community college like everybody else.

I never said anything about hiding my phone. I DO routinely encrypt data going in and out of my phone and some of the data is encrypted at rest. Nothing nefarious there, it just means that I use WhatsApp, Signal, and a web browser. Also SSH.

I guess if they want to go on a fishing expedition, they're SOL. If they have an actual good reason to suspect me personally of a crime, I guess they'll have a look at the phone. It would be nice if we could rely on law enforcement to not go on fishing expeditions and on judges to not approve of them (given that they are against the law), but here we are.

Comment Re:Lead By Example (Score 1) 147

Like I said, they have a right to search. They do not have a right to find or to be able to make anything of what they might find.

If you ban E2EE, you render many law abiding citizens vulnerable to all manner of fraud and other financial crimes.

Amusingly, there was a period of time when the Italian Mafia had access to law enforcement communications in Sicily using a back door designed for "lawful intercept". That is, the police and prosecutors hoist by their own petard.

Comment Re:Just more medical industry corruption (Score 1) 33

Personally, I don't do much processed food or fast food. But I also don't have kids and I work from home, so it's no bug deal to cook proper food.

I do find it odd how many adults out there never even learned basic cooking from their parents, or food network. I won't say the whole society is going down but there are subcultures that seem destined to die off.

But there is a reason I included time budget. While cooking proper food need not take a very long time, it generally takes more than nuking something.

Comment Re:Lead By Example (Score 1) 147

If they can access it. I am permitted to write my diary in code. I can send a letter the same way. Why should email be made less convenient?

Siblings are allowed to continue using their invented words into adulthood if they like. We are allowed to have private conversations in an un-bugged room. Phone call: "Meet me at the other place. Bring that thing we talked about.".

Police have never had the RIGHT to access all of our communication. They may be granted permission to TRY if a judge signs off on that but that's all they have ever had.

On a side note, one reason so many people are interested in E2EE is because there have been WAY too many incidents where police skipped the warrant or found a judge with an itchy rubber stamp who just took their word for things and then went on a fishing expedition. They only have themselves to blame for entire populations distrusting them. Meanwhile, tech companies grew tired of the constant stream of "requests" for private information that amounted to a fishing expedition that they decided their best bet is to make sure they cannot provide anything.

Comment Re:Screw the American auto industry (Score 1) 305

You say that as if American auto makers haven't gotten multiple bailouts and other special gifts over the years. You say that as if the U.S. isn't full of malls inhabited by tumble weeds and rats (literally) and doesn't have enough chronically empty residential property to house every homeless person here.

The U.S. is being strangled by the financial and real estate sectors.

Comment Re:Screw the American auto industry (Score 1) 305

The American companies manufacture in China for cheap but sell expensive in the U.S. The huge margin goes to executive management and Wall Street. They COULD profitably manufacture in the U.S. without raising prices, but Wall Street wants it's windfall and CEO needs a new yacht, so that's out.

Comment Re:Screw the American auto industry (Score 1) 305

The complaints are twofold. They moved their manufacturing overseas but didn't cut their prices to reflect the savings. So Americans are getting squeezed from both sides. Consumers can't force them to pull production back to the U.S. but they can (in effect) offshore the top heavy expensive management and Wall Street by buying Chinese. The difference is apparently around $40K on a car.

Different industry, but I have a Chinese 3D printer. It's not perfect, but it cost 20% of what a 3D printer from an American company would cost (which also wouldn't be perfect). All it's missing is a bunch of ugly beige plastic, vendor lock-in on the supplies, and replacement parts made of pure unobtainium. Believe me, I don't miss those "features" at all. It did come with full respect for my right to repair and a wide variety of 3rd party parts readily available.

On a side note, I did consider building a 3D printer from parts, but when I looked in to it, sourcing the parts in the U.S. would have cost me more than buying the ready made (some assembly required) printer from China.

Comment Re: Another version (Score 3, Interesting) 80

I've used CP/M, and indeed there are a lot of similarities to DOS.

Gary could have been as big as Gates if he didn't make a few missteps.

He seemed to be more of the photo-nerd who was more interested in what the tech can do than creating an empire. He went on to do a number of neat things, such as some early CGI:

In an oral history for the Computer History Museum, Brian Halla, Intel's technical liaison to DRI, recalls that Gary "showed me this VAX 11/780 that he had running in his basement, and he was so proud of it, and he said, 'I figured out a way to have a computer generate animation,' and he said, 'Watch this. And he runs a demo of a Coke bottle that starts real slowly and starts spinning, and so as maybe several months went by, he lost interest in this, and he sold his setup to a little company called Pixar.'"

To me, that story shows him to be more of the "what can it do" rather than "what is it worth." Had he had his Steve Jobs to his Steve Wozniak, he probably wouldn't be an historical afterthought. Interestingly, at one point he had the trademark to the term Mac.

Comment Re:We are not far behind (Score 1) 115

While we can recognize evil of Putin's regime when it engages in totalitarian crackdowns on free speech, the sad truth is that we are not far behind. For example, Biden's justice department manufacturing novel legal theories to imprison non-violent political protesters while ignoring similar cases elsewhere.

Ignoring that prosecutors have broad authority to decide what to charge someone with based on the actions of the person, if the conservative textualist, such as Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, stick to their "the text is what counts and not inferring intent" championed by Scalia they should uphold the use of the law in these cases.

Comment Re:Data centers dirty little secret (Score 1) 58

The data centre owners are saying that they want to externalize their costs by re-opening coal plants, instead of investing in renewables and storage for themselves.

Exactly, and they use the lure of jobs and tax revenue to get cities to bring them in; meanwhile the grid gets stressed. The data centers also want to be the last one to get interrupted in the event of demand shortfalls, so guess who will get blacked out before them? Meanwhile, the power company has to fight to get new plants sited cause of NIMBY while the same locations invite data centers to their town. I'm just glad I get my power from a wall outlet...

Slashdot Top Deals

"A car is just a big purse on wheels." -- Johanna Reynolds

Working...