bash scripts use environment variables to store arguments. web requests passed to cgi scripts calling bash can result in bash assigning those header values to environment variables.

Due to a bug in bash, assigning an environment variable with 'extra stuff at the end' of the assignment results in the extra stuff being executed.

So calling a website with maliciously crafted header values with 'extra stuff', if bash assigns those values to an environment variable, to the extra stuff being executed.

So for example if i call a cgi with bash on the backend, and that bash script sets an environment to the user agent string. Then by maliciously crafting the user agent string I can get bash to execute arbitrary commands...

If it was supermarkets ...

On the other hand if its a rented property there all kinds of protections in place to prevent the landlord from tossing you out on the street the minute your late on a payment.

Maybe we should be protecting the car owners. After all, in the event of a car loan -- the title of the car actually belongs to the person. The bank only has a lien against it, not title to it.

Things get a bit murky as the loan was given 'on-condition that' the disabler be in place. But perhaps the term is unconscionable and should be made illegal.

After all, again, tenants agreements are strictly regulated and there is all kinds of stuff a landlord cannot legally put into a rental agreement.

Maybe vehicles should be afford the same consumer protections, given how integral they are to people's livlihoods, and how peoples safety is compromised if the car is shutdown remotely.

And frankly your supermarket argument fails the sniff test. The transactions are of a completely different nature. Nobody here is objecting to the car dealer refusing to sell someone a car who can't afford it. They are objecting to the dealer taking a risk by financing the car and then mitigating that risk using means of dubious ... acceptability.

I believe the thought is they can't get the votes to get the legislature to give the CRTC (or FCC in the US) such broad ranging authority and they are exceeding their current legislative mandate

The conversvative party is running a majority government, and the party under Harper very much votes as a block. Further despite the ramblings of idiots saying the CRTC has got to go, there is no real political will to do that.

"Hollywood North" is a massive industry, that benefits heavily from Canadian Content law, and the convservatives bow to the will of industry, on the flipside funding and protecting Canadian content is sacred to the NDP which is more of a socialist party -- so really they are on board with it too. The laws actually have broad support.

The only companies that object to them are the broadcast companies themselves (Bell / Telus / Shaw / etc ) -- but if they can't escape the rules themselves damn right they are going to make sure any competition coming in form the states is bound by them.

Joe Consumer who is just pissed he can't get American netflix, and that there is too much Bryan Adams and Nickleback on the radio is really the only ones truly against this -- but the question is whether the rules are good for Canada as a whole or not.

And honestly, when you think about it, big picture, they probably are a good thing... at least in some form.

By your reasoning, we may as well close down the judiciary because every decision could potentially be changed by some future law.

Of course not. The majority of court cases are not against an entity that can simply change the law as suits it. Doe vs Smith for example.

Similarly A court case challenging the constitutionality of a law is similarly interesting, because the government has to either rework the law to fit within the constitution or amend the constitution (which is not particularly easy).

But yes, when a court case IS brought before the judiciary against the entity that has the power to alter the law to suit itself more or less at will, then, exactly right, it really is NOT particularly interesting what the outcome will be, and the interesting question is what the government (and by extension the voting public) WANT the outcome to be.

When looking a a law, you also have to look at the historic reasoning behind it.

The Canadian content laws are about
1) promoting and ensuring there is a voice for Canadian culture

2) promoting and sustaining the film / production industry within Canada (American shows produced substantially in Canada qualify as Canadian content.

If the technology for distribution of video changes from primarily broadcast to primarily singlecast then the law must be evaluated and updated to determine whether it still needed and if so to apply to to the current technology.

and if the CRTC wants to broaden its authority to 1-on-1 content [...] it should consult with the people first, in the form of the democratically elected lawmakers.

Which is paraphrasing EXACTLY what I wrote. Thank you very much.

The interesting question isn't whether netflix 'counts' as 'broadcast' or not. The interesting question is whether Canada wants Canadian content rules to apply to them or not. If the Canadian people do (as represented by their government), then its trivial to make it so by legislation.

This is not nitpicking, this is respecting the law as it was written.

Except that is nit-picking. The answer to the question of whether the CRTC has jurisdiction over netflix is a silly legal argument; the answer to which doesn't really matter in the slightest except as a passing interest to the directly involved parties.

It isn't that interesting because it doesn't really matter what the final answer is. If Canada want the answer to be "yes" then Canada will adjust the law accordingly.

So the only question that matters is whether or not Canada wants the answer to be yes or no.

Let's backtrack to Econ 101:

That usually results in oversimplifying the problem.

This causes the market price of the good (food, here) to fall.

The dominant cost is already transportation. Literally tons of food is ALREADY being wasted / thrown out / and left to rot. Its not because it isn't cheap enough to produce, but because transporting it isn't cheap enough to get it to where its needed.

If this is successfully argued, could it then be argued that there is no reason why there are any country restrictions on streaming any sort of media since it isn't "broadcasting"?

This fixation on whether or not its 'broadcasting' is just a distraction. If the governments wants to regulate streaming video it will just revise the legislation granting the regulatory body authority over streaming video within the country.

Then what's Netflix/Google going to do?

Think about it. If netflix gets a pass, then Bell/Telus/Shaw just have to switch from a 'broadcast model' to a 'streaming model' and then they too will be exempt from Canadian Content rules. And they are on the verge of launching their own streaming services as we speak ... hell they all 3 already offer video on demand libraries.

The result is that eventually nobody will "broadcast" anything, and the canadian content rules will be mooted.

The end game is either

a) that the CRTC will be granted regulatory oversight on streaming video providers operating in Canada to enforce Canadian content guidelines in some fashion on all operators.

or

b) that the rules on Canadian content will be repealed entirely on all forms of video distribution.

Dithering about whether or not streaming is a form of broadcasting for the purposes of canadian content rules is just splitting hairs, and is lawyering for the sake of lawyering. If netflix "wins" then Canada can just change the CRTC mandate at the stroke of a pen to include them anyway.

The only argument worth having is within Canada with Canadians to decide whether Canadian content rules are desirable or not. If they are, then apply them to streaming service operators. If they are not, then get rid of them.

Its that simple.

I take this to mean that if you can reboot the thing, which you can always do by letting the battery run flat and then charging it, you can access the device without the passphrase

After a reboot I can login either by fingerprint or by passphrase. With the iphone my understanding is that the passphrase must be used the first time before it will allow a fingerprint.

Again, I am not sure exactly what exactly the real security advantage of that is though.

I use a longer passcode on my phone than 4 characters, but not even close to 40.

On a phone keypad I'd rather enter a phrase then a complicated shorter password due to the clutzyness of smartphone keyboards and the tedious of switching cases, and accessing punctuation symbols.

If you need to use bad/broken logic to justify the use of something, it probably does not deserve justification.

10-12 characters, including numbers and punctuation marks would still be beyond annoying to have to enter every time I access my phone.

Understood.

Yet, for example, Apple is competitive. But Dell is not? The same major 'shareholders' mutual funds, etfs etc hold both companies. I agree that the shareholders elect boards, but each board has a unique momentum and culture despite all being more or less elected by the same people.

I actually use a galaxy s5, I've already got a good reasoable length 'alternate passphrase'.

I do very much like your advice about using a less frequent finger. Not only does that make it take longer, but one of the obvious sources for a fingerprint to use for the phone is the surface of the phone itself. So using your main index finger to unlock it, and then tapping it all over your screen ... the modern equivalent of putting a bunch of post-it notes with your password on your phone. With a less used finger, the print might still be there... but odds have shifted in your favor.

The s5 however does not require passphrase afterboot up. (I'm not sure how much of a big deal that is.) Nor do I see a setting to adjust the number of failed tries, or the lockout timer -- as it stands I get 5 tries, and then a 30 second lockout...then 5 more tries... it doesn't appear to ever fail completely over to pass phrase. (Anyone else know otherwise?!)

One analyst notes that "Because they are no longer reporting to Wall Street, they can be more competitive."

The problem isn't Wall Street. Its the board members. And lots of companies thrive just fine as public companies because the board is taking the long view, selects a CEO with vision, and then lets him pursue it.

While you have a toxic board that is only looking to milk the company, selects weak CEOs, and structures management compensation to incent short-term thinking then you've got a problem.

I guess taking it private is one way to get rid of a toxic board, and good for Dell if they can reinvent themselves this way. But the problem isn't faceless "wall street".

Instead, name and shame the Dell board members. They were the ones enforcing the short term outlook.

This will likely make life even easier for law enforcement

Your right.

I can either go with a 4 digit PIN which is far more vulnerable to the look-over-the-shoulder or look at the dirty screen attack that low level criminals will use.

Or I can go with a fingerprint which will defeat them, but can be extracted from me by law enforcement.

Or I can go with a 40 key passphrase and be pretty safe from both groups -- but then I have to enter a 40 key passphrase before I can reply to a text message or check a new email.

What do you propose?

Good science fiction is about the possibilities of technology, and how we can use it to become more knowledgeable about ourselves.

  The GP was 'more' right. So called "Good" or "Hard" SF is examining a human response to a change in the environment. The key to differentiating SF from space-romance/fantasy etc is whether the plot and conflict is driven by science as a consequence of the change in the environment. If there are "space ships" are they simply used to get from A to B and are nothing more than pretty cars? Or is the plot driven by the unique circumstances that them being spaceships creates.

Is it an examination of how (comparatively slow) spaceships with no ability to communicate beyond a limited range with large enough crews would evolve into isolated floating city states? Does it explore that in depth? Then it might be hard SF. Is it just assumed that this happened so they could retell a story about city states from Renaissance Italy in space? Then maybe not.

Or maybe the people sleep in the spaceships, and the story explores the impact of waking up after every trip knowing everyone you knew is now dead and how that might affect the relationships you form. Sounds like Hard SF. Or maybe its just a set piece that has no real impact on the plot, and its not used to larger effect than napping on a jet or a bus.

But it doesn't need to have space ships or advanced science to be SF.

Nightfall imagines a world without night encountering it for the first time. They could be less advanced than us.

Flowers for Algernon and A Clockwork Orange both explore the ethics of human experimentation and the ethics of altering someones mind. The tech to do it isn't really important.

1984 simply considers a society under government surveillance. (The telescreens were really the extent of advanced technology, but again weren't really important to the plot or theme except as a way to establish the "surveillance" element)

The Mote in God's Eye is an examination of the evolutionary path of a resource constrained technologically advanced species. (One vision of how we might adapt in few million years if we can't leave the solar system...)

More than Human is an examination of loneliness and our need to form connections. The selection of both enhanced but broken characters, a telepath, telekinetic,mute teleporters, an infant genius, etc is used to weave a tale about how they might find eachother and cope, even become 'whole'.

The Demolished Man is police mystery in a future world where telepaths are real. But at its core its a thought experiment examining how to deceive a telepath. The Minority Report is similarly themed (although the movie COMPLETELY screwed up the ending).

As for "bad SF" I don't like the term. Lots of perfectly good writing is called "bad SF" when there is nothing wrong with it; its just not "Hard SF". But there is nothing wrong with doing Game of Thrones in Space. I thoroughly enjoyed the Judge Dredd remake. It was fun. These aren't Hard SF, but they are not pretending to be. Its soft SF, not "Bad SF".

It premiered TWO YEARS AGO on Windows.

Which is why this is its "premiere on Linux" instead of its "premiere".

Seriously, your argument is ridiculous.

Its like "correcting" someone who says "this is the first time I've ever drunk wine from a tin mug" by saying "you don't know what 'first' means, you drank wine from a glass years ago."