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Comment Re:Since these people still don't get it.... (Score 1) 79

by jittles (#48204001) Attached to: DHS Investigates 24 Potentially Lethal IoT Medical Devices
My point is that you can't depend on the language to protect you. I'm not saying you should ignore good technology choices because you know better than those crazy compiler people. But I do not believe that it is possible to create something that is completely unhackable. Perhaps you can create something that is non-trivial to exploit, or that is unexploitable using known techniques, but that doesn't mean that you can create a software/hardware combination that is completely foolproof. There will always be risk associated with any device that is network accessible.

Comment Re:Secure it but.... (Score 1) 79

by jittles (#48203771) Attached to: DHS Investigates 24 Potentially Lethal IoT Medical Devices
Tattoos can be damaged or destroyed. People can get your password when they video tape you undressing at a department store changing room, or even by implanting hidden cameras in your home. But I supposed if someone went to those efforts to get your pacemaker password, they would find some way to kill you.

Comment Re:Since these people still don't get it.... (Score 1) 79

by jittles (#48203735) Attached to: DHS Investigates 24 Potentially Lethal IoT Medical Devices

Anything computerized with a network connection can (and most likely WILL) be hacked...

Not if you take appropriate precautions, like using a safe programming language.

Last I checked, programming languages are designed and implemented by human beings. Even if a programming language can decrease your attack surface, there could still be an exploit associated with the interpreter/compiler or a mistake in implementation of the language. When an omniscient being develops your language and its corresponding dev tools, I would say you may have a meaningful point.

Comment Re:All about perception (Score 1) 200

by jittles (#48185687) Attached to: The Woman Who Should Have Been the First Female Astronaut
I agree with you. Just wanted to say that it is natural for men and women to have different strengths and weaknesses (I mean this in a general way). I think it's a good thing. The real key is how they are treated, and how they treat others. Equality is a two way street. Men and women both need to accept that they, as individuals, have weaknesses and strengths and just get on with enjoying life.

Comment Re:First taste of Mac OS X (Score 1) 305

by jittles (#48170647) Attached to: OS X 10.10 Yosemite Review

It's a shame they differ. But let's face it, actually having Foo.bar and foo.bar, or worse still Foo.bar and Foo.BAR in the same directory is a silly thing to do.

I agree that it is not a best practice, but I have dealt with this issue before. Usually caused by someone who doesn't realize that they're dealing with a case-sensitive filesystem.

Comment Re:Interesting they keep doing lengthly reviews... (Score 1) 305

by jittles (#48170071) Attached to: OS X 10.10 Yosemite Review

Downgrading an OS by a major version is asking to break it. The upgrade scripts will normally change various datafile formats and contents. That's not a reversible process unless there are equivalent scripts to go the other way. And what OS developer is going to put the same development and testing effort into going backwards?

Thats not to say that you can't in GNU/Linux. GNU/Linux lets you tinker with most things. But it generally offers no protection from breaking everything when you do so.

Of course the right thing to do regardless of platform is to make sure you do a complete backup before upgrading, so you can go back to that if you want to.

Go ahead and try to wipe the entire drive and then install an older version of MacOS. Put in a new drive and try to install an older version. They change something - I don't know if its in the SMC or something, but it will give you an error. I do not mean downgrading the OS on top of an existing install. I mean a fresh install of an older OS.

Comment Re:First taste of Mac OS X (Score 1) 305

by jittles (#48169413) Attached to: OS X 10.10 Yosemite Review

My Mac has been set up to be case insensitive. LS, GrEp, cAT, TAIl all behave as if they had been typed lowercase.

So? Why is this an issue?

Linux filesystems are, by default, case sensitive. I can have Foo.bar and foo.bar in the same directory. If my source control is set up properly, I can see and work with both files properly on Linux but not on Mac OS. You can use a case-sensitive filesystem in MacOS, but last time I tried the OS itself was very buggy and unpredictable when dealing with files. Perhaps this has been fixed since 10.8, I don't know, but the general rule of thumb is to NOT use a case-sensitive FS on MacOS.

Comment Re:Interesting they keep doing lengthly reviews... (Score 1) 305

by jittles (#48169357) Attached to: OS X 10.10 Yosemite Review

These Ars OSX reviews have always been really impressive things, full of technical examination and as you can see, very long to write...

It made more sense to me back when you had to pay for an upgrade though, so you could see if it was worth getting. Now that it's free, the need for long technical examination seems to diminish...

That said I hope they keep doing them because it is nice to have a deep technical examination of what is new.

Apple makes it very difficult for the average person to downgrade after you upgrade OS. If you try and run, for instance, the Mavericks installer after having upgraded to Yosemite, it will fail and tell you to install a newer version of OS X. There may or may not be a way around this, I've never tried.

Comment Re:Just think (Score 1) 183

Good point. Now we need to exert the same pressure on Google for Android support for external devices and regular-ass USB storage device mode for connecting Android devices to hosts.

Google started requiring Android File Transfer for connecting Android devices so that the phone would not need to unmount the drive before allowing the host to mount it. I'm sure they could have come up with a better, more native adaptation to this, but it is what it is.

Comment Re:Contact tracing the second nurse (Score 1) 381

by jittles (#48158237) Attached to: How Nigeria Stopped Ebola

You cannot prevent an American citizen from returning home. However, a mandatory, no exceptions 60 day quarantine would have worked (60 days from departure of affected country).

Who is going to pay for that, the traveler? And do you realize that the absolute longest it would take to diagnose someone with Ebola is only 20 days from exposure? So why keep them quarantined for an additional 40 days? Perhaps you should do some research on the illnesses in question before you start suggesting solutions to prevent its spread?

Comment Re:lost password process as an attack vector (Score 1) 549

by jittles (#48139487) Attached to: Password Security: Why the Horse Battery Staple Is Not Correct

Even with the best password, memorized or securely stored doesn't protect you against a password recovery process that's improperly engineered. Often an institution, even a BANK, will give you as a recovery password a choice from perhaps six possibilities, any of which can be divined from publicly available information or a little social engineering. Your password may be q4ot38yhewa;okl, but your password recovery phrase will be the street you lived on in high school or the name of your first dog. This is not secure.

No one says you have to be honest about these answers. I never put the correct answer for those questions, but have a list of fake answers that vary based on the question. Granted, if someone were to figure out one of my fake answers, they may be able to reuse that on another site, but at least they can't log into ancestry.com or look on something like an intellisus report to get my info!

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