Same reason people use companies like 1and1 for webhosting or one of the companies that provide Big Blue Button instances - sure, anyone can get a VPS or a dedicated 'net connection and server machine(s) and install Linux, Apache, PHP, etc. and run a site or a mail server or BBB instance. All with Free (and free) code. But not everyone is an expert at doing it, or keepign it up and running, or configuring it just right, or integrating your authentication, or answering end-users support questions or ....

Well, the enlightened groups do.

The un-enlightened see it as an opportunity to save money - why pay some company money to host the stuff when you can do it yourself?

The downside is, of course, maintenance, and while you pay a vendor to do it for you, most "DIY-ers" budget $0 for it, which leads to all sorts of interesting security vulnerabilities. even today Heartbleed is still around, serving up production content by people who don't care, other than they're "beating the man" by taking 100% of the cut.

Penny wise, pound (or dollar?) foolish.

Remember, it's the shareholders that pay these fines. And no one in the bank corporation is held accountable.

Shareholders own the company. If they want to hold the people who run the company accountable, they can.

That's the way business is done. Shareholders own a piece of the company, and they elect a Board of Directors who help represent their interests. The board then tasks the executive (CEO, etc) to to perform the day-to-day operations of the company in accordance with the shareholder's wishes.

If the company does something that earns a fine, the shareholders are vulnerable, because they own the company. If the shareholders feel this is causing the company to lose focus, they can pressure the board to change thing. Of course, shareholders have to balance the need for punishing those responsible with the value to the company - if despite the fines the company is better off the way things are, then it is in their interest to just eat the loss and go on with life because their value will be preserved.

my god, people, if you are going to use a site like that, don't use your real name, work email address, etc.

Well, you're making an assumption that people who use those sites are smart.

I mean, I see ads for Ashley Madison, a site that gears itself for having affairs. Since they're TV ads, I can't imagine the people who log into it looking to have an affair are too bright to not use their real names or anything. Especially since the information contained on that site would be particularly interesting to a lot of people (suspicious partners, for example).

As for those wanting people to pay so they can track them - I don't see the point. If the hackers were threatened with exposure, the best course of action is to release the entire list online. Sure it screws up future chances to make money, but those wanting to find them will suddenly get exposed (while the hackers take their money and run).

Why is the "internet of things" still a thing?

Actually, it's always been a "thing". Just the term "Internet of things" is relatively new, but the concept quite old.

We used to call them "Smart Devices" and our demo boards came with software that allowed them to be remotely managed (the boards were StrongARM based SBCs with Ethernet controllers). They were "smart" in that you connected them to a network and could be managed without physically having to be there.

Or hell, the "internet connected toaster" is a concept that predates even that.

Internet of things is just the trendy catchphrase.

Source? I know you're being facetious, but I see this comment show up here often, yet no one seems to be able to correlate it with reality. I mean I have no doubt that some people really are just using VPN services, but the unless Canada is some technological superpower where every citizen has an IT Admin background, I'm guessing most users wouldn't even know what a VPN is.

VPNs are stupidly simple to set up - every VPN provider has an OpenVPN based client software for every platform, or basically walkthrough step-by-step instructions on how to set up the VPN. (And from experience, if people want something, if you provide detailed enough steps including where to click, what to type, etc, they can achieve it - as long as you make it monkey-simple steps).

Canadians use VPNs for many reasons, including getting access to US Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and other US-only services (which is a primary driver for VPN services). There's also DNS redirection services like unblock.us that do similar things.

It's also likely the intersection of those who use VPN services for entertainment and those who use piracy things has overlap.

Plus, I'd also think there's a rise of casual sharing networks again - perhaps instead of everyone downloading a copy, one person does and then shares it via portable hard drives or something.

As a 20-year veteran of Perl programming, I am authorized to say: Twitter looks like line noise.

Actually, has there been any contest where the goal is to write the most useful program that can be stored in a tweet? (Useful is defined as "non-trivial", so hello world doesn't count).

Bonus points if you start your tweet with the shebang and thus limit the number of available characters.

If renaming a server is not easily fixed by a config change then whoever wrote the system is an idiot. Sorry but we can't deal with your and the other 20 naming schemes that individuals though were "cool".

If you are relying on a outdated control or monitoring software it is your problem. Your software may even be using the security flaw.

a user will always choose dancing pigs over security every time. Get in the way of their work, and users will figure out very creative ways around it. Or users will do very complex tasks if you tell them it'll get them what they want. Tell a user they can get free apps, and they'll install and use SSH and the command line...

I would add basic arithmetic, and the ability to do sums in your head.

Where do you use it? In real life, when dealing with money. You go to the grocery store, you pick up stuff, you check out. How about knowing if your basket of food is in your budget? Or if buying that extra treat will break the budget?

Being able to estimate your basket with tax is handy, and doing so without dragging out a calculator doubly so.

Yes, the register does it all, but how do you know the price got scanned correctly? Many times you can save a few bucks through scanning errors by realizing what was $3 scanned for $4. And sometimes, if you read those little posted notices, you can get $10 off a scanned error (or for stuff under $10, free!).

For #5, I'd change that to "Safe handling and familiarization of firearms". Understand what is what, actually go to a range and fire them, and all that. As a non-American, I don't believe everyone needs firearms, but I believe educating everyone on the safe and responsible use and storage of them should be mandatory. I don't care if you're for gun control (I personally am), or against it. I believe everyone should be informed about them, their dangers, their uses and be able to actually come up with decent legislation to keep them free to those who want to be responsible enough to use them, while away from those who really aim to do evil with them.

It's the only subject we force on kids where 99.9% of them will never use it for a single thing in their entire lives.

Actually, if that's true, no wonder we have problems with personal debt.

While most of the subjects are useless to most people, we should advocate for basic arithmetic literacy. And to be able to do it mentally, including the ability to approximate.

Why? You'll use this at the checkout line. Do you know how much your shopping cart is? Maybe not to the penny, but can you roughly compute how much your food is going to cost? Plus tax?

No digging out the calculator, either.

And from there, into stuff like budgeting - your food this week cost $150. How much does food cost per month? Is $150 the right amount? Or is it too high for your budget?

Again, no calculator - this is a rough calculation you should do in the store.

That should be what we emphasize - basic arithmetic. And the ability to do it quickly, mentally and organize our budgets.

Some people don't give a shit about life and so they don't give a shit about school. But some of those people fucking off in class already know the material and are just there because the class is mandatory, it costs just as much to challenge the course as it does to take it, and if you fail at challenging it then you have to pay twice. Also, many people don't even know there is a process for testing out of a class.

When you make attendance mandatory, you get people fucking off in class.

Is mandatory attendance a common thing in post-secondary education?

I know when I was at university, you were basically thrown at the sharks. Attend, don't attend, don't do homework, it was all up to you. (Likewise, if you had problems with your schedule, or billing etc, you were on your own).

No one took attendance. It wasn't mandatory, no one checked. And while I attended most lectures, there were some that I couldn't due to other commitments.

Of course, there were people who always screwed around, and if the prof cared, he simply chased them out - attendance wasn't mandatory, so if you weren't paying attention, why were you even in the room?

Until public domain is reinstated, there is no such thing as copyright.

Copyright was a social contract, when they suspended public domain, they reneged on their side of the contract. The contract is now null and void.

Unfortunately, things like copyright affect more than just "big content industry". They affect free software and creative commons as well.

By declaring copyright null and void, you've also declared free software null and void as well because copyleft requires copyright.

Copyright by default makes everything "All Rights Reserved". Copyleft takes that and lets you get additional rights if you agree to the license If you do not agree, then those rights are not granted.

A typical EULA tries to take away more rights than what copyright allows without realizing that really, copyright grants you a basic set of rights (which is why most EULAs have clauses that say "parts may not apply per local law"). Technically, not agreeing with the EULA should give you all the rights Copyright allows (which has exceptions for software execution in it).

And yes, violation of the GPL and other stuff is copyright violation, aka piracy. So distributing GPL code without source? GPL violation, (if you want to agree to that), or copyright violation (if you don't want to agree to the GPL).

So while eliminating copyright seems great, it would destroy creative commands and free software, for their ability to grant rights is diminished. And while it would be great to distribute Linux without releasing source (I'm sure there's plenty of companies who want to be unbound from the GPL), I don't believe that's the wisest course of action.

It strikes me that Apple and Google are two companies competing in different market niches. Apple being hardware, and Google being user information (for advertisers). How does Apple "monetize" its userbase information right now?

Why does Apple feel the compulsion to plow money into an inferior map service? It only benefit their iphone niche until they can't sustain a lower end iphone market.

Easy - Apple's making money hand over fist. Right now their catchline is "You're not a product - buy an iPhone, and your information is protected". See Tim Cook's comments - their "monetizing" their userbase by not monetizing it, and publicizing that fact.

Apple's plowing money into their own mapping service because Google wants information. It's why Apple didn't renew the Google Maps license - to get stuff like turn-by-turn navigation, Google wanted Apple to display ads and to ante up personal information. Apple balked, and Google didn't give Apple the maps license.

For Google it makes a lot of sense as Google needs to monetize Maps, and iOS is really one of the better platforms for doing so. Apple's refusal means Google loses out, which is why Google has their own Maps app (at least users are now agreeing to sharing their information, plus developers have very limited means of information they can get from iOS).

Apple's way of competing against Google is to not go up against them directly, but to attack them where they're vulnerable. It's why they're having to battle the NSA strongly (admittedly, by being the "last" company to sign up, though even that is disputed).

None of this addresses how he managed to hop from the entertainment system network to the flight system network, which many people have claimed are air gapped from each other

Not quite air-gapped, bridged one way. Otherwise how do you think the flight page on the entertainment system gets its data form?

The aircraft has two networks. The inflight system is Ethernet based, traditional IP and everything. Inflight WiFi is usually a separate network from this, maybe, which leads to its own satellite transponder and antenna array on the aircraft.

The other network is the one all the avionics talk via. On modern aircraft, it's Ethernet-like. It's not quite ethernet, more slotted and with QoS guarantees and priorities. Basically it has real-time extensions added to it. They are not compatible with each other. It is NOT IP based at all, relying on proprietary protocols and addressing. There is a bridge device that allows data from the avionics network to be passed to the inflight network, but not the other way around. The bridge does not allow communications the other way because it lacks the ability to transmit on that network.

On older planes, the network isn't Ethernet based at all, it's a completely proprietary protocol, and again, the bridge is one-way because they lack the ability to transmit.

The easiest way for a passenger to take over the plane electronically is to get through the floor. The cabling for both networks usually runs close to each other.

Mini-ITX is absolutely colossal compared to the NUC. Even the Mac Mini is gigantic in comparison

Not so much once you consider the Mac Mini has the power supply built in, versus the power brick that comes with the NUC. The NUC is physically smaller, (though taller) but coupled with the power supply the size almost the same.

I don't use it on my phone, didn't use it on my Disney pass, and would not use it for coffee either. None of these organisations have either the security awareness of credit card companies nor the statutory framework requiring them to cover losses where you are not at fault. I like to limit my exposure to the amount I add on

More correctly, I don't see the point

I mean, instead of Starbucks charging you $5 a day on your credit card, you have them charge $25 every 5 days? Doesn't seem to beneficial for me.

It's auto-top-up, so it's not like you can't spend $25 in a day and have it charged once instead of 5 times.

So what's the benefit, other than the company only paying the credit card per-transaction fee once, versus 5 times? And giving them access to your billing information.

Especially since Starbucks takes credit already - is there some sort of benefit to using a gift card that refills itself over your credit card?