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Comment Re:onStar? (Score 5, Insightful) 199

That's a very valid point, but let's not pretend that you couldn't have the benefits of OnStar without most of the nasty privacy issues. A limit on data retention, clear indication when the device is listening in, and not selling subscriber data to the government would resolve a lot of the criticism.

Comment Re:Good try, but a bit dissapointed... (Score 2) 94

Blade Runner is a Frankensteinian tale about creation revolting against its creator, questioning the meaning of death, whereas Do Androids ... is about empathy as an essential human quality in a world where everything is artificial. Much of the novel is about Deckard's desire to buy a pet, required for spiritual fulfilment according to the religion of Mercerism. Death is as unimportant to the book as Mercerism is to the film.

Comment Re:Shame on you Google (Score 1) 263

Obviously posted by someone who doesn't work in software development, or has to deal with the fact the software needs to work in millions of configurations and with interdependencies.

Wrong, and wrong.

Plus, the bugs need to be investigated for the root cause. Patching over the flaw doesn't help things since it leaves the vulnerability open.

Yes, thanks for stating how security fixes are supposed to work, in case we all thought Microsoft was going to slap a bandaid on it and call it good.

See shellshock

No. Why are you referencing a completely different vulnerability not even managed by the company? Because they're both vulnerabilities? Because there's a risk someone didn't fully fix an issue once therefore no-one can in future? Newsflash for you: Microsoft has fixed vulnerabilities with the same root cause multiple times oflver the years.

Like say, shellshock

Do you know of any others?

(which is a design bug and now you have a problem of how to fix it because people are relying on the faulty behavior)

It was not a design bug Do you even know what you're talking about?

As for malfunctioning patches, you'll sing a different tune when you have to go fix dozens of PCs because the patch bluescreens, or you can't install software anymore.

*shrug* I guess I wouldn't roll straight to production...

Either way, millions of PCs get bricked from a bad update just to meet some company's arbitrary timeline.

Their *3 month* timeline.

And I don't know, those 3+ recalled patches were pretty serious if you were one of the affected people.

Google is between a rock and a hard place. Either they disclose and stuff gets fixed, or they don't and *we don't know if it would be fixed when MS said it would or not*.

Comment Re:Shame on you Google (Score 1) 263

I am glad Google is sticking to their policies. 3 months is easily enough time to deploy a fix.

As one of Microsoft's end users, I'd much rather be faced with the quantifiable risk of deploying a patch than the unquantifiable risk that every system I own has been compromised, any data on them exfiltrated or encrypted and used to hold me to ransom, and the possibility that my systems have been used to attack others.

For all we know, Microsoft could be playing a PR game by developing patches and then holding them just past Google's 90 day window. Two in a row now? Seems fishy to me.

Comment Re:What about privacy? (Score 1) 112

You pretty much never hear of data being accidentally exposed

That's because it's intentionally exposed.

and I've never heard of Facebook being hacked.

Do you like to stick your fingers in your ears and go "la la la la!". Top result:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/19/...

and why do you think they have this?
https://www.facebook.com/white...

(Hint: Openly selling data, as the user agreed to when they "signed" the terms of service, is *NOT* the same fucking someone over in a manner that would cause a private user with a different TOS concern.)

"Hint" maybe you should read this:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/... .. and after you read that you can research and consider all the ways that Facebook has changed it's privacy settings over the years that constantly expose a wider assortment of information and allow greater data gathering by default, requiring users to maintain constant vigilance and opt-out, rather than opt-in. ... and then when you're done with that you can research how they have set up their "governance" system such that on the face of it they claim to take input from their user base about their major policy changes, but have set it up in such a way that there is virtually no chance that end users can override anything they want to do, despite the programs existence.

You have to be really nuts to be defending Facebook of all companies when it comes to user privacy.

Comment Re:Biased much? (Score 1) 112

We have a Facebook group. We use it to share pictures of events sometimes, and light humor, and the occasional bit of interesting tech news, and that's all. Nothing sensitive goes there, ever.

I bet Facebook wants business to use them as a primary channel for work because it will force employees to have Facebook accounts and get into the habit of checking them just to do their job well - even if the company just trials it and later abandons it.

There are many, many people who have not joined our Facebook group, and probably never will.

Comment Re:What about privacy? (Score 4, Insightful) 112

Sure, but what businesses are so dumb that they will share their internal communications with another company?

For me it wouldn't even be about "with another company", it would be more along the lines of "look how Facebook has repeatedly fucked over the general end user on privacy issues, are we really going to trust our internal communications to these guys?".

Comment Biased much? (Score 1) 112

We have found that using Facebook as a work tool makes our work day more efficient," Lars Rasmussen, Facebook's director of engineering

Uhh, yeah. Where's the quote from the director of engineering without the clearly vested interested? I'm suspect thatyou'd be hard-pressed to find a credible DoE who is ready to champion Facebook as a collaboration tool for their business.

Comment Re:It's the post office (Score 1) 182

And, for the record, if you can't figure out the USPS website you're an idiot. All these idiosyncrasies have been around for as long as I can remember on their site, and yet we ship out stuff all the time with the system.

So you're saying because you're a regular user, who is used to their crappy website that they haven't bothered to fix in ages, everyone else who doesn't know all the pitfalls should just suck it up?

Wouldn't it be nice if someone pointed out all the pitfalls for people who aren't regular users of USPS.com but might have an occasional need to ship something and might try it in future? I wonder where we could find such information...

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