As software goes, console games are architecturally horrible. This is mainly because of the legacy of 8- and 16-bit consoles where it was actually significant whether a program took a syscall (generally implemented as data-dependent branches), so optimizations like inlining are looked upon favourably even as they fix program to platform down to the hardware register. Those optimizations have been worthless since the race to half a gigahertz ended and RAM latency began to really get out of control, because since then syscall stubs (etc.) have been cacheable just like any hot-path thing, so doing a massive amount of them in a loop turns from an obstacle to effective utilization of hardware.

The lesson here is that one can always trust Microsoft to code like an obsessive twentysomething.

Indeed, enforcement is too cheap if it's only a cost of doing business the next time around.

Software engineering cannot be squeezed into formulas for plugging and chugging.

>It may start out with "crime", but the crimes tend to evolve because citizens routinely think people with different belief systems need to be punished and feel empowered to do it themselves.

Yep. This is why the police is the police, and everyone else is not.

And they had an excuse ready in case they did.

>, eventually giving birth to the alt-right

Every alternative movement is given birth by its establishment. Everything else is but a substrate. This applies to the alt-left exactly.

It's a verb, it means skullfucking. As in, making a hole in a skull and fucking it. (the Japanese Adult Video interpretation came along only later.)

No bowdlerization please, we're on Slashdot.

I thought all the satellites were too old to receive anything from earth, let alone from puny handheld units like as early smartphones were. Maybe that's why it's not called Wireless magazine?

It's five for the price of one!

These companies should wait until the matter becomes a regulation, because only that can be contested in court. Legislation can also be contested in court, but not before it's subject to the whole parliamentary transparency process; which is what the commission (executive) is trying to avoid with these threats.

Those companies have already seen this a couple of times from various governments. It's all bluster; the commission can of course put pressure on them, but that's likely either inconsequential or outright illegal.

It's also obscure as heck, and insecure in the face of "cops can force you to biometrically unlock your phone" type legislation.

In the laptop I carry in my bag most times I have a mSATA SSD and two hard disk drives. My work requires me to have the "office phone" in my pocket during office hours, which puts it next to my own phone, for two total. My everyday digital camera is next to the computer, and has two SD cards in it while not being downloaded. I also have extra cards in a bag next to a ND filter, a polarizing filter, and a gorillapod. The digital camera will take video if you press the button with a red dot in the center.

I'm no spy, but if what I've got on me is sign of espionage, then I could easily pass for a non-spy with less gear.

Heck, every cellphone has a video camera. Regular cellphone cameras are used frequently for scanning and mailing documents instead of telefax. None of the stuff you mention is in any way requisite, or preferable, for corporate and/or industrial espionage -- unless the spies are technologically underskilled mooks, which ain't the way this stuff's being billed.

The presented scenario also seems highly unlikely. A competent spy (or one that had competent handlers) with access enough to linger around for too long (by accident, supposedly) would just leave a thumbdrive-sized wi-fi bridge in the physical network and download from the parking lot at his leisure. Risk of detection is 100% eventually, but with proper op-sec such as not leaving fingerprints or DNA evidence on the device, that should be no issue at all.

I'd wager what happened here is that there was a gap in communication in the company, some bigwig got scared and overreacted, and now they're sticking with it out of embarrassment and liability. I mean, the guy's been in a federal pound for a while, for what looks like Red Peril once again.

Yeah, right. Then the next time around, when questioned the spy will pull a gun, or a plastic knife that didn't show up in a metal detector. Two days later he's a different Dong Liu in a different part of the country, still a Chinese Canadian...

This is Microsoft we're talking about. The company that engages in behind-the-scenes extortion of Android device brands and manufacturers using their (seriously aging) VFAT patents. I'm sure they're able to say "b-but, we're the good guys now!", but in dealing with people like these one must always understand there's nothing stopping "the bad guy" from saying that as well.

On a practical level, collaboration with Microsoft causes companies to die. Look at Nokia: it never had a chance. I only hope that Red Hat lets Microsoft in balls-deep.