Comment Re:Kind of expected this logic from the goverment (Score 1) 174
Note that I assigned "evil" to people, not organizations.
Comment Re:betteridge's law of headlines (Score 1) 489
And that is all the answer this question needs. MS never had what it takes, they just had an incredible streak of user stupidity to get them to float at all.
Microsoft Researchers Use Light Beams To Charge Smartphones 65
angry tapir writes A group of Microsoft researchers has built a prototype charger for smartphones that can scan a room until it locates a mobile device compatible with the system and then charge the handset using a light beam. The researchers say they can achieve efficiency comparable to conventional wired phone chargers. The biggest barrier? Smartphones don't (yet) come with solar panels attached.
NSA Hack of N. Korea Convinced Obama NK Was Behind Sony Hack 181
Mike Lape links to a NYTimes piece which says "The evidence gathered by the 'early warning radar' of software painstakingly hidden to monitor North Korea's activities proved critical in persuading President Obama to accuse the government of Kim Jong-un of ordering the Sony attack, according to the officials and experts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the classified N.S.A. operation." From the linked article:
For about a decade, the United States has implanted “beacons,” which can map a computer network, along with surveillance software and occasionally even destructive malware in the computer systems of foreign adversaries. The government spends billions of dollars on the technology, which was crucial to the American and Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear program, and documents previously disclosed by Edward J. Snowden, the former security agency contractor, demonstrated how widely they have been deployed against China. ... The extensive American penetration of the North Korean system also raises questions about why the United States was not able to alert Sony as the attacks took shape last fall, even though the North had warned, as early as June, that the release of the movie “The Interview,” a crude comedy about a C.I.A. plot to assassinate the North’s leader, would be “an act of war.”
Comment Re:What's wrong with Europe nowdays? (Score 1) 174
Actually, most Nazis that had some useful skill were gobbled up by the US. SO in a sense, they finally are succeeding with the invasion.
Comment Re:And we don't give a !$$#@ about Linus. So True. (Score 1) 361
Spoken like a true AC that has nothing worthwhile in his life and has never accomplished anything.
Comment Re:His hotheaded attitude might turn people away (Score 1) 361
Really, that is among the most stupid postings in this thread. It has no resemblance to reality at all, that is not how such decisions are made.
Comment Re:Don't care? (Score 1) 361
Nice revised history you have there. Unfortunately too transparent. Hint: If you lie, make sure to do it well.
Comment Re:Technically (Score 1) 562
Does not help. The law is not applied to protect citizens these days, it is applied when it can be used to screw citizens and ignored when it would hinder or prevent that. Come on, what do you expect from a barbaric state that tortures its prisoners?
Comment Re:Communication has never been secure (Score 1) 562
Have you ever heard about a little thing called "scalability"? Apparently not.
Comment Re:I would rather see 1000 terrorists go free... (Score 4, Insightful) 562
Even if that means you daughter grows up in a fascist dictatorship? There are things worse than death...
Comment Re:Just be glad (Score 0) 562
They want to spy on everyone. On terrorists they want to spy only to be a able to prepare statements in advance and to apprehend them when convenient. That can be after they killed some people, in particular when proponents of freedom seem to be gaining in the public opinion.
Comment Re:No. (Score 1) 562
Indeed. And "cyber".
Obama: Gov't Shouldn't Be Hampered By Encrypted Communications 562
According to an article at The Wall Street Journal, President Obama has sided with British Prime Minister David Cameron in saying that police and government agencies should not be blocked by encryption from viewing the content of cellphone or online communications, making the pro-spying arguments everyone has come to expect:
“If we find evidence of a terrorist plot and despite having a phone number, despite having a social media address or email address, we can’t penetrate that, that’s a problem,” Obama said. He said he believes Silicon Valley companies also want to solve the problem. “They’re patriots.” ... The president on Friday argued there must be a technical way to keep information private, but ensure that police and spies can listen in when a court approves. The Clinton administration fought and lost a similar battle during the 1990s when it pushed for a “clipper chip” that would allow only the government to decrypt scrambled messages.
Comment Re:Mail between exchanges (Score 1) 174
Do end-to-end encryption with PGP/GnuPG.
Using a supposedly secure email provider is, in most cases, not secure. It may be secure for a while, but eventually the provider gets threatened in some way and the security goes away and the scum that cannot abide secrets (government, law enforcement) gets their dirty little grubby fingers on everything. Not many will have the personal integrity to do what Ladar Levison of Lavabit did, namely shutting the service down under great personal risk and at great cost. Most will just roll over and betray their customers.
