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Comment Private IoT reporting for duty! (Score 1, Interesting) 104

"Such motes are likely to play a key role in the much-ballyhooed Internet of Things..."

Yes, yes of course. I'm sure they are.

"Private IoT reporting for duty, Sir!"

"Hello Private! I would ask why you are here, but apparently the rest of us don't really have a fucking clue either..."

Funny how we're already labeling their role as key when we don't even really know what the mission of IoT is anyway, other than driving capitalism through PT Barnum marketing ideology.

Comment Re:Professional chess: hard to make a living (Score 2) 237

There are at least 6 players by my calculations who wound up tied for the top score at this event and therefore split the top prize fund money, approximately $5,000 USD apiece. That is not an easy living if one is trying to survive on chess alone. This probably explains why some cheating at chess is so blatant, because one has to finish at the very top to get any money at all let alone turn a profit. Otherwise a rational cheater would do it sparingly and possibly versus lower level opponents.

If the monetary award is so small, one would have to question why someone would spend the time to learn the game and spend countless hours in tournaments in order to cheat their way to a pathetic prize.

I don't know what to call for here; more integrity or less stupidity.

Comment Re:Piracy. Either condone it, or embrace it. (Score 1) 148

Your post indicates you don't understand the meaning of the word "profit." I chose that term carefully, and note that it anticipates your "25 cents to cover the cost of the blank media." Perhaps you should spend a few minutes on Wikipedia and then come back with something less superficial?

When every agency responsible for controlling piracy has clearly and blatantly stated that "profit" is not a factor in determining theft of IP, I find it funny that you want to now call it out here. I'm sorry. Would a price tag of $5 make you feel better or worse about being wrong?

A guy giving away DVDs of the latest movie screener is going to get the same amount of legal attention as the guy selling them, as was the case here. The only thing I question is whether or not the "guy" was employed by HBO to pull this stunt, and I say that only because of their apparent willingness to allow this show to be pirated.

Comment Re:If you insist on keeping physical hardware (Score 1) 446

There are fire rated NAS devices like the ioSafe 214 which has Synology guts.

At first I was going to make a comment about how fire ratings should taken with a grain of salt, but I was pleasantly surprised by this article, which basically put the fire rating to an actual test. Nice, thanks for sharing!

Comment Re:Piracy. Either condone it, or embrace it. (Score 1) 148

A nuanced response to piracy seems to me to be a very good thing. Individuals sharing your stuff? That's free advertising and lots of companies would kill for it.

OK, so there's one way of looking at free advertising. Sharing is cool. Got it.

Somebody you trusted with a screener leaking it? That's a breach of trust and you shouldn't feel any qualms about going after them. Professional pirate pressing thousands of copies and profiting from selling them? Again, no problems going after that.

Oh, I see. So, as long as you wrap a pretty word like "sharing" around theft, it's cool and considered free advertising...but the minute someone charges 25 cents to cover the cost of the blank media for that "shared" copy, oh they're suddenly now a professional pirate. Throw the fucking book at them.

I sure as hell hope you now see my original point regarding businesses championing piracy, because you couldn't have made the conflict of interest any more clear with your examples here.

Comment Re:Resellers? (Score 1) 290

...how many of these 1 million plus pre-orders do you think are just buying the iWatches to create artificial scarcity and resell at a higher price? And who can't wait a month to get a damn smartwatch? Who pays the marked up reseller price?

Who pays the "marked up" price?

Uh, just curious, have you bought any product made by Apple in the last decade or two? They pretty much have one price they go by, along with every reseller of their hardware.

Help me understand! I just don't get it!

You want to better understand their pricing model? OK, step into any store reselling Apple products and ask them when they go on sale. You might want to sit down before you hear the answer.

Comment Re:This is so sad. (Score 1) 290

No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

The iPhone 6 is now offered in 128GB models.

Be honest, do you know anyone who was forced to buy that model and has come close to challenging the justification by filling it?

Yeah, me neither.

Point is just how much space do you need on a device that must pair with another device that already has a lot of storage?

As for the wireless, it's the same exact situation. People are failing to realize that an iWatch operates on it's own about as well as a Chromecast works without a TV. You don't really need wireless directly from the watch when most or all of it's functionality proxies through an iPhone.

Besides, as we all know from years of experience, wireless would have killed the battery, which is struggling to last an entire day with the current design.

Comment Re:No mention of getting data out (Score 3, Insightful) 71

It seems that this group managed to spread their malware via USB sticks. The modern equivalent of floppy disk viruses. But in all of the classified networks that I've seen, you can bring your USB drive into the secure area, but it can't be removed. So even if I managed to get my malware on a machine and then somehow got the sensitive data onto some sort of external media, I still don't have anything useful. Not that I wouldn't want to defend against the malware, but it seems that the air gap really is doing it's job.

This may be true of the systems you have worked on, but it isn't true of all classified systems.

If a classified system is approved for trusted downloading, then it is enabled for certain data to be passed to and from that air-gapped system, usually via optical drive, but other means(USB, floppy) are not unheard of.

Let's put this another way. Ongoing development that also includes attacks on air-gapped systems would not be ongoing if there were no viable methods of attack. That would be rather pointless.

Comment Piracy. Either condone it, or embrace it. (Score 1, Funny) 148

"...Game of Thrones has consistently set records for piracy, which has almost been a point of pride for HBO. "Our experience is [piracy] leads to more penetration, more paying subs, more health for HBO, less reliance on having to do paid advertising If you go around the world, I think you're right, Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world. Well, you know, that's better than an Emmy."

Hey assholes, either condone piracy, or embrace it. One or the other.

You can't sit here and champion the benefits piracy clearly brings to your business while wanting to attack those same pirates with your infringement legal team.

Comment Re:Who wears a watch these days (Score 5, Insightful) 290

I haven't worn a (wrist) watch for decades When you have to do frequent hand washing (in the last 35 years I have been employed in the meat industry, food industry, childcare and elder care) its not worth the hassle. Of course I gave up Apple in 1988

You likely represent the minority in your age bracket.

The younger generation that never knew life without a smartphone, never understood the value of wearing a wristwatch.

What will really blow your mind is that is now the same individual lining up to pay someone else $500 for the luxury of wearing one.

Talk about brand power.

Comment Re:Humanity is lost (Score 2) 290

Anyone buying this watch is an idiot. It's like buying a flat bed trailer and a car. And using the flat bed trailer to transport the car everywhere.

You already have a damned smartphone. All the functionality is there without the extra $350 expendature.

The funny part about your argument here is people still buy flat-bed trailers...to haul cars around.

That said, a fool and their money are soon parted. The odd part about this is likely 75% of the people buying an Apple watch probably haven't worn any watch for years because they have a smartphone in their pocket. Go figure.

Comment Profiling the wrong appliances with IoT (Score 1) 105

I find it very odd that people are concerned about enabling things like ovens and stove tops to assist with cooking plans.

The people I know who actually take the time out of their lives to use these appliances are not the sort of people looking to shave 3 seconds off every daily process.

The other people I know that are far too "busy" to ever cook for themselves are the ones lazy enough to embrace IoT, but it seems rather pointless attaching it to appliances they never use.

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