Comment C'mon everyone.. (Score 5, Funny) 90
Do the QT 4 dance!
Comment Re:I have problems with this (Score 1) 1319
This psychological phenomenon is well-known to be one of the most powerful drivers of human behaviour.
People will go to extremes and fight to preserve their sense of self, their ego. After all everyone believes that they are a good, rational person. Anything which contradicts that produces powerfully uncomfortable cognitive dissonance that drives people to rationalise their choices any way they can.
It's an effect which appears pretty much everywhere: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/05/19/fanboyism-and-brand-loyalty/
People will go to extremes and fight to preserve their sense of self, their ego. After all everyone believes that they are a good, rational person. Anything which contradicts that produces powerfully uncomfortable cognitive dissonance that drives people to rationalise their choices any way they can.
It's an effect which appears pretty much everywhere: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/05/19/fanboyism-and-brand-loyalty/
Comment Re:Renewable or infinite? (Score 1) 835
Nonsense. All significant accidents have happened in old (in some cases, 3 "generations" old) technology plants, and sometimes human error was a major component.
When it comes to failures in complex, potentially deadly systems like nuclear plants, "human error" isn't ever a factor. If the system relies on a human to act a certain way without a failsafe then it is just bad design, pure and simple. This book explains it well.
Comment Re:Congress, our representatives? (Score 1) 302
Zarniwoop pulled some notes out of a pocket.
"Now," he said, "you do rule the Universe, do you?"
"How can I tell?" said the man.
Zarniwoop ticked off a note on the paper.
"How long have you been doing this?"
"Ah," said the man, "this is a question about the past, is it?"
Zarniwoop looked at him in puzzlement. This wasn't exactly what he had been expecting.
"Yes," he said.
"How can I tell," said the man, "that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?"
Comment Re:KDE!!! (Score 1) 1040
Exactly this. KDE 4 is a "next-gen" GUI done right, because thanks to the entire desktop comprising configurable widgets.
As well as the default Menu + Taskbar style (WinXP), you can have Dock + Menubar style (OS X) or Pinned Icons style (Win 7, Unity) or any combination of these.
As well as the default Menu + Taskbar style (WinXP), you can have Dock + Menubar style (OS X) or Pinned Icons style (Win 7, Unity) or any combination of these.
Comment Australia? (Score 1) 34
Where's the data? Has no-one migrated past Indonesia?
Submission + - The Real "Death Panel" (reuters.com)
tick-tock-atona writes: Reuters is reporting on the bureaucratic process which saw Anwar al-Awlaki killed by a drone late last month. "American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials."
The lack of outcry about this "death panel" is particularly worrisome given the denunciations of a similar (false) concept under Obama's healthcare reforms.
The lack of outcry about this "death panel" is particularly worrisome given the denunciations of a similar (false) concept under Obama's healthcare reforms.
Submission + - Steve Jobs Passes Away (npr.org)
milbournosphere writes: It appears that his death is not being exaggerated this time. Apple has confirmed in a press conference that Steve Jobs has passed away at the age of 56. Rest In Peace. There might have been those who disagreed with his practices and ideologies, but there's no denying that he changed the world he lived in.
Submission + - Steve Jobs Passes Away (katu.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Breaking news on KATU.com via the AP wire: Apple just reported that it's founder, Steve Jobs, passed away. Jobs stepped down from leading the technology company in August because of ill health.
Comment FFS it's not that hard (Score 4, Informative) 352
In Firefox:
- use the requestpolicy addon; whitelist fbcdn.net on facebook.com only. facebook.com is blacklisted for other domains automatically.
- don't accept third-party cookies
- set cookies and cache to clear when closing the browser (whitelist a couple of sites like slashdot)
The end. No tracking, "evercookies" etc. Even blocks google tracking via google-analytics.
Comment Re:An Open Response to Moronix (Score 1) 85
I hope Phoronix tanks, and soon. I prefer my articles in an essay format.
Yep, there's a reason why I pay a LWN subscription.
Comment Re:The only problem with NoScript et. al. (Score 1) 53
Use RequestPolicy instead. It allows control of cross-site requests with domain-level granularity. So only sites you trust are able to gain access to domains like amazonaws.com, akamai.net etc. It basically has the same features as Noscript's ABE, but is much easier to use.
https://www.requestpolicy.com/
https://www.requestpolicy.com/
Comment Re:100% Wikileaks' fault (Score 1) 289
Sorry, none of your points hold water. Defence in
depth, Separation of
duties and Discretionary
access control are all well known security tenets.
But in the WikiLeaks scenario, what is "the damage"? If any one journalist is "compromised" (say, publishes the password in a book), all the cables go public unredacted. This is true whether they are all sharing the same password or not.
No, and that is the whole point. If they publish the password in a book, then they themselves must also publish their copy of the archive - or the password is useless. So if one organisation publishes their file, and then another publishes their password, there is no issue.
Comment 100% Wikileaks' fault (Score 1) 289
If you are going to share extremely sensitive documents with several people, why the FUCK wouldn't you create several *different archives* with different passwords - one for each individual you are sharing the information with?!
Give each individual access for a short period of time, and then DELETE THE INDIVIDUAL FUCKING ARCHIVES FROM YOUR SERVER! This has the additional benefit of being able to trace any future leaks.
Seriously, if you have disseminated the password to your single "master copy" archive to multiple organisations, then it might as well not be encrypted. If they had created different archives + passwords for each recipient this would be a non-issue.
An analogous situation is where you're setting up a webserver which hosts multiple sites/apps. You run the server process of each site as a different user because that way if one site is exploited, the damage is contained to that site only.
I seriously wonder if Wikileaks employees run their desktops as root.
Give each individual access for a short period of time, and then DELETE THE INDIVIDUAL FUCKING ARCHIVES FROM YOUR SERVER! This has the additional benefit of being able to trace any future leaks.
Seriously, if you have disseminated the password to your single "master copy" archive to multiple organisations, then it might as well not be encrypted. If they had created different archives + passwords for each recipient this would be a non-issue.
An analogous situation is where you're setting up a webserver which hosts multiple sites/apps. You run the server process of each site as a different user because that way if one site is exploited, the damage is contained to that site only.
I seriously wonder if Wikileaks employees run their desktops as root.
Comment Re:That's not what happened (Score 1) 103
Do you think it's wrong to have a rifle in the house? My very point is that back when I grew up, ALMOST EVERYONE had one. Do you see what they did there?
You can still have a rifle in the house. It just can't be semi-automatic. This means that the guy who wants to do target practice or shoot roos can do so, but the guy who wants to easily kill as many people as possible in a short period of time has some difficulties.
How is that a bad thing?
