Comment Re:Hello 911? Telcos are thieves (Score 1) 449
Too bad I have not mod points for this subthread, today.
Too bad I have not mod points for this subthread, today.
Mine has been in airplane mode from day 1, with wifi on. I've seen where others have problems keeping wifi on when airplane is also on, but I haven't. Perhaps the fact that the SIM card is still in the original box, never inserted, has something to do with this. I bought an unlocked phone, and have never given it a chance to lock itself.
As ChunderDownUnder reminds me, I forgot to mention that this phone has never been out of airplane mode, in addition to never having a SIM card plugged in. Flashing out of T-Mobile software was also one of the first things I did, and the other night I flashed CyanogenMod 11 M4. (Of course some of the guys on IRC suggest that even that is too commercial, and that I should go to snapshots over on xda-developers, to be safer.)
I keep my tinfoil hat handy, just like I tend to channel RMS and ESR. But there are practical limits...
So if I'm using my no-contract Samsung Galaxy phone as a wifi-only device, and have never inserted the SIM card at all, I believe I'm safe from this particular vulnerability.
Tin-hatters, am I wrong on that?
Explain,
I consider one of the saddest examples of inaccuracy to be "2001: A Space Odyssey".
No manned mission to Jupiter.
No HAL-9000. (But maybe that's a blessing?)
No manned base on the moon of any sort, let alone of the scale in the movie.
No pure-space vehicles like the lunar shuttle.
No commercial, civilian, accessible space station.
No common-use picture-phones.
No Pan Am shuttle to the space station.
No Pan Am.
by Murray Leinster, March 1946. If you're going to talk about how our literature predicts the future, it's worth taking a look at how past literature predicted us. "A Logic Named Joe" did a pretty good job of nailing the internet, nomenclature aside, and it did it almost 70 years ago.
One of them watched the old "Total Recall" with Arnie. Even though the movie was rated R they didn't take advantage of the obvious opportunity with their "walking screening device".
They look at this article, as well as various responses to it. The overall tone is even and reasonable. There is a bit of sensationalism to TFA, and some of its claims appear to be taking worst-case situations and generalizing them to the entire population of wells, etc.
No amount of careful planning will ever replace dumb luck.