Security "experts" who do little more than run a pre-built set of scripts against websites. It's five minutes of work for them to roll the dice that they might get a payout. Even if the security firm invested serious time in developing the tools and scripts, their spamming their tests out and wanting a payday not commensurate with the scalability of their approach.

This. And it was stupid of the asker to even pull the "I don't trust cloud providers" with Google and Microsoft not going anywhere for awhile. Microsoft in particular respects privacy and permissions is the better bet. Worried about hackers, as you said, encrypt locally and upload.

Yep, this is exactly how I want computing laws to work, based on the 70-80's standards. It's under those same standards that most forms of internet advertising are illegal forms of hacking and computer time use.

When you roll forward to the concept of smart phones with battery restrictions and "just enough" computing power as a key concept, suddenly the incredible usage loss by the owner whenever inundated by advertisements looks janky. It makes sense as to why no one but the owner / administrator may authorize code to execute as far as the legal wordings go from way back in time.

I make it a rule to never pay for an app to provide what should be basic OS functionality. Whole device encryption is pretty well handled in Android. There are lots of areas where I make do with available tools, like TRWP for point in time / image backups. If I find a specific, basic feature missing, I'm not terribly above obtaining decent software through alternate channels (root / administrative access browsers, configuration changing applications).

It's silly that Windows XP from 2001 still has a better list of basic OS functionality, bundled applications, and diagnostic tools than either Android or iOS can claim today. I'd gladly pay for a phone OS separate from my phone if I could get solid functionality covered.

Android also falls way short of iOS and Windows Phone for device to device migration. Settings and preferences from apps only migrate if they are Google first party or if the app developer stores your settings on their server and uses a Google (or similar) sign in. Setting up a new device, or even ROM is nowadays a longer process (~4 hours) than on a PC to get everything operational, and that is with using tools like Titanium Backup and similar.

If they are abandoning the teaching of core, pure subjects the way it sounds, it is certainly a bad move.

The correct method would be to have core classes in key areas, such as math, various sciences, literature and rhetoric, history and social studies AND THEN have derivative classes which fused concepts in practical and vocational settings. The chief problem in most educational settings is the student's lack of will to connect the dots. When I took a high school job at a restaurant, I could immediately see the applications from core Biology of sterile technique and protein / carbohydrate denaturing, most people fail to see those connections. A topical class like "Cafeteria Services" should teach students where to draw from key knowledge in a derivative and synthetic sense: math for accounting, inventory, and projecting trends, psychology and rhetoric for synthesizing menus and advertisements, biology for cooking and sanitation, and so forth.

This approach also better allows students to learn how to leverage their general "core subject" knowledge into changes in vocation because they have already learned the methods to apply what seems to some like dry, lifeless facts and calculations. Further, using such a system in the secondary levels (middle school / jr high / high school) would help students make better choices in the University system. The lack of topics usefully linking back to art history and anthropology would certainly help students to understand the lack of career value, except unto themselves in those fields. At the same time, it should increase the desire to get at least a basic understanding of such subjects as one sees the limited, but interesting ways to apply a general knowledge base.

The problem is that police would respond with that level of force based upon an anonymous tip.

The problem is more the police than the swatters. The swatters are malicious actors. The police are failing to perform as good actors by following through the least bit of due diligence in these situations. Before breaking down the door, they should at least have a seasoned, senior officer knock to see if anything seems odd first.

The problem is a police force filled with the same adrenaline junky types that call in the swatting. They see an opportunity to break a door down and going running around in full CQC gear and they lose their composure. If they were actually interested in public safety, that wouldn't be their first impulse reaction to a potential emergency situation, negotiation and diffusal would be.

Testing is for chumps who believe in waterfall development and all that jazz. The modern edict of Agile, the end users will quickly pass any issues up through the proper channels and developers will prioritize and fix as them deem appropriate. The customer isn't the programmer's boss.

I'm glad somebody mentioned Checkpoint, though it sounds like you aren't a fan.

Having worked plenty with Cisco, Juniper, Sonicwall and Checkpoint gear, the Checkpoint stuff is my favorite to build out and easiest to administer. Also the easiest by a good amount to take a quick glance at the configuration or log and know exactly what is going on. It does take a lot of overhead in the way of a dedicated configuration utility which only runs on Windows.

Juniper is a close second, and they definitely have superiority in the CLI department. Their C style nested configuration file is the best there is with beautiful logic and organization.

Cisco's configuration text files are a joke. They look like the result of letting every architect have a hand in the action without anyone dictating a direction. ASDM is even worse, featuring every bad design and logic decision possible and just feeling like a senior project at a university with a mediocre CS department.

Getting past the UI side, it's nice dealing with equipment that logically validates the configuration directives (Checkpoint / Juniper) instead of letting anything go even if it won't work.

As the oldest of 5 children, one thought came to mind. How well does it stand up to crayons? I would assume from the hydrophobic nature it will have no problems with water based markers, though I am curious on how well it handles Sharpies and other solvent based ones.

They might get head tracking latency, accuracy, and precision down in this generation of VR. It will be another 20 years at least before they conquer depth of field / focus / light field projection in a meaningful way that works with the biology of the eye. Entirely new, non-planar display technologies will be required.

Because she was careless and didn't leave a paper trail. If she were actually brilliant, like most corporate CEOs and similar officers, she would have used an official email account for the day to day bullshit, a personal account for the slightly suggestive, and a very secure account / dead drop / sneakernet system for the blatantly illegal.

I'm going to sound sexist, but every intellectually smart man of power I have met operates in exactly this fashion.

I don't remember this plot arc nuance in season 3 of House of Cards. Did I miss something?

This. Also, a more database like filesystem, like Longhorn was to have, and somewhat along the lines of how Windows Vista/7/8/10 handle metadata gathering on libraries.

Windows already handles the problem correctly. UAC lets you know when a file is trying to run in an executable manner. Android is similarly good about handling APKs.

File extensions need to go away (but remain for legacy systems) and be replaced with filesystem metadata which controls access and execution. In a way, it opens the door for two-part malware, a registered system extension for a given file type, and an otherwise unknown filetype metadata (e.g. .FLV / flash-video-meta-file-type and Flash player) which together work in concert to deliver the malicious cargo.

Well, all of the other LIGO detectors have been worthless due to errant signal sources like UPS trucks and natural tremors. I love physics and good experiments, but the LIGO model is a bad one unless you put it on the Antarctic or moon.

Overclocking is no longer a stability taboo for the tinkerers to get their hands into. The barrier to overclocking used to be BIOS settings, jumpers, or specialized 3rd party software.

It makes sense that the driver package enabled overclocking should be a feature the manufacturer has control over. It's senseless and stupid to overclock a notebook GPU in the first place.

nVidia probably started getting calls from one of the OEMs like Dell or HP showing that many expensive warranty replacements were tracked down to GPU thermal issues. At that point they end up in a bad situation with the OEM because the customer has long gone with the replacement hardware and it is difficult to pin the blame on them when they are going to plead ignorance. An overheating GPU probably means a complete replacement of the motherboard and CPU, possibly even RAM and SSD on boards where all of that is integrated and soldered direct to a single system board. In some situations it could be melting plastic housings and causing battery failure. That's a lot of wasted product because some idiot wanted to run Minecraft a few FPS higher.

"Things you can't have because others are too stupid for $400, Alex"