well dang, this is gonna get google banned in a few more countries that have human rights abuse issues and corrupt governments... with the possible exception of america, where google would fight tooth and nail to stop that happening. instead i suspect they'll work quite hard to twist what the definition of "verified editorial" is - most likely by deploying operatives within the team. this is gonna be fuun!
fuck me as if we don't have enough to contend with here on slashdot with moderators (users) getting into a bun-fight over what comments are appropriate and which aren't, under this ruling the slashdot web site owners would have to review all the comments *and* the moderations *and* all the meta-moderations *anyway*! let the moderation wars begin... starting with this comment, yaay!
The problem with DRM on "rental" content isn't so much that it goes away (that part is the same for a book I borrow). The problem is that the only way to actually *implement* DRM is to have your machine is now obeying the content owner rather than you. To me this is like renting a DVD and leaving the key to your house at the store so that the clerk can enter your home when it's time to get the DVD back. The problem isn't that the DVD's going away, it's letting someone sneak into your house.
What I was essentially pointing out is there there's no clear binary decision between testable and untestable. There's stuff that's very hard to test, stuff we may be able to test in 1000 years, stuff we don't know if we'll ever be able to test,
But what happens when you have multiple theories that agree with all the experiments we can make, and the only areas where they differ are for experiments we cannot make? Any of them would still be better than the current theories.
This, this, a thousand times this.
You can look at the source code all you like, but unless you can *use* that source code to build your own binaries and redistribute them, then that means absolutely nothing in terms of security.
The products you buy off the shelf may or may not have any relation to the code you looked at.
That's why Free Software is so important for security-sensitive applications. Not only do you get to look, you get to modify it and redistribute.
I googled "chinese cheating": got 22.6M results, top results are about exam cheating.
I also googled "americans cheating", got 14.8M results, top results are about marital cheating.
So, China, with 4.2 times the US population has 1.5 times more cheaters. I guess the irrefutable conclusion from your data is that Americans cheat 2.75 times more than the Chinese, right?
Facebook is not doing encrypted messaging between users. Did you RTFA at all?
i did indeed... but it obviously wasn't clear enough. i believe that would come from the subject line saying "facebook is sending encrypted emails", rather than the subject saying "facebook allowing you to receive GPG-signed administrative notifications by email".
that's... amazing! i'm very impressed.
errr, so i want to send a communication, ok? it's supposed to be private, right? but it's a web service: facebook could, at any time (even under secret fascist subpoena) change or be forced to change (without informing us) the user interface so that the encrypted message is no longer encrypted, but is in fact entirely in cleartext.
you might think, "ok, well, surely we could then just have a messenger service or app which does the job, and we could trust that, right?" and the answer is "well no, absolutely not you can't... not unless the entire source code is available, and a chain of trust is established that guarantees a verifiable and traceable compile and distribution chain".
which, basically, means you need a software libre distribution (such as debian) because those have full source available, and GPG-signing right the way from the developers (whose identities are verified via key-signing parties that involve showing proof of ID on each signing), all the way through to distribution where a "Release" file containing the MD5 checksums of every package is, once again, GPG-signed by provably verified individuals.
the bottom line is that just because facebook *says* it's secure doesn't actually make it so, and announcing "yeah we provide a secure encrypted email service" is actually a dangerous DISSERVICE. you can't *EVER* guarantee that the servers have been compromised, and web browser *implicitly* trust what the servers give them to run.
the best thing that facebook could do is provide a programming API via which encrypted emails *may* be sent, and then sponsor software libre teams such as mutt, and everyone else, to provide 3rd party (entirely software libre) applications that deliver *and receive* encrypted mail. the only hurdle to get over there would be whether the software libre teams would view working with facebook to be endorsement of SaaSS (service as a software substitute - http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/...) which i can guarantee in advance that any GNU project will *not* do.
I'm afraid that willfull, destructive ignorance and barbarism isn't a problem that technology can solve. A digital copy, however perfect, remains a copy, and by nature, can't be used as proof that there ever *was* an original, which is the entire purpose of ISIS's destruction of these relics.
i disagree, outright. their aim is to destroy availability and access to anything that could cause people to have "thoughts" outside of the proscribed and permitted range as dictated by them. in that regard, it *doesn't matter* that the copies are imperfect replicas of the original.
in fact, now that i think about it: a second objection to what you say is that if anyone else notices a discrepancy, they may take a copy of the files and improve on it. so in that regard, the fact that these insane people have endeavoured to destroy the originals actually results in *more* people with access to - and thus thinking about - the origins of the artefacts that were destroyed.
either way, these insane people have *helped* spread the messages that they attempted to suppress. so i think i will mark this story as "stressandeffect".
HOLY MACRO!