Comment Re:NSA involvement ? (Score 2) 59
Zimmermann might well be good and honest
In mitigation: they do publish their source code for review. I don't know how easy it is to check that that is what is installed on the phone that you buy.
Zimmermann might well be good and honest
In mitigation: they do publish their source code for review. I don't know how easy it is to check that that is what is installed on the phone that you buy.
# sudo ln -s
its not just governments. I used to live at an apartment complex and when I was there, they signed a 5 or even 10 year technology contract with a cable company, exclusively. they wired our building and we had to buy service from them. zero choice in the matter.
what was funny (not ha-ha funny) was that in the middle of silicon valley, we had some of the worst service I've ever seen. 20 years ago I moved from boston to the bay area and stereo tv was pretty common at the time, and yet our pay-tv (mtv was semi watchable at that time) was all in mono and the vendor would not upgrade since he signed a many-year contract and had no MOTIVATION to upgrade anything!
silicon valley and we could not get stereo encoded tv shows. that's just an example and I'm sure its long since been changed by now, but this shows what you get when you sign exclusive contracts that last many years with someone who clearly does not want to invest one penny more than he has to.
even if townships allow multiple isp's in, apartment complexes still sign contracts with just one vendor and you are stuck with them for years and years.
regular people have no say in this. the only say you have is to put up your own sat dish (for tv, at least) and have that ugly thing take up your personal balcony space. as for internet, you have pacbell dsl (which is now dog-slow by modern standards) and you have one cable co that will service your area. that's it.
and its been this way since, well, forever. for as long as mainstream broadband has been around, at least.
and the various governments (this is not about the US, its about the new trend, or rather the new-found ability in mankind to truly neutralize all privacy and secret communications) are all addicted to this drug.
they can't give it up. they have a monkey on their back.
the stingrays are the gateway drug; and it soon is not enough and you want more. you want ALL the wireless and wired datacomms traffic.
we should shift our war-on-drugs effort to the real drug that is invading everyone's lives, though due to no fault of their own.
and again, this is not about the US or its agencies. do you really believe your own government is not wanting or having the ability to do this, as well?
this is about mankind and one of his worst weaknesses.
we should make a 'teaching moment' from this and disallow ourselves this ability. just like we really can't handle the responsibility of nukes, as a people, we can't handle THIS much power, either.
no one should have it. and yes, I truly mean NO ONE. you give it to one, and the rest want it (both good guys and bad guys).
will we use this as a teaching moment and make some change for the better?
well, I'm over 50 and have no hope left for us, as a species. we have proven we can't handle this level of responsibility. I don't expect change, but I do expect people to at least SEE what's going on and to try to work around it without giving up, entirely.
I have to ask: is there secret NSA involvement in this ? An inside man who will put a couple of back-doors in the 'phone.
I have absolutely no knowledge that this is the case, but the NSA certainly has the resources & motivation to do so. It seems to have done this sort of thing in the past.
Difference being, when deployed on a submarine, by nature of the mission you are cut off from the outside world.
When you are deployed on Mars, by nature of the mission, you are a celebrity doing PR appearances multiple times a day. I think this is just preparation for throwing in CNN's face: "No, you get the interview when we give it to you, if it doesn't come live at your optimal time slot, suck it up and play it delayed - we're not going to compromise our people's Martian rhythm for your advertisers."
to show how much variation there is, I am also in the bay area and I have a year of 'intro deal' pricing where its less than $50 for 100meg down and 10meg up. no shit, either; I do get those speeds.
well, one caveat. I run openvpn almost 7x24 and this pisses comcast off, even though they won't ever say it. I get disconnected almost every hour on the hour. I work around it with my own form of creative network mgmt (...) and I'm annoyed by them, but its not stopping me.
note, when I don't run my vpn, I don't see the disconnects coming. strange, huh?
anyway, when the intro 12mo deal is over, I'll have to find some other service. there isn't much else to pick from! I once had clear.com (clearwire) - a semi-4g usb 'mifi' dongle that would give me acceptable connectivity without any house wiring. when I was short-term renting, that did the trick. neat little dongle, too. maybe I'll look into that again.
I just need to leave comcast (when my year is up) for 3mos, then I can reset the clock, get a new intro pkg and start again, but this time it probably will only be a 6mo special.
if you don't play these games, you get stuck for over $100/mo!
THIS is why comcast needs to be bitchslapped. and the others, too, but in my area, comcast is the only choice you get.
silicon valley - where we pretty much DID invent the internet - and we have a single vendor to pick from. sigh
but they feel no pain, like people. no ability to show remorse or ethics or shame.
they can't be jailed and they are almost never punished in any meaningful way.
they have all the good things we, people have; but none of the bad things.
"gee, dad, when I grow up, I want to be a corporation!"
update: why didn't I try the simple thing, first? sigh. do a full uninstall, then install the new and this does not carry over previous 'settings'. it seems that even installing the new one over my older one was not so great. had to do a full remove and then add.
but after that, all is well! amazing. none of the problems I had are now there. loading an mkv file can take a long time over ac-rated wifi (sometimes 10 secs of the screen just sitting there, no status or anything) but then the video plays and from then on, its fine.
random positioning no longer shows the blockiness or buffering problem. playing dvd files is now fine and hd files continue to be fine.
wow. so, the 'trick' I'm glad to say, is simple. full uninstall and then fresh install. I should have known, sigh.
but really glad that it was not something other than 'bad settings'.
Is Digital Rvier still around? I downloaded a copy of Windows 7 Home OEM about nine or ten months ago for my wife's shitty ASUS laptop (which is now going to get Linux Mint tossed on it and be transformed into a glorified video player).
Oh, I know. He was well rewarded for playing Spock. I think we all knew this was coming for a while; he had largely retired from public appearances, and then the reports a few days ago that he had been admitted to the hospital.
I plan on celebrating his life and his unique and significant contributions by watching a collection of my favorite ST:TOS episodes;
- Amok Time (who doesn't want to watch horny Vulcans fight to the death)
- City On The Edge Of Forever (more a Kirk episode, but Spock plays a pretty damned important role)
- Doomsday Machine (great scene where Spock removes Decker from command)
- Mirror, Mirror(evil Spock is just so fucking cool, and who doesn't enjoy watching Chekhov writhe in pain)
- A Taste of Armageddon (great episode that shows how Star Trek could go after tough issues in novel ways, and also the first real introduction to Vulcan mind powers)
- The Tholian Web (has a great scene between Spock and McCoy)
- And I'll top it off with The Wrath of Khan
The only kudos I'll give to Dell is that they still ship a clean Windows install DVD and a driver disk. Pretty much the first thing I do after I've made sure a new computer starts up is to immediately wipe out the partitions and install clean from disk.
Robocop was worse.
Manchurian Candidate was worse.
Total Recall was hideously worse.
Everyone hated the Star Wars prequels, but as these things go (and as beloved as Star Wars was), they really weren't THAT bad.
Not holding out much hope for this.
Most of it isn't helpful at all, and some of it is downright diabolical.
To do nothing is to be nothing.
