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Comment Re:IBM PC was an open platform (Score 1) 179

Compaq et al were able to create clones because the IBM PC was an open platform.

Wow, you know nothing about what happened, do you? Are we really already to the point where people don't have any idea how 'locked down' the PC was when it first came out? We've already forgot? Oh, you misread a Wikipedia article ...

IBM fought tooth and nail to prevent Compaq from being able to sell generic 'PC's and they had to go to great lengths to emulate the IBM BIOS without actually using any code to avoid lawsuits.

IBM saying its 'open' does not mean what you think it means. It doesn't mean you can get the specs and information for free, or even for the same price as the last guy. IBM means 'open' as in they are 'open' to charge you whatever the fuck they want to allow you into their system. It was about as open as any game console now days.

Comment Re:Kind of a dup, but here's a link that explains (Score 4, Interesting) 113

This story is just a slashvertisement.

The story linked (now linked in the summary) is to a guy making silly ignorant statements about how the GAO is wrong but in such a vague way that I can safely say the guy making these silly comments is wrong. He's arrogantly implying that no aircraft can be hacked because they never make any mistakes and use separate systems and a special software device (thats not a firewall!) that acts as a firewall and doesn't let the two connected networks communicate with each other ...

Also he seems to think that engines 'breath' air, and that the air inside the cabin of an airliner is not at all isolated from the air that goes into the engines.

In short, the summary refers to an article written by someone that claims to be a security expert AND pilot while at the same time making incredibly stupidly inaccurate blanket statements that any useful security officer and certainly any pilot know are too broad and vague to be true or just flat out wrong.

There most certainly IS a firewall between the passengers and the engines on commercial jet aircraft, otherwise the people would die at 30k feet. The fact that he claims to be a pilot and then claims there is no separation between the cabin and exterior is just scary.

And claiming that this other special box ... that acts as a firewall ... but since they gave it another name, its not actually a firewall, so therefor its not possible to be hacked and bypassed.

The reality of it is, what the GAO said IS TRUE. IT IS possible that 'hackers' MIGHT be able to cross the network boundaries if they are physically connected, anyone who claims this is not true knows absolutely nothing about IT security or security on complex systems in general. You work really hard to prevent it, and make certain design decisions to make it hard to cross that gap, but the instant they are connected, you've created the possibility. You can't honestly claim that your network is 100% secure and impeneratble which is what this guy is trying to claim ... about aircraft that he's never had anything to do with, never seen, knows nothing about the internal operation of ... just because he's a pilot doesn't make him suddenly privy to private information internal to Airbus or Boeing.

Once again, I repeat, this is nothing but a shitty slashvertisement. They probably paid timothy to post it to the front page, which explains why it was done in such a hurry the first time and didn't even have a fucking link in it.

Submission + - KDE Plasma 5.3 Beta Brings Lot of Improvements

jones_supa writes: The KDE project today announced the release of KDE Plasma 5.3 beta. It brings better power management, improved Bluetooth support, improved widgets, Wayland support, new media center, and nearly 350 bugfixes. The power management improvements include settings that can be independently configured per activity, there is a new energy usage monitor available in KInfoCenter, and a battery applet identifies applications that hog power. Bluetooth applet brings added support for blocking and unblocking devices. New touchpad module has been added as well. The combined window manager and compositor KWin is now able to start a nested XWayland server, which acts as a bridge between the old X11 and the new Wayland world.

Comment Re:So? (Score 1) 309

It would be like buying a refrigerator, and discovering that in order to use it, you need to hire someone from the distributor to stand there and open the doors for you whenever you want something

I wouldn't have to hire anyone. The refrigerator would come with one for free.

Comment Re:So? (Score 1) 309

I don't know about you but this is really bad. It's just as if you bought a car and the trunk came locked with a key only NVIDIA staff have.

There is nothing locked. You can fully use your GPU with the proprietary driver. These days cars are chock full of proprietary components as well.

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