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Comment Re:Telco's are going to operate 5G over the ocean? (Score 1) 153

It doesn't matter where the storms are. It matters where the satellites are and where the earth station is located. The satellites are most likely geosynchronous and are aimed more or less directly at the earth station they transmit to. Chances are that that the earth station is in the mainland US.

Comment Re:Ok (Score 0) 153

From my reading of the article, the signal isn't coming from nature. It's that the government has equipment designed to send atmospheric measurements on those frequencies. So if that equipment is designed to use that frequency, it's a bit more complicated -- though if we really need that frequency for 5G, I agree that we need the monitoring equipment replaced/reconfigured beforehand.

Comment Why wasn't this frequency band reserved? (Score 2) 153

I'll withhold judgement on if this is actually a problem until the report comes out (I don't see why NASA or the NOAA would lie though), but if a government organization was embarking on a multi-billion dollar venture that relied on radio communications at a fixed frequency, why didn't they reserve that frequency band well before committing to that frequency?

Comment Someone correct me if I'm wrong (Score 1) 97

but I thought you needed the "Apps that can appear on top" permission to record what a user is doing in other apps. Without it, the only thing that can be recorded is the developer's own app. This makes the privacy implications much smaller for most apps, since the developer will always have access to know what it is showing you (along with what you tap/type/press) as that is inherent in its ability to be interactive. That's not to say privacy couldn't be improved. In particular, "Apps that can appear on top" does not convey the ability to record a person's activities, so that really should to be renamed (or else sectioned out into a different permission). Also, for apps like web browsers and clients that connect to servers not operated by/for the developer, recording interactions in one's own app is a much bigger issue. I'm still not sure if there's anything that can be done about this security-wise though, because -- again -- the app needs access to the data in order to display it. Lastly, I feel like screenshots (as opposed to data like coordinates, strings values of fields, etc) are a kind of crude method for analytics anyway, yet they're the only thing this study focuses on. So it kind of gives a false impression to criticize this SDK, when I'm sure essentially the same information is transmitted (much more frequently) in text form and couldn't be detected by this survey.

Comment Is the phone locked or encrypted? (Score 1) 240

Or both?

I've seen both terms used in regards to this phone and I don't trust the media not to use these terms interchangeably. I don't even know that the FBI has stated one way or the other.

If it's encrypted though, the government is on its own to brute force it and Apple can't help decrypt it even if they wanted to, so this is a debate about nothing.

Apple can theoretically unlock the device by flashing it with new signed firmware, but I didn't understand in the San Bernardino case either why the FBI didn't just disassemble the phone and directly download the data from the flash memory chip.

Comment Fox is Guilty AND There's Recourse (Score 1) 311

YouTube shouldn't be blamed. They are just following the law.

Fox should be blamed though, for filing a frivolous (not to mention false) copyright claim.

Those complaining about "innocent until proven guilty" or that there should be some sort of vetting by YouTube of DMCA takedown notices before they are enforced likely aren't very familiar with the DMCA, which affords content uploaders (such as 'sw1tched') the right to submit a DMCA counter-claim (in this case, a simple letter to YouTube asserting that the content doesn't infringe on Fox's intellectual property) at which point YouTube would reinstate the video.

Furthermore, there is some precedent for suing the party that made the infringement claim. In order to file the original DMCA notice, Fox's lawyers had to assert (under penalty of perjury) that they had "a good faith belief that use of the material" was not permitted per their copyrights. If 'sw1tched' can demonstrate that they acted in bad faith (such as by pointing to the fact they DMCAed a video clearly uploaded way before this episode was created, and possibly taken for the purposes of creating the episode) then he wins.

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