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Comment Re:Thread good (Score 1) 44

Private IP addresses are a thing. My PC's IP address is 127.0.0.1. That doesn't mean it's connected to internet.

And the key word is *allows*. For a Thread device to connect to the internet, it needs a border router which connects it to the home network, which in turn may be connected to internet, which in turn may allow devices to use cloud services if they're designed to do so. You can prevent that if you want, but Thread doesn't require devices to function without an internet connection any more than WiFi does. Matter, however, does, and that's often implemented alongside Thread devices.

Comment Re:Can't we just outlaw all this shit? (Score 1) 45

For the purposes of Section 230 it is AFAIK. Beyond that there's not really a strict definition. I'd argue modern social media implies primarily user-centric content rather than topic-centric, and recommendation algorithms. Which includes Facebook, Twitter etc but not forums or comment sections. But that's a definition that might be more useful in contexts like social influence and addiction than the topic of censorship and legal liability.

Comment Re:This must stop (Score 3, Informative) 59

YouTube can be added to Kodi without much effort, certainly no CLI. It's pretty much the only thing I use Kodi for these days beyond the occasional local Jellyfin content. Yeah it breaks every so often leaving the one or two maintainers to rush a beta out to fix it. But when it works, it works perfectly for my liking. I'd even consider paying for Premium if it had official Google support.

Netflix was pretty painless too at one point, though it broke for me ages ago and I never bothered looking into it. Personally I found Kodi's menus to just be a terrible way to navigate Netflix the way I use it (I want the discoverability and recommendations, unlike YouTube where I just want the latest videos from my subscribed channels) .

We desperately need an open source/locally hosted alternative to something like Roku or Google TV. But besides the fact open source projects have historically been terrible at 10ft user interfaces and being intuitive enough for the average user (or the advanced user who just wants to switch their brain off and watch some damn videos), it's destined to fail without the cooperation of major providers and/or some set of standard APIs.

Comment I miss the days... (Score 1) 62

...when companies did pro-consumer shit like this just because it was the right thing to do, or to differentiate themselves from the competition. Not because they were dying and needed an artificial injection of goodwill to stay afloat.
What are the odds this modular standard will be open to all, no license fees? If and when Intel find their feet again, how quickly do you think they'll abandon it? You no longer have the consumer trust it takes to pull off shit like this, Intel.

Comment Re:Why hasn't it been done? (Score 1) 141

Older people without cellular/smart phones grew up without them, have social groups that don't depend them, are likely retired and thus don't have to use them for work, and for the most part don't or aren't expected to interact with public or other critical services using them.
If you're not in that demographic it's much harder. Sure, it may be "technically possible" for many, just largely impractical. If you do, you're missing out on information and opportunities that other people have, which puts you at a huge disadvantage in life. A handful of people ditching their phones won't change that, it only becomes viable when it's done on a wide scale, and our culture as a whole changes accordingly.

Comment Re:I wonder if Microsoft paid for such bans (Score 1) 31

Many "anti-cheat" softwares are basically rootkits

Note even close. Unless you're one of those idiot tech illiterate gamers who thinks that every anti-cheat runs at kernel level, and everything that runs at kernel level is a "rootkit".

Validate the inputs on the server

You...dont know how multiplayer games or cheating works, do you? "Validating inputs" has nothing to do with the kind of cheats these solutions are looking for. Cheaters aren't entering the Konami Code to get extra lives in Fortnite.

Comment Re:Suck it (Score 1) 102

It's perfectly reasonable that some cloud service or similar connectivity has a contractual end of life. The question is are these features really necessarily, how much of the car's cost is paying for them even if you don't use them, and what traditional offline features are they degrading or dropping entirely to make way for the online equivalent?

The way things are going you won't be able to use the entertainment system, get the car serviced by a third party, or even unlock the doors without some subscription service that may not even exist in 10 years, or needs and app that isn't compatible with the current mobile OS version.

Comment Re:A better term: lease (Score 1) 64

What's more egregious is when the game has a more or less fully functional single player/offline mode. Or there's only one tiny component that's online, like asynchronous interactivity (think: Dragon's Dogma 2 or Death Stranding) or competition like high score tables or whatever. But they revoke your access to it anyway. Or even worse, it's only some form of DRM that needs it to be online.

Thats what happened with The Crew 2, which started this whole current movement. There was no reason for it to depend on online services for a good chunk of the game to be enjoyed.

Comment Re:Brilliant and harmless marketing (Score 1) 48

Sunk cost fallacy says people who spent money on tickets are more likely to think positively of it though. I suspect most of the biases will even out, and we'll actually end up with more useful reviews once the brigading has been stamped out.

Obviously it'd be better if there were other ways to verify reviewers have actually seen the movie without this one company having a monopoly over it, but even if the business incentive was there for them to do so I don't know what would be practical.

Comment Re:Who are they sending this to? (Score 5, Insightful) 120

I'm not sure there is anything to get, the whole thing sounds made up. Notice how there's no official statement from CrowdStrike about this. I bet these people have fallen victim to a phishing scam taking advantage of the situation, which would explain why the gift cards fail to validate. Which if true would be really fucking ironic considering these are supposed to be cyber security and system admins.

Comment Re:umm.. (Score 5, Insightful) 59

You still don't get it, do you? This hasn't got anything to do with cheating. There's a suspicion that a Apex Legends or one of its components is vulnerable to a remote code execution attack. If it can be exploited to target specific players, the exploit can probably be automated to target regular players. If the attackers can use the exploit to run cheat tools, they can probably use it to run all kinds of malware.
Like seriously, if you're this ignorant about cybersecurity maybe just don't answer, instead of spreading misinformation.

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