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User Alleges LG TVs Phone Home With Your Viewing Habits 286

psychonaut writes "Blogger DoctorBeet discovered that his new LG television was surreptitiously sending information about his TV viewing habits, as well as the names of the files he watched on removable media, to LG's servers. There is an undocumented setting in the TV configuration which supposedly disables this behaviour, but an inspection of the network traffic between the TV and the Internet showed that the TV continues to send the data whether or not the setting is disabled. DoctorBeet contacted LG, but they shrugged the matter off, saying that it's a matter between him and the retailer he bought the TV from."

Comment Re:I wonder (Score 1) 166

Yes, I know this. However, this would not require them to compromise the NIST Random number test suite - No reasonalbe test suite would be able to detect this sort of scenario anyway.
So, back to the original question: Is the NIST Random number test suite compromised? What could they gain by doing this?

Comment Re:I wonder (Score 1) 166

I've considered this as well (I will be using the NIST random number test suite in the near future). However, what can they accomplish with this? I see two approaches they could have taken: 1. Flag a non-random generator as "random". However, just because I use the NIST test suite does not mean that I don't use any other test suites, that would presumably catch this. This seems high-risk from the NSA's point of view - just one publicly available test that proves NIST is gamed shows their hand. 2. Flag something that is random as "non-random". This gets truly random generators disqualified. However, if my TRNG was disqualified, I would look into why, and that would likely reveal the NSA's hand as well. Are there scenarios that I am missing?

Comment Re:Is Grove running for office? (Score 1) 565

If it were for entirely for environmental regulations, Intel would be fabbing offshore as well. Fabbing is far more toxic than packaging and testing.

Intel hasn't fabbed in Asia in the past for several reasons, one of which is intellectual property protection. If I'm not mistaken, Intel is constructing its first Asian fab now, somewhere in China.

Comment Re:Is Grove running for office? (Score 4, Informative) 565

Are you serious? Intel is one of the few companies that still fabs most of its chips in the United States (Arizona, New Mexico, and Oregon). There are also fabs in Israel and Ireland, but the bulk of the fabbing is done in the US. The packaging is done in Indonesia, China, etc, but that's not where the real money is.
GUI

Simple, Free Web Remote PC Control? 454

MeatballCB writes "Hey folks. Being the 'technical' guy of the family, I often get calls from friends and family members when they're having PC issues. Most of these folks are not technical, so trying to troubleshoot problems over the phone can often be a challenge. Anyone know of a simple-to-use and (preferably) free service that would allow for remote viewing/control of their PCs? I know there's WebEx and GoToMyPC, but I hate to pay for something I'd use once every two months. I also know about VNC, but trying to walk someone through opening up ports on their router that thinks their Internet is broken when their homepage gets changed is not realistic. Anyone know of anything that would be easy to set up and use?"
Programming

The State of Ruby VMs — Ruby Renaissance 89

igrigorik writes "In the short span of just a couple of years, the Ruby VM space has evolved to more than just a handful of choices: MRI, JRuby, IronRuby, MacRuby, Rubinius, MagLev, REE and BlueRuby. Four of these VMs will hit 1.0 status in the upcoming year and will open up entirely new possibilities for the language — Mac apps via MacRuby, Ruby in the browser via Silverlight, object persistence via Smalltalk VM, and so forth. This article takes a detailed look at the past year, the progress of each project, and where the community is heading. It's an exciting time to be a Rubyist."

Comment Re:Old Argument (Score 1) 199

I think one of the reasons wireless vendors in particular use blobs is because of the FCC compliance requirements. Can you really release an open-source programmable radio? Does the FCC even allow that? How can the FCC certify that it doesn't interfere with licensed spectrum, if the software can be changed, therefore changing the characteristics of the radio?

Comment Re:Ummmm (Score 5, Insightful) 792

The general thought process is that as cars get better gas mileage, the revenues from the gas tax will decline.

I personally don't see a problem with continuing to use the gas tax, but increasing it: It encourages people to drive more fuel efficient cars. I don't see this monitoring technology as being useful.

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