Posts by Charles 9

Re: I'm not paying extra for that crap

Wanna bet? England wants it, France wants it, even Germany wants it. Roll that in your mind. The strongest country in the EU wants Big Brother.

Re: I'm not paying extra for that crap

No, they'll say the warranty is null and void because of user tampering (the radio chip and antenna would be non-user-serviceable parts). And since the government will be in on it, they'll be on the manufacturers' side.

Re: IoT vs Users

"What benefit is data on how often I use my toaster? None, and the cost of installing 5G components is > 0 as is the airtime for data comms and when it cuts into their margins they won't use it. Your illuminati-cartel isn't going to suborn every vendor into this vast conspiracy."

As long as it is sufficiently small, and if they get the money back by monetizing their data for use as potential shopping habits, then it can be justified as low enough to not worry much about it for a potential repeat return.

"And even if his practice becomes commonplace, I don't know where you get the idea of this perfect system of devices bricking if the user interferes. From what I can see 99% of vendors can't even implement basic security, which does cost them effectively nothing except for a dev pulling some crypto libraries and wrapping their protocols in them. Anything as complex as 5G connections, SIM cards, etc is not going to fly in the churn-and-burn cheapness of the IoT world."

Two words: Suicide circuit. It's not that hard to continually check for something's presence if it's electrical, and if it's electronic, there are ways to make it tough to spoof as well. They're also not that difficult to implement, even on the cheap.

"Oh, and as a final thing: GDPR."

It won't BE a thing for much longer. Hell, even frickin' Germany is getting in on the act. As a comic book journalist once touted, "Paranoids are just people with all the facts." Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean the world really IS out to get you. Just look at the United States.

"Undoubtedly some vendors will go down this route, just as some are currently selling boxes of fruit juice with DRM baked in. But that's only some, and only idiots buy their products. As has been shown time and time again, any form of DRM can and will be circumvented."

4K BluRay players haven't been cracked yet. Not have the XBox One and PS4 and their successors. A nigh-bulletproof end-to-end chain of trust complete with encryption keys is finally emerging, unique to each device, making breaking them so difficult as to be impractical (4K movies are coming from other sources, for example). Same with the newest iDevices and Androids. Haven't heard much about jailbreaking and rooting them as of late.

Re: IoT Jammer

Followed thereafter by a lot of "This device is not operable." messages. And before you reply with consumer backlash, I counter with a cartel with the government's blessing.

Re: I'm not paying extra for that crap

It won't be cheaper because the cost to add the tat will be practically nil. The technology already exists in remote sensor meshes.

Re: Lots of tinfoil-hattery going on here

But that was before compact battery-sipping radio tech for use in things like sensor meshes appeared. And IIRC 5G can use lower frequencies for greater range and don't need a lot of data usage: more akin to SMS.

Re: Typical snake oil salesman

"If he thinks vendors are going to make a "2 cent chip" with an integrated cellular radio he probably already owns Brooklyn Bridge so I won't need to sell it to him again."

Except they ALREADY EXIST for sensor meshes. And 5G will only make this easier.

Whispernets are more tolerant. If you can do SMS, a whispernet should be fine. 5G low-bandwidth can use lower frequencies for greater range.

The companies will act in cartel with the government's support. Any that try to break rank won't last long as that data represents repeat business, and there's no business like repeat business. Especially when the costs to add drops rapidly toward nil.

Re: "We can't avoid the IoT revolution by refusing to play part."

"It is amazing what a pair of side cutters and a sharp pointed scriber can do to help personal security."

It'll quickly become the most common way to brick your appliance AND void the warranty (on account of tampering).

Re: "We can't avoid the IoT revolution by refusing to play part."

"My other half won't let anything IoT in the house (useless toys) and won't let anything (other than telephone or laptop) into the house with a microphone."

So what happens when the inevitable happens and you need a new fridge and ALL of them are IoT-FORCED that brick if you disable or cage them?

Re: Save me from the evil "Things"!

Whispernets. Direct, unblockable connection. Try to cage them and they'll brick.

Re: Fire risk?

Probably. Also probably give it a valid reason for bricking.

Re: "We can't avoid the IoT revolution by refusing to play part."

"Er, my router, my firewall rules..."

BZZT! Their network chips, their rules, and they trump you because they're up the chain. And since it's a cartel up there, with plenty of network technologies covered by patents (and they're genuine hardware-based patents), good luck trying to roll your own network chips from scratch to get around them.

Re: Freedome will be illegal in the UK

Even if they're based OUTSIDE the UK? How will they get past sovereign immunity?

Re: Share and Enjoy!

Nope. They have connections. Try to put them up against the wall, they'll call in their friends and you'll have THEIR guns behind YOUR guns.

Re: IoT vs Users

Nothing. It's a cartel. You take it back and find out EVERY machine/toaster/microwave does the same thing. Plus they won't have to rely on your WiFi going forward as they'll use Whispernets, so they can connect without your ability to control it (like you say, they'll brick first if they can't get through, so forget about caging them or breaking their radio stuff). And the government isn't your friend there, as they WANT this to happen for their Big Brother campaign.

Better consider going back to open flames and wooden iceboxes.

Nothing new. Recall the original Amazon Kindle and its "Whispernet" which ran on top of the AT&T Wireless network? Same idea here. If it can reach the air, it can connect whether you like it or not, and you can bet these devices will brick if you try to Cage them or destroy their chips and/or antennae. And if ALL the manufacturers are doing it, you'll be left with a Hobson's Choice: either bend over or start living backwoods-style cooking with an open flame and storing cold stuff with a self-built icebox.

Re: Why use this over a blocking plugin?

Chrome-type plugins. Android Firefox can actually use ublock Origin.

Re: Linux "pushers" again

Well, either that or say Overwatch (natively, you can get banned for using WINE on Battle.net), enough to steal a professional gaming sponsorship or two.

That level of paranoia would mean you couldn't trust ANY software EVER because it can be subverted any number of ways. That includes open-source software which can be either subtly subverted or simply usurped.

Re: '34 years of development - Windows 10 is the result'

And then you have the serious gamer set, for which consoles are a casual toy and no other OS compares to Windows for lineup and support, especially for headliners which would be the purview of professional gamers. Gamers (and especially professionals) won't jump to Linux unless someone is willing to back them up, and not even Valve's support is enough in this regard.

Re: I was all set to agree but

"Or we need to retouch the paint and they've replaced the colour with a new shade that is just a fraction different (over and above batch variations)."

I thought most paints these days were tinted to order. Just bring a scrap of the color you want and they can mix you a quart of gallon to match it.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe you mean when "regular" leaded fuel was phased out because of pollution concerns, forcing some cars to get some serious work done to deal with the different fuel.

Question: Were some models forced into retirement because they couldn't handle unleaded fuel? This was during my childhood so it was all fuzzy to me, though I do know all the cars my family had required unleaded fuel. I'm just wondering if there were cars that required leaded fuel.

Re: It's an old story

"The sculptor Kathleen Scott had a definition for knowing when a figurative sculpture was finished. You walk round it looking for things to change - "Hmm - what if? - no". When you cannot find anything you think needs changing - then it is finished."

Problem is, the human mind is fickle. That's why there's the infamous interjection, "I change my mind." You may not find something you think needs changing, but sleep on it and you may find one...and another...and another.

Re: Mission critical stuff should legally never be done?

"I think that any mission critical software that carries a real risk to human safety should never legally be allowed to be done as long as the original vendor continues to trade."

But what if the target is hardware, especially "set-and-forget" hardware that becomes unreachable once deployed, meaning you basically only get one shot at it?

Re: Right, $50 of bars will stop a 4000lb car going 74mph.

What about ride height issues, especially in places like the US where trailers have to roll over railroad track bumps where they can get caught?

Re: Americans have (on average) faster broadband?

Yeah, but how many ahead of the US have comparable land mass and thus comparable infrastructure burdens? All the countries ahead of the US are smaller and/or (particularly the Scandinavian countries) have concentrated populations. Both make rollouts a lot easier whereas the US has to maintain cross-country rollouts across vast rural tracts and mountains to prevent weak links.

Guess you've never read "The Lady or The Tiger" or other open-ended stories.

But what if the narrative was about divergent perspectives? Then the director will WANT people to look in DIFFERENT directions (say two things happen in the same scene yet it's set up so you can only see ONE of them). That way, not everyone sees the same thing, creating debate later.

Re: Of course there's a comparatively easy fix

Problem is that the societal problem drills down to it being a HUMAN problem, making it nigh-intractable until we evolve a better human.

Re: Even if we could guess which company

He's saying the Speaker and President Pro Tem (the actual head of senate) can "call" a session and others conveniently don't hear it.

That said, Article I notes that if a quorum is called and there isn't a majority of the body present, that chamber can't operate.

Re: "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,"

But I believe the Supreme Court is the ONLY court directly described in the Constitution, just as the House and Senate are directly described in Article I (complete with qualifications). Everything else in those Articles goes through them as the ultimate bodies of those Articles.

Re: It's total bollocks

"Paper voting: it just works."

So do insiders.

Re: It's total bollocks

But not impossible, especially if you combine this with things like bribes and a political machine as large as a major political party. And if you think that's not possible, recall that the term "political machine" dates back to the Gilded Age in the late 19th century. This alone proves there's no real way to make an election truly trustworthy. And unfortunately, when it comes to something like this, it really is all or nothing, as one bad apple can spoil the entire election.

Re: It's total bollocks

"The day we have operating systems and applications that are provably immune to hacking of all forms will be the day that Helios would be a sensible idea. We could use it to vote on which squadron of pigs flying in formation over the ice-rinks of Hell gave the best display."

Ballot box swap done by a Kansas City Shuffle (a distraction opens a chance to switch them without anyone noticing). Purely physical and, done right, undetectable because the counts can also match. There, I pretty much proved your hypothesis impossible since this is essentially a Sneakernet hack that's pretty much always a possibility.

Re: No, elections don't work this way

That still doesn't help against ballot swapping, where the boxes or contents are switched out via a Kansas City Shuffle and the switched contents also have the same number of ballots.

What man can make, man can also usually subvert.