Messages

226

Living Room / Re: Linux users targeted by mystery drive-by rootkit

« on: November 24, 2012, 08:22 AM »

If it aims for the Squeeze kernel, it would infect both Debian and Ubuntu as they come from the same sources. Ubuntu just has a faster release cycle.

Also, Squeeze is used in both server and client. Two of my own are Debian Squeeze, although if the infecton vector is an iframe it isn't going to bother them because I don't have GUIs installed on either one and cannot directly surf the internet using them.

Can't have anything nice, someone comes along and writes malware for it.

227

Living Room / Re: Anything wrong with formatting a USB stick in NTFS?

« on: November 20, 2012, 04:54 PM »

All of my USB memory devices are formatted NTFS except where other devices like cameras do not support NTFS formatted memory.

The thing to do is go into the options for the device under device manager and disable caching. Although doing this causes a performance penalty, disabling caching makes it so that removing the device without first doing so in software is less likely to corrupt data.

228

Living Room / Re: Corporations crippling U.S.

« on: November 19, 2012, 10:21 PM »

Inside the Hostess Bankery.  A sad read.

-wraith808 (November 19, 2012, 08:56 PM)

The dough gets thicker and thicker.

It almost seems like everyone on the inside has a different take on what went down and what could have been done about it.

229

Living Room / Re: Corporations crippling U.S.

« on: November 19, 2012, 08:43 PM »

Without even reading the article, I can give you the icing on the cake.

I make $12 per hour. More than minimum wage

How can it be possible that I am currently homeless in the cheapest motel I could find when I work 40 hours a week just to get me food, gas, and internet access? The cheapest housing in town only barely fits in my budget at all, and that's even in the worst neighborhoods for apartments barely fit to live in.

Even better, is it even possible for a single person on minimum wage to actually earn an honest living?

Something has got to give soon. And I am sure I am not alone out there anymore, everywhere I turn people who you wouldn't expect are ending up in the same situation I am because the cost for everything has far exceeded their ability to pay their bills.

America is fast becoming a third world country.

230

Living Room / Re: When Kickstarters Fail

« on: November 16, 2012, 01:31 PM »

You guys might know this actually:

I have a project that's been in R&D at my own expense for the past 4 years or so, that is drawing near to the point where it is ready to patent.

It is developing a mechanical device- an engine like no other, and already has a prototype that demonstrates a successful concept even going as far as filling the testing area with the blue haze of the lubricating oil burning in the chamber because the test type lacks oil control.

Would Kickstarter be a suitable way to secure the funding for said project? I really need to fix some glaring errors in the design and construct an improved prototype, but also lack the money required to secure a patent on the design let alone promote any viable products to come from it.

231

Living Room / Re: You thought those cheap no-name USB/Phone charger were safe?

« on: November 15, 2012, 09:37 PM »

That burned stub looks like a coil or a resistor that burned out.

Most likely the transistor in the thing is cooked, and the resistor turned into a fuse as a result of the regulator transistor shorting out.

232

Living Room / Re: Remember Buckyballs? They Are Now Gone

« on: November 15, 2012, 06:36 PM »

Gotta learn to scrounge. It's possible to do it way cheaper than that, really the only expense is the required length of wire unless you happen to have a transformer core with the right shape and coil counts. Used transformers are easy enough to strip the cores from as well if you don't have a suitable core.

Try though they might, the government cannot realistically eliminate people's ability to simply make what they need out of whatever they have. It's an ability that sets the human race apart from the beasts, and something a lot of people these days should use more often.

233

Living Room / Re: Remember Buckyballs? They Are Now Gone

« on: November 15, 2012, 05:50 PM »

That is fascinating, considering that they have plastered all over them warning keep away from children.

Yet again though, careless people and bad parents see to it that honest businesses get shut down because someone might get hurt by their product.

Maybe we should pass a law banning Tanning bulbs, or even natural sunshine. Think of all the skin cancer you would prevent by such legislation.

Really though, all they look like to me is ordinary steel ball bearings. Build yourself a magnet charger, buy a couple dozen steel ball bearings for perhaps $.35 each max, charge them up using the magnent charger, and you have effectively the exact same product for a fraction of the price.

234

Living Room / Re: Don't You Want to be "Safe"?

« on: November 10, 2012, 12:28 PM »

I wonder exactly how hard it really is to generate a 'small' EMP..

-Stoic Joker (October 31, 2012, 07:45 PM)

Not hard at all. There's people with capacitive discharge machines used for coin crushing that work by generating local EMPs of sufficient intensity to shrink metallic objects.

-SeraphimLabs (November 10, 2012, 10:03 AM)

Got a URL?

-Renegade (November 10, 2012, 10:06 AM)

If I shared it, we'd both be added to the terrorist watchlist. They're not hard to figure out though if you know a few things about electricity and physics.

235

Living Room / Re: Don't You Want to be "Safe"?

« on: November 10, 2012, 10:03 AM »

That really does look suspiciously like Google just patent trolled everyone else in our favor. Whose side are they really on in all this? Every so often I see Google sticking up for us while most of the other big names are out to kill us.

In latest case to test how technological developments alter Americans' privacy, federal court sides with Justice Department on police use of concealed surveillance cameras on private property.

-TaoPhoenix (October 31, 2012, 04:41 PM)

I wonder exactly how hard it really is to generate a 'small' EMP..

-Stoic Joker (October 31, 2012, 07:45 PM)

Not hard at all. There's people with capacitive discharge machines used for coin crushing that work by generating local EMPs of sufficient intensity to shrink metallic objects.

236

Living Room / Re: Files aren’t property, says US government

« on: November 05, 2012, 05:07 PM »

If files aren't property, then they also cannot be someone else's Intellectual Property, nor can they be stolen property in an infringement case.

I honestly think this is the biggest good news for the average person since internet file sharing was invented- as long as you don't actually download the stuff onto your own machine, it isn't your property to be charged with possession of, and all the liability falls onto the host storing that content- except files aren't property so they get off easy too.

This is amazing, it really would break every single infringement case on record and completely destroys the notion of software patents and copyrighted software.

237

Living Room / Re: Win 8 Zero-Day Exploit

« on: November 04, 2012, 09:44 AM »

I've noticed a sharp rise in MBR and boot sector rootkits, and now as part of a standard OS reload procedure use a Linux LiveCD to run DD and zero the first 4GB of a drive before reinstalling the OS.

But I will be surprised if they find a way to reliably infect the BIOS. BIOS code varies widely from system to system as it is the hardware specific level providing glue between chipset and OS. For such a thing to be possible, it would have to target similarities in a particular vendor, such as Phoenix.

238

Living Room / Re: You thought those cheap no-name USB/Phone charger were safe?

« on: November 01, 2012, 03:49 PM »

It's not so much an issue of if they work or not.

It's that a lot of the cheaper chargers are made out of low grade hardware, and in the past there have even been isolated incidents of poorly designed clone units outright catching fire due to serious flaws resulting from cost cutting by the manufacturer.

239

Living Room / Re: Don't You Want to be "Safe"?

« on: October 31, 2012, 04:48 PM »

Extra Credit: The Supreme Court is looking at cases about sending sniff dogs onto your private property to look for evidence to nail you with too.

-TaoPhoenix (October 31, 2012, 04:41 PM)

Oh that's going to go very well

Unauthorized dogs on my lawn are met with flying bits of lead as they are a threat to the livestock.

I wonder how the court would deal with that one.

"Sorry Officer, I thought it was a stray that would kill my chickens."

240

Living Room / Re: Mass Social Engineering in Forums

« on: October 30, 2012, 03:57 PM »

And the best part is they are entirely just a figment of your imagination.

Though I could see this being useful in helping to stabilize some forums I am on, since it has info that would be relevant to stirring up activity on forums that are fading into oblivion.

241

Living Room / Re: Data Breach Lawsuits

« on: October 29, 2012, 02:54 PM »

Hahahahha~! Seeing those 2 words in the same sentence is just hysterical!

-Renegade (October 29, 2012, 01:36 PM)

Hey!   I run a company. An actual C corporation. We care. And we act accordingly.

(Sorry. Couldn't resist! )

-40hz (October 29, 2012, 02:14 PM)

I run a company too. LLC mind you, but still a valid legally-recognized company.

It's the big brothers that don't care, most of the little guys do because their reputations are at stake.

242

Living Room / Re: Data Breach Lawsuits

« on: October 29, 2012, 11:58 AM »

Well, I can't completely say it is a bad thing. A lot of companies have shown the reaction of "Sorry too bad." when that kind of thing happens.

If this actually does get pursued, it has a good chance of putting some pressure on companies to actually care about such mishaps and taking better measures to prevent or correct them.

243

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« on: October 29, 2012, 11:56 AM »

I think this one might go over rather well.

The ITU is the UN Equivalent of the FCC after all.

And as most Americans know, the FCC tends to do a really poor job of actually enforcing anything let alone maintaining the standards they defined.

Knowing that, there would initially be a round of arrests made to appease the RIAA and company, then people would stop caring and it wouldn't be enforced anymore.

Just like what happened to the FCC and censorship. They're so busy declaring the 80s and 90s Sesamee Street DVD releases PG13 that shows like Family Guy and even more tasteless content make it onto broadcast television. It's amazing how ineffective the regulations actually are.

244

Living Room / Re: Selling Something? Go to Jail! That's copyright infringement... :-/

« on: October 26, 2012, 08:38 PM »

That's just it though.

This wouldn't change things overnight.

In fact right after its implementation it would actually have an opposite effect- companies would be pushing as hard as possible to get ahead while they still hold the upper hand because their competition hasn't developed copycats yet.

Over time though the competition would gradually wear down the big companies, and give younger ideas a fighting chance.

I could also see it being a rather large economic stimulus too. Because this now provides a very powerful incentive for companies to avoid being sufficiently large scale as to trigger such a penalty, you end up with lots of small and medium businesses instead. More people would be working because every company has to have people answering the phones or sweeping the floors, and larger scale companies have less of these people relative to their overall workforce. There would be more people involved in R&D as well among the companies that do remain Fortune 500 or near that level, as they would be pushing to stay on top of the curve and ahead of their competition even more than they already do.

In the long run that means more jobs, because more people will be employed to accomplish the same amount of work- each company will need it's own people for the tasks that benefit the most from the economy of scale.

Unfortunately, you probably are right. Losing the right to enforce their IP means that they would eventually lose profits- though they might gain them back by copying competitors. It would still be a battle to get this kind of thing through the current government.

245

Living Room / Re: Selling Something? Go to Jail! That's copyright infringement... :-/

« on: October 26, 2012, 03:59 PM »

I cant really see you accepting the idea of discrimination - I mean if it's allowed one way, it'll be allowed the other. Mind you, saying that, there might be a workaround...

-tomos (October 26, 2012, 03:28 PM)

The reason for it is that Fortune 500 companies are the top 500 companies in the world in terms of profitability- Company #500 on the 2012 list was showing 4.something billion dollars in profit, while the #1 had over 110 billion dollars.

Copyrights and patents were designed to protect individuals and small businesses from their larger competitors. Do the top 500 companies in the world really need that protection too, when they are almost unrivaled in capability as it is?

I think it would be better implemented as that fortune 500s could still own patents and copyrights, thus they would also be able to create new ones or buy them from people. But they would not be able to enforce them while on that year's Fortune 500 list- thus if becoming a Fortune 500 caused them to lose enough profits that the following year they aren't anymore, their IP would be enforceable again.

But it would do a great deal to eliminate such things as companies buying patents just to hide them from the public, as smaller innovators would then be free to expand on those concepts and if it annoyed the big companies enough they could simply attempt to out-compete their smaller rivals, or buy them out.

The end result would be a major boost to innovation, as smaller companies would be free to invent and develop while larger companies would have a greater incentive to continue improving their technology so as to maintain their edge over the imitations.

Companies like Microsoft who are notorious for poor quality product would very quickly lose out without a major R&D turnaround, because fortune 500 and backyard programmer alike would be able to develop drastically improved alternatives that are plug in compatible.

And it would really put a lid on the scale of this whole IP legal mess we have, because the worst offenders would suddenly no longer have the authority to pursue such things.

The obvious workaround is to simply divide up the big companies into smaller ones, because then they wouldn't be as likely to be Fortune 500. But as a side effect, their amount of pooled wealth and political sway would be greatly reduced on top of the encouraged competition.

I've yet to actually come up with any ill effects of this, if you can think of one please name it.

246

Living Room / Re: Selling Something? Go to Jail! That's copyright infringement... :-/

« on: October 26, 2012, 11:58 AM »

The entire concept of IP was to prevent the following scenario:

A backyard inventor develops a prototype of an engine that can rival the power to weight ratio of jet propulsion, but retains the predictable behavior and performance characteristics of a piston engine. This development is done on a rather tight budget, and the resulting device takes a long time to reach the market due to the inventor's limited funding. With some persistence, it eventually happens and makes a fortune in doing so- or proves to be a market failure and is shelved with all of the other useless inventions.

Fiat Group, one of the big brass that owns several major automotive brands, takes a liking to this invention and figures out how to make one just like it. They then use their phenomenal investment capabilities to develop the concept and deliver a viable product to market in a manner of years, before the backyard inventor would have even gotten started with the first production type.

The result? It is impossible for the little guy to actually get anywhere, because the big names will always steal his idea and beat him to market. Copyrights and Patents were designed to prevent that, giving the little guy some authority over his creation.

Over time they've strayed from that purpose, and now are a tool used by big ticket interests to bully the law abiding population and ensure that nobody can ever compete with them.

Which is where the notion that copyrights and patents should not be available at all to Fortune 500 companies would result in a phenomenal improvement in the current economical and legal landscape. It would then be possible again for the little guy to compete, while big interests usually can leverage their financial resources to stay ahead of the R&D curve well enough to compete with other large scale companies and make sure the little guys stay on their toes.

There would also be a dramatic increase in the conductivity of the marketplace to new ideas, as ideas that have long been crushed under overly broad IP and squatting would become available again so that innovation could improve.

247

Living Room / Re: Selling Something? Go to Jail! That's copyright infringement... :-/

« on: October 25, 2012, 11:56 AM »

Yeah but there's a problem with that:

Antitrust.

This kind of law would absolutely crush a large portion of the US Economy, as well as making it outright impossible for anyone to start a new business.

-SeraphimLabs (October 24, 2012, 09:25 PM)

Well, some things aren't patented, so you could still sell those. Farmers would be safe as they could still sell their produce, like corn and soy... Ooops. Nope. Nix that. Owned by Monsanto.

Well, at least you could still be a lumberjack. Surely that'd be OK... Oops... Nix that. Trees are owned by Syngenta.

Yep. Looks like we're completely hosed.

-Renegade (October 24, 2012, 10:34 PM)

I actually have on my desk a genuine innovation, the prototype of a device I came up with a few years back that is currently undergoing a gradual R&D process whenever I can spare time and money to tinker with it more. My employer already signed off, all rights to this invention belong to me alone.

The current test type is focused on what was originally intended to be a proof of concept model, which it more than achieved successfully.

Since then I've been attempting to actually make it function properly, which would make the rights to this design worth a fortune.

But a law like this? In order to mass produce this device once the design is corrected, I would have to buy raw materials from which to make them. Those raw materials would be processed into components and assembled.

Except I would then have to sell those materials again as part of the finished product.

Hey wait you can't do that

Oh look at that. It is no longer possible to sell ANYTHING at all unless you gathered the raw materials with your own hands, because at some point along the line goods would have had to exchange hands more than once.

This law would actually be beyond unreal- it would mean a COMPLETE national economic shutdown because not only could you not sell things you bought from someone else, but you couldn't manufacture your own without having access to your own supplies of raw materials.

Even the brass that is trying to push this law wouldn't be immune to it's consequences. Apple would have to buy oil wells from which to refine plastic, and their own chipmaking facilities to make their own hardware. They wouldn't be allowed to sell their products if they contained materials that were bought from someone else, or used somebody else's designs in any way.

Amazing, I almost want to see this happen now.

248

Living Room / Re: Selling Something? Go to Jail! That's copyright infringement... :-/

« on: October 24, 2012, 09:25 PM »

Yeah but there's a problem with that:

Antitrust.

This kind of law would absolutely crush a large portion of the US Economy, as well as making it outright impossible for anyone to start a new business.

On the books exist laws of the antitrust variety designed precisely to stop that kind of situation- forcing companies to break up and encouraging much needed competition.

If they actually pass this thing, then every single major business in the US needs an antitrust suit filed against it immediately on the ground that it is no longer possible for American consumers to create and distribute alternatives to the goods manufactured by these companies, who have more often than not proven they cannot be trusted.

Although we definitely need to make our stand on this one, the economic impacts alone mean that if they actually do uphold this there will with certainty be rioting leading to war from the economic collapse it would cause.

249

Living Room / Re: JustCloud.com: It's All Lies

« on: October 24, 2012, 08:37 PM »

Okay that makes more sense.

I was imagining some type of set top box that acted as an encryption gateway and SAN device, which relayed everything up to their datacenter for the actual storage.

The line of thought then followed that you bought the gateway device to get access to "unlimited" space for free, which meant that unless the devices had a set expiration date or were prone to failure they would eventually accumulate more customer data than they could afford to keep.

Though it certainly gave me an idea for a rather innovative approach to offsite backup.

250

Living Room / Re: JustCloud.com: It's All Lies

« on: October 24, 2012, 04:25 PM »

Really though, free space-only is not sustainable. It still costs the provider a given amount of money each month to maintain servers housing the drives with your stuff on it.

-SeraphimLabs (October 23, 2012, 04:06 PM)

Exactly right!

That's why I thought Backblaze's online backup service made so much sense. They combined unlimited storage with a unique hardware design (i.e Backblaze Storage Pod) that gave them a workable price/profit point. Plus they kept it simple by selling a "backup only" service without any of the file sharing and other "features" many of their competitors are also offering. They're one of the few backup storage providers out there that ever presented a realistic and sustainable (to me at least) business plan.

One of the reasons I like them so much is that they have a "pure play" business model that makes financial and technical sense. That's more than can be said for half the"cloud solutions" out there...
 

-40hz (October 23, 2012, 05:51 PM)

How long do the devices last?

I'd still be watchful, because if the device doesn't have to be replaced at regular intervals, it is still very likely that after so many months or years of operation they will still come up short financially- even after the profits from selling the device are used up, if the device is still usable it will continue consuming space.