bandushrew

It is Comcast's customer who requested data, and it is Comcast who is responsible for ensuring that request is fulfilled.

Therefore it is Comcast's customer who should pay for the service that Comcast provides.

Getting Netflix - for example, to pay Comcast to ensure that Comcast is willing to fulfill the requests for data by Comcast customers is just.....odd.

it reduces the chance of deliberate theft by the service.

One problem with bit coin, is that an exchange service can suddenly find itself with millions of dollars worth of bitcoin, dwarfing the possible income available via fees and start thinking really, really hard about where the most money is to be made.

and then the service might go out of business, and the customers lose their property.

Not to mention the target the service might represent for hackers etc.

Having a dual key system ensures that, for all parties, the best possible outcome of attempted theft is nothing at all for anyone.

Not a great outcome for any specific customer, but an outcome that aligns the motivations of the service provider and the customer.

The problem is that laws and clauses of the constitution only provide protection if there is political will to allow it to do so.

The second that the people in power have no actual political will to follow them, the fact that laws exist provides no protection.

" team, especially one that does rapid development-"

sorry, what? any team that thinks "rapid development" actually means writing code more quickly is a team composed of idiots - I think I must be misunderstanding you?

what are 'bing points'?

Not without some kind of effort.

Lets turn it around though, can you give some examples of Microsoft buying a cross platform tool and continuing to support multiple platforms with it?

I cannot think of any offhand.

I dont think they necessarily purchased it to eliminate the competition exactly, there is likely something about the tech that they really like/want. or maybe it is the people involved.

My wild guess is that they love the ability to target other mobile platforms easily, and will continue to support that. I do predict though that over time they will discontinue/shutdown/slowdown/disable the ability to develop for those multiple mobile platforms on Mac OS X and Linux. ie, that their goal in this case will be to persuade developers that they should be developing for all mobile platforms on Windows, using C#

Microsoft have been purchasing cross platform applications and tools and shutting them down forever.

In general it is what they do.

If they do not do that for Xamarin, it would be a departure.

So, I will wait and see. it does sound hopeful though.

I dont even know what that would mean, to make an existing vulnerability 'unacceptable'.

Vulnerabilities of all kinds exist. We need to find them, learn from them and we need to fix them.

Getting hung up on whether or not they are 'acceptable' is just kind of weird.

Bad stuff happens, incompetence happens, mistakes happen. None of that is 'acceptable', but it happens just the same.

Creating an environment where some kinds of mistakes are 'unacceptable' doesn't eliminate those kinds of mistakes, it just causes people to stop reporting them.

Complaining about their release cycle makes some sense. complaining about the existence of an existing bug is basically just howling at the moon.

The thing that really bites about this is the idea that the NSA could have taken advantage of the vulnerability rather than alerting apple to it.

The idea that they are as fiercely hostile to the security of millions of americans as taking advantage of the vuln would require, is absolutely terrifying.

It is clearly not a perfect system, and it does raise all the questions you have mentioned, so I am not going to defend it particularly vigorously, but here is a random array of thoughts...

AFAICT what this system appears to allow for is an open and honest process of outright negotiation around how the household works. I cannot see a downside for that, and have seen (and practiced on many occasions) much more negative approaches - arguing, resentment, grudging, self-martrydom and so on.

If you and your partner are both completely spent at the end of the day then you can negotiate the remaining work, neglect it, or have one person accept it. All of those are reasonable options at different times, what is important is not the individual decision, but the overall pattern and the process of communication and negotiation you use to get there.

To the kids it probably looks like mum and dad are negotiating over who gets to put them to bed. Ive (sadly) had my kids listen through arguments around that at times, and many other things, and overall they appear to have survived and even done pretty well, although they are still young so who knows.

I think it is fantastically easy for someone outside a relationship to look at it and go "that relationship is broken, there is no way it can work", and be completely wrong (or right).

Relationships tend to be pretty unique things. Maybe theirs is in good shape, and maybe it is not, but in general I dont see a problem with any process that helps them negotiate openly and honestly about what they want.

It is also fantastically easy to speculate on how badly kids will be damaged by behavior you personally dont agree with.

If you scrape the surface of why they are together and what their motivations are, I doubt it is the money. The money merely provides a proxy for them to build discussions around.

....or maybe their relationship really is based on money, who knows....

Communication is hard.

Any system that works well for everyone in the relationship is a good one.

Married 26 years with four kids :)

my partner owns a nokia lumia.

She loves it, but it has had to be taken back to the shop we bought it from twice so far, because apparently everytime Microsoft releases an upgrade, it effectively bricks the device during the install attempt.

It amazes me how badly Microsoft seems to manage its software compared to Apple.

OTOH, she does love it.

it is very easy to argue against it, when you stand to lose money if it were implemented.

hmm, I think maybe we had different things in our minds regarding what a config script is.

I certainly don't think that the web server should be writing out executable php scripts, if that is what you are asking?

OTOH, I have seen many examples of php configuration files done by simply setting values in an array, looking up other values from other places and so forth - i.e., an executable configuration file written in php.

I think it is a bit of a jump though to assume that the author was suggesting that the web server be able to write executable php files?

the author specifically mentions that this is in the context of a php application.

and in that context, it is perfectly reasonable, I think.

what issues do you have with the idea exactly?

I would think you are right.

My guess would be that the unspoken phrase there is:

the documents suggest, were removed (or “minimized”) from the database, ACCORDING TO APPROPRIATE LAWS (ie, within 5 years or...etc etc)

that is a very narrow way to look at it.

the 9% 'drop in work' will be offset by the increase in consumption caused by a large range of people suddenly having more purchasing power,

businesses will have to increase production, and hire more workers to do so.

they will have to pay the workers more to entice them in, and provide better working conditions.

this will generate more work, and higher consumption.

I am sorry, I dont think that makes much sense.

Apple has had remote access to the file system forever - an early use of it was to remove apps that had certain kinds of legal issues from the phones of those who had purchased it.

iCloud is simply remote file storage, and not all applications use it anyway - if the NSA wants access to my phone, achieving access to my iCloud account is a pretty poor second best.

" iCloud allows Apple to install and run code directly on your device remotely."

I dont understand this? so far as I am aware, apple has always been able to install and run code directly on your device remotely.

what am I missing?

if you carry a cellphone, the government does know where you are at all times. this is now established fact.

why do you care so much more when the discussion is around guns?

why do that instead of just making it so that really poor people got internet access, and then allowing them to decide how they use it?

as much as possible, we should avoid making decisions people can make for themselves.

I am so sorry hosh. I disagree with everything you just said.

"The root of the problem here isn't that the NSA are spying on ordinary people,"

what? no, that is exactly the problem. isn't it?

That is actually incorrect for the majority of places. Industrial and business related consumption tends to dwarf home owner consumption, and is usually at its peak during the day.

sounds good to me :) I am pretty comfortable with not hiring people who lie on their CV.

as always, people have to make choices.

I cannot save others from the impact of the choices they make. and I would not want to.

You appear to be arguing that we should not judge people based on their actions - I am unsure where that leaves us?

that is because the work that makes the NSA untrustworthy is done by its employees.

why on earth should they get a free pass for that? have you seen the scope of the damage they have done?

"That's rather radical and unprofessional to say."

In what sense is it unprofessional?

"Any nsa contractor who depends on government contract to feed their families - is it wrong? "

in a moral sense? who knows. but from a practical sense it genuinely does mean I cannot trust you. hey, I understand what you are saying - and I sympathise, but at the end of the day there are clear, solid reasons why I cannot trust an ex NSA employee.

"And people have different degree of tolerance and standard for patriotism. i don't endorse what they do, but that's exact false attitude we have toward NSA affiliations."

working for the NSA is not patriotic. it is the opposite of patriotic. it is associating with sneaky people who deceive and lie.

I dont think we will punish them. We simply cannot trust them.

If they want to be trusted, they need to stand apart from the people who are lying and deceiving us about their tactics and their data gathering.

"The whole "removal" sounds like "one ought not be an NSA employee."

It is not that one 'ought not'. It is that the NSA is spying on us all. It is also lying about what it is doing, and being deceitful about its tactics.

People need to make a choice about where they stand. If they want to stand with the NSA, that is fine.

Unfortunately from a practical POV, it means I cannot trust them.

On the bright side, I cannot think of any reason an ex employee of the NSA would be honest about their previous employment.