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dispose13432

480 karma · joined November 24, 2016

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dispose13432··on Class Breaks
The "boringification" of computers will bring us back to the 70s.

If we have to prove _everything_ on your computer, from your calculator or Pokemon, how much do you think a license of windows will cost? $250,000?

Linux/FreeBSD/OpenBSD/Minix will be dead (no one to sponsor certification and then put it in the public).

Crazy "best-practices" (change passwords every couple days, password must include symbols, letters, numbers, upper-case and lower-case in a random order, but be no shorter or longer than eight characters)

Must have a full team of lawyers to prove that everything done fit the letter of the law, and that any hacks are not your responsibility

"Shinyness" is what allows you to have free VSCode and Atom.

Sure, I miss the 70s when you could get a text editor measured in bytes (but, btw, electron is probably more secure than 70s unix) but I definitely like the cost/convenience of modern software.

dispose13432··on OpenPGP really works
I have no problems with that guy. I have problems with all those guys who signed the key.

And, again, as you mentioned, those were security experts.

You think that your neighbor won't fall for that?

dispose13432··on Finland launches trial program to pay unemployed citizens a basic monthly income
I'm saying that taxes will go through the nose (close to 25%) for everyone with quite questionable benefits (will barely pay for rent).
dispose13432··on Finland launches trial program to pay unemployed citizens a basic monthly income
>Only some will be given free money,

I thought the idea is that everyone from Bill Gates to the beggar will be given it?

dispose13432··on Finland launches trial program to pay unemployed citizens a basic monthly income
1. $587 a month in many cities in the US will barely rent a room.

Even in St. Louis (https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-st-louis-rent-tre... ), average monthly rent for a one bedroom apartment is $1000 a month. In LA, it's over 2000 a month, in NY it's 2700, in Detroit it's at 1000.

SNAP (Food stamps) give about $255 a month. That means that out of UBI, about $300 is left over for rent.

2. If everyone in the US gets $587 a month, that's 1.5 trillion a year.

The current US federal budget is 3.8 trillion.

That's about a quarter of current US federal budget, and we still have to give an actual livable stipend to the truly poor (SNAP, section 8, medicare), some kind of defense, leave some for state/city tax, federal infrastructure programs (freeways/trains).

dispose13432··on Finland launches trial program to pay unemployed citizens a basic monthly income
>Since it's designed to study the disincentives to work, by the end of the study it's likely to include many employed people.

On the other hand, people realize that UBI may go away any day.

What will be when canceling UBI has as much chance as canceling Minimum wage?

dispose13432··on Finland launches trial program to pay unemployed citizens a basic monthly income
EDIT

Sorry. My mistake

dispose13432··on Why HTTPS for Everything?
> Entire point of SSL/TLS is to ensure end to end authenticity and confidentiality.

The point is that country A can strongarm a certificate authority under their domain to sign any certificate they want. So if A wants to MITM google or github they can, and there's no way for you to know which certificate is the real one and which is the fake.

dispose13432··on Why HTTPS for Everything?
1. Key pinning.

2. Certificate transparency

3. Can't do it "accidentally". That's why a lot of people have 2 foot high fences, not that you can't jump over them but to create the atmosphere that this is private, and if you get caught there you can't say "oops".

4. Non-government (malicious router) can't MITM.

dispose13432··on Why isn't there a Google for the law?
>access to free lawyers at least for the poor etc is more important than access to the legal databases

That itself is a problem, while we have public defense lawyers, we don't have public preventive lawyers (who I can call and ask if what I'm about to do is altogether legal and what can I do to avoid run-ins with the law).

dispose13432··on SpaceX concludes anomaly investigation, sets return to flight target date
My question is:

1. How often does this happen?

2. Hoe many tests did SpaceX do before the first FT launch?

Considering that most rockets don't use supercooled fuels, I would expect insane tests (they can't rely on NASA's historical data).

dispose13432··on OpenPGP really works
>And the reason people initially used Facebook, Skype, and WhatsApp is not that they were easier to use or better. It's advertising. Notice how all of these are proprietary software made by companies with the means to advertise their software? You can bet people would use GnuPG, Diaspora, and XMPP if they had been advertised by companies like Facebook and Microsoft.

I know quite a few non-techies who use VLC, Firefox, LibreOffice, and other OS advertising-less projects. The difference is:

1. Facebook, Skype and WhatsApp solved problems others didn't and became big. Now it's too late to fight.

Had Diaspora been around before FB, and as easy to work with (put name here, picture here, password here, friend here. You're all set up. Let's go), or XMPP been around before Skype (which is a very old program in internet time), or Kontalk,Signal, etc. been around before WhatsApp (find friends by number, not by username), they probably would have taken off (at least to some degree).

Google came late onto the Desktop scene (Chromebooks) and are not successful while the incumbent (MS) is good.

MS came late onto the mobile scene and failed, while the incumbent (Google) is good.

dispose13432··on SpaceX concludes anomaly investigation, sets return to flight target date
That's why insurance isn't the end-all/be-all.

They've got enough money out of insurance to build themselves a new satellite, the problem is that they need that satellite yesterday, not today.

On the other hand, SpaceX isn't living off poor blokes who were hoodwinked by a starry-eyed agent. Their customers are professionals with lawyers and accountants taking care of things, so I don't feel that SpaceX is particularly unethical.

dispose13432··on OpenPGP really works
So let's go through a hypothetical situation:

A has friend 1 and 2. He vets them, checks their ID, goes to a key-signing party, trusts that they are 1 and 2 with his life.

Now he gets an email from "5000" who claims that he's from the IRS and needs to know information from you.

You look up this "5000"s signature.

Now, none of A's friends work in the IRS, but "5000" was signed by "500","302","201" and another 500 people.

"302" was signed by "23", "23" was signed by "2".

Should "A" send him the info?

Theoretically, he can call "2", ask him how "2" knows "23", then call "23" on behalf of "2", and so on.

But he doesn't know if "23" is honest, and all the more so "302".

And what if "302" says that he knows who he is because he self-identified as "5000 from the IRS" at a bar?

Too much thinking.

Now imagine A is the kind of person who downloads EXEs to view cat pictures?

dispose13432··on OpenPGP really works
Web of Trust seems to be an inherently broken paradigm.

Think about this. Let's say I trust my friends (so when my friends sign John Doe is John Doe, it's really him). It's a big deal (not every friend is so security conscious, maybe he met this guy on facebook and looks so real), but would I trust someone because of a friends-friend's recommendation?

I know which friends are naive. But which friend's-friend's-friend is naive?

And those are the only web-of-trust connection I have with him? Can I trust him? Can I not? How do I tell?

dispose13432··on Three.js editor
Ok. Found it, https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/tree/master/editor doesn't say, but https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/ says MIT
dispose13432··on Three.js editor
What's the license of this?

GitHub doesn't seem to say?

dispose13432··on Why HTTPS for Everything?
>Some of us have a different opinion based on our own genuinely-held beliefs

Such as?

Browsing a website with an adblocker in a public place may literally give me a virus.

That's what HTTPS everywhere protects against.

dispose13432··on Seattle's Uber union law set to go into effect
>It's not like uber is threatening to disconnect the driver if they don't work, it is entirely an at-will engagement.

What about "dumping"?

dispose13432··on Does Google execute JavaScript?
> It seems to require much less effort for folks, which is perhaps why they do this

It's also much easier to find readers.

Compare:

Facebook: become friends with your co-workers, now they see your picture

Blog: Please go to jupiter90000 (that's how many zeros?).blogspot.com to see my once a week pic updates!!

dispose13432··on Be Healthy or Else: How Corporations Became Obsessed with Fitness Tracking
>Is he paying $50 more for not participating, or getting a $50 discount for participating?

On the other hand, think about it like this:

What if insurance costs $10,000 a month, with a $9900 discount for "healthy behavior", so your average person pays $100 a month.

It's a great deal.

Now what happens if someone gets sick and can't upkeep his healthy behavior?

He loses his insurance.

This defeats the purpose of health insurance, but most people tend not to think of long-term repercussions.

dispose13432··on Does Google execute JavaScript?
>They could have just as easily wrote their own fast and secure implementations of flash and Java instead of disabling them. Especially for Java given Google's deep experience with it and that they already have their own runtime.

Yup, Google should:

1. Reverse Engineer a proprietary language/API (Flash).

2. Write a secure VM for it (Flash and Java), trying to hit a moving target.

or

Get everyone to use an open, standardized tech (HTML5/js).

Can you give me one reason Google should prop up Flash?

dispose13432··on Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars
But batteries are a significant source of weight.
dispose13432··on Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars
Why do you think the airspace won't have traffic?

You want to end traffic with modern accessible tech?

Build ten layer freeways.

dispose13432··on Is the Era of Great Famines Over?
> my living expenses (everything but tuition) are easily under $10,000 USD

You rent a room or have a few room-mates?

New York (which has skyscrapers) average rent is $3000 a month for a one bedroom apartment.

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/blog/map-of-average-rent-by-...

There's a reason minimum wage is so high, and it's not because the government is so generous.

dispose13432··on Is the Era of Great Famines Over?
The thing with basic income is that I'm not sure it's currently practical:

The US has a bit over 315 million people.

To pay everyone minimum (barely livable) wage, every person should get $15,000 ( http://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-are-annual-earnings-full... ). That's $4.5 trillion per year.

The GDP of the US is 16.77 trillion.

So unless we have close to 100% tax on above-(federal) minimum wage, UBI won't work.

dispose13432··on How Adobe Flash fell, and why Flash content is worth preserving
True, but there (I hope, at least) is an old OpenOffice (at least in VS) where you can find a parser.
dispose13432··on How Adobe Flash fell, and why Flash content is worth preserving
HTML is supported by only one vendor?

Which one? Firefox or Chromium-WebKit or Explorer?

dispose13432··on How Adobe Flash fell, and why Flash content is worth preserving
He forgot to mention that since it's closed source and Adobe isn't releasing a SFW converter, even the Internet Archive can't backup a copy of the sfw file and have it useful.

OpenOffice, OOTH, can be converted to HTML or PDF, and even if OO and LO go down, the engine will still be available.

dispose13432··on Chrome browser for businesses
>The failure modes of software are not as well understood, but are rarely life threatening.

Well, it's not life threatening, but what do you think will happen if every month your credit-card stops working for a few days because of a Windows/Linux regression?

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