Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

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Büge
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Büge » Fri Apr 28, 2017 4:07 pm

Hardly Ideal wrote:When people finally read the fine print on the thing, it seemed like you don't "own" it but rather are licensed with the privilege of using it. Remember, this is a damn litter box we're talking about.


That's nothing.

[John] Deere's just reiterated that position to a US Copyright Office inquiry on the future of the law, joined by auto manufacturers (but not Tesla) and many other giant corporations, all of them arguing that since the gadgets you buy have software, and since that software is licensed, not sold, you don't really own any of that stuff. You are a licensee, and you have to use the gadget according to the license terms, which spell out where you have to buy your service, parts, consumables, apps, and so on.
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Mongrel » Fri Apr 28, 2017 4:53 pm

Every time I discover some company-constructed backdoor or lockout it absolutely infuriates me and I immediately spend time looking for how to disable it or jailbreak it or cut it out.

I've mentioned before that on some level I find it really sad that I love that my motorbike is ancient and has only the most primitive of computers (1986 Motronic technology, baby) because no one is going to come along and fuck with it in ways like that. Why do I have to be some kind of retro-seeking hipster just to own a vehicle that is entirely mine and entirely under my control? It makes me feel like some kind of I DON'T TRUST TECHNOLOGY old man.
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Thad » Sat Apr 29, 2017 1:08 pm

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Hardly Ideal wrote:Not sure if this is the right thread, but that's one of the things that's really making me nervous about this whole "internet of things" business: will companies be able to fuck with how I use my products?


Yes.

We've already had Keurig block third-party coffee pods (it backed off after major customer backlash), the makers of an IoT garage door opener disable a user's account over some nasty reviews and complaints, and that doesn't even get into stuff like the total lack of security, TVs spying on their users either by manufacturer's design or CIA malware, or the possibility that you'll buy a device and then it'll get bought up by a company that shuts down the servers it needs to run and it won't work anymore.

In summary: do not buy IoT devices.

Ideally, don't buy smart TVs, either, but it's getting increasingly hard to find TVs that don't have some kind of connectivity. (A PC monitor might be a good alternative, but they don't generally make those bigger than 32".) If you do get a smart TV, don't connect it to your wifi. I'm not aware of any TVs designed to search for open wifi networks, but I sure as hell wouldn't put it past the manufacturers.

Broader view: well, there are states pushing right-to-repair laws (largely as a result of the John Deere story Buge referred to), and gray hat hackers designing botnets to disable insecure devices before they're compromised by other botnets. But we've also got Hollywood, Google, Microsoft, Apple, et al pushing to approve W3C-standard DRM, and Congress just pulled a fast one and voted to make the head of the Copyright Office a presidential appointee instead of an employee of the Library of Congress.

The next few years are going to be interesting.

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Büge » Sat Apr 29, 2017 1:25 pm

Thad wrote:The next few years are going to be interesting.


I've grown to dislike that phrase.
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby IGNORE ME » Sat Apr 29, 2017 1:29 pm

I'm at the point where I'm feeling increasingly stupid about buying a thermostat (a device whose only job is turning on and off a different device) that can effectively function as a wiretap. I'll probably rip it out if I get too antsy about it.

Beyond that I'm pretty comfortable with how luddite my possessions are but I'm saddened by the idea that in the near future I'll only want to ever buy mid-range products because all the "top" stuff has been poisoned with features that only serve the manufacturer. Guess that leaves more money for charity and political activism.

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Blossom » Sat Apr 29, 2017 4:02 pm

I quite like smart TVs, because hooking up a hard drive full of shows to one and watching shit with my friends is a regular activity in my life, but yeah it is kept mostly offline.
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Mongrel » Sat Apr 29, 2017 4:44 pm

Turkey blocked Wikipedia this morning.

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Yoji » Sat Apr 29, 2017 5:31 pm

Mongrel wrote:Every time I discover some company-constructed backdoor or lockout it absolutely infuriates me and I immediately spend time looking for how to disable it or jailbreak it or cut it out.

I've mentioned before that on some level I find it really sad that I love that my motorbike is ancient and has only the most primitive of computers (1986 Motronic technology, baby) because no one is going to come along and fuck with it in ways like that. Why do I have to be some kind of retro-seeking hipster just to own a vehicle that is entirely mine and entirely under my control? It makes me feel like some kind of I DON'T TRUST TECHNOLOGY old man.

Thoughts on the way home: So we have to find older tech that hasn't gotten caught up in the system ye- OH FUCK SONS OF THE PATRIOTS IS HAPPENING

Mongrel wrote:Image

*grinds teeth* 180, you holographic cretin. 180! If you do a 360, you go all the way around and end up back where you started​!
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Mongrel » Sat Apr 29, 2017 7:53 pm

Hardly Ideal wrote:*grinds teeth* 180, you holographic cretin. 180! If you do a 360, you go all the way around and end up back where you started​!


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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Mongrel » Sat Apr 29, 2017 7:59 pm

Rich kid festival in Bahamas goes Lord of the Flies. Much schadenfreude ensues.



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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Thad » Sun Apr 30, 2017 3:51 pm

TA wrote:I quite like smart TVs, because hooking up a hard drive full of shows to one and watching shit with my friends is a regular activity in my life, but yeah it is kept mostly offline.


Fair. I've got a full-blown Linux PC hooked up to my TV, but it's not exactly portable. I suppose a laptop would do in a pinch as far as hooking up a hard drive full of stuff to somebody else's TV. (Or a Raspberry Pi. Or a cell phone if you were okay with sacrificing most of the storage capacity of an external hard drive.) But I certainly acknowledge that the more control you want over your hardware, the more convenience you sacrifice, and I'm not willing to go full Stallman and use a 10-year-old laptop to avoid proprietary firmware. (Plus, he doesn't watch TV or movies at all, because DRM. I wonder if he goes to theaters that still use film projectors? Or will he only watch movies that are published under a free license?)

Gotta hand it to Stallman, though, every paranoid nightmare scenario he's been trying to warn everybody about for the past three decades has come true, and if it weren't for him we wouldn't even have a spectrum of choices like "use a 10-year-old laptop with no proprietary firmware", "use AOSP and only install apps from F-Droid", "use Fedora and favor free software where possible but stick MakeMKV and Steam and other shit on there too", "run RetroArch, LibreOffice, and Firefox on Windows", etc. I understand that his dogmatic absolutism is off-putting (before we even get into his personality), but I'm increasingly of the opinion that without hardliners staking out the front lines, there can be no center for the moderates and the pragmatists to occupy. (Or, to put it in less ideological and more axiomatic terms: without the GPL, there would have been no Linux.)

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Mongrel » Sun Apr 30, 2017 4:05 pm

I've commented before that of all the futures science-fiction predicted, it's incredibly depressing that cyberpunk seems to have been the most on point.
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby IGNORE ME » Sun Apr 30, 2017 4:32 pm

Our world is waaaaay more Idiocracy than Blade Runner.

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Mongrel » Sun Apr 30, 2017 4:57 pm

Sir, I beg to differ

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Büge » Sun Apr 30, 2017 8:39 pm

Mongrel wrote:I've commented before that of all the futures science-fiction predicted, it's incredibly depressing that cyberpunk seems to have been the most on point.


Come onnnnnnn, Where's the retro-electric grunge aesthetic? Why can't I plug my brain into a deck and surf the data waves with the other circuit jockeys? Or download a suite of software that lets me slice through I-beams with a katana? Sure, we're living in overcrowded hab-stacks while carbons corrode the atmo, but when are we gonna get to the good parts of living in a bleak, dystopian future?
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby sei » Mon May 01, 2017 2:29 pm

TA wrote:I quite like smart TVs, because hooking up a hard drive full of shows to one and watching shit with my friends is a regular activity in my life, but yeah it is kept mostly offline.

Stream from PC to Chromecast (via phone using Videostream app if need be) until it comes out how much Chromecast is snooping too.

TA wrote:Gotta hand it to Stallman, though, every paranoid nightmare scenario he's been trying to warn everybody about for the past three decades has come true, and if it weren't for him we wouldn't even have a spectrum of choices like "use a 10-year-old laptop with no proprietary firmware", "use AOSP and only install apps from F-Droid", "use Fedora and favor free software where possible but stick MakeMKV and Steam and other shit on there too", "run RetroArch, LibreOffice, and Firefox on Windows", etc. I understand that his dogmatic absolutism is off-putting (before we even get into his personality), but I'm increasingly of the opinion that without hardliners staking out the front lines, there can be no center for the moderates and the pragmatists to occupy. (Or, to put it in less ideological and more axiomatic terms: with outthe GPL, there would have been no Linux.)
Great post.
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Blossom » Mon May 01, 2017 9:25 pm

sei wrote:
TA wrote:I quite like smart TVs, because hooking up a hard drive full of shows to one and watching shit with my friends is a regular activity in my life, but yeah it is kept mostly offline.

Stream from PC to Chromecast (via phone using Videostream app if need be) until it comes out how much Chromecast is snooping too.


So, instead of just bringing over the hard drive with the files on it, I'd need to bring over the hard drive with the files on it, a laptop capable of processing the video and streaming it over wifi, and a chromecast device to plug into the TV? I'm not sure how this is an improvement.
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