>to allow the British secret service to eavesdrop more easily. The British proposed a key length of 48 bits, while the West Germans wanted stronger encryption to protect against East German spying, so the compromise became a key length of 54 bits
>Documents leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013 state that the NSA "can process encrypted A5/1"
Why? The FBI pitched a fit over access to a shooter’s phone in the press a few years ago, then stopped.
Now, you have a multiple products on the market that can crack passcodes by utilizing flaws that allow you to brute force PINs, which are by default 6 digit numbers. (Despite most guidance demanding 8)
I have no idea if anyone has covered it. It's industry knowledge. Source: me
I figured it would be generally known at this point, especially with the whole perceptual hash debacle (intended to satisfy LEAs despite the plan to finally enable image encryption). I'm not sure what the internal politics looked like after the perceptual hash snitch got axed - my friends who would know quit Apple by then.
We need to shift the dynamic in America from relying on these media conglomerates, to individuals doing their own research on things. Everyone knows the news media is rigged beyond saving, we need to let them die out, it's what they all deserve for betraying the trust of the people.
Oh man yeah. Individuals doing their own research. They'll just pour over minutes of committee meetings, develop contacts in government agencies, and explore a bunch of primary sources all in their spare time! It's so simple!
As much money as they lose; they make enough returns for their owners in indirect ways to be worth the investment. Murdoch and Turner are many things, but poor isn't one of them.
Btw, did anyone else find it disturbing how "do your own research" became a trigger phrase that allows a rather large group of people to discount anything and everything you said? And at the same time, for an opposite but similar group of people, "trust the science" did the same thing?
trusting science / expertise has always been a turn-off for a certain portion of people with some sort of inferiority or persecution complex or oppositional defiant disorder
unfortunately some politicians seek to gain power by appealing to this
And at the same time, blindly trusting institutions and their dogma has long been a turn-on for people with a superiority complex, or those content with the status quo.
Each cheek of the political arse seeks to gain power by simplistically appealing to these groups, because it's more effective for raising funds and votes than it ought to be.
one thing is for sure, though: falsely portraying trust in expertise and science as,
"blindly trusting institutions and their dogma"
or
"for people with a superiority complex, or those content with the status quo",
has been a trope of those same anti-science, anti-expertise politicians for even longer. As Asimov wrote:
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"
You may want to read what I wrote again. I did not "falsely portray trust in expertise and science" etc, not in any way; nor would I. It's rather aggressively wrong to attach such to my point (which you missed).
You seem to have jumped from me saying that some put too much stock in dogma and institutions, to believing that this was an attempt to attack expertise and science. There was nothing in my comment, even implicit, that would lead someone fair to this conclusion.
This assumptive leap typifies the 'with us or against us' thinking I'm talking about; tribal thinking which short-circuits reason, and harms genuine scientific thinking.
Even if you didn't mean to imply this, what you wrote has that effect; consider re-reading your own comment if you don't see that.
You may want to read what I wrote again. I did not accuse you personally of falsely portraying trust in expertise and science, not in any way. It's rather aggressively wrong to take personal offense at such an accusation you imagined.
You seem to have jumped from me criticizing those who do (particularly those who are anti-science and anti-expertise), to an accusation that you personally did so. There was nothing in my comment, even implicit, that would lead someone fair to this conclusion. If you aren't doing it, the criticism doesn't apply to you.
This assumptive leap typifies the persecution complex I'm talking about: emotional thinking which short-circuits reason, and harms genuine scientific thinking. Consider re-reading your own comment if you don't see that.
> Everyone knows the news media is rigged beyond saving
Is that true, though? Or do we, in our bubble, just believe that? I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of people think the news media -- at least the particular subset of the news media they choose to watch -- is more or less ok.
Here's [1] a survey from the end of 2022 asking this exact question. Across all adults, those who have at least "some" trust in the news they personally get from national news orgs has fallen from 76% to 61% in the past 6 years. While that's still a majority, and a sizable majority, it won't be for long on the current trajectory. And that's for when the bar is set to "some trust"!
Unfortunately, regular folks have no idea how to do proper research. Not even academic level, but merely separating out low-quality obvious misinformation.
The second I clicked in here, I immediately remembered your website. (That green theme is very iconic and memorable). When I was a young teenager, I remember visiting your site plenty of times and downloading things off of it. Probably something like Linux ISOs, or music. I was a nerdy kid who really liked the idea of peer to peer stuff, I guess.
I probably tried to contribute some RuneScape-related content, but it likely didn't stay seeded for long haha.
I vaguely remember a time when browsers would install all kind of crappy add-ons, or any other software installer for that matter. Now we reached a point were the OS does it...
Did the browser do that install, or did the user install something on their own that came with additional software? the infamous purple gorilla or whatever it was that you thought you were installing one thing, but a whole other thing was installed at the same time. sourceforge's dark UI of downloading software, but also downloading/installing a whole other program hidden behind a vaguely worded auto-selected checkbox. i just don't remember being able to blame the browser for this.
All of these gross advertising decisions baked into the operating system disgust me. Not to mention all the tracking they probably do to you on top of it.
The best solution I've found is Windows 10 IoT Enterprise. It feels like an alternate timeline where Microsoft didn't dive headfirst into manipulative advertising practices. None of those pointless bloatware apps, no blatant advertising loitered across the OS.
I don't want tabloid trash baked into my start menu. It would be one thing if we were actually allowed to curate and choose the news, but it's all selected for us. It feels like they're trying to manipulate the way people think with decisions like that.
> I don't want tabloid trash baked into my start menu. It would be one thing if we were actually allowed to curate and choose the news, but it's all selected for us. It feels like they're trying to manipulate the way people think with decisions like that.
No, they're paid handsomely by others who are trying to manipulate the way people think.
According to MS, the IoT edition is "missing" many "features" --- which in other words "doesn't have the crap you probably don't want if you only want an OS."
It is missing absolutely nothing useful. It also will receive security patches through 2031, unlike the normal LTSC distribution which gets 5 years of support. You have complete control over which updates, if any, are installed.
It is a big pain in the neck to get an LTSC or LTSC IoT license.
