631–640 of 701 posts
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He only reliable backup mechanism is starting a successful cult whose main tenet is that your data is valuable communication from God, so that they continually duplicate it. Anything else will go bust long, long before the heat death of the universe.
_writes this down as a National Novel Writing Month idea_
According to Western Digital[1], the CVE involved[2] has been public and unpatched since 2019. That's insane. There's "we don't support end-of-life devices" and then there's "we refuse to fix absolutely critical, crippling security vulnerabilities in devices just a few years old." This is well over the line. I smell (but have no idea of the merits of) a class action lawsuit. [1] https://www.westerndigital.com/support…
EOL should be made to legally mean: opensource or something equivalent. If Windows isn't supported on my laptop, I can nearly always replace it with Linux and still keep it alive. With stuff like this, they can decide to never update it again or just turn off some critical service and render a device unusable. It's not just a thing about owning what you purchase and having the freedom to do what you want with it, it'…
Okay. Stallman was right. I know it's cliche, I know he's weird. But I learned a LONG TIME AGO never to bet against the man's predictions and ideas on software. He called all of this, and quite a few people (especially HERE) would do well to get back to fundamentals and work on fixing it.
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re publiccode.eu Great link, thanks. Very encouraging. I've been saying "citizen-owned software". FWIW, I ran for office on an election integrity platform. Demanding that we own and operate our own elections. While "open source software" worked well enough (10+ years ago), everyone immediately understood "citizen-owned software". Transforms that bullet point into 90/10 (pro/con) issue. Edit: I should clarify somethin…
> Edit: I should clarify something. FOSS isn't sufficient. Citizen-owned software means we control the repo, builds, distros, etc. Microsoft, RedHat, whomever can fork or whatever, for resale or whatever. But we always control the root. Who is "we"? That's the point of FOSS: "we", as "we control the repo, builds, distros, etc" is defined basically as anyone who wants to do it. The idea of forking is an incredibly imp…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
EOL should be made to legally mean: opensource or something equivalent. If Windows isn't supported on my laptop, I can nearly always replace it with Linux and still keep it alive. With stuff like this, they can decide to never update it again or just turn off some critical service and render a device unusable. It's not just a thing about owning what you purchase and having the freedom to do what you want with it, it'…
The free market soluton: Market experimentation is necessary for innovation. Now we've learned never to buy a product from WD (in case you forgot that last year they intentionally sold unfit SMR hard drives and lied about it). Also, always have backups (not just syncs!).
Markets can only behave reactively, but some harms need to be mitigated proactively.
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re publiccode.eu Great link, thanks. Very encouraging. I've been saying "citizen-owned software". FWIW, I ran for office on an election integrity platform. Demanding that we own and operate our own elections. While "open source software" worked well enough (10+ years ago), everyone immediately understood "citizen-owned software". Transforms that bullet point into 90/10 (pro/con) issue. Edit: I should clarify somethin…
> Edit: I should clarify something. FOSS isn't sufficient. Citizen-owned software means we control the repo, builds, distros, etc. Microsoft, RedHat, whomever can fork or whatever, for resale or whatever. But we always control the root. Who is "we"? That's the point of FOSS: "we", as "we control the repo, builds, distros, etc" is defined basically as anyone who wants to do it. The idea of forking is an incredibly imp…
Citizen-owned software.
I explicitly said FOSS. Any one can fork. How can I better make that point?
My motivation: my county invests in its own election management system (GIS, VRDB, ballot production, tabulation, report generation, etc). I demand that this entire stack is available to everyone for any purpose. Especially other counties that want an alternative to proprietary stacks hidden behind trade secrets, copyrights, and onerous EULAs.
Is this not what you want too?
> ...it sounds like you're suggesting that "we" would be limited to a specific group and centralized control.
"We" the citizens implies "everyone".
But more to your point, what are some examples of FOSS which are not de facto centralized?
I refer you to RMS' Four Freedoms. https://openedreader.org/chapter/stallmans-four-freedom/
A good start. I reiterate that FOSS is necessary but insufficient for citizen-owned software.
Your data is not secure unless you have 3 copies. 1. working copy 2. backup 3. archive
END PSA
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> Edit: I should clarify something. FOSS isn't sufficient. Citizen-owned software means we control the repo, builds, distros, etc. Microsoft, RedHat, whomever can fork or whatever, for resale or whatever. But we always control the root. Who is "we"? That's the point of FOSS: "we", as "we control the repo, builds, distros, etc" is defined basically as anyone who wants to do it. The idea of forking is an incredibly imp…
Exactly. "Citizen-owned" is half-right. FOSS gets you the rest of the way.
Bryan Cantrill's "Power to Fork" thesis is relevant. http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2010/08/03/opensolaris-and-the-p...
Sadly, I lived that experience on another FOSS project. Wish I had heard Cantrill before I committed to that effort.
I'm also deeply influenced by Pieter Hintjens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Hintjens#Bibliography Ditto Clay Shirky, eg Here Comes Everyone.
Nadia Eghbal's research is on my reading list. https://nadiaeghbal.com/oss/ Having just skim read, it looks very insightful, cogent.
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EOL should be made to legally mean: opensource or something equivalent. If Windows isn't supported on my laptop, I can nearly always replace it with Linux and still keep it alive. With stuff like this, they can decide to never update it again or just turn off some critical service and render a device unusable. It's not just a thing about owning what you purchase and having the freedom to do what you want with it, it'…
The powerpc SoC in that drive is even supported in mainline Linux. And the code for original v2.6.32 Linux and some ancient U-Boot is available on WD website. So people could have made their drives secure after EOL. Some maybe even did.
A very, very, very select few with the necessary skills could have. This is a mass-market device, if 1 in 10 000 buyers is able to do this, that'd be a lot, and then those would have a Linux machine on an ancient SoC with none of the original functionality.
Now consider the coming IoT flood that will also undeniably include medical devices, some of which will directly keep individuals alive AND be connected. In time this will redefine the phrase "End of Life".
Uncle Bob 1990-2042 Uncle Bob was a great human, had a great family and did great things in his community. Uncle Bob however failed to maintain his personal security practices and his medical device was compromised as a result therefore leading to his EOL. RIP U Bob.
Certainly unfunny dark humor derived from what is certain to come. The real problems are just 'warming" up.