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Halt and Catch Fire

unstack.io

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Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#111

Post by protocolture »

sph wrote: post #69
burnte wrote: post #3

It was a fun show. I really enjoyed it, a fictional run through the 80s and 90s computing industries.

I don't get why it's so praised. Everybody says it's about the rise of computing, and all I got was a shoehorned romance story with computers in the background. Just like all those sci-fi shows where the sci-fi is only a background to family drama.

I mean, for something you consider to be the background, it takes up a hell of a lot of the foreground.

And the romance was more character drama about people making extremely irresponsible choices.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#112

Post by electrochemical »

smiley1437 wrote: post #97
b3lvedere wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing i found very interesting over the years is that when people seem to abuse systems ( key activation, share netflix accounts, vpn, torrents) it’s considered a serious crime, but when companies openly abuse systems ( unsubscribe maze, addiction, fraud ) it’s frowned upon. That should be the other way around. Until then systems will always try to rule over people and people will adapt for better or for worse.

"to learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." - Voltaire

Funny thing about that quote, it wasn't Voltaire who said that, but was in fact neo-nazi pedophile Kevin Alfred Strom lol

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#113

Post by aa-jv »

praptak wrote: post #63

When I studied CS one of our professors told us the US military had chips with self destruct ops in the 1980s. I could never confirm this particular story but there was a much later DARPA program which aimed at self destructing electronics for the army. This article makes me think the professor's story might be an urban legend based on such an accidental opcode.

I have worked on systems that have a thermite charge under the RAM and EPROM chips, wired up to GPIO for 'terminate and stay that way' instructions. It is not an urban legend - just a highly protected secret. Those products which require this feature are not usually discussed in consumer circles ..

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#114

Post by casefields »

praptak wrote: post #63

When I studied CS one of our professors told us the US military had chips with self destruct ops in the 1980s. I could never confirm this particular story but there was a much later DARPA program which aimed at self destructing electronics for the army. This article makes me think the professor's story might be an urban legend based on such an accidental opcode.

>The cryptographic module shall contain tamper response and zeroization circuitry that shall continuously monitor the tamper detection envelope and, upon the detection of tampering, shall immediately zeroize all plaintext secret and private cryptographic keys and CSPs.

https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/fips/nist.fips.140-2.pdf

Some more discussion here: https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/documents/news-features/decla...

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#115

Post by b3lvedere »

philipallstar wrote: post #94
b3lvedere wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing i found very interesting over the years is that when people seem to abuse systems ( key activation, share netflix accounts, vpn, torrents) it’s considered a serious crime, but when companies openly abuse systems ( unsubscribe maze, addiction, fraud ) it’s frowned upon. That should be the other way around. Until then systems will always try to rule over people and people will adapt for better or for worse.

In my experience it's incredibly unusual for the sharing of netflix accounts to be considered a serious crime. Does this happen on a regular basis?

My apologies, that was a very bad example. It was more in the sense that companies might think that's a serious crime of their customers.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#116

Post by b3lvedere »

electrochemical wrote: post #112
smiley1437 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"to learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." - Voltaire

Funny thing about that quote, it wasn't Voltaire who said that, but was in fact neo-nazi pedophile Kevin Alfred Strom lol

I spend a few minutes on the internet regarding this and it seems the internet is indeed of opinion that Voltaire never said it, but there's no actual proof Strom said it as well. No matter for the topic where i think the quote fits pretty well.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire

#117

Post by vlucas »

Speaking of this show... I can't find all seasons of this on DVD/Bluray anywhere.

Seasons 1 and 2 can be found if you have the money, but seasons 3 and 4 are nowhere to be found.

I loved this show and would like to own physical copies of it, but they just don't seem to exist anywhere.

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