SCARY NEW AGE

Post Reply New Topic

Don Lancaster explained his decision in a column. He doesn't believe it's a dirty word either. Part of the problem is that few people distinguish between hackers and crackers.

That is like saying if you drive a Yugo it will be less likely to be stolen.

ruveyn

Yeah, I guess that is why you dont see to many alarm systems on a Ford Pinto, not to many people want to steal a car like that But no car is safe from being stolen, no matter what mesures you take, someone is going to know how to get it and I am sure there are people that would still the Pinto or Yugo, but I think you have pretty good odds of it not

Dont worry about it, everyone makes mistakes.

A good general rule of thumb though is to not use three threads when one would do, and to make it a thread that people are going to want to respond to (and read the responses to themselves in turn). So pay keen attention to forethought, and good grammar (get Firefox, it helps you fix bad spelling).

Its really easy to get misunderstood on the internet, so do everything you can to consider how your words sound in a vacuum. (its also therapeutic for those of us who have a hard time understanding social dynamics - it gets the ball rolling, so to speak, so that your brain is a bit more apt to pick up on some concept out in the wild)

I have heard of the rather silly concept that the OP's friend was referencing. However, despite the fact that it made for a rather entertaining and chilling story by John Varley ("Press Enter", in the collection Blue Champagne), there is absolutely nothing to worry about. The Evil Worldwide Conspiracy That Manages To Run Everything But Still Remain Secret can't suddenly seize control of your toaster, or monitor what you're watching on TV, or slip hidden messages into your MP3 player, or any hyperpseudoscience crap like that.

Cute idea, but no.

Deacon, when you get both arms waving like that, you lose control of your rhetoric. It has been technically possible to monitor what people are watching on their TVs for at least 20 years. The cable company has been doing it to catch thieves. If I took the "seize control of your toaster" literally, there is a move to make literally everything Internet capable, which is like, why triple the cost of a toaster so that someone halfway around the world can control it? I buy the cheapest model that looks like it might hold together for a few years with as little crap as possible that might break. Same reason I don't care much for car computers.

Slipping hidden messages into your MP3 player is technically possible. I would rather hear someone be honest about that than deny it. There is no way in hell to detect such an alteration if you don't have software to look for it. Where do we get the MP3s that go into the MP3 player? From the same computer that I spend money each year for virus-scanner software and still have to tell it to remove adware every weekend.

And yes, if you project this into a future in which every bit of hardware is networked and contains complex microchips, each piece of hardware will be reprogrammable remotely. I'm using such a piece of hardware now.

I doubt that exception-less ubiquity of remote control of else wise mundane electronics will happen soon. The security risks are just too obvious.