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Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

JorgeA

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NSA surveillance may be starting to have a chilling effect on Net speech and activism:

Surveillance concerns bring an end to crusading site Groklaw

Citing concerns about privacy and government surveillance, Pamela Jones is shutting down her site Groklaw, which for years took on what she and vocal fans saw as wrongheaded legal action in the tech domain.

"There is now no shield from forced exposure," Jones said in final blog post Tuesday. Groklaw depended on collaboration over e-mail, "and there is now no private way, evidently, to collaborate."

--JorgeA

NSA or not, but Pamela Jones is a bit of a diva. She has shut down her site before, with a melodramatic farewell letter, only to comeback a short time later:

http://slashdot.org/story/11/04/09/2315208/groklaw-declares-victory-no-more-articles

Her posting back then:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110409161444432

I have decided that Groklaw will stop publishing new articles on our anniversary, May 16.

I know a lot of you will be unhappy to hear it, so let me briefly explain, because my decision is made and it's firm. In a simple sentence, the reason is this: the crisis SCO initiated over Linux is over, and Linux won. SCO as we knew it is no more.

There will be other battles, and there already are, because the same people that propped SCO up are still going to try to destroy Linux, but the battlefield has shifted, and I don't feel Groklaw is needed in the new battlefield the way it was in the SCO v. Linux wars.

Remember that when I started Groklaw, I had no intention to create something as huge as Groklaw became. I really was just trying to learn how to blog. When all of you showed up, I saw what we could accomplish together, and we did. But to do it, I had to set aside a lot of things that are important to me too. I'd like to go back to being nobody, just living a normal life again.

[..]

So that's my decision. I have some other things I want to get back to and a project I've wanted to get to for a long time, and I want to be able to wake up and not worry about what happened in the news. I'll tell you truly, I never worked so hard in my life as I have with Groklaw, and while it's been a thrill and deeply satisfying, it's also been all-consuming of my time and skills and energy. The events recently in Japan deeply affected me, and it reminded me that there are some other things I'd like to accomplish, while there is world enough and time.

We'll keep the Timelines up to date with court documents, and we'll still finish the Comes exhibits if it kills me, so just email me your work when commenting is closed, if you are willing to keep helping.

I know some of you are as addicted to Groklaw as I am, so I've been slowing down how often I write articles recently, to help you get acclimated. I also was testing to see if I could try to slow down a bit and do it all, but I see I can't. To do Groklaw right, it requires my total attention and focus. But I don't want anyone to get the bends, including me. I have loved doing Groklaw, and I love hanging out with you guys. As far as I'm concerned, we're friends for life. While we have watched unbelievable venality and greed at play in the battle on the other side, the community remained true to its values, and I'm proud of that and I'm proud of you. I'm proud that Groklaw played the role that it did.

I always told you that I didn't do Groklaw for money or for fame or as a career move. I did it to be effective. That's all I wanted. And I told you that when it was over, I'd go back to my normal pre-Groklaw life. And now you know by this decision that I told you the truth.

No matter what happens next, I know that we changed the course of history. How many people get to say that? I never expected it, frankly, and I am grinning just thinking about how much fun we've had doing it. Our work will be available for historians permanently, so the impact we had isn't over today, and someday we'll tell our grandkids that we were part of this, part of Groklaw. We are in the history books. Our work will continue as long as anyone cares about this unique time period in the history of computer software, a history that we are a part of forever. And that is a long, long time.

Her newest farewell latter sounds quite similar:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175

They tell us that if you send or receive an email from outside the US, it will be read. If it's encrypted, they keep it for five years, presumably in the hopes of tech advancing to be able to decrypt it against your will and without your knowledge. Groklaw has readers all over the world.

I'm not a political person, by choice, and I must say, researching the latest developments convinced me of one thing -- I am right to avoid it. There is a scripture that says, It doesn't belong to man even to direct his step. And it's true. I see now clearly that it's true. Humans are just human, and we don't know what to do in our own lives half the time, let alone how to govern other humans successfully. And it shows. What form of government hasn't been tried? None of them satisfy everyone. So I think we did that experiment. I don't expect great improvement.

I remember 9/11 vividly. I had a family member who was supposed to be in the World Trade Center that morning, and when I watched on live television the buildings go down with living beings inside, I didn't know that she had been late that day and so was safe. Does it matter, though, if you knew anyone specifically, as we watched fellow human beings hold hands and jump out of windows of skyscrapers to a certain death below or watched the buildings crumble into dust, knowing there were so many people just like us being turned into dust as well?

I cried for weeks, in a way I've never cried before, or since, and I'll go to my grave remembering it and feeling it. And part of my anguish was that there were people in the world willing to do that to other people, fellow human beings, people they didn't even know, civilians uninvolved in any war.

I sound quaint, I suppose. But I always tell you the truth, and that is what I was feeling. So imagine how I feel now, imagining as I must what kind of world we are living in if the governments of the world think total surveillance is an appropriate thing?

[...]

I hope that makes it clear why I can't continue. There is now no shield from forced exposure. Nothing in that parenthetical thought list is terrorism-related, but no one can feel protected enough from forced exposure any more to say anything the least bit like that to anyone in an email, particularly from the US out or to the US in, but really anywhere. You don't expect a stranger to read your private communications to a friend. And once you know they can, what is there to say? Constricted and distracted. That's it exactly. That's how I feel.

So. There we are. The foundation of Groklaw is over. I can't do Groklaw without your input. I was never exaggerating about that when we won awards. It really was a collaborative effort, and there is now no private way, evidently, to collaborate.

I'm really sorry that it's so. I loved doing Groklaw, and I believe we really made a significant contribution. But even that turns out to be less than we thought, or less than I hoped for, anyway. My hope was always to show you that there is beauty and safety in the rule of law, that civilization actually depends on it. How quaint.

If you have to stay on the Internet, my research indicates that the short term safety from surveillance, to the degree that is even possible, is to use a service like Kolab for email, which is located in Switzerland, and hence is under different laws than the US, laws which attempt to afford more privacy to citizens. I have now gotten for myself an email there, p.jones at mykolab.com in case anyone wishes to contact me over something really important and feels squeamish about writing to an email address on a server in the US. But both emails still work. It's your choice.

My personal decision is to get off of the Internet to the degree it's possible. I'm just an ordinary person. But I really know, after all my research and some serious thinking things through, that I can't stay online personally without losing my humanness, now that I know that ensuring privacy online is impossible. I find myself unable to write. I've always been a private person. That's why I never wanted to be a celebrity and why I fought hard to maintain both my privacy and yours.

Oddly, if everyone did that, leap off the Internet, the world's economy would collapse, I suppose. I can't really hope for that. But for me, the Internet is over.

So this is the last Groklaw article. I won't turn on comments. Thank you for all you've done. I will never forget you and our work together. I hope you'll remember me too. I'm sorry I can't overcome these feelings, but I yam what I yam, and I tried, but I can't.

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CharlotteTheHarlot

CharlotteTheHarlot

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Security ...

Surveillance concerns bring an end to crusading site Groklaw ( CNet 2013-08-20 )

Groklaw legal site is the latest victim in NSA privacy revelations ( TechSpot 2013-08-20 )

( already mentioned by Formfiller ) I agree about the Diva description, but it has been an important site. A lot of people are gonna notice. I'm just glad she laid the blame squarely on the feds and email becuase it will likely wake up a few more sheeple.

More about the Windows 8 RTC flaw ...

Windows 8 bug on overclocked PCs found to alter benchmarks ( TechSpot 2013-08-20 )

Windows 8 Benchmarks Banned on HWBOT Over RTC Issue ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-20 )

Already we're seeing some rationalizations from MicroZealots.

More about the most recent Patch Tuesday ...

Microsoft Issued Half a Dozen Problematic Patches Last Tuesday ( Maximum PC 2013-08-20 )

Don't you just love the concept of an automatic ever-changing codebase for my systems, NOT. You go to sleep, wake up, and your are now using a slightly different operating system than the night before. You were in the middle of some important project, tough noogies.

The Competition ...

ZTE's Firefox OS Phone Already Sold Out on eBay ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-20 )

ZTE's Open Firefox OS phone sells out over the weekend ( NeoWin 2013-08-20 )

This is just 2,000 total phones sold so far. They are very low spec'd and are 'cloudy' by design but are aimed at the barest entry level and are priced at just $80. Something like this could very easily become a huge player in China and India when all those flip phones are replaced and the hundreds of millions of young people get their first phones. This should be interesting.

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Monroe

Monroe

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CharlotteTheHarlot ... thanks for the additional heads up on the faulty MS Patches ... correct me if I am wrong on this assumption, when you first brought the Aug security patch problem to my attention, I have been trying to determine if all the patches in question apply only to Windows 7 ... I can find nothing mentioning Windows XP or Windows 8 ... as I said earlier, correct me if I am wrong on this ... or anyone else is also welcome to post any information. I downloaded the XP updates for Aug, not to install but to save them for "possible" future use.

I have my XP setup updated thru July and all seems to be OK but now I figured to just save all future patches till the Dec 2013 update and install some or all ... or wait till the final April 2014 update release and then install everything (maybe)! I have several image backups to fall back on if the patches screw something up.

thanks

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CharlotteTheHarlot

CharlotteTheHarlot

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CharlotteTheHarlot ... thanks for the additional heads up on the faulty MS Patches ... correct me if I am wrong on this assumption, when you first brought the Aug security patch problem to my attention, I have been trying to determine if all the patches in question apply only to Windows 7 ... I can find nothing mentioning Windows XP or Windows 8 ... as I said earlier, correct me if I am wrong on this ... or anyone else is also welcome to post any information. I downloaded the XP updates for Aug, not to install but to save them for "possible" future use.

I have my XP setup updated thru July and all seems to be OK but now I figured to just save all future patches till the Dec 2013 update and install some or all ... or wait till the final April 2014 update release and then install everything (maybe)! I have several image backups to fall back on if the patches screw something up.

thanks

To be honest I just don't know. I myself have not used an automatic XP update for several years, just the odd manually executed one here and there. I'll keep my eyes out for XP info with regards to this last update fiasco.

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CharlotteTheHarlot

CharlotteTheHarlot

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Supposedly Windows 8.1 Blew has already been RTM'd so they have missed that important window to include a bug fix for wide distribution. But even if they had caught it before RTM, there is no guarantee everyone is going to upgrade anyway.

Windows 8.1 has not been RTM yet. It is likely it will be after this August 23rd date in this "report"

http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-81-final-internal-testing-date-is-august-23rd-rtm-to-follow

Its a misnomer (sic) in these articles that refer to MS as "shipping" stuff to OEMs. They don't ship anything anymore by default like they used to. If after something hits RTM you can special order it on physical media, but there is a delay of a few weeks. I don't know why anyone would need to order it since you can just download everything and make your own DVDs and CDs.

OEMs to receive another Windows 8.1 build this week ( NeoWin 2013-08-21 )

Yes, I stand corrected, RTM has not occurred yet. And you're right, the "shipping" thing is definitely a misnomer, it's more like locking the code down.

So the question becomes, will they hold back RTM ( set for less than a week from now ) and fix the RTC bug in time? This "bug-feature" might not even be Windows Update-able since it is designed into this pOS from the ground up.

Meanwhile a little more info on that ...

HWBot: Windows 8 benchmark errors don't show up on AMD PCs ( NeoWin 2013-08-21 )

Naturally the excuses are beginning to show up in blaming Intel or drivers or pink elephants. Anything except their beloved Playskool toy operating system.

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CharlotteTheHarlot

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Free Surface RT tablets for schools: Should kids have to use what adults don't want? ( ComputerWorld 2013-08-21 ) <--- Headline Award Winner! :thumbup

Microsoft launches ad-free Bing For Schools; takes another shot at Google ( NeoWin 2013-08-21 )

Microsoft launches ad-free Bing for Schools, will award free Surface RT tablets in exchange for using its search engine ( TechSpot 2013-08-21 )

Microsoft offers schools free Surface RTs as Bing search rewards ( ZDNet 2013-08-21 )

Personally I hate that any of these companies are targeting kids under the guise of education. This is certifiable child abuse. Or at the least stealth marketing.


Facebook bug hunter paid $10K by community, not company ( ZDNet 2013-08-21 )

The researcher who hacked Zuckerberg's page to get rewarded but not from Facebook ( NeoWin 2013-08-21 )

Meanwhile, Facebook has now admitted that they "failed in our communication" with Shreateh when he tried to report the bug through normal channels before he decided to write on Zuckerberg's wall. In a Facebook post, the company's chief security officer Joe Sullivan stated:

Facebook will offer more detailed information on how to report an exploit from now on and will also improve their email communications with the people who report on such bugs. However, the company is still refusing to offer a bounty to Shreateh, with Sullivan saying, "It is never acceptable to compromise the security or privacy of other people."


How about that last quote from a primary partner in the government spying! Hypocritical scum.


Facebook CEO Reveals Plan to Connect Rest of World ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-21 )

Mark Zuckerberg Has a Plan to Bring Internet Access to Everyone ( Maximum PC 2013-08-21 )

Zuckerberg outlines plan to connect the next five billion people ( TechSpot 2013-08-21 )

Facebook, Nokia and others form Internet.org to help expand net access ( NeoWin 2013-08-21 )

Zuckerberg's tech partnership to take the internet to the world ( ZDNet 2013-08-21 )

Prior to two months ago this might have been seen as altruism albeit pie in the sky. However, the spying leaks have come and we must ask what the heck is the reason to bring Internet into places that do not have it and perhaps do not want it? It sounds exactly like something that was hatched in a meeting between the spooks and their corporate partners. Big Technology wins because it gets some new customers. Big Brother wins because their reach is extended further and they get Big Technology to do it for them.

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CharlotteTheHarlot

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On the "Security" front ...


UK Tried to Stop Snowden Stories by Smashing Hard Drives ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-21 )

The UK gestapo doing the bidding of their USA commanders. I won't comment on the lack of a First and Fourth Amendment over there, but from our point of view a government that gets another government to do to their press what would be clearly illegal here, is an out of control government, period.


Privacy concerns cause 'PJ' to close Groklaw ( SJVN ZDNet 2013-08-21 )

Comments from SJVN on this unfortunate story. His comments are good because he knows her personally and they have overlapping interests.


New Details Show Broader NSA Surveillance Reach ( Wall Street Journal 2013-08-20 )

The NSA is capable of monitoring 75 percent of U.S. Internet traffic ( TechSpot 2013-08-21 )

NSA can monitor 75% of internet traffic ( NeoWin 2013-08-21 )

And they got all the way to 75% without telling the citizens a thing! That last 25%, which is probably more like 10% will be quite simple for them to achieve if the sheeple don't wake up.


Controversial new spy law passes final reading ( TVNZ 2013-08-21 )

Spy law passed in New Zealand ( ZDNet 2013-08-21 )

What a terrible law, just read it. Our friends down under have managed to match us point by point and then exceed it. It's almost as if all governments of the world are racing to join a club of spies. Why would they all do that I wonder? :whistle:

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CharlotteTheHarlot

CharlotteTheHarlot

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Facial Scanning Is Making Gains in Surveillance ( New York Times 2013-08-21 )

Government Perfects Crowd-Scanning Facial Recognition Tech for Use by Your Local Cops ( BetaBeat 2013-08-21 )

It's simple to see where this is going. Imagine a live feed of a crowd of people, the technician moves the mouse over a face and on another screen pops up the dossier on that person. The screen shows past email and blog posts, political affiliation, spending habits, address and cell number. It's a brave new world.


Secret court 'troubled' by NSA surveillance, ruled illegal ( ZDNet 2013-08-21 )

NSA collected thousands of US communications ( Associated Press 2013-08-21 )

So the Star Chamber court throws us a bone to placate the critics, big deal. It's something they got down to a science - distraction.


US court rules masking IP address to access blocked Website violates law ( SJVN ZDNet 2013-08-21 )

Sorry! You can't even attempt to disguise yourself! One of those wonderful precedents put in place to pave the way for the next bite into privacy. Expect executive orders or new laws to outlaw all manner of spoofing and privacy itself.


The NSA's phony national firewall proposal ( ZDNet 2013-08-21 )

The worst malware could be blocked before it reaches companies, universities or individual users, many of whom may be using outdated virus protections, or none at all. Normal commercial virus programs are always running days, or weeks, behind the latest attacks — and the protection depends on users’ loading the latest versions on their computers.


This was one of the tricks they were gonna play on the sheeple. Set up a trillion dollar program and then showcase a few "successes" with malware or music copying or child porn as justification for a Chinese firewall! Don't do us any godam favors huh! Leave us the frig alone.

Anyone else seeing a thread running through all this stuff? I'd say all the conspiratorial talk for decades of OWG ( one world government ) and NWO ( new world order ) has kinda arrived now. Except, the thing is really about all existing governments simultaneously jumping in to the use the empowering technolgy citizens pioneered for communication to instead preserve their own power. It is less about the "Internet" and Intellectual Property though. In fact it appears that these technologies which could be used to protect people from their rogue governments are in the process of of being hijacked for use by governments to protect themselves from their citizens. The New Zealand story shows how precedents here in the USA trickle down to the farthest corners of the planet and we can just imagine politicians down under saying "Hey, we gotta get in on this too, we'll just say it's to prevent terrorism". Expect some carefully timed but vaguely defined thwarted attack to be used to grease the skids for later "advances" in your national security. I doubt ( but cannot rule out ) the NWO or OWG stereotype of a smoky backroom filled with Bilderbergs making international policy, but what's the d*mn difference if the outcome is really the same. The most dangerous thing so far is one government using another for its black bag ops ( The UK smashing computers for the USA ) so they get plausible deniability against scrutiny at home while achieving their aims abroad. We're not just gonna need a new "Internet" but a whole new paradigm shift. At least we have the theoretical possibility here in the USA where we can in any 6-year interval replace all 537 elected members of the federal bureaucracy, we just gotta get the sheeple to wake up. You folks elsewhere have it much worse, but maybe, just maybe it would trickle down despite the entrenched establishment.

EDIT: fixed spacing

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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CharlotteTheHarlot

CharlotteTheHarlot

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Neotards are learning how reliable cloudy stuff is, especially Microsoft backed ones:

http://www.neowin.net/news/report-microsoft-to-shut-down-games-for-windows-live-july-1st-2014

Speaking of 'Tard lessons, check out Dot MetroTard himself actually badmouthing his beloved master in this thread ...

Windows 8 and Hyper-V

Read through it before he edits it!

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JorgeA

JorgeA

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I doubt ( but cannot rule out ) the NWO or OWG stereotype of a smoky backroom filled with Bilderbergs making international policy, but what's the d*mn difference if the outcome is really the same.

Bingo! :thumbup

--JorgeA

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JorgeA

JorgeA

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In Mary Jo Foley's posting about Microsoft's campaign to scare wean users off XP, a commenter confirms something we've been saying here all along:

There was an article in our paper a few days ago about Microsoft having hired a psychologist (post-grad education) .. with no computer background .. to help them determine the best approach, technique, motivation, etc. to draw users to Bing (and probably other programs). With that effort, what MS is going to draw is the lowest common denominator user .. and it shows. One technique is dumbing-down not only the product, but the advertising.

A recent Google-Bing tv spot runs both landing pages in a 'anything you can do, I can do better' contest. Of course, the 'do better' is Bing. So after several exchanges of that little ditty, a person states that Bing changes the image on their home page .. daily. The pitch? *This* is a 'great reason for you to try and use Bing!!'

The draw? The population with the IQ level you have correctly identified.

BTW, lowest common denominator = LCD (hmmm...)

I guess that the next great step in reaching out to the LCD might be a car that drives itself (oh wait, Google's working on that) to pre-programmed and officially approved destinations. Great "use" for GPS and electronic toll-taking devices (called "E-Z Pass" in some U.S. states)...

--JorgeA

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Formfiller

Formfiller

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Neotards are learning how reliable cloudy stuff is, especially Microsoft backed ones:

http://www.neowin.net/news/report-microsoft-to-shut-down-games-for-windows-live-july-1st-2014

Speaking of 'Tard lessons, check out Dot MetroTard himself actually badmouthing his beloved master in this thread ...

Windows 8 and Hyper-V

Read through it before he edits it!

This is actually disturbing, because it hints at the possibility that DotTard maybe.. maybe isn't a paid MS employee!

The prospect that he is shilling to this extend all for free is way more fucked up than if he would be a paid shill.

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