nicerdicer

@nicerdicer@feddit.de

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wi-Fi jamming to knock out cameras suspected in nine Minnesota burglaries -- smart security systems vulnerable as tech becomes cheaper and easier to acquire⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That is a true statement. You can’t have both securtiy and wireless (convenience).

  Every wirelessly transmitted signal, whether it is your network signal or bluetooth, can be intercepted from afar. It is even possible to encrypt the accoustic signel emittel from a needle printer and determine what has been printed because every letter/word emits a specific sound pattern. Sound travels wirelessly. This link from 2009 refers to that. Unfortenately it is written in German and I didn’t find anything in English, but you could translate it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why It Was Almost Impossible to Make the Blue LED⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Before there were blue LED, the indicator light for full beam was a blue tinted incandescent bulb. My parents had a Volkswagen Passat from the 1980s (?) where the usually blue indicator light for full beam was a green LED, since blue ones were not invented back then.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Movies vs life⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I think this is because it is pretty boring to film a computer in action, because it does noting - it doesn’t move for example. So beeping sounds were added for every action a computer would do: opening or closing windows, transferring files to a disk, calculating,…

  These sounds were added at a time computers were not that common in every household and to emphazise that the computer is doing something. In recent movies, computers are more silent.

  Another thing film makers did to show interaction with a computer is the constant usage of the keyboard. Every thing is done with the keyboard. Open a window: type 5 sceonds on the keyboard. Transferring a file onto a disk: type the whole bible on the keyboard. This was done because it would be pretty boring to show someone use the mouse or drag-and-drop files.

  It its somehow compareable to the movie trope of constantly reloading a gun. You can see this often in older movies: the protagonist is going inside a building and he is reloading his gun. Then he stops a the corner of a hallway and is reloading the gun again - despite no shot has been fired. This was also done to show the audience that a gun will be involved.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨People are getting fed up with all the useless tech in their cars⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  In addition to my comment I leave this article here:

  …tumblr.com/…/autoenshittification

  This article sums up the ongoing enshittification with cars and other devices, backed up with further sources.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨People are getting fed up with all the useless tech in their cars⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  The car as a device to transport one from A to B has been developed to completion. Any car is capable of filfilling that task. The next stange of developement is that the comfort features in cars are being replaced with a universal control unti: a touchscreen (-computer).

  All physical buttons (air condition, radio, etc.) are being phased out and are accessible over the central touchscreen, hidden in menus. This way it is easier to get customers into subscribed services (e.g. for the ability to lock your car remotely or to use the heated seat festure you have to subsribe to this particular service in order to use it).

  Also, when features are controlled over a software interface like those touchscreens instead of physical buttons, it it easier to give access to users - or restrict them from it:

  IIRC at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Tesla remotely enabled their cars by allowing free supercharging as a helpful measure to help people to escape from Ukraine. Pretty nice of Tesla, isn’t it? Well yes, in this particular case, but this kind of remote software interference from the manufactor can also work in the other direction. They can easily restrict the functionality of your car. Functions your car still would have if they weren’t controlled remotely.

  Cars become a Software-As-A-Service product.