S410
@S410@kbin.social
- Comment on Please Stop 8 months ago:
Well, why would banks replace the system which allows them to charge fees for every other interaction with their services? A blockain solution would allow multiple different banks (and, possibly, even regular people) to access the data with no middlemen, and, therefore, no fees. Or, well, no fees that directly end up in the bank's pockets as profit, that is.
Getting rid of that is bad for business. So, unless something magical happens and the EU, for example, pass a law requiring the banks to switch to a more de-centralized, more fair system, it's not going to happen.
- Comment on Please Stop 8 months ago:
You can lose access to regular accounts as easily as to a blockchain. In fact, losing database of your password manager is even worse, because even if you have backups, they're not going to be complete.
With a blockchain all you have to worry is your private key. And you can write it down on a piece of paper, if you want, and put it away in a safe or a bank vault or something. Then, if you use it to restore your access years later, nothing will be lost.
"There are 2 types of people in the world: those who make backups, and those who don't make backups yet."
- Comment on [GOG] [GAME] FlatOut Free 9 months ago:
Seems to region locked. There isn't a word about the game being given away, unless I log out of my account and use a VPN.
What even is the point of region-locking a fucking giveaway? - Comment on Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power — government now requiring commercial miners to report energy consumption 9 months ago:
"What are your thoughts about setting your hair on fire?"
"This Wikipedia article about burns covers it pretty well"
"Aha! So you're a parrot!"There's a finite number of possible conclusions one can come to if they use this little thing called "logic". If multiple people apply it to the same problem, they're likely to come up with similar, if not identical, answers. If your conclusions about some given thing aren't shared by anybody else, it's more likely than not because they're illogical nonsense. It's even worse if your conclusions are outright nonexistent. That's not good. Means you stoopid.
Something like a centralized financial system has some very obvious, glaring issues that should be instantly apparent to anyone. And I'm, obviously, not the first person to think about it. So, why should I write something, if people who thought about it before me already outlined all the logical concerns about this system? And, likely, in a more detailed and in-depth manner than I'd care to write in a comment on a random website.
- Comment on Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power — government now requiring commercial miners to report energy consumption 9 months ago:
The "Criticism and risks of the digital euro" section on Wikipedia outlines my concerns about such a system pretty well.
Unless they are going to implement a cryptocurrency with centralized minting (essentially giving themselves both as much and as little control over the digital currency as they have over physically printed money), it doesn't seem that much different from what we have already. Just because it's going to be a new system, doesn't really mean it not going to have issues with false-positives suspending regular transactions or fees that are higher than they need to be.
- Comment on Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power — government now requiring commercial miners to report energy consumption 9 months ago:
If you're in the US, it's not very practical to try to pay for things using Turkish liras either, for example. But it's not any less "real" because of it. There is still a market for that currency, even if you might need to look around for a bit to actually use it or exchange it for a different one. Same for WoW gold or crypto.
- Comment on Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power — government now requiring commercial miners to report energy consumption 9 months ago:
Anything can be a currency, if you use it as a currency. A currency is not defined by its ability to be exchanged for gas or used to pay taxes.
If children in some school start to exchange pogs for junk food or video game cartridges, the pogs become a currency. By definition. The fact that the use is clearly limited and the value is a subject to rapid change or speculation is irrelevant.
There isn't a single currency in the world the value of which is set in stone. There isn't a single currency in the world which is universally accepted. Just because there exist currencies linked to some of the strongest economies in the world, which are relatively stable and incredibly hard to affect the value of via speculation, doesn't mean they're immune to speculation. It also doesn't mean that any smaller currencies, be it currencies or small countries, crypto or pogs, are "not real".
- Comment on Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power — government now requiring commercial miners to report energy consumption 9 months ago:
I, personally, use crypto to do art commissions (I'm an artist) and to pay my VPS's rent. Neither is an illicit good or related to money laundering.
And, honesty, it's pretty great, compared to alternatives.
Last time I've used PayPal, it decided to withhold the funds for a month, for whatever reason. Plus, the transaction fee was about a dollar.
Transferring the same amount of money via Monero is guaranteed take only about a minute or two to process, since a transaction in that system would never get withhold, plus the processing fee would be about a hundred times smaller. - Comment on Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power — government now requiring commercial miners to report energy consumption 9 months ago:
The vast majority of "real" currencies are fiat currencies and don't have inherent value or use either.
US dollar hasn't been backed by gold since 1971, for example.
The only reason money has any perceived value at all, is because it's collectively agreed to have some value. Just like crypto currencies. - Comment on Ex-CIA computer engineer gets 40 years in prison for giving spy agency hacking secrets to WikiLeaks 9 months ago:
CIA can cobble together questionable evidence against an entire country, proving the US administration with more reasons to start a "preventive war". A war which would eventually end with "whoopsie-daisy, there are no WMDs after all".
Yet, planting evidence on a single guy who just leaked a whole bunch of their secrets? No, of course they'd never do anything questionable or immoral to him!
- Comment on Ex-CIA computer engineer gets 40 years in prison for giving spy agency hacking secrets to WikiLeaks 9 months ago:
I merely pointed out that in the context, his statement was, most likely, not trying to claim that CSAM is a victimless crime, but that his alleged possession of it is.
Substitute CSAM for something like murder, for example: It's one thing to have a video of someone committing murder and a very different thing to commit murder yourself and record it. One is, obviously, a violent crime; the other, not so much. It's a similar argument here.
He might be 100% guilty, he might not be. I don't know for sure. What I do know for sure, is that CIA and other alphabet agencies have a history of being... less than honest and moral. So, I exercise caution and take their statements with a fair bit of skepticism. Pardon me of that doesn't come off as I intend it to.
- Comment on Ex-CIA computer engineer gets 40 years in prison for giving spy agency hacking secrets to WikiLeaks 9 months ago:
The sentence previous to the one you're quoting, the one you've omitted, changes the context quite a lot.
When he heard that the government was pushing to keep him detained pending trial, his stomach dropped. “The crime I am charged with is in fact a non-violent, victimless crime,”
In the US a person pending trial can be either released or kept detained. (18 U.S. Code § 3142 - Release or detention of a defendant pending trial) In cases when the defendant is being charged with non-violent crimes, it's fairly common for them to be released until their trial. Possibly on bond.
The wording of his statement is... questionable. But in this context, it could be re-worded to something like "you're are accusing me of possession of illegal material, which not a violent crime. I was not involved in creation of said material, therefore there are no victims of mine".
Anyway, even if he did have the material in question, the fact that they report finding some on a jail computer is awful weird. Those aren't, exactly, known for having unrestricted and unmonitored access to the internet. I, also, would be surprised if those computers are less locked down than school or library computers, which tend to restrict users' permission to the bare minimum, often as far as prohibiting creation of files.
- Comment on Ex-CIA computer engineer gets 40 years in prison for giving spy agency hacking secrets to WikiLeaks 9 months ago:
"Furman said Schulte continued his crimes from behind bars ... by creating a hidden file on his computer that contained 2,400 images of child sexual abuse that he continued to view from jail."
How do you get 2.4k images on a jail computer? Manifest it out of thin air?
Considering CIA is involved, which is known for torture, human experimentation, poisonings, planted evidence, etc. I'd not be too surprised if that file was straight up planted as an extra "fuck you" to the guy.
- Comment on Ex-CIA computer engineer gets 40 years in prison for giving spy agency hacking secrets to WikiLeaks 9 months ago:
Disclosing found exploits allows developers to patch them out and improve security of everyone, which includes all the other alphabet boys and regular citizens.
There's no way to know that you're the only one who found any given exploit. Letting an exploit stay unpatched opens up an attack vector for everyone, not just you. - Comment on How can you drive off a gas station with the hose still connected? 9 months ago:
Yeah, I know. Most comments in this thread say the exact same thing.
However, it's obviously not the case everywhere.
The OP didn't exactly specify where he lives and only said that you have to pay "at some point", so I'm giving my point of view.
Obviously it's harder for forget it you have to hold the thing, but that thing isn't universal. - Comment on How can you drive off a gas station with the hose still connected? 9 months ago:
You pull up. Get out. Put the nozzle in. Then you go inside. There, you wait in line for 5 minutes, because the dick from another pump decided to buy a fucking coffee and a sandwich, and the only employee is busy making those for him, instead of operating the pumps. Then you actually pay and get the gas flowing. By the time you're back at the car, it's already finished pumping.
So, there can be a time gap of several minutes with multiple actions and distractions during it. Is it really that surprising people forget to pull the thing out, occasionally?
- Comment on YouTube comment deletion is out of control, can't say anything anymore even when completely sensible. Is there a text format (alternate characters) that allows you to bypass detection? 11 months ago:
Human's for you, what can I say.
We all are guilty of similar behavior. You, I, your neighbor- Everyone.
It's often hard to believe something, when your own experience is vastly different from what someone describes. - Comment on YouTube comment deletion is out of control, can't say anything anymore even when completely sensible. Is there a text format (alternate characters) that allows you to bypass detection? 11 months ago:
I've noticed Youtube nuking my comments if they contain words related to money, if they contain too many brands, if they contain technical term, etc.
Comments that don't have much in terms of meaning or information go through just fine.
So... Just, write like you're 5 years old and split long messages into several comments.
- Comment on Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing" 11 months ago:
Being able to do things to your property is one of the basic concepts of, well, property.
Let's say your car's manufacturer fixed the wheels using security bolts and they're the only people who have the sockets.
With actual cars it would be, at most, annoying. You'd still be able to undo the bolts, either by buying or making a fitting socket, or just smacking a regular one until it fits.In the digital world, however, just because it's called a "security" socket, you're forbidden, by law, from tampering with it. And if the licensed services stop servicing the model of your car one day... You're fucked. Because, even though you "own" the car, you are legally forbidden from doing basic maintenance required to use it.
- Comment on Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing" 11 months ago:
Whenever a game or program or goes unplayable you can not go and fix it, despite "owning it".
Removal of any kind of DRM, even if for personal, even in products you've bought, is illegal.And there's no lower-limit on how "secure" DRM has to be: even if you can perfectly re-implement server-side software, tricking the program into talking to your server, instead of the original, is, at best, legally grey area.
- Comment on Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing" 11 months ago:
When you "buy" digital content, be it music, movies, software or games, you almost never actually buy the product. What you get is a limited license to view or use the product for an undefined amount of time.
Generally, companies reserve the right to, at any moment, restrict how can access the content (e.g. force you to use a specific device and/or program) or remove your ability to use or view the product entirely.
For example, a movie or song you've "bought" might get removed from whatever streaming service you're using. A game or program might stop working due to changes in the DRM system.
Actual example from less than half a year ago: Autodesk disabled people's supposedly perpetual licenses for Autocad and other software, forcing anyone wishing to continue to use their software into a subscription.
Imagine buying a house, only for the seller to show up 10 later and state that they change their might and staring from this point in time the house is no longer yours - despite the fact that you've paid for it in full - and you own them rent, if you want to keep living in it.
- Comment on Microsoft Will Charge for Windows 10 Security Updates in 2025 11 months ago:
Well, to elaborate: I never purchashed Windows willingly. I mostly pirated it.
XP was the only Windows that was worth its money. Back then there was nothing better.
Seven was, too, best for its time, but it was still meh, compared to XP.If it was possible, I would've never stopped using it.
If Windows was more like Linux, XP would've been still supported, even if by different people (like Mandriva is living on as OpenMandriva, or Gnome 2 as MATE).
But, no, we can't have nice things. Microsoft have to force their "upgrades".Also: Almost everyone younger than 20-25 has grown up with Window 10. There's a ton people to whom the fact that Miscosoft kill off operating systems and force new, objectively worse ones is news.
- Comment on Microsoft Will Charge for Windows 10 Security Updates in 2025 11 months ago:
I've, in fact, never purchased Windows willingly.
The only few times I (technically) did were with laptops and small form factor computers which were only available with it pre-installed.
This, honestly, should not be legal.
- Comment on Microsoft Will Charge for Windows 10 Security Updates in 2025 11 months ago:
I suppose it's true for very old or more exotic hardware.
Since last year we can't even run Linux on i486 CPUs, and it's not even some relatively exotic architecture! - Comment on Microsoft Will Charge for Windows 10 Security Updates in 2025 11 months ago:
You can use Debian Sid, for example. That way, instead of waiting for a bunch of updates to install them as one big upgrade, you, basically, always have the last version. You don't get those big upgrades at all, this way.
That's not possible with Windows. Even if you were to install every update that comes out, you wouldn't end up with a system that's somewhere between Windows 10 and Windows 11. You're forced into a major upgrade.
- Comment on Microsoft Will Charge for Windows 10 Security Updates in 2025 11 months ago:
You do, in fact, need to accept support to benefit from it. Those releases are the support. They are the updates.
Sometimes people or companies retire their distros (e.g. Mandriva), or just do stupid decisions that piss of their users (CentOS) and force the users to switch to a different distro. This, however, is extremely rare. Microsoft do that on a schedule.
- Comment on Microsoft Will Charge for Windows 10 Security Updates in 2025 11 months ago:
Debian releases are more similar to Service Packs on Windows.
Windows releases are entirely different products.
There are changes to the defaults, sometimes, but they're just that: changes to the defaults. If you're upgrading your existing install, they won't affect you.
For example: Debian switched to Gnome as its default DE a couple years ago. It used to be XFCE. However, if you already had a system with XFCE, if wouldn't go and replace it for you.
On Windows side, meanwhile, when Microsoft decide to change up the DE, you get the changes, whether you like it or not. Remember Windows 8? It's not like those who upgraded from Windows 7 got to keep their Aero theme and Start Menu.
- Comment on Microsoft Will Charge for Windows 10 Security Updates in 2025 11 months ago:
It's not really comparable to the way Windows versioning works. Releases of distros like Debian are closer to Service Packs on Windows: they're just a bunch of updates bundled together.
Alternatively, you can use Debian Sid or Arch, for example, and get all the changes as they're being made. That way, you get a lot of smaller updates a lot more often. - Comment on Microsoft Will Charge for Windows 10 Security Updates in 2025 11 months ago:
Literally most of them. All the big ones like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Arch, etc. are 10+ years old and still get updates pretty much daily.
Debian had its 30th birthday back in September, actually.
- Comment on Russians' support of Ukraine war collapses, finds poll 11 months ago:
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