I was limited in what I could write in the post, but this was something that just hit me after years of being able to log in with my username/password on Yahoo!.
I'm sure it was a well-intentioned guard against spammers that mercilessly attack Yahoo! accounts, but it's effectively locked me out as a genuine user. I'm definitely miffed because it'll cost me, but at the same time, I implement systems like this for small businesses for a living, and it's a constant thing on my mind how what I do will impact users down the line. I get so nervous about inadvertently pulling something like this!
In fact, late last week, the CTIA wrote the FCC to tell it that the kind of blacklist approach taken by Foss’s company wouldn’t work. According to the lobbying group, it raises privacy concerns—and causes other problems too.
“Even assuming an accurate database of blacklisted and whitelisted numbers can be compiled and maintained, the ease with which modern equipment and software can allow a caller to spoof a caller ID would present significant challenge,” the group says.
I thought the phone companies had access to more information than caller ID for the calls they handle. Surely you can't fake caller ID details to dodge your phone bill? I'd love it if they'd give out a star code we could all dial after a call we didn't want to receive that would, if enough people did it, disallow future calls from that entity from reaching any phone line for which a customer has requested the blocking of calls reported as bothersome. No exemptions for charities or politicians either.
Firstly CLI blocking is easy to get around. Faking CLI is very easy. There is a field within SIP that is refereed to as P-assert. The idea is that this field always contains the billable number.
However I know of at least 3 sip carriers you could sign up today with, have numbers within 10 minutes and they allow you to put ANY CLI and P-assert. Then you can bridge in to the TDM and almost untraceable.
CLI faking is very common. There is a requirement in the UK that no calls gets in to the network without a p-assert but the network is to complex these days, there is always a way to get a call in with what ever information you want
We have been working on a blacklisting service as well. we have 2 types, the personalized white and black list (so a parent can have a white list for their kids phone): i think i agree with the FCC that global block lists are a bad idea (too easy to get someones number blocked for lulz). The second looks up the CLI and checks a number of those "who is calling me sites" if the number is know for spam it does not get to the phone and starts reading the comments back to them about their number (cli will get round this). Both ways have issues. The reason I bring this up is because we become an MVNO and in turn run our own sim cards. This meant that we could have had the blacklist/whitelist without messing with the call flow to much. This also allowed you to dial 9 to block the last number that called you was sexy but meh too much work to run an MVNO and just no money in it.
We will see. Lots of changes will be happening in telecoms in the next 5-10 years. webRTC could flip the existing telecoms models on their heads, if only someone could get some traction.
Phone systems are also global. You create legislation and fines for not setting that value, but calls from legacy systems around the world still have to be supported. Or has anybody ever tried to call a number and got a "sorry, your phone is too old, you need to upgrade" response?
I used to have this great little compact cell phone made by Sony. At some point, it just stopped making calls, and Sprint's explanation was that their network no longer supported this phone.
The most amazing thing to me is that if you had a student that demonstrated extreme aptitude and interest in any other subject in school they'd be looked at in the best possible light. But if it involves computers, they're a "hacker".
I'm sorry to see how little this has changed in fifteen years.
If people were doing things outside the authorized rules with their chemistry sets, for example, you can bet administrators would be pissed about that too.
I don't agree with the school's response, but I also don't buy kids hiding behind the "aptitude for computers" thing. In high school, I was programming in C++. Took a class in it. Got praised for it. You can display aptitude and interest in computers without indulging your adolescent urges to toe the line with the rules.
I graduated from high school in 2010 and had a few of these same meetings with administrators and the like. Luckily for me, one of the computer teachers was kind enough to encourage me behind the scenes and give me more constructive things to do with my time (making websites for small businesses, writing programs for science class simulations, etc.). More kids like the author need that positive encouragement.
The article suggests Twitter should take a more active role in policing its community, and the author doesn't appear to think "don't engage trolls" is adequate advice... but, really, what position is Twitter in to take an obnoxious person and bar them from the platform?
One can imagine a solution that requires significant effort or cost to create a Twitter account, perhaps involving proof of identity, but how high can you set the bar without putting legitimate users off?
It may not sit well that people can't practically be removed for reprehensible behavior as it occurs, and I get that it can come across like victim-blaming to tell people they should ignore it, but somehow letting someone yell themselves hoarse (metaphorically) without realizing they've been muted seems even more satisfying than giving them a ban page and having them make a new account in five minutes.
I think people aren't used to the wild web and would prefer companies to look after them, rather than dealing with it yourself. I mean, ignoring haters is character building.
Well, that's reassuring. Been reading lots of confusing and/or unsettling things on this topic in the news over the last year and really needed to hear a flat denial from somebody in charge to move past them.
She is in the same boat as Congress when they asked Clapper what was happening.
Unless there is a law that explicitly excludes certain activities then government agencies are free to do what they like.
In the UK our freedoms are not given the protection that the USA gets with its constitution and Conservatives are talking about reducing the powers of the EU's court of human rights.
Artist: Soundgarden. Badmotorfinger, Superunknown, and Down on the Upside, specifically.
Devo is my go to for programming music (Freedom of Choice, New Traditionalists, Oh No! It's Devo). Not gonna lie, you may well hate them, but for whatever reason Devo works for me when I'm trying to focus.
Also a big fan of the album Love by The Cult and pretty much anything by David Bowie or Rush. For newer stuff, Zero 7's Simple Things is really chill. Also, if you're really looking to zone out to something esoteric, Bethany Curve and Children of the Bong are nicely mellow. The album Who's Next by The Who is also great. Guess I'm just dumping my Spotify playlist out at this point, pick and choose what you want? :)
I think what's especially dangerous about it, as a software developer, is that broken crypto runs identically to properly-implemented crypto. If one is in the mentality of rewriting a program until runs without crashing a few times, well, that seems sufficient to land a gig to code printer drivers, but falls short of the rigor I'd hope would go into implementing a secure system.
Nevertheless, at this moment there's a PHP programmer somewhere in the world writing new code that stores passwords hashed with one round of MD5.
I think Park Dietz hits on an important point, one which the writer may not entirely buy into, but I do.
Tragedy after tragedy veers into "discussions" about gun control, violent videogames, violent music, violent movies, and lately, misogyny. This is not to be dismissive of those topics, but it's frustrating to realize the common element is mental illness and watch, yet again, that particular topic become eclipsed by the issue of the day in the national media.
As broadband becomes more pervasive I think we'll see other uses (for example, I could see VR being incorporated into virtual high schools for things like simulating a chemistry lab.)
How long did it take for electricity to be considered a necessity? And I'm legitimately curious how much of a factor radio was in motivating people to make the switch...
I enjoyed the article, but I'm not entirely convinced online gambling can be so easily lumped into the moral panic category with the rest. Unless it's gotten to the point where the games are tightly regulated for fairness and controlled for access to make sure only adults are playing.
On the other hand, I guess video game items having real world value already allows young adults to test these waters somewhat. Just seems that when actual money is involved you're moving beyond simply playing a video game. Or I'm old and panicking morally.
I'm sure it was a well-intentioned guard against spammers that mercilessly attack Yahoo! accounts, but it's effectively locked me out as a genuine user. I'm definitely miffed because it'll cost me, but at the same time, I implement systems like this for small businesses for a living, and it's a constant thing on my mind how what I do will impact users down the line. I get so nervous about inadvertently pulling something like this!