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Paul Shetlersaidthe history of the federal government digital failure underlines the need for the public service to train its own workers and end its reliance on expensive and wasteful private sector outsourcing.

OMG! An admission that outsourcing permanent jobs to Indians was a bad idea? Never!

But I am too busy laughing at ATO systems being down.

But manufacturers don't like them because they last an exceptionally long time, and are perfect for many applications that utilize
very expensive tires(such as tractors).

As many people on the internet, I mostly comment to gripe (not really, but sometimes yes).

Run-flat tires use air. They merely have a system - ribs like these tires have, reinforced sidewalls, reinforced tread liners, and/or less commonly a smaller non-pneumatic tire on the inside - to allow them to continue working in some sense when the air is let out, typically through a puncture or leak.

Also, I expect commercial versions on non-pneumatic tires to not be open-air like those pictured. I would expect there to be dangerous situations where rocks could get lodged inside and shot out at high velocities under pressure.

Alright, I'm done griping.

When I first got the city-provided power, it was fast-ish, but extremely flaky. Turns out the installer didn't understand how to polish the fiber.

After months of complaining - apparently by everyone - the city stopped hiring contractors and had their own people come out to each house and redo the connectors. It was pretty good after that.

File to be edited is leach.tcl in ns-allinone-2.34/ns-2.34/mit/uAMPS
replace [$self agent]set dst_ with [$self agent]set dst_addr_ $mac_dst

Usual Telco crap. This is why people avoid Telstra.

The NBN Co. struggles to get fiber to people's street. Less than 30% of the target properties are now expected to get fiber. They need to lend billions to complete this using "alternative materials" such as copper. Recently they gave up completely, bought AU$80,000 worth of copper and declared it to be good enough.

You could not make this stuff up.

I was already hooked up, but the speed was slow than I had ordered. Really, the problem was that they kept arguing without actually trying to find out what was going on.

Order via a web page? Select the speed?

I would find symptoms of malware (nagging screens, unwarranted leakage of personal data to malware controllers' server) in all WIN 10 installations too.
Maybe I would charge less for wiping windows and installing linux, which is the fix. OTOH they have made booting into linux increasingly difficult nowadays with all that UEFI and filling internal hd partitions.

Or New Zealand's gigabit Gigatown, where you order it and get DSL speeds because the sales guy on the phone doesn't know they offer gigabit, and argues with you that they don't sell it.

Could be worse.
You could be getting NBN.

Lots of cities go down this path to offer their own broadband. My hometown even provided basic cable access. They f'ed that up pretty badly, losing millions of taxpayer dollars in the process.

Years later they decided to try again with fiber. Once again, they f'ed that up pretty badly, losing millions of taxpayer dollars in the process.

They eventually gave up and handed the whole thing over to Google. That went fairly well. Comcast (cable) and CenturyLink (dsl) both started offering higher speeds for less. Everyone won.

Merely offering an alternative isn't any good. Offering an alternative that is at least as good, and preferably better, is required to actually cause the existing powers that be to compete.

There have always been con men, selling snake oil to unwary victims. I bet that when the idea of mutually beneficial exchange of goods or services was first conceived, the very next thought in their heads was "how can I use this to gain something without giving something away".

What would it look like once everyone starts broadcasting?

Very high frequencies have long been considered undesirable because they don't penetrate through or go very far around walls, trees & leaves, hills, curvature of the earth, etc. In fact they're greatly attenuated even by just the oxygen and light moisture in the atmosphere. Plus the millimeter wave band is extremely wide, leaving a big open space for everyone to fit-in without competing with each other. These features that makes them undesirable for one-way broadcasting of TV/radio and long-distance coverage, also makes them ideal for high-speed, short-range, two-way cellular communications, where people a mile away don't want or need to pick-up the signal at all.

I bet the signal/noise ratio is pretty good right now since the spectrum just opened up. What would it look like once everyone starts broadcasting?

Broadband AND body scanning AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!

Here's another one: the BlackBerry DTEK60.

It's like a high-end Android phone, except it receives monthly security patches. It's like a Pixel, except it's cheaper and has SD card support.

Probably one of the more underrated phones of the year. BlackBerry is doing Android _right_.

Do hacking the hand off is old hat then

"Where is the charge cable for the work iphone?"
"No idea"
"Chuck flows"
"Gone missing again?"
"Anyone seen the oncall charge cable? Anyone?"
"I have several usb cables you are use"
"Oh har har"
"Someone nip down to the shop to get a spare cable. Should be $25. Give the receipt to DACC"

I don't think you've thought this through: in what way is something that you would have to crack the security on more susceptible to misuse than something you only need a key for?

Seriously?

With a standard present day car, you get in and drive it into a crowd. With an autonomous car, you need to find one with the vulnerabilities you can access and then crack the OS, override the onboard security, and then drive it into a crowd IF it doesn't have extra failsafes built in.

In the time it takes you to do that, you could steal/carjack/buy a car, and then drive it into a group. It would actually be easier to get a load of explosives and detonate it in the middle of a crowd than to override an autonomous vehicle and do so.

It'd be easier to build a radio controlled car and do it.

Disagree? Demonstrate how it's easier to gain the skills to exploit an operating system, then to find an operating system you can exploit, do so without getting caught, and then drive the car into a crowd of people, and provide clear explanations of how this is so much easier than having a human drive into a crowd.

The source is poorly written or poorly translated. It is plainly concerned with oscillatory frequency, not speed of propagation.

I really don't get the fascination. I love the idea of having a gigantic screen to look at, but I also love being able to use my phone with one hand, and put it away in my pocket.

Because other nations. Everyone's out to get you! They're all jealous of your freedoms!

How is that xenophobia?

"Others worried the attack could be from a nation-state rather than simply a single individual seeking to wreak havoc."

Ballpeen hammer time

SubGraph

Initial impressions
Interface is clean. The LiveCD came up quickly. Live CD boot options included Live, Install and Graphical Install. This was a great improvement over Lime for which I never got past the initial green screen with the dots.

Installer
The graphical installer looked like a good option. It reminds me of Windows 95, in a good way.
Install screens were clean and quick. Nice colours. Choices were clearly marked.
Interesting that it asked for the password for a new user account without showing the account name. My new account name is "User".
Disk partitioning was fairly straight forward.
System install took awhile.
No root password.

In the Activities menu the names are cut off if using a low res. Possibly when running in lower res the text should be shrunk. The whole menu could do with some shrinking.
Local disk install is 4.5G or so.
Changing the display to a higher resolution was easy. The interface seems to be designed for 1280x1200 minimum. In 1024x768 the Activities - Applications is squashed.

After local install the apt update failed. The error message referred to a public key not being available.
System update throws open an editor session halfway through which could be confusing for newbies.

The default for alt-tab is annoying as it switches programs but not between instances of the same program. No doubt there is a config change to fix this.

I didn't tried to remove Systemd. Given that this is based on Debian it could be be removed. http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/How_to_remove_systemd_from_a_Debian_jessie/sid_installation. Given that this is based on stretch I didn't give it a try this time.

May need to increase the screensaver timeout as the 5 minimum default is annoying.

Never actually got TOR to work. This may be due to a network issue.
Strangely, when running Tor-Browser from the Live CD from Applications it downloads the browser first. In the Live CD. Expected to have a version already installed and waiting to use when booting in the Live CD mode.

As usual with Debian based systems an apt-get update was needed to get the ball rolling. Wondering when apt repositories will be available via BT instead of static downloads.

There was a slight problem with the Live CD mode where it locked the screen. The FAQ was helpful.

Overall it looks pretty, is stable, can install and run Debian packages, and for a quick run over looks to be a viable Debian based OS. Some issues with getting web apps running, but given that this is alpha it is expected that there will be issues.

Current plan is $2 per day used, unlimited minutes. Since I don't use the phone much I seldom go above the $15/mo. minimum. Not worth over $30/mo. to me no matter what they offer. (Only Verizon and AT&T have real coverage here; the ZTE only sees Sprint and it can't pull up one bar, so the plethora of cheap Sprint resellers aren't useful. T-Mobile uses AT&T but roaming voicemail doesn't work.)

Anyway I'm in no rush; by the time it hits Walmart the price will come down and other options may appear, and might be worth a try on swapping out the SIM card.

I was under the impression that the US government had ships capable of tapping cables, if they can do it why would the Russians not be capable of it?

There are entire ships designed for servicing underwater cables. Their technology isn't secret. They don't service the cable on the bottom of the ocean, they haul it up to the ship. They can tell the cable owners to turn off the power, but considering that linesmen in every city of the electrified world work on live lines as part of their job, I'm fairly certain the Russians would be able to hire one.

I could spare a few dollars for a good cause

Next question, which I didn't see answered in TFA -- is it going to be available not locked to Tracfone? Verizon is good here but my Verizon account is a lot cheaper than Tracfone.

Yes, probably locked for 1yr. HOWEVER, Tracfone has several services you can choose from. PagePlus is a VERY popular option right now, even among people not locked to Tracfone's network. Their $27/mo plan w/1GB looks pretty good, and you can go as low as $30/yr paygo plan for minimal usage, though $80/yr is a more practical minimum.

If your Verizon service is cheaper than that, they will probably NOT let you activate a smartphone on it.

I don't think that's correct. While located in the same area, the proximity sensor that shuts off your screen is distinct from your camera. First Moto E had no front-facing camera at all, yet it has a proximity sensor: http://m.gsmarena.com/motorola_moto_e-6376.php

Numerous phones with front cameras are similarly listed as also having proximity sensors, not just reusing the camera.

Very interesting to me as I need the flipphone's solid protection of the main screen (otherwise it won't be long before it gets broken in the barn), prefer the form factor in my hand and by my ear, and vastly prefer having physical phone controls rather than on-screen.

Right now I use a $12 retard phone because it has the really necessary stuff (protected screen, physical controls) and I can live without the Android features and I don't text. But this looks like a good hybrid best-of-both -- if I can't have a full physical keyboard, this is the next best thing. It's the same size as my retired smartphone (also a ZTE; nothing wrong with the hardware, the problem is Virgin Mobile -- you've been warned) which is plenty big for my uses.

Next question, which I didn't see answered in TFA -- is it going to be available not locked to Tracfone? Verizon is good here but my Verizon account is a lot cheaper than Tracfone.

That's more a liveness issue than a security issue, but certainly not reassuring.

Oh well. Maybe we'll see the ACT election results tomorrow.

Gets to about 800kb of downloading the 1.3GB ISO then halts. Extremely secure.
What? No torrent links? What year is this again

Que the Computer Cup Holder!

Since the front facing camera on my android died I am more aware of how much it is used. For example, to disable the screen when on calls for power saving. Now I am creeped out. A nice cover for Android for front and back covers sounds like a good idea.

Time for a Tails vs Subgraph breakdown?

Fully agreed on hardware keyboards. I'm using a Blackberry Priv. It's a bit large - I'd prefer a smaller phone, really - but it works well and balances okay in my hand with the keyboard slid out.

I do like the idea of this flip phone, though. Especially for my parents. Dad has a tendency to wreck the screens on smartphones and a flip would fix a lot of that.

The feature list listed here seems aimed at providing the user security, rather than offering a secure OS.

I don't doubt that they have added things to help with being secure - like the listed sandboxing - but none of the rest of the list really strikes me as being geared towards a secure, locked down, OS. When you throw in things like "advanced proxy settings" and "everything through TOR" and "mandatory full disk encryption" this all seems to be targeted at the paranoid rather than those who genuinely require security (web servers, mail servers, etc.).

As far as the paranoid go, sure, use it; it probably can't beat Tails though.

It's hardly "itty-bitty". The touch-screen alone is 3.5", which was considered BIG just a few years ago. The iPhone 4S had the same 3.5" screen size (circa 2012).

There's no bigger fan of (full QWERTY) hardware keyboards than yours truly (see: #3NZG), but I absolutely HATE T9 (text on 9 keys) input. Back when I had a phone with T9 as the only option, I simply didn't send texts to anybody, nearly ever. T9 has given us all manner of ugly, unwieldy "txtslang" terms we're only slowly getting away from (like "smthg"), as input was so cumbersome that learning a new shorthand language was quicker than both parties writing messages in full and proper English. The most primitive on-screen keyboards are superior to that nightmare.

The physical keypad could still be quite useful. Android has lots of games, and mechanical buttons with tactile feedback would be far superior to control by touching nondescript regions on a smooth screen. Perhaps also for controlling apps such as music players.

I remember the days when the texting first hit the teenage audience in a widespread manner, and damn did they learn to type fast using just the number pad, which was their only input method. I can't fathom how impossible it will be to use the itty-bitty touchscreen anywhere close to as quick. I'm still convinced the physical keyboard will always be the quickest input method, regardless of how large or how smart the touchscreen is.

Now get off my lawn.

Any decent programmer has known for ages that a bit has 3 states :
- On
- Off
- don't care

Cheers
wideglide

In yet another census related blunder, this time in the APS census, due to codes being left in published data it is possible to match census results with the individual who filled out the census.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/96000-public-servants-in-new-data-breach-20161004-grul2p.html

run sudo apt-get install libpcap0.8-dev
and then execute make depend