> I could be paranoid. They could have simply moved things on the desk. But anyway, people who are paranoid like me are advised not to take their laptops into Uber interviews. They are capable of just about anything, or so thinks my now paranoid self.
I would be cautious about discrediting intuition as paranoia.
> Then you are criticizing something other than their actual description.
No, I'm criticizing the wording. Perhaps you should ask yourself more questions about the construction of these descriptions and what messages they convey, than merely the definition of the word usually.
Of course I am ignoring the word "Usually". It's not a substantial word. How much is usually? There are always "uncommon exceptions" to some subject (see the implicit flaw with this sentence? That's because I don't use the word "usually". What kind of an argument can I make without the word "usually"?)
It disregards a whole field of volunteered hard work to make mesh networking technology accessible by people who don't want to buy "expensive, commercial" hardware and software.'
It sends the message: "Don't look further, because it's not worth it -- because usually other solutions are expensive and commercial."
The difference between the two isn't in the UI. Wireless repeaters traditionally have a set receiving and transmission point. Let's assume that signal interference / reflection / amplification does no matter, for the sake of simplicity in this example. So if you have a chain of three repeaters A <--> B <--> C, and then you move access point C closer to A (closer than B is to A), then the topology does not change (do you see the issue here?). Worse, if you have a longer chain with a few alternatives, then a single point going down (call it X) would require nodes previously connected to X to be reconfigured.
Mesh networks automatically judge the path of least resistance to a destination, and distribute the state of all the access points on a network. If one access point goes down, all the access points previously connected to the faulty access point will find alternatives if there's anything else within signal range.
In this case, if those are meant to be portable access points, you can move them between different rooms without worrying about nodes choosing a suboptimal path.
>> But that's different from saying "something usually only seen in expensive commercial installations".
> No, its not. The fact that there are inexpensive alternative means by which it can be deployed, and by which certain segments of the population can and do deploy it, doesn't make it any less true that it is usually only seen in expensive commercial installations.
Well then they should have made that more clear. Expensive + commercial means, well, expensive, and commercial installation means proprietary and hard to access (which, by the way, is also untrue).
> I don't think it tends to mislead any group at all. I think
that the group to whom the exceptions to the "usual" case accurately described here is relevant will be well aware of it and so not misled, and the group who is not interested will also not be misled by the accurate statement, even though they are likely to be less aware of the nature of the alternative.
Sorry, I edited my comment for clarity. Anyway I don't think it's right to just say that because a certain population can't be mislead, it means that the information itself is not misleading.
But that's different from saying "something usually only seen in expensive commercial installations". And it is still misleading, accuracy of some information has nothing to do with what someone is looking for (a self-contained, plug-and-play mesh network).
> The system uses a technology called mesh Wi-Fi (something usually only seen in expensive commercial installations).
This is misleading. You can create your own mesh networks with several off-the-shelf routers / access points using open source software like batman-advanced [0].
> Therefore one has to wonder what Assange's motivation is behind this leak. Based on its timing, it seems far more likely that his motives are personal more than philosophical. It furthers no agenda but his own.
Or his motives are following the philosophy of the freedom of information, as it had in the past. The or is not exclusive: it's possible that his motivations are both personal and philosophical. But to say that this leak furthers "no agenda but his own" is oddly dismissive of the mission / philosophy behind wikileaks.
It's not there to circlejerk people who are already exposed to this kind of information. The philosophy is that more people should have the option to know. If it weren't for projects like wikileaks, it would not be a choice for you to make.
That's assuming that average hackers don't use script browser exploits...
And the FUD about there the government being so competent that it's impossible to hide from them has to stop. It's just so entirely useless and devoid of reality. If you were going down, for example Snowden would be an unknown name to us.
> If the situation is high-stakes, TBB comes with NoScript installed. And you should probably get a burner laptop, do all your web browsing off TAILS, and randomly change your physical location.
You are absolutely correct about practicing good opsec, however I have to challenge the usability argument. TOR is already less usable due to many sites blacklisting TOR exits nodes and latency (although connecting to a hidden service is a better idea, and avoids the blacklisting issue. And yet hidden services tend to avoid the JS requirement as well). If Joe Average is willing to put up with that in order to stay anonymous, I'm sure Joe would be willing to disable scripts.
On the other hand, if Joe doesn't understand why having scripts enabled is a security risk, then this might be a better reason to have scripts off by default, anyway.
If you analyze malware for a living, then the assembly is the source code. :)
It's really not that much of an issue. It makes things more fun.
I am curious about whether they developed the malware in-house or if they hired a contractor. Is there any information out there on this? I wouldn't be surprised if they cut out parts, which may hint at a particular contractor having developed the malware.
Also, I still do not understand why TOR Browser Bundle allows scripts by default.
I haven't touched this particular game, but from experience cracking just takes a lot of time but is never impossible, unless the program is using something you have no control over like a DRM chip or something like that. Even then, everything has holes.
You can use the strongest encryption but at some point you need to have the game decrypted in memory. You can have a tonne of obfuscation but not enough that would hinder the game's performance. As long as you have control over the machine that runs it, you can crack it. It's just a matter of time and making the cracker so bored that they just give up. Which is what is happening here.
But they will succeed, or someone else will.
I'm curious if they implement some sort of rootkit or a bootkit. Those are pretty hard to deal with, relatively. But uhm... history repeats itself. [1]
I would be cautious about discrediting intuition as paranoia.