I think. therefore I am
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Undocumented Feature

11 Comments and 32 Shares
And it doesn't pop up a box every time asking you to use your real name. In fact, there's no way to set your name at all. You just have to keep reminding people who you are.
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guruprasad
4004 days ago
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Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
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9 public comments
Skotte
3999 days ago
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telnet brigandine.org 9390

A chat like system thing that still runs, after like 15 years. Still no fFucking banner ads.
Rochester, Earth
PaulPritchard
4003 days ago
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Beautiful
Belgium
skorgu
4004 days ago
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IRC still exists.
2bithacker
4004 days ago
There's even an official #xkcd IRC channel http://wiki.xkcd.com/irc/XKCD
taddevries
4004 days ago
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Yes! I want this feature, so bad.
adamgurri
4004 days ago
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hahaha wow the last panel makes it.
New York, NY
reconbot
4004 days ago
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I made a chat system just like this
New York City
JayM
4004 days ago
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O
Atlanta, GA
trparky
4004 days ago
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"And it doesn't pop up a box every time asking you to use your real name. In fact, there's no way to set your name at all. You just have to keep reminding people who you are."
huckncatch
4004 days ago
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so good
4004 days ago
I wonder if this is even a real thing...
SselemanLuos
4004 days ago
The Starship Titanic forum is pretty close: http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/02/emergent_systems

Insight

7 Comments and 30 Shares
The great thing is, the sentence is really just a reminder to the listener to worry about whatever aspects of the technology they're already feeling alarmist about, which in their mind gives you credit for addressing their biggest anxieties.
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guruprasad
4214 days ago
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Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
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7 public comments
KieraKujisawa
4212 days ago
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Heh, that comment does work for everything...
Fredericksburg, VA 22408 USA
mistercheese
4213 days ago
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Yes
San Francisco, California
DivinoAG
4213 days ago
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Comments on this post seem to be completely missing the point. He's not trying to say that we should question all tech, he is saying that to question tech when you don't really have any insights is just a way for people to *appear wise*.
California
bronzehedwick
4213 days ago
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Man that's true.
Tarrytown, NY
Dadster
4214 days ago
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Gee, I don't know. What could possibly go wrong?
New Hampshire
tedder
4214 days ago
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indeed. and kids with their iphones. and self-driving cars. and ABS. and airbags. and flying!
Uranus
rgsunico
4214 days ago
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This SOOO works!

Laurent Eschenauer | What's next Google? Dropping SMTP support?

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Comments: "Laurent Eschenauer | What's Comments: "What's next Google? Dropping SMTP support?"

URL: http://eschnou.com/entry/whats-next-google--dropping-smtp-support--62-24930.html


A company that was the cheerleader of the open web is rapidly turning its back on every single open standard they once championned. Their latest move, announced yesterday at Google I/O, appears to be closing XMPP server-to-server federation.

It is only a natural next step in a process started a while ago. Here is a quick, and probably not exhaustive recap:

  • Google+ has no open RSS output, hence no PuSH support, no write API, in fact it has absolutely nothing open
  • Google Reader is scrapped, along with RSS support within Chrome
  • WebDav for Google Calendar is dropped in favor of their proprietary API
  • XMPP is dropped, while 3 years ago it was at the core of their Wave efforts
If they continue with this trend, then why not drop support for SMTP (and thus email federation)? When @aaronparecki.composted the following picture a few months ago, I smiled. Today I wonder if this could actually ever happen.

This is what email would have looked like if it were invented in the Web 2.0 era. By aaronparecki.com

The good news is, we do not need Google to build the open web for us. We are developpers, and hacking the future is what we do best. So, time to wake up and start building alternatives. For those interested, the following movements are worth a look:

And beyond these movements, a lot of really cool open source projects which can become real alternatives to some of the Google monopolies.

Don't hesitate to comment, share your thoughts, or a link to an open project you are working on.

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guruprasad
4220 days ago
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Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
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AirAware

13 Comments and 27 Shares
It ships with a version of Google Now that alerts you when it's too late to leave for your appointments.
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guruprasad
4233 days ago
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Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
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cailloux
4232 days ago
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This would help with the fact I never judge how long it takes to get anywhere.
Atlanta, GA
AndyG1128
4232 days ago
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Doesn't this already exist? There are plenty of people who hover around me and tell me I'm wrong all the time...
Nashville, TN
Romanikque
4233 days ago
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Fan freeking tastic!
Baltimore, MD
8bithack
4233 days ago
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best XKCD in a while
C-Bus
kaushal
4233 days ago
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The business plan would be that people would have to pay to get the UAV off their backs :P
Earth
adamgurri
4233 days ago
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excellent.
New York, NY
stavrosg
4233 days ago
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Whoa!
Rodos, Greece
MourningStar888
4233 days ago
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WRONG!
Fredonia, NY
Dowser
4233 days ago
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Time for Kickstarter!
Trosa, Sweden
Michdevilish
4233 days ago
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Wrong!
Canada
robopanda333
4233 days ago
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this is hilarious. i wish i was doing my hw sp next year, i so want to see these in action.
Walla Walla, Washington

Authorization

25 Comments and 63 Shares
Before you say anything, no, I know not to leave my computer sitting out logged in to all my accounts. I have it set up so after a few minutes of inactivity it automatically switches to my brother's.
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guruprasad
4249 days ago
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Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
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25 public comments
agcornejo
4230 days ago
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Lol
Snellville, Georgia
redknightalex
4238 days ago
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Or one could practice physical security as well as digital security. Around this time of year, every student's laptop is stolen.
Northeastern US
waxis
4245 days ago
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Let's hear it for sandboxing!
Arizona
oliverzip
4246 days ago
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Sigh. And I felt so secure.
Sydney, Balmain, Hornsby.
beslayed
4248 days ago
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//
ktgeek
4248 days ago
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Once again, xkcd gives me a great comic for security presentations...
Bartlett, IL
PaulPritchard
4248 days ago
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Heh
Belgium
bogorad
4249 days ago
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+acda: please do enlighten me how one's gonna hijack my active SSL-session that's on a laptop that auto-locks when my face is not visible through its webcam? :)
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
gmuslera
4249 days ago
Someone sends you a PDF exploiting an acrobat vulnerability (to put an example of making someone's else code run as your user), that takes out your browser cookies/sessions/whatever (or just install a keylogger), and sent them to someones else email. Not being admin/root don't enable them to modify the system in ways that your plain user can't, but can do everything else.
bogorad
4249 days ago
I don't use adobe's PDF software ;)
GrimMeeper
4248 days ago
so maybe I get a picture of you?
acksed
4248 days ago
They don't. They call your bank after cracking the weak password on your email account for the details, reading your FB page for your birthdate, phone number, relatives and location/address, then authorise a bank transfer.
tedder
4249 days ago
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my brother sent this to me this morning.
Uranus
shamgar_bn
4249 days ago
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love this...
Wake Forest, North Carolina
jobiasrkd
4249 days ago
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But video card drivers are serious business!
Edmonton, Canada
deezil
4249 days ago
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Ha!
Shelbyville, Kentucky
norb
4249 days ago
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hahaha
clmbs.oh
dianaschnuth
4249 days ago
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Ain't that the truth.
Toledo OH
sfringer
4249 days ago
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Always a great viewpoint on serious topics!
North Carolina USA
adamgurri
4249 days ago
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welp
New York, NY
acdha
4249 days ago
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Lovely example of why so much security advice is rearranging the proverbial deck chairs. The model for the future is privilege separation within an account – a la Apple's sand boxing – but even that is woefully inadequate until, say, compromising your browser on your favorite l0lcat site doesn't let an attacker reuse your banking credentials.
Washington, DC
petrilli
4249 days ago
The problem is that at some point, everything depends on a single lynchpin of security. For example, I use approximately 5,000 different passwords, but they're all stored in a single repository that's protected with a very long pass phrase. But, compromise the phrase, or the encryption protocol itself, and BOOM, all for not. Unfortunately, diffuse security risks are difficult to achieve in practice if your goal is ease-of-use. There's a freaking Nobel prize in there somewhere.
skarlso
4243 days ago
@petrilli the problem is that you are storing them in one place :-) either distribute to multiple location or store them in you head. I have a powerful mnemonic to store my 100+ passwords in my head. Hopefuly that can't be cracked. Yet.
manuelp
4249 days ago
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Clever as usual :D
Universe
Dowser
4249 days ago
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Huvudet på spiken, igen.
Trosa, Sweden
stavrosg
4249 days ago
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...
Rodos, Greece
bobdvb
4249 days ago
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One I think Linus would sympathise with I think!
Down from 51.5, left of 0.25
popular
4249 days ago
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One I think Linus would sympathise with I think!
thebassman
4249 days ago
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Too funny, yet so true.
Barrie, Ontario, Canada
growler
4249 days ago
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eggzactly
bogorad
4249 days ago
truecrypt + auto-lock should be mandatory
acdha
4249 days ago
bogorad: I'm trying to tell whether you missed the point or are joking. TrueCrypt, FileVault, etc. are good ideas for physical security but they don't help when an active session is compromised, which is by far the dominant threat these days.

blog.vrypan.net | You know, Google, the web already had this feature.

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Comments: "blog.vrypan.net | You Comments: "You know, Google, the web already had this feature." feature"

URL: http://blog.vrypan.net/2013/4/11/Googleplus-pages-notifications/


posted on 11/04/2013 23:23, by vrypan | tags: #google #en

I used to be a Google fan. I must have tried most of their services as early as possible.

But lately, they are pushing towards a version of the WWW that I don’t like. A WWW where things only happen if you use the “right” browser, where URLs are second class web citizens, where you have to have a Google account, you have to have Google+ enabled, you must be logged in and you have to notify Google of your every move and then Google decides what goes and what not.

Take for example their latest Google+ chrome extension feature.

The idea is not bad, I’m a Google+ user (maybe I won’t be for long), it could be handy.

But...

Come on, Google, seriously? The only way to do this, is making my browser send the URL of every single page I visit to your servers?

A couple of years ago, they would have suggested something like the webaster added an HTML meta tag to my web pages indicating the coresponding Google+ page, so that any plugin could let me “subscribe” to the second. This is how we have been doing automatic feed discovery for years now.

You know, Google, the web already had this feature.

My personal stream was my RSS feed, you want me to replace it with a Google+ profile. My news aggregator was the RSS aggregator of my choice, you want me to use a semi-read-only version called Google+. My browser would auto-discover the stream related to any page I visited and would allow me to subscribe to it, now you want me to use a Google+ chrome plugin which in addition kills my privacy.

Everyting worked quite well, and you could pick our side and help us make it better -that’s what you’d do back in the “don’t be evil” days.

Oh, right, I forgot: You killed RSS auto-discovery in chrome, Google reader is dead, and Feedburner is a living dead. I get it.

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guruprasad
4254 days ago
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Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
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