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FTC urged to make smart devices say how long they will be supported
  • This sounds like a security nightmare though. A central repository of all code and keys is a gold mine for exploitation. Don’t get me wrong, I would really want this to work, but if it was compromised it could he catastrophic.

    I do think there should be regulations in place that are clearly and easily enforceable by the FTC though. I’d love to see companies be hit with fines and/or compulsory refunds if they stop supporting devices and don’t provide some path forward for customers to keep using the device. That doesn’t solve for startups that go out of business, but it would at least cover the tech giants who are doing this garbage.

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    New panic alarm system at Georgia H.S. saved lives during shooting, officials say. Advocates want it nationwide.
  • I think the way the article worded it is confusing. Every staff member wears a photo ID badge, which is pretty common at most schools. At this school, their photo ID badges have a little button on the back. When that button is pressed, it activates the system.

    I’m sure the buttons have little batteries inside them, probably similar to the type of battery in a smoke alarm. These types of batteries can last for years. However, many school districts issue new photo ID badges to staff each school year, so perhaps batteries are being replaced at that time if needed.

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    What's the worst thing that ever happened to you or someone you know due to a rumor?
  • Any idea what year this was? Israel had “buggery” laws on the books up until the late 1980s, which I believe classified any homosexual acts as “sodomy”.

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    Why haven't more people attempted to create chat/IM clients out of e-mail services?
  • Wow! If someone at my company did that, I’m not sure if I’d be more impressed or more furious. Probably would be a resume-generating event for that person if we’re being honest.

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    What should I do if I find a bag by the road that I'm concerned it's a dead body?
  • Thanks for the detailed reply. I totally see your point about people not calling 911 when there’s an actual emergency, or calling the wrong number, and that resulting in a delay to first responders being notified in a critical situation. Obviously not a dispatcher myself, but have spent some time working with them, and I would say that most of them would echo your sentiments. I’ve heard some funny stories though of people calling 911 for the most inappropriate reasons - lost dogs, car won’t start (was in caller’s garage, not like they were stranded in a blizzard or something). My favorite was an elderly man who apparently called 911 because his computer was being “hacked”, sounded like he got one of those scam calls. That one made me pretty proud of the security awareness training we did for county employees.

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    What should I do if I find a bag by the road that I'm concerned it's a dead body?
  • I think it definitely varies by county. I worked for an IT company that served a lot of county governments across a few states in the US, and a majority of them would try to discourage 911 calls for things that weren’t active emergencies.

    Lots of counties had central 911 operations that coordinated for other local municipalities (ie the county 911 would dispatch a local city’s fire department), but non-emergency numbers usually went to the local municipality. Sometimes municipalities would have non-emergency calls roll over to the 911 center, but those calls were always tagged differently, and essentially moved to the back of the queue behind 911 calls. The goal was generally that if you call 911 you talk to someone immediately, whereas if you call non-emergency you can wait on hold for a bit if there were a lot of 911 calls.

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    Reddit blocking all major search engines, except Google
  • Seconding this. I work in IT, and the number of tech-illiterate people using DuckDuckGo as their default search engine is astounding. It’s got to be about 10% of our users (none of whom are in tech roles).

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    Ford Researching Tech That Snitches on Speeders to the Police
  • Also, because I know what sub I'm in, before everyone crucifies me here because I work for an automaker, I do so because I want to make a change from the inside, and my job focus is primarily on making vehicles safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

    Hey now, this is “cars” not “fuckcars”!

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    We finally know what caused the global tech outage - and how much it cost
  • Makes sense that it was a definitions update that caused this, and I get why that’s not something you’d want to lag behind on like you could with the agent. (Putting aside that one of the selling points of next-gen AV/EDR tools is that they’re less reliant on definitions updates compared to traditional AV.) It’s just a bit wild that there isn’t more testing in place.

    It’s like we’re always walking this fine line between “security at all costs” vs “stability, convenience, etc”. By pushing definitions as quickly as possible, you improve security, but you’re taking some level of risk too. In some alternate universe, CS didn’t push definitions quickly enough, and a bunch of companies got hit with a zero-day. I’d say it’s an impossible situation sometimes, but if I had to choose between outage or data breach, I’m choosing outage every time.

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    We finally know what caused the global tech outage - and how much it cost
  • The fact that they weren’t already doing staggered releases is mind-boggling. I work for a company with a minuscule fraction of CrowdStrike’s user base / value, and even we do staggered releases.

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    Gunshots reportedly fired at Donald Trump rally - as former president rushed off stage
  • I could not agree more. Aren’t we supposed to be the ones who care about democracy, about humanity, and about logic and reason?

    Some innocent bystander died, and their family is going to sleep tonight without their loved one alive for the first time. Others are waiting anxiously in hospitals while their innocent loved ones are in critical condition. Fuck Trump, but no one deserves to have been killed or maimed for being at one of his rallies.

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    Heritage Head Roberts: The 2nd American Revolution can be bloodless, if the Left allows it to be
  • I hear what you’re saying, but I’m pretty sure Trump will support genocide way more than Biden has.

    Yes, it’s absurd that this is what things have come to, but I’ll still be supporting the lesser of the two evils.

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  • What sub-genre would you call this? Sort of a pop-punk vibe?

    https://songwhip.com/wecantsleep/fall-away

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