Totalitarian electronics design 101

Jun 01, 2019 17 Replies

Imagine the products in two years in two camps, communist designs and multi-party designs. Under the laws of the USA, where I have local knowledge, the following totalitarian infrastructure is in our products in 2019:



Cars with no way to turn off all lights. Web browsers with no way to blank the videos. Cryptographic products with automatic key generation. Laws against using a microscope to see certain chips. The intel instruction set has the monoculture vulnerability.


2021 Futures

Cars that stop at all stop signs. Cars that go 1 mph below the speed limit. Automatic evidence sniffers and listeners in the cars. I Agree buttons, with no button to disagree. The communists will make many incompatible instruction set microprocessors.


This one at least is already here in 2019: "Google would like to access your personal data including your photos and messages - agree?"

Don't buy an Android phone.

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But if you don't agree, you can't get the awesome Google photos, well worth it, and customized ads (you ARE going to get ads, so make them better).

Thanks, - Win

99% of the ads I see at present are of no interest to me and that's good. That's very good. If they start sending me ads for products I *am* interested in OTOH, I'm screwed.
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Cursitor Doom wrote in news:qd0bnk$dt6$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

I swear the other day I was talking to my friend sitting here on the couch, and we were discussing distilled water for making cofee.

The next day, my iPad was popping up distiller / drip coffee service ads.

I was flashing Arsenio Hall for more then a few seconds there.

Google is now targeting me with ads in a remarkably accurate way. Except, the ads are for things I've just purchased, and don't need another one. I keep my two Altium Designer seats up to date with maintenance every year, yet I've gotten, I swear, a hundred ads urging me to update my Altium. Either all of you have been getting hundreds of Altium ads, or they know I'm interested. I also get ads for specific electronic parts, but mostly only immediately after I have ordered them from Digi-Key or Mouser. Are the distributors feeding our orders to Google?

Thanks, - Win

Try clearing all your cookies once in a while. You would be amazed at how quickly they find you again. If you really want to deal with this, clear your cookies every day.

Rick C. - Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging - Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

Is that one real?

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics

Real or not, it's 100% unenforceable.

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Do yourselves a BIG favour and turn on private browsing permanently in your settings (or configure to dump all browsing history after every session). That was a piece of advice I got off some website concerned about the increasing prevalence of various forms of dementia. Password managers? Don't use 'em. Enter your various passwords *manually* *every*

*time* you need them. Your computer forgetting things between sessions is good. VERY good. My memory's improved beyond all measure since I followed this advice.
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I'm not so sure about that. The DMCA has some very onerous details that co uld make looking at a chip illegal if it has "software" on it. Someone mig ht make a case that the package would constitute "access control" which wou ld make removing it itself illegal regardless of whether or not you violate d copyright.

Rick C. + Get 5,000 miles of free Supercharging + Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

Well thanks, NOW. I just did but there is very minimal data on it, a few pictures of food, cats, electronics or whatever. I am on the limited data plan but everything else is unlimited.

I just got it to use Uber and I wanted another phone number so I could dedicate the one I've had for years to the business.

One thing though, isn't Andriod Linux based ? Isn't that good ?

I am. It's about as enforceable as "Don't copy this movie or you'll get a $250k fine."

Top-end hackers have been 'scalping' chips for decades now. Since we don't (as yet) live in a 100% surveillance society, the chances of catching some miscreant indulging in such activity is pretty much zero.

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Slowly - don't want your computer's keystroke logger to miss anything.

Thanks, - Win

It's nothing to do with security; just simply exercising the memory. Makes a BIG difference in other areas. For example, I no longer need to make shopping lists. And when I read something unfamiliar I need to keep in mind, it's retained *much* better than it was before, when I let the devices do all the remembering for me.

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Linux is often good. Android is often terrible. You'll figure out why. If you were thinking of doing anything financial or otherwise private on it, forget it.

NT

[snip]

formatting link

...a good website about privacy, not mental acuity!

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