notaddicted
Any network connected computer will be running an OS+Applications which are typically a gigabyte or more. This is produced by companies which are beholden to a nation state, and the companies can be coerced[2] or compelled[3] to use the software against the user. The software is also constantly being probed for vulnerabilities, which can also be exploited by law-enforcement / military [4][5].
So, if you turn on auto-update you have to trust the software maker is not being coerced by someone, or being compelled by a secret court to trojan you. If you don't turn on auto-update you can still get trojaned by any vulnerability. Lose-Lose.
[1] Sony Rootkit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootki...
[2] Qwest CEO Nacchio's claims: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30...
[3] FISA court
[4] German Govt. Trojan from 2011: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-world-from-b...
[5] FBI's TOR trojan injection: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/09/freedom-hosting-fbi...
[1] https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1DlRnW1...
EDIT: Based on a quick spreadsheet calculation, I think uniform A-Z each letter is 4.7 bits, and a phrase constructed of random english words each letter is 4.1 bits, so maybe not all that bad. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ar03cGpoaUJ3dHp...
When a similar idea circulated back in 2009, Tumblr’s then–lead developer, Marco Arment, summed up the party line in a scornful blog post: “I hope they let me work on some of the many exciting projects at Yahoo … I want to move to California and get stuck in traffic every day on the way to my midlevel engineering job where I sit in a cubicle all day and can’t make any product decisions while working on something nobody will ever see to manage regional ad clickthrough stats tracking.” Thanks, but no thanks.
In terms of winter storms, this is approximately as bad as it gets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Juan .
EDIT: this one: http://youtu.be/V5R80yUUVNk
EDIT: canada as well.... Aaaaand it's back.
basename -s .jpg -a *jpg |
xargs -I{} convert "{}.jpg" \
-resize "900x" -unsharp 2x0.5+0.5+0 -quality 98 "{}_s.jpg"
EDIT: weird line breaking is to prevent sidescroll box1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2339A
2] http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/03/28/dont-be-a-grin...
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/700577-051413-letter...
A reporter was being investigated for having access to classified information, and the toll records (what number called or was called, and for how long the call lasted) were subpoenaed.
[Via http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/14/4331108/attorney-general-d... ]
1. Aggressively avoid techniques and abstractions that have produced bugs in the past. The "backwards conditional" is an example of this, in languages like C that will accept x = 0 as a conditional, it is safer to do 0 == x in an if statement in case you mistype. Mutability trips me up sometimes, so I try to never re-assign a variable. I keep links to the source code of key libraries in my bookmarks bar so I never have the guess how something actually works. Static analysis tools, and bug prediction tools [1] are two steps I haven't taken.
2. Seek out code written by experts and inspect it [2]. If I'm considering using a new language or library one of the first things I do is to search for large scale OSS projects. For a new language looking at some of the popular 3rd party libraries can be really illuminating. Especially if you're already familiar with the problem space.
3. two words: learn to fuckin' type.
4. Get familiar with what the history researchers call the Primary Sources. Not just the actual source code but the proposals, the specifications, and the research reports that are written by the people who conceived the tools that you are using.
[1] http://google-engtools.blogspot.ca/2011/12/bug-prediction-at...
[2] (EDIT) According to Paul Allen, in high school Bill Gates actually went dumpster diving for source code: http://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-you-didnt-know-abou...
For some audio/video sites there is youtube-dl, there is a list of sites it handles here: http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/documentation.html .
EDIT: there is a writeup about that is partially based on wget here: http://www.gwern.net/Archiving%20URLs#local-caching (also includes extracting URL from firefox history)
EDIT2: and if you're really desperate you could always use tcpdump/mitmdump and something like this: http://justniffer.sourceforge.net/#!/justniffer_grab_http_tr...