digital freedom | the unreasonable man

Samsung to push more ads at you through your TV

And this is why the only things we should connect to the net are things running software that's under our control -- free software, in other words. (Free as in freedom, not (necessarily) as in price.) Otherwise your TV, your phone, your tablet, your PC, are all enemy agents, bent on spying on and brainwashing you. Root your phone and tablets, put Linux on your PCs, adblockers everywhere, and everything else off the network, to hell with "the Internet of Things". It's as necessary to information hygiene as washing your hands is to biological hygiene.

Even older Samsung TVs are going to get baked ads (The Stack)

An insider has stated that Samsung, the largest manufacturer of televisions in the world, is not only seeking to expand the use of hardware-baked advertising tiles in its newer models, but also to use software updates to make the functionality possible for older TVs which did not originally include it.

The South Korean company includes advertisements in its range of internet-connected televisions, and according to a post at WSJ, Executive Vice President Lee Won-jin (recently poached from Google) is at the helm of the initiative to add extra value to the razor-thin percentages thAn insider has stated that Samsung, the largest manufacturer of televisions in the world, is not only seeking to expand the use of hardware-baked advertising tiles in its newer models, but also to use software updates to make the functionality possible for older TVs which did not originally include it.

The South Korean company includes advertisements in its range of internet-connected televisions, and according to a post at WSJ, Executive Vice President Lee Won-jin (recently poached from Google) is at the helm of the initiative to add extra value to the razor-thin percentages that Samsung is currently able to garner in competition with cheap Chinese exports.

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Cory Doctorow: "security model that treats the computer's user as an attacker is doomed"

The idea that we should treat ideas as property isn't just an abstract ontological confusion, it has very real consequences. As we become more reliant on computers, one of the most dangerous of those consequences is treating the owners of computers as attackers to be restricted, rather than users to be empowered.

I Can't Let You Do That, Dave (cacm.acm.org)

As ACM members doubtlessly appreciate, preventing the owner of a computer from executing the code of their choice is an impossible task. No matter how cleverly the operating system and its services monitor the user and hide the keys necessary to unlock files without permission, users will eventually find a flaw in the defenders' code and use it to jailbreak the system, allowing arbitrary code execution. Even if you stipulate that locking computer users out of their own computers is a legitimate objective, it is still a technological nonsense. A security model that treats the computer's user as an attacker is doomed. We cannot hide keys in devices we give to attackers for the same reason we cannot keep safes—no matter how well designed—in bank-robbers' living rooms.

The DMCA tries to address this by threatening people who publish code or information that would help remove a lock with severe penalties: five years in prison and $500,000 in fines for a first offense.

But information about flaws in a computer is not just useful to people who want to add functionality to their computers: it also provides opportunities for malware to seize control over the system. By criminalizing disclosure of flaws, the DMCA ensures systems covered by its measures become reservoirs of long-lived digital pathogens.