Alright, I stopped scrolling. Now what? Do I write a disapproving letter to my local politician?
You install Hannah Montana Linux on their cars and their spouses.
Instructions unclear, a local senator’s wife throws a kernel error and won’t boot now… Help.
just insert a “live USB” and troubleshoot inside her
Did you swipe the credit card through her cleavage or ass cleavage?
Push a LiveUSB inside her. It’s not rape if you are a sysadmin. Let’s see if you find something’s fishy down there.
I can’t remember where I read this but I saw somewhere that open firmware is forbidden in things like cellular modems because it might be abused to disrupt communications. I think that’s bullshite, though.
In theory, yes, you could make a mess, and any firmware is supposed to be certified to allow the device to be used.
In practice, this has been a convenient excuse to keep a whole chip with a separate OS in every smartphone, and it is very difficult to isolate from the rest of the system (see Graphene OS efforts).
I say all firmware should be opensource. Whether you’re allowed to change them or not is a separate question… for now.
Heck, if only the firmware running on the modem itself was nonfree/proprietary I wouldn’t much care, but the drivers and device specifications itself are commonly secret too! Like, they sell a modem and do not tell how it even should be used, just throwing a garbage Android binary blob driver or posting the messy driver to Microsoft developer account and they don’t care if anyone else is able to use the devices.
Easy, since it’s open source, anyone could, if they’re inclined, edit the code to do something just differently enough to cause a problem, or unlock features they’re not supposed to have access to, or spoof something that they shouldn’t be able to spoof.
This was a big argument against Windows getting a full Unix style socket in Windows 10, I believe. MS did it anyway and basically nothing changed. The blunt realty is that if an attacker is so inclined, they will find a way. Whether anyone wants them to or not. In the case of Unix style sockets, simply pushing the attack onto a Linux VM running on the windows system is usually enough, at most, moving the attack to a Linux or Unix system is also pretty easy but requires additional hardware (even a raspberry Pi) to complete.
As simply as I can, there’s enough software defined radios out there that you can hack to accurately spoof a genuine (closed source) device with enough effort, that this argument dies on the table to anyone with the technical knowledge to know what it actually means. It’s the same argument as outlawing guns. If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns; which is also total horseshit in it’s own right, but makes a point. They’re making it hard for people (the non-malicious public) to get access to services in the way they want on the basis that it would “make it easier” for hackers to do the illegal. While it may be true that hackers will be able to do some things easier, by not requiring specialized hardware to do whatever malicious thing they want, they’re effectively punishing thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who are not malicious and want open source by prohibiting it, just to make the small number of hackers work harder to do things.
Fact is, if they allow it, they need to invest time and effort into implementing safeguards to ensure that any abuse is caught and stopped. They don’t want to put in that effort. The idiotic thing is that they need to put in those safeguards anyways because other tools exist that can still attack in the same manner. So they’ve saved themselves nothing in the prohibition, made the job of malicious hackers “harder”, and punished a large percentage of their client base for no good reason.
How would open source software be used to disrupt communications? What am I not understanding here?
Different countries regulate the radio spectrum differently, so transmitting on a certain frequency might be legal in country A but illegal in country B. They don’t bother making different radios for different countries, though; instead, they just build hardware capable of transmitting on all the frequencies and then restrict what it can do via the firmware. The argument goes, if they allow device owners to modify the firmware, then they might modify the radio to transmit illegally. Never mind that there are myriad other ways an attacker could do that, that are almost as cheap and easy…
There are easier ways to cause chaos:
Get a cheap phone.
Write some code to have it play, at the loudest possible volume, a pure sine wave at 18000hz to 19000hz, just outside of the range nearly all humans can consciously be aware of hearing a sound, but within the range that prolonged exposure to this sound can cause humans to become panicked, irritable, delusional, sometimes even hallucinatory, and have immense difficulty sleeping.
Leave the phone somewhere.
Obviously, do not actually do this.
Probably this would be considered terrorism, and get you in about as much trouble as fucking about with your conception of what could be used as a sort of crap tier EM jammer.
I’m saving this for later.
You don’t need a phone at all to do this. Or code. Or silicon. Just a cheap RC oscillator circuit tuned to that frequency and connected to a battery and a tweeter speaker.
Edit: where’s RadioShack when you need it?
Driven out of business by the CIA and FBI to prevent this from being easily doable no doubt!
(kidding, obviously lol)
AliExpress bots have probably already read this comment and put together a ‘panic inducer top quality rechargeable usb frequency tweeter for wedding, birthday, sonic warfare, corporate and special event’ which you can buy for five dollars
What app can do this? And do phone speakers even reach this range?
To the best of my knowledge,
no, which is why I said write some code,
And,
it technically depends but probably most speakers for most consumer grade hardware can do this, though I do not know about optimal decibel levels at such decibel ranges to be necessary to induce the effect, relative to time, battery life, energy cost, etc.
I will again repeat DO NOT DO THIS.
It legitimately could be considered terrorism.
In additional to the other comment, I think there’s also a traditional fear of corruption in open source. If the code is public then malicious parties are free to read and take advantage of holes in the security. Secondly it would be possible to contribute code with secret functionality that goes unnoticed. These are fairly easily debunked but seem to remain in people’s heads.
Ugh I hate these arguments about giving bad actors easier access. Bad actors are going to figure out flaws and security holes whether it’s open source or not. Security through obfuscation is a temporary measure and having more eyes on the source means more chances for good actors to find flaws and publicize them for fixes.
Fight how? Sternly scold the capacitor on the last mobo it supports before it leaks out?
Uploads thousands of open source 3d printed firearm designs
Like this?
(No Mr. FBI/ATF I do not actually have those)
Just an FYI, that’s not illegal because it falls under the U.S. Constitutional protection of free speech; so also is printing and constructing them. Selling them or distributing guns as physical products is not protected, and is in fact illegal.
Wait are you telling me it is legal to construct and possess a fully automatic firearm without a class three license?
Or say, already own a firearm, and then construct a modification that makes it fall out of compliance with local laws by making it fully auto, having a magazine that is too large, or a bump stock or things like that?
I am certain the situation is more complex than you seem to think, hence the semi-ironic disclaimer.
While NFA items are a different story, you’re generally allowed to manufacture anything you could legally buy in a store. So no suppressors / SBRs / destructive devices without the appropriate paperwork & tax stamps, no machine guns without all that and a time machine, and no fun allowed if you’re a prohibited person. Other than that, there’s nothing* stopping you from printing, say, a semi-automatic rifle with a 16 inch barrel or a glock frame.
*Federally. Also, I am a dumbass and not a lawyer, do your own research.
Although It’s less about guns and more about paying/donating to projects on GPL. If you don’t know where to donate, start with Firefox. Every £ matters
For preserving GPL let me suggest donating to Software Freedom Conservancy which is directly related to fighting abuses of open source / free software / libre software licences.
How exactly are you donating to Firefox? Mozilla foundation is not Firefox and Firefox is unlikely to see any money you give to Mozilla.
Mozilla do spend a lot of money on software development, 220 million last year, out of total expenses of 425 million which came from a taking of 593 million of which 81% comes from Google.
They need to introduce bounty system so people can give money for specific features.
As far as I’m concerned they only produce two useful pieces of software: Firefox and Thunderbird. The rest of the money is going into a black hole.
Agreed
Instructions unclear, bricked my laptop after flashing libreboot. Send help.
Death to the MPLA!
For anyone searching for models:
- dasharo.com coreboot (novacustom, 3mdeb, system76)
- mrchromebox.dev
- starlabs.com
- libreboot.org for old hardware but with updates
- Framework laptops have open source
firmwareBIOS. - The Talos II workstation from raptor computers (using an IBM power9 processor) is entirely open source including now its network card but that’s a $10,000 computer
- You can make a Chromebook fully open source but it takes a little work
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
including now its network card
You can make a Chromebook fully open source
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
The tallos II has closed source firmware for the nvme storage controller, but it is the best option on the market right now if you can afford the upfront cost.
It might have been the blackbird board that was fully open
Framework laptops do not have open course firmware.
They license their UEFI from Insyde. They have an open source EC, which, while it accomplishes similar things is not the firmware.
What’s an EC?
It’s the embedded controller. It sits on top of the UEFI and coordinates laptop hardware behaviors between the UEFI and the individual components.
It controls things like “is lid sensor closed? Suspend”.
Whereas the UEFI + OS actually handles the suspend.
- Framework laptops have open source
The only thing i want is DIY paper printer with open source driver + DIY ink cartridges.
It’s kinda weird to me because i can find DIY 3d printer + it’s driver (open source) online, but no company made DIY paper printer with DIY cartridges until now
Fuck HP, Epson, Canon, or whatever big company printers out thereIf such a thing exists (DIY paper printers), I would like to know more, because the level of frustration I have with all the major printer mfrs I’ve used, is too damn high.
Bonus points if it’s a laser printer, extra bonus points if the components for the printer can be 3D printed (with obvious exceptions).
I just want a good, wired, network printer for everyday crap that I can use once in a blue moon for stupid documents that someone wants me to print, sign, scan and send back to them because they haven’t figured out how to do e-signatures yet… And the odd extra thing I need to print. Every time I print it seems like I need to reinstall the printer or update something to make it work. I buy laser printers so the ink doesn’t dry out before I can use it. The whole thing is so damned frustrating. Also, bluntly, unless you’re doing photo work, never buy an inkjet. They’re cheap, and there’s a reason they’re cheap. Inkjet has better color representation, so photo printers should probably be inkjet, for everything else, do yourself a favor and buy a laser printer. Toner lasts much, much, longer.
Super agree, paper printers are a scam imo
I’m running coreboot on my machine. What’s your excuse?
My hardware isn’t supported
GPL Licensed RIP in peace.
