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from the what's-old-is-still-old-but-they-are-making-more dept.
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
National Audio Co. is the only company in the U.S. that produces cassette tape. Now, as cassette tapes enjoy a resurgence in popularity, National Audio has less than a year's supply left of the stuff, The Wall Street Journal reports.
For the last 15 years, National Audio's co-owner and president Steve Stepp has been clinging to his company's dwindling supply of music-quality magnetic tape. In 2014, National Audio's South Korean supplier stopped making the material, so Stepp bought out their remaining stock before they shuttered — and has been left with a shrinking stockpile ever since.
Although the demand for tape has increased in recent years, the quality and supply has not; National Audio has long relied on outdated gear that Stepp jokes is "the finest equipment the 1960s has to offer." That's why the company — which makes cassettes for everyone from indie bands to Metallica — is planning to build the U.S.'s first high-grade tape manufacturing line in decades.
Crap! Where am I going to store my TRS-80 programs now?
Source: https://theweek.com/speedreads/735269/america-running-cassette-tape
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday November 14 2017, @12:13AM (1 child)
That's not going to hold true much longer, if it really does now. Microsoft operating systems are merely the most attractive target since they own the desktop spaces. However, they don't own the server spaces, and own progressively less and less embedded devices. The more successful Linux becomes, the more we will see ugly vulnerabilities come to light. We've seen some already, but I think we look the other way or refuse to acknowledge that remote code exploits are a cross platform problem now.
I believe we will see more exploits against Linux, not less. Then let's add SystemD to the conversation. Whether or not it is a good idea (breaks Unix fundamentals), it represents a far more complex system that requires significantly more resources to perform regression testing. What I believe the last few decades has shown us is that corporations will indirectly fund much of free software and open source, but that it will not, and does not, provide the resources required for testing. All of these years we relied on peer review of code, and it just didn't happen, certainly not at the level of thoroughness and competency we envisioned the community having.
The issue if further compounded by the fact we *want* users to be accessing the server and enjoying services. Every single on them represents a security vector that needs to be addressed. In other words, you can security harden a server all you want, but the moment you put Wordpress on it....
I feel safer working with BSD, which I think is one of the safest, and not even it is immune.
I'm reminded of the gentleman that boasted the Titanic was unsinkable, and the general who thought that the Death Star was the ultimate weapon in the universe that no one would dare stand against. Ironically, in real life it is often a bunch of teenagers causing problems for old white men with expensive platforms.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @08:35AM
You're missing a point: The big security hole with USB on Windows is not an exploit at all, it's called AUTORUN.
On the other hand, you don't actually need an exploit, USB is inherently unsafe. Google "usb killer". Which by the way is a problem it shared with any electrically connected storage.