SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Retrotechtacular: The Floppy Disk Orphaned By Linux
About a week ago, Linus Torvalds made a software commit which has an air about it of the end of an era. The code in question contains a few patches to the driver for native floppy disc controllers. What makes it worthy of note is that he remarks that the floppy driver is now orphaned. Its maintainer no longer has working floppy hardware upon which to test the software, and Linus remarks that "I think the driver can be considered pretty much dead from an actual hardware standpoint", though he does point out that active support remains for USB floppy drives.
It's a very reasonable view to have arrived at because outside the realm of retrocomputing the physical rather than virtual floppy disk has all but disappeared. It's well over a decade since they ceased to be fitted to desktop and laptop computers, and where once they were a staple of any office they now exist only in the "save" icon on your wordprocessor. The floppy is dead, and has been for a long time.
Still, Linus' quiet announcement comes as a minor jolt to anyone of A Certain Age for whom the floppy disk and the computer were once inseparable.
Next thing, someone will be removing punched card and paper tape reader support. Where does it end?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @09:58AM (1 child)
Why not!?
I see you're referencing smart phones, and you're agreeing it's a "bad thing", but I have to still take exception at your line about how auditing would help. Or it being open source.
Because, how about #1, nothing is EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER secure. No auditing, no open source or not open source, no method of development, or QA as of yet, has EVER produced hack-proof, bug proof software. EVER!
If you don't consider every daemon, every piece of software, every operating system unsecure -- you're living in a fool's paradise. It's ALL buggy. It's ALL unsecure.
You see all those security vulnerabilities, for everything? You do realise that in many cases, those are exploited for days, months, sometimes YEARS, even DECADES yes DECADES by black hats to exploit systems! I'm talking about exploits that go unnoticed for 5 years, silently and judiciously used in quiet ways.
But you want this in your head? People hacking your ipv6 address, corrupting files/data? For this thing to work, there has to be a way to get data in and out, yes?
Imagine:
- if the thing is lined to your optic nerves, imagine constant messages flashing faster than your conscious mind can keep track of. Or while you sleep! Constantly!
- same is true of other methods. If you somehow develop a new method to communicate (like an extra sense, almost) with the thing, some other line of I/O, imagine while you sleep that constantly saying "OBEY" or whatever
Or how about it being used to track you, with GPSv3, and a network connection you can't shut off? How about it being used to manipulate you in countless other ways?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @10:46AM
I totally agree that these systems should be considered unsecure. But first of all, the hardware kill-switch. No, the toy we have with wi-fi, this is NOT a hardware killswitch. The real killswitch disconnects power and the chip is as useful as a brick.
A moment ago I read about these "latest" invention in brain-computer interface, and... Who the hell invented putting electrodes into brain IN 2019?! Are we in 1950s? Seriously, last time I was in BCIs (ca. 2004-2005) it was like MKG under hf current and it was working to the stage that it was possible to reproduce it in semi-lab conditions (I remember we used a trimmed-down design which was not published but could be reversed from source footage... from mid-1990s). To make a device to play "TV tennis" without hands, it was possible to use hardware which makes a typical ham radio enthusiast laugh, but this was still working, without putting electrodes into brain, with a 5cm-wide band around head. The side effects were not that bad (sea sickness symptoms after 30 minutes of continuous use, but these were mostly related to the "flashes", a smaller side effect).
Now I read more and more about this newest "invention" and I still cannot understand why the hell they are using these wires. Is it a form of human-computer Tivoization?