Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

The is the core forum of BFC. It's all about informal and random talk on any topic.
Forum rules
Post a new topic to begin a chat.
Any topic is acceptable, and topic drift is permissible.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by yogi »

Thank you for giving me some insight into the source of your information. I am familiar with every one of them. It's exceptionally interesting to me that your main source of information about the so called Democrats' agenda is Facebook. In that regard I would quote only one word that seems to be your favorite description of that social media, i.e. "Farcebook"

There is a reason I don't go there anymore.

For good or for bad Biden will be inaugurated next January. One reason I'm sure of it is that yesterday Donald Trump assigned Rudy Giuliani to handle the remaining court challenges (only two left as of this writing) to the voting and to be the spokesman for it all. Yes, the infamous Four Seasons Total Landscaping Giuliani is now in charge of Trump's future political career. LOL

While the Trump campaign is being more vocal now about sabotaging the electoral college, it's only a desperate last ditch attempt to overthrow the election. Even the president himself is planning on running again in 2024. If the Don doesn't end up in prison before then, I'd say there is a good chance he will be elected again if Joe Biden doesn't see the light and fix things up. It's very worrisome that 72,770,773 people (so far) declared their support the current president. Those Republicans who crossed over to express their disapproval of Trump's tactics are still Republican minded. All of them, plus quite a few Democrats, are dissatisfied with the current way this country is governed and want change. Trump won in 2016 because he promised to make those changes no matter what unconventional methods it took to do it. As is the case with many of his ideas, he failed to deliver. But the problem is not going away. Change is needed and if Biden can't produce it the next Trumpanista will make another attempt at it.
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by Kellemora »

Many of the posts on Farcebook do include links to the source.
But you can't believe the sources either. One says one thing, and the other says just the opposite.

You hope your guy wins, and I hope my guy wins. Either way, somebody will win!

I can make a list of over 50 positive things Trump has done for this country.
I can only think of maybe 2 or 3 for Obama, and all the rest were bad things.
And what has Biden done in his 47 years that would be positive for the people?
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by yogi »

Positive and negative as well as good and bad are ethical and moral judgments. In other words it's all in the mind.

I favor Twitter as a source of news but it certainly is not the only place I go for information. The reason I discount anything on the Facebook timeline and news feeds has it's roots in Mark Zuckerberg's business dealings with Cambridge Analytica. Mark and Cambridge engaged in active measures to sway the thinking of specific targets in real time. Donald Trump was elected president due in large part to these machinations. It's all well and good for social media to support a particular political party and/or agenda, but Zuckerberg did it in the fashion he used to enrich his bank account via the Facebook media. Everybody figured it was an innocuous social media while the guy on top was (and is) using it to clandestinely collect data about it's users. Again you might think is fine because he is running a business to maximize his profits. That aspect of the activity is capitalism at it's best, but the underlying method of social engineering is totally underhanded and most likely unethical. Even if you are willing to accept audience manipulation as a business model, the coordination with Russia's GRU casts a veil of suspicion and doubt upon the motives of it all.

Zuckerberg did not halt his support for the conservative agenda during the 2020 election. In fact a few superficial remedies were announced, but the underlying policy of allowing disinformation to propagate on Facebook never was withdrawn. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying here. I certainly agree that competition is healthy, but the well being of the country can only be served if the competition is fair and legitimate. In my opinion you cannot find such material on Facebook.

Following is a list of people I follow on Twitter as a current events aggregator. It's impressive to look at, if I must say so myself. LOL The thing to note is the diversity. You won't recognize many of the names and accounts, but you will find a well rounded list if sources. That is important. These are direct sources for the most part and not somebody's interpretation of the source.


@LaughingSquid
@briansolis
@cnnbrk
@MarketWatch
@BBCWorld
@CNN
@nytimes
@BarackObama
@JoeBiden
@MrBabyMan
@FoxNews
@Reuters
@thehill
@AJEnglish
@NPR
@BBCBreaking
@SarahHuckabee
@Yale
@BreakingNews
@JoeTrippi
@Jezebel
@baltimoresun
@politico
@StateDept
@Heritage
@NASA
@Wonkette
@ACLU
@biannagolodryga
@aravosis
@NBCNews
@TIME
@SenateGOP
@lowflyingrocks
@WHO
@shearm
@fark
@YouGov
@CBSNews
@digg
@Slate
@HouseGOP
@JuddLegum
@MarsCuriosity
@TEDTalks
@JeffBezos
@CAPAction
@BillMoyers
@dallasnews
@SpeakerPelosi
@CoryBooker
@MSN
@rollcall
@Amy_Siskind
@onekade
@ggreenwald
@TheMarsSociety
@SCOTUSblog
@TheWeek
@MikeBloomberg
@fema
@MarkRMatthews
@GStephanopoulos
@CBSThisMorning
@blakehounshell
@FBI
@Will_Bunch
@AprilDRyan
@AAIUSA
@davidfrum
@60Minutes
@dcexaminer
@metoffice
@ananavarro
@billmaher
@WestWingReport
@businessinsider
@OtieMcKinley
@newtgingrich
@TimOBrien
@seanspicer
@stillsafe
@dailykos
@Olivianuzzi
@RoyBlunt
@factcheckdotorg
@Augustine2510
@keithboykin
@Green_Footballs
@ariannahuff
@villagevoice
@mrbromwich
@DarrellIssa
@pewresearch
@chrisgeidner
@tedcruz
@dornobdesign
@poniewozik
@AsteroidWatch
@BillOReilly
@realDonaldTrump
@CENTCOM
@ClimateRealists
@ForeignPolicy
@SabrinaSiddiqui
@NASA_Marshall
@ABC
@oceana
@Billbrowder
@KamalaHarris
@tsgnews
@AEI
@jahimes
@SputnikInt
@TheAtlantic
@RoyalFamily
@DanRather
@chrizap
@Harvard
@intelligencer
@AP
@IvankaTrump
@vtdigger
@TomRtweets
@971TheDrive
@DPRK_News
@PaulHRosenberg
@cityofofallon
@AFOSR
@RT_com
@DeptofDefense
@arabnews
@IRSnews
@OMGFacts
@busrep
@StevenBeschloss
@wlsam890
@Forbes
@mydoorcounty
@maggieNYT
@pewjournalism
@JebBush
@speechboy71
@CostantiniWHear
@Flipboard
@SecretService
@dylanlscott
@chey_cobb
@AaronBlake
@AOC
@MedicareClear
@justinjm1
@FTC
@PressTV
@RichardHaass
@AnnCoulter
@kurteichenwald
@Bencjacobs
@AmericanEclipse
@FridaGhitis
@WalshFreedom
@kirkchisholm
@davidaxelrod
@SenatorDurbin
@RonaldKlain
@MichaelAvenatti
@mfa_russia
@SenBlumenthal
@DCPoliceDept
@matthewjdowd
@NHC_Atlantic
@AnneBayefsky
@BreakingNewsUK
@AP_Oddities
@XHNews
@TheDeansreport
@20committee
@carolecadwalla
@RonBrownstein
@capitolreport
@RepMarkTakano
@HillaryClinton
@OfficeGovEthics
@Space_Station
@HashtagGriswold
@BritainElects
@spectatorindex
@madeleine
@NormOrnstein
@NSAGov
@CQnow
@HawleyMO
@DailySignal
@MissouriCentury
@BNODesk
@realDailyWire
@ChrisMartzWX
@JohnBrennan
@SHSanders45
@POTUS
@PressSec
@VP
@FLOTUS
@neal_katyal
@OlgaNYC1211
@theresa_may
@US_SOCEUR
@GCHQ
@V_of_Europe

TMI, I know. But I had nothing better to do.
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by Kellemora »

I'm chuckling at your list. I have a good number of those folks blocked.

Don't knew where you came up with the list though.

Both Farcebook and Twitter or Liberal media sites.
Nothing conservative at all about Zuckerberg.
He lets all the liberal views flow freely while blocking conservative views as many as he can.

On Twitter, nearly every comment made by Trump has a Banner Ad from Twitter making some claim or another for Biden.
I think this is why so many people are leaving Twitter for Parlar.
My alter-ego has an account on MeWe but I've never been back there after creating it.
They don't seem to understand more than one person often uses a computer in a household.
So when you get an e-mail request from someone and click on the link, it always opens up the wrong account.
Besides, I don't have time to fool with any more websites. They all steal time away from us!
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by yogi »

We certainly have different approaches to gathering information. Quite a few of those Twitter accounts are run by people and organizations I don't agree with. I don't think I ever blocked any account on Twitter. The reason for that is I want to know what everybody is saying, thinking, and feeling; especially those I don't agree with. As far as Farcebook is concerned, Mark Zuckerburg does a great job. You are not the only one falling into the trap.

I'm not entirely please with the way Jack Dorsey runs his show, but he is about the most open and up front in the entire bunch. I tried to get an account on Parlar to see what all the fuss is about, but they would not give me an account unless I gave them my phone number. Gee ... I wonder why they want that. LOL

The above list of accounts is from a feature offered by Twitter. They allow the creation of groups of people to be followed. Each group has a name and you can set your feed to follow only that group. At one time you were able to share your list(s) with anybody who wanted it, but I don't know if they still do that. I have about six or seven groups so that I can filter what I see many different ways. I only use the actual Twitter account for Brainformation. My personal account (theYogster) seldom, if ever, gets viewed per se. Instead I use the Twitter owned app called Tweetdeck wherein I can display those lists in columns. I fill a screen with 4-5 columns of individual lists and let it run for most of the day on one of my computers. That way I can keep current with any breaking news/trends. Twitter, by the way, came up with another sponsored app called Circleboom which makes editing your account fairly simple. I think you mentioned one time how you do it and I know there is more than one app out there designed for the purpose. Circleboom fits well with my style of computing so that I use it when the need arises.
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by Kellemora »

I probably have well over 200 folks blocked on Twitter if not more, I haven't counted them.
And that is my author account, me as a person is only on Farcebook, and even that takes up too much of my time.

I don't watch TV, so get my news from OANN or NewsMax.
I was following a couple others for a few years but eventually dropped them.
Half of what they report as news isn't news at all, and the other half they should be reporting, they glaze over or omit completely. Not worth wasting my time with them.

I had a friend who wrote a book based on what he gleaned from social media regarding his topic of interest.
Even he said, you follow 20 people, 10 will say one thing, 10 others will say just the opposite, and every once in a while they let a reputable source slip where he could do the proper type of checking for accuracy.
The odd thing was, of all the comments he read on either side pro's or con's neither side ever had it correct, and both sides were riddled with errors, due to incomplete information. Folks pick what they want to hear and ignore the rest.
I think it had a lot to do with the banking industry, but I don't remember it was so long ago.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by yogi »

I spend way too much time on social media of all genre. While I have Twitter running much of the day I don't actually pay attention to it nearly as much as I used to. It's the variety of inputs that can be gleaned from a properly constructed feed that is attractive to me. The above "news" list is only about 30% of all the accounts I follow.

There was a time, well before Twitter and Facebook, that I used an aggregator for RSS feeds. I had that set up in both Windows and Linux. RSS popularity diminished when the other social media took over the scene. Many of my favorite sources simply dropped their RSS feed. Recently there has been a lot of discussion about the anti conservative bias on Twitter. The Mercer family decided to correct that situation by funding Parlar, which of course would not be as biased as Twitter. :lol: There is room for everybody on the Internet and I wish I could review them all. The diversity and opposing points of view are educational. Who you are to believe boils down to your own personal predispositions. The truth in most matters that trend on social media is the sum total of all those opposing opinions. Even if you are there in person to witness a given event, you won't walk away from it with all the relevant information and facts. It's just human nature to filter what they experience through their own senses.

Over the years social media has become a weapon in some ways. Places like Facebook are intended to help people connect (per Zuckerburg's testimony before congress this morning) and nothing else. Even if we assume the best intentions on the part of it's owners, participants in social media have cultivated a new science called social engineering. It's well known that many people get all their news from their favorite social platform so that if the news was manipulated the opinions of the readers might also be controllable. A long time ago I published an article on my Facebook account which describes how Zuckerburg and some of his "partners" were clandestinely testing social engineering techniques to influence buying of certain products. While you might suspect such a thing to be a natural use for Facebook, the concept was taken beyond the targeted marketing of products. It is now known that Facebook users employed social engineering to target certain specific demographics during the 2016 presidential campaign. Thus what started out to be an advertising tool ended up being a political tool.

Certain nation states are also using social engineering to take down their enemies. The idea is to create disinformation and discontent within the population. Eventually all the chaos is hoped to destabilize the government which would at a minimum make it weaker on the world stage if not destroy it altogether. Once that destruction process gains momentum, a single authoritarian government figure can step in, dissolve the existing system, and and singlehandedly take control of everything. This is the exact method used by dictator wannabe's to overthrow a government. It's been done many times in the past and the latest victim was Venezuela. Certain state actors are targeting the USA with the same techniques, which, my friend, is why you can't make any sense out of the news you read on social media these days.
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by Kellemora »

I have to agree with everything you said above!

Certain groups, in this case political groups, dominate certain social media sites. Even those who claim to be neutral as a site, are still overrun with one sided comments due to the domination of certain groups.
Actually, Quora is dominated by the democratic party by like 70/30.

I never checked it out, but Parlar is supposed to be owned by Democrats.
I think it is funny Farcebook folks jumping to Parlar, which is more like Twitter.
There are other sites similar to Farcebook, such as MeWe and others.

FWIW: We had a Google Chrome Update yesterday.
It BROKE two of my computers, and worked OK on two others.
I got one of the computers back working again by upgrading the OS, since the one I had on it had reached it's end of life.
But the other still has until April of 2021 before it reaches its end of life.

I have not upgraded the OS or installed the new Google on this computer after seeing what happened on the other ones.

On one computer Google Chrome installs without errors, but when you open it, all you get is a white box with a black banner at the top. If you move your mouse over it you can find things that are clickable, you just can't see anything.
On the other computer, it simply won't open at all. It shows loading Google Chrome, then it goes away and back to the desktop. The most recent version of Firefox works on both, so I doubt it has anything to do with the video cards.
I went on-line about the problem and it appears many Windows10 users are having the same problems.
Windows 7 and 8 seem to work with the new upgrade, and we know Win7 is past its end of life.

I have Linux Mint Mate on the other computers, both the ones that broke and the ones it works on.
I have Debian on this computer, and on two of the others, and if I find time will boot into Debian to see if it works on them using that OS.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by yogi »

There is something in the air regarding broken software ...

While glancing at my "Technical" list on Twitter I noted that one of my favorite operating systems released a new version, which is strange because it's supposed to be on rolling releases. But, that's a different story. They are using the latest Linux kernel, 5.9.x, in this new release, plus a few other things that are cutting edge. It all looked pretty exciting and I decided to download and install it in the tower. It was to replace the older version already in place.

As is my usual routine for major changes in software, I intended to delete the partition with the old version of Kali before I installed the new and improved version in its place. I do this using the old reliable gparted that is standard with just about every version of Linux OS's. In my case I have Linux Mint sitting alongside of Kali and my intention was to fire up Mint, do the partition magic, and then install Kali. I've not been into Mint for a few weeks and wanted to fire up its update manager to get Mint up to speed first. So I did. All 300MB+ of updates downloaded from the Mint repository, but the update crashed immediately after that. I don't recall ever crashing during an update session, but the error message was that some dependencies were not being met and the update was being aborted. I hate dependencies, probably because I don't have to deal with them in Windows. I do have other problems there, but nothing about dependencies ever shows up when updating or installing Windows programs. That all means I have very little idea about how to fix such a problem in Linux.

Well, I intuitively went to Synaptic Package Manager, ran the Broken software filter, and sure enough. Two apps were broken due to dependency issues. It took quite a while to milk the information out of the system, but in the end the dependency issue was that a NEWER version of some software was already installed so that the older version could not be installed on top of that. WTF is this? I'm doing an update to get rid of the old and replace it with the newest. So ... I decided to not only delete the Kali partition but also the Mint partition and install both Linux OS's from scratch. I did all that partition deleting from the USB installation memory stick that I was able to create seamlessly in Windows 10.

Linux Mint installed as expected. No problems there. The subsequent updates also installed as expected. I now had a current and working version of Linux Mint which wasn't much different than what I started out with. I then figured it was time to install Kali Linux. I made the USB install stick on Windows 10 and it booted it in the tower without incident. Kali is more like Debian than it is like Ubuntu, but as is the case with many Linux OS's these days the two are mixed together and a convoluted desktop environment is added to produce what is termed a distribution. The installer software in Kali is reminiscent of what Debian uses. In a way it's refreshing not to use the (still) flawed Ubuntu installer, Ubiquity. Kali, in it's infinite wisdom, offers three desktop environments. But, instead of making them all different downloads they give you a choice at installation time regarding which one you want, i.e. Xfce, Gnome, or Kde Plasma. Xfce is the default and the least complicated, so I went with that. The download began, but then it stopped with an error message. The message wanted me to insert the install DVD into the drive; the disk with a release candidate version of Kali. WTF is this? I'm installing the latest and greatest stable release and they want me to use an RC version to complete the install? No, no, no. I refuse. LOL So I started the install again but this time I chose KDE Plasma, which uses about twice the memory as Xfce. That worked. And, that is what I am using to tell you my tale of woe. What should have been no more than a 20 minute update turned into a 3 hour debug session. Debug is fine when developing software, but I downloaded what Linux laughingly calls their stable releases.
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by Kellemora »

I hear ya!
Remember my comment about Google Chrome being broken?
Well, an OLD Dell OptiPlex-745 I have here had Linux Mint 17 on it. Well past its end of life.
I ran a distribution upgrade which brought it up to 17.3, but Google still didn't work.
I had a DVD of Linux Mint 18.3 I used on another computer.
It failed to install. So I grabbed the disk with Linux Mint 19.2 on it, same thing failed to install.
So I downloaded Debian 10.6-6 which is their latest. It installed with no problems at all.
But kept coming up in Gnome instead of Mate. I hate the Gnome desktop, it is too much like a cell phone.
Finally got it changed into the Mate desktop, and it runs like a charm on that old machine, which only has 1.8 gigs of usable memory. I have not yet completed adding the programs, so don't know if Google Chrome will work, and won't until I get everything else on it I want first. Firefox works like a charm too!
Ironically, it is much faster than that brand new computer I had bought for Debi, now running Linux Mint 19.3 which gets daily updates for some reason, sometimes more than once daily. I wonder why?
Seems like no matter what, I always fall back to Debian to get things working right.
And here I was trying to migrate to Linux Mint from Debian. Guess not now!

A couple of the gamers I see making posts, always bragging about their machines and what's in them.
One of the biggest braggard on there boasts 128 gigs of memory and all kinds of fancy graphics cards and mega-dollar CPU. He's been missing for a few days. He finally got back on using an older computer, said his new machine simply just fried, everything inside the case is damaged and unusable. He hasn't said what happened yet, other than his whole room still smelled like a burning transformer three days later.
All he got in comments was a bunch of AWwwwwww's, hi hi.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by yogi »

When Linux fails some basic functions, such as upgrading the OS, I get more frustrated than the average Linux hacker. I think it's because I'm expecting Linux to actually be better than my old reliable Windows. For all the flaws and problems coming out of Redmond, Windows still is better developed and more stable than Linux. I think I know why that is possible. Microsoft has the best engineers money can buy, while Linux development teams are the left overs. Some of those developers don't deserve the title. Ubuntu used to be my favorite Linux OS because they had their act together for a long time. I did a lot of hacking using Ubuntu and for the longest time is was the prime candidate to replace Windows on my PC's. Then, for whatever reason, about a year or so ago they made a sharp turn to the left and fell off the cliff. I think they have dreams of dominating the mobile market and sweeping Windows desktop under the rug. Good luck there because it ain't gonna happen.

Linux Mint has always been a favorite of mine too but I never appreciated their signature Cinnamon desktop. In fact it would not run on nVidia hardware for the longest time which is why I became familiar with Xfce. Xfce is somehow easier to deal with than Mate in my opinion and it certainly doesn't have problems with nVIdia. Now that Mint is up to 20.x release level, they worked out all the bugs with nVidia. They even upgrade it from their repository. This all happened when they decided to move to a rolling release, which I suspect is the reason why you get so many updates on a given day. I don't know what I did, but at some point I found an option to do updates that are not rolling. LOL Well, that's the version of Mint that I'm talking about here and it crashed during my latest attempt at making it current. I've not made any modifications to Mint yet so that I'm not sure why it crashed. It could be me, but I have a suspicion they STILL didn't figure out how to work with nVidia completely.

My experience with Debian is that it's a special case. I can see why you like it, but it's terrible for us guys who are used to tinkering with software that "just works." Debian always requires special attention (read that to mean troubleshooting) and that is exactly what certain Linux users like about it. They call it customizable. I have to say it's working better these days than it did last year at this time, but I've not tried to evaluate it recently. Debian is the worst case in all those worst case scenarios they write about in the support forums. I have to admire you for mastering it. You are doing a great job with it as far as I can tell.

You have a specific need for Google Chrome that I do not have. Thus I never install it in any of my Linux OS's. I do have it installed in this Windows 7 machine and it serves only one purpose. I use Chrome to deal with the Google brand apps, such as their cloud services. That never was an issue until I bought one of their phones, the Pixel 3. I transfer data back and forth using the cloud and since it's all Google software, I use their browser to coordinate things. Otherwise it's a useless browser in my humble opinion. If you want a Chrome experience that seems to work well, the latest and greatest from Microsoft, Edge, seems to work pretty well. I don't know if they have a Linux version, but their new chromium engine works like a charm ... so far.
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by Kellemora »

Debian itself is one of the most stable Distro's out there.
In fact, it is so stable that Ubuntu chose it to build their Distro on
and of course Linux Mint is built on top of Ubuntu.
To me that is just adding bloat on top of bloat.

Debian does not come with all the bells and whistles installed like Ubuntu or Mint.

I prefer the MATE desktop environment. It has all the features I want and more.
I hate the default desktop, which is Gnome on Debian, Cinnamon on Mint, seems like a cell phone, hi hi.

I downloaded Debian and installed it without a single hitch.
But as I said, if you want to do something with it, you have to add the packages yourself.
That is, after you figure out the names of the packages you want.

I have to cut this short, time for me to get ready to go to the doc.
Have a great birthday Yogi!
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by yogi »

Way back in the era before time was invented, I used to build programs from scratch. I mean really from scratch using source code. I loved what I did and must admit that a lot of my gray hair came about while I was doing it. There was a lot of stress involved in creating software because there were always limitations that prevented maximum performance. Budget considerations, for example. By the time I reached a level where I could enjoy, play, and hack software I was done with the development headaches. I no longer wanted to build a system from scratch. That's one reason I did not get involved with Linux earlier in my career. You had to build every freaking element of it step by step. Things have improved tremendously since those early days of Linux and I believe they are going in the right direction. Apparently the realization that FOSS isn't the best thing since sliced bread is taking hold and Linux developers are trying to integrate into the real world. The only problem there is that the real world is changing on a daily basis. LOL

I think if I had an actual need for a Linux OS, one that Windows could not fulfill, I probably would be looking for something like Debian. As it stands today Debian is stuck in a mode about twenty years behind the times. If that's what you like then who am I to say it's wrong? There are a few Linux OS's out there that are compact, efficient, and working well. I like those for my VM environment because they don't take up a lot of disk space. I can add just about everything I want to those systems but their out of the box version suits my purposes well enough for the time being. As far as desktops go, KDE Plasma is looking good to me. It's what Mageia is using for a default and at least one of my Linux-On-A-Stick versions of Linux. It's a resource hog and for that reason I need to be careful where I install it. But for comfort and intuitive response, Plasma seems to be the best choice for me.

Thank you for the birthday wishes. We are headed out to our favorite breakfast restaurant, masks in hand. In fact my #2 daughter gave me a cosmic designed mask with a replaceable filter insert as a gift, among other things. I'm going to test out this multi-layered shield in a rugged environment and I'm hoping for the best. Will keep you posted. :mrgreen:
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by Kellemora »

I did hit one snag in the new Linux Debian distro I installed.
Networking problems.
I checked all of my old computers, most of which I only had simple Linux file sharing on, because I didn't need to deal with Windows machines.
My main computer, the Silver Yogi with an older Debian on it still works just fine.
In any case, the new Debian 10.6-6 uses a line with SMB3, and could not see the Windows computer.
I checked my old Samba files and all of them were using a line with NT1 and a couple with no line at all.
See how fast I forget stuff, I can't remember the name of the line I'm talking about, but it goes directly under the WORKGROUP name.
Well this new SMB3 does not see the Windows computers, and it appears on the new install NT1 does not see the Windows computers either. While this computer using NT1 and another computer with no line both do. Strange!

Debi has this really thick mask she wears to work, provided by them.
It is easier to breath through than even those thin surgical masks.
I was surprised by that when you see how thick that thing is.
So, when she got a new one and told to throw her old one away, she brought it home and I cut it in half to see.
I don't know what the materials are, but they were hard to cut for one.
It looks like a piece of decorative cotton fabric on the front, but behind that is something that looks like Dacron quilt filling, then there is this other unknown material, looks like silk almost, then another layer of Dacron, and a soft cotton inner fabric.
At the top is a piece of foam rubber covered by cotton so the air doesn't go out the top to fog up your glasses.
Debi says it is really comfortable, much more so than even a surgical mask. Easy to wear all day.
The store does not sell them, and she has no idea what the brand name of them is.
When they give her a new one, it is in a plain white envelope with a plastic lining in the envelope itself.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by yogi »

I don't know if this problem relates to Linux networking, but there was a major issue with Samba SMB2 and SMB3 a few months back when Windows did it's semi-annual feature update. I have an NAS that runs a tiny version of Linux. It's an awesome server and can handle any file system shares I ever heard of. That's not as fantastic as you think because I have not heard of many. LOL Anyway, this Linux server creates Widows shares like no tomorrow and I never had trouble accessing them from any Windows environment. I don't know what drivers are used by Windows to read those shares because, as I said, I never had a need to know. Well, then along comes this Windows update that crashed a whole bunch of computers out in the wild. I never saw the problems people were belly aching about so I figured it was just some sort of incompetence going on.

My particular problem was that the updated laptop Windows machine could no longer reliably see the NAS on the network. It was haphazard at best. When it was visible in Windows Network, the two computers connected as if nothing was wrong. My tower with Windows 7 had no problem at all, but then it did not get the Windows 10 features update.

A few solutions were prominent in the tech forums. One was that SMB1 was for some reason or another the default for Windows 10. That had to stop. SMB 2 and/or SMB 3 had to be installed in Windows and enabled. SMB 1 had to be disabled. Well, there was no SMB for me to select and that was the case after I went through a lot of trouble to re-install it. Apparently it was there all the time but not an option in the network settings. Hmmm. The next most offered solution was to be certain NetBios was installed and enabled on both the Windows and the Linux machine. NetBios is the protocol that allows the Windows domain names, such as WORKGROUP, to be visible. Enabling NetBios and SMB 3 seemed to be the cure all. Maybe, but it didn't work for me.

Further research revealed that this "invisible" NAS has been an issue since the days of Windows 7. I even looked at the Synology web site and they too had a solution since it was THEIR servers being affected. Turn on NetBios and enable SMB 3. Ugh. Well I gave up. In order to access the NAS I had to log in as a remote user from the laptop. This got me to the front end of the NAS where I could do all the file transferring I wanted. It wasn't as clean as the network sharing function offered by Windows, but it worked every time.

As you know I am beta testing Windows 10 on my laptop. I gathered that there always has been a problem with this file sharing but I was fortunate enough not to see it in my setup. I posted to the Windows 10 Feedback Hub, but they wanted a recording of my desktop actions so that they could "see" what I was talking about instead of trying to figure out what I was writing. Well, that was stupid. I did the recording and opened up the Windows Network window which showed other devices on my LAN, but not the NAS. So they saw nothing. I did this again at the next update, and again at the one after that. Thus I had three outstanding complaints about how that so called update broke the NAS file shares. That's when I learned it's always been a problem since Windows 7. They didn't promise any solutions (probably because they didn't have a clue how to fix it).

Each update after that I checked the Windows Network subsequent to the new install and didn't see the NAS until about a month ago. ALL of a sudden the NAS started to appear in the list just as it always did before Microsoft broke it. I could not find any references to them fixing it, and actually it's still slightly broken. Sometimes I have to start the Windows Network diagnostic routine before the contents of the NAS will enumerate. It sucks, but that's exactly what I have had to do on the Windows 7 box, but not very often.

So, my suggestion is to be sure SMB version 3 is installed and operating on both the Linux and all the Windows machines. Also, make sure NetBios protocol is enabled. This setting is buried way deep in the Windows network interface card settings and if you need to know I can try to re-find the instructions on how to do it. However, it's probably already enabled because that is the default on nearly every Windows install. As far as Samba goes, I think it would be prudent just to make sure all your machines are running the same version. Apparently there are problems between versions.

And, lastly, I would not be totally surprised if the problem was Debian related. As you know I don't use Debian but I do have many instances of Debian based OS's operational. I never, and will emphasize NEVER, had problems connecting to file shares in any of my Linux boxes. This even goes to the extent of my virtualbox shares. There is a folder on my Windows 7 desktop that all my VM's (or the ones I configured for this purpose) swap files with seamlessly. Why SMB is a problem in Debian is something I never had to deal with, fortunately.
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by Kellemora »

Between the Linux boxes, I was using SSH, but to access the Windows machines I had to use Samba.
The odd thing is, since I did install Samba and set up the configuration files, Debi's Win7 computer can see all of my computers with shared folders, but I can't see her shared folder.
On my old Windows XP machine, I can see all of my shared folders, and her machine.
On my computers, all of them, I can see all of my computers, plus the Windows XP machine, just not Debi's Win 7 machine.
I can get to it by typing in her computers IP address and then Samba works if I do it that way.
Then it will appear for a short time in my Network lists.
The NAS appears on all the machines, has never stopped being able to be seen.
Doesn't matter if I use NT1 or SMB3 or some other line that says Broadcast ALL. The NAS just simply appears, no problems.

One of the guys on the forums had a problem because where he works, he has to get on the LAN to do his job, and also has to access other machines in the department. He has to continually change his configuration file in order to see the machines he needs to see. He's tried adding all the protocol's at the same time and that just blocks everything, hi hi.
He does have it down to a science now, and has a whole set of configuration files, he just picks the one he needs and restarts Samba and he's good to go. The downside is, it requires double handling of all the files he has to access and move.

Then he gets back to a problem I once had years ago. He could Fetch a file, but could not Put a file. But he has a workaround for that too. He did say it was those using MAC laptops that deal him the most fits.
More power to him, hi hi.

I think the old saying goes something like: If your really want to mess things up, you need a computer, hi hi.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by yogi »

Both Windows and Linux OS's are very flexible. Most people don't exercise the full capabilities of whichever OS they are using. As you have seen in these forums, I sometimes test the limits of whatever OS I happen to be interested in at the time. While that testing inevitably results in much amusement, it hardly touches on all the things Windows and/or Linux can do. I'm really not an expert in either one, and not too sure I'd even consider myself an intermediate user. Power user? Yes. LOL

File sharing and networking are fundamental elements of any decent computer operating system. That also happens to be the most complicated set of features because the network typically consists of non-homogeneous equipment. Getting everybody to agree on anything in the world of computers has proven to be impossible. It's not just hardware that mismatches but also protocols and the underlying software. It's truly a miracle when you can configure a LAN to work flawlessly with every component connected to it. After messing with all these things for more years than I care to think about, one basic principle emerges. Don't mix systems or OS's. Keep it all in the same family. I've run into this advice when I had multi-boot problems in the EFI environment. EFI was invented to overcome the diversity of equipment out in the wilds, but it only works seamlessly if you have a single OS installed or a single genre of OS's. I managed to mix and match, but what I'm doing here would never fly in a production environment.

Windows, and probably Linux too, has the ability to "map a network drive." Again, I'm not sure what protocol this function uses but it allows for connecting remote drives to your system. It's not sharing. It's just as the name implies. You are adding a piece of hardware to your configuration, but that hardware can be anywhere in the world. If you have the address of the remote drive, it can be added. Linux can mount just about anything on the network too, but I don't know how it deals with remote hardware. Mounting and mapping is only half the problem, unfortunately. There are file formats and network protocols that need to be addressed. Here too the best advice is not to mix OS's. Either do it all Windows or all Linux. Both are designed to work with each other, but they don't always adhere to the agreement. :grin:
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by Kellemora »

I hear ya Yogi, hi hi - Nothing is Standard, never has been, and probably never will be.
At least some of the hardware vendors are adding the functionality to the device with a simple output.
Take scanners, they all now output to USB sticks if you don't have an on-board program available for their device.

I normally use Samba for my LAN and it normally works flawlessly, at least until I upgrade one of the computers, hi hi.

I can use SSH with all of my Linux boxes without any problems at all.
And can even connect to Debi's Win7 computer's shared folder that way, but it is a royal pain to do, and not worth the trouble setting her computer up for that method.
I just never remember how to get her file and print sharing working properly.
Ironically, she can see all of my computers and printers on her computer, no problem at all.

While we are under computers here, I had a strange thing happen this morning.
I thought a poltergeist took over the Silver Yogi, since none of the other computers were affected.
Turns out, the problem was not with the Silver Yogi at all.

I was on the Silver Yogi and when I went to close some tabs, I noticed the close all tabs to the right and other lines were grayed out and did not work. I closed the tabs one at a time. After I did I found my CTRL key was not opening a new link in a new tab, which was annoying. And when I did open the new file to work on, the scroll was not working.
Now this is a new mouse and newer keyboard too.
I jumped to another machines and was working on it with no problems at all, so I knew the mouse and keyboard were OK.
God forbid something is wrong with the Silver Yogi.
I rebooted the Silver Yogi and it still had the same problems.

I am using a KVM switch to get to all of my computers, but when it acts up, the Scroll Lock button doesn't let me switch between computers, so I just have to reset the KVM, which is just a push of a button to do so.
But the KVM appeared to be working just fine, so I didn't do that right away.
I needed to download a picture from a camera to finish setting up a new web page. To do this I normally use the USB ports on the front of the KVM switch. The camera was not recognized. That's never happened before.
I thought, OK, let's reset the KVM! After I did, I went back to the Silver Yogi, since the KVM always resets on location #1 and I have the Silver Yogi on location #4.
There was the camera loaded up on the desktop as it should have been.
I did the download, the scroll wheel was working, and so was the CTRL to copy the file over.
Went back to Google and checked and the lines that were grayed out were now working.
One would never think the KVM would have anything to do with what was showing up on running computer program.
So those little KVM boxes must be a whole lot more complicated that what they appear to be, hi hi.
Nothing at all wrong with the Silver Yogi, which I didn't really think there was. It is probably the best computer I've ever owned.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by yogi »

My experience with KVM's is extremely limited. I used one back when I was getting paid to play with computers, but that was a short lived project. Don't know what is in those boxes and don't have a need to find out. LOL However, it makes sense that any given computer with problems from the input device(s) could do strange things.

It pleases me to no end that the Silver Yogi has provided such good service to you. I know you don't need that video card capability, but it still bothers me that it didn't make it unharmed through the shipping experience. The guy that put that box together for me was a genius in his own right. I wanted to convert from the old 32 bit Windows 7 to the more modern 64 bit version. I looked around to several places and nobody wanted to do it. They all would be happy to sell me a new machine, however. This guy I found who agreed to do it worked out of his home. He went over to Meijer (I think it was) to get the motherboard and processor. The only reason he did that instead of ordering something online was because I was antsy and wanted the machine back as quickly as possible. Apparently this guy was a Mac aficionado but he knew enough about Windows to feel confident he could do what I needed done. He also knew very little about Linux other than he liked it from his college days. He got his son to install Linux on that Silver Yogi because back in those days dealing with nVidia was more than a trivial challenge. He son taught me how to install those drivers manually which is information I used up til very recently. Now nVidia is in many repositories of Linux OS's. I don't recall having any problems with the hardware; just the normal Windows crap. My intention was to have a machine that would last ten years, or about three times the life of a normal computer. The way it's looking, it will make twenty hands down.
Last edited by yogi on 24 Nov 2020, 18:47, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Post by Kellemora »

I guess shipping broke the solder joints on the mobo where it was plugged in, because the device worked for the computer guy I sold it to.

The Silver Yogi has been the best computer I've ever owned. It hums along like a Swiss Watch.
At first a fan made a strange noise, which you mentioned it did, but it quieted down fairly quickly.
Either that or it may not be running, either way the computer works fine with no overheating.

I don't mess with the insides of the computers at all anymore.
Shame I forgot so much about electronics, but perhaps it is better I did.
If I could fix these older machines I have piled up around here, knowing me, I would have them all running and hooked up.
One has the video section out, another has a power supply that keeps shutting off, but I think it might only be the CPU fan is not running and it overheats. So they sit unused. Nice matching cases. But not worth having a new mobo put in them because the power supplies would be too small for the newer mobo's.

I had to do some things on Debi's Win7 computer that would be super simple on my Linux machines. But on Windows you have to keep dropping things into the systray to get to the other screens. I did learn I could click on one to open and put it back into the systray, but it is not like switching workspaces on Linux. Not instant because it basically minimizes the window and then has to expand it again. She was uploading some things for me to sale sites on the web where she belongs, but I had to get all the stuff needed ready for her, and then do some of it for her, because she doesn't grasp how to handle images properly to get them from one program to another when you can't use copy/paste, but have to upload them from the desktop or elsewhere. I've showed her how to do it a few times, but it doesn't work for her, hi hi.
Post Reply