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There were also some early shoe-based devices I have read about, which used earpieces (difficult to avoid breaking the thin wires necessary to hide them, and prevent damage from sweat). Some of these stories unfortunately weren't documented super well -- I think I came across them from the original participants chatting on a long-defunct forum or newsgroup -- but it is mentioned in passing here: https://jimsudmeierstories.com/adventures-with-a-concealed-b...

> Then around 1976 came “David,” using the Z80 microprocessor, oriented towards team play (the Big Player making the big bets) with hand keyboards operated through holes in pockets and transmitters to signal the Big Player. Later came “Thor,” a computer to track the shuffling (and possible clumping) of multiple decks. One of his inventions involved networking players together with fine wires about 3 feet long. Then there were “Magic Shoes” in which 12 batteries, computer, and all were hidden in “Frankenstein” shoes. Later still there was “Narnia, the sequencing computer.”

The inventor Keith Taft talks about it in more detail in an interview here: https://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/gambling-with-an-edge/interv...


This does appear to break your "streak" of correct answers, though.

Perhaps because foreign governments with a known antagonistic stance would happily sell or hand over your data in order to cause large-scale economic instability via account attacks, political instability via fostering the prosecution of minority groups (as identified by said data)... get creative. Large-scale data on your enemy's citizenry is a new weapon in the modern arsenal, and we haven't seen anyone really try to use it yet, but I suspect the results when they do will be ugly.


Care to elaborate on "known antagonistic stance"? Is there any evidence that China has ever actually performed any of these types of attacks you're discussing?

"Get creative" might work well for fictional writing exercises, but is it such a sound strategy for assigning guilt? Surely you wouldn't like being prosecuted for crimes that someone "got creative" with in accusing you of, no?


No, because this particular attack is (as far as I know) a new concept, but in general, China being a major state sponsor of all sorts of large cyberattacks is very well-known (in security circles, at least) and has been extensively documented. The current likely scenario is that attacks would be performed against the US in the event that they tried to help defend Taiwan against Chinese invasion.


Yeah, but is it OEM? Even big names like Dell don't support their parts for that long, and you have to resort to getting sketchy third-party parts from China, or rolling the dice on a used OEM part.



They're really not -- Mac scissor switches are pretty delicate, and it's easy to do damage to the tiny plastic nubs on the keycaps or the switches... and if you damage the metal retaining frame in any way, you're toast (Mac laptop keyboards are virtually unreplaceable, being buried in the "bottom" of the unibody chassis).


What are you basing this on?

I've swapped ~579 keys (6 MacBook keyboards, and one magic keyboard) with exactly one broken plastic bit from the very first key tried, before looking up the youtube video on how to do it. Damaging the metal retaining frame is impossible when removing or installing them appropriately, so the technique you used was very very wrong. They're easily and trivially popped off and on, if done right. Great care is not needed, with the whole processes taking me around ~10 minutes.


...through the subscription fee.


And from selling your data to whoever shows up with enough cash.

What, you think they're leaving that money sitting on the table?


It's one thing to operate with an assumption that any VPN other than your own should not be fully trusted.

It's another thing to claim all of them are obviously corrupt.


If you had a company whose core business proposition was Quite Obviously Shady, would you expect them to be scrupulously legit in other areas?

Quick question for you - rhino poaching is a huge problem in Africa, with poachers getting a surprisingly small amount of money per rhino they shoot, because the buyers only want the horns. Do you think paying the poachers more to not shoot the rhinos would solve that problem?


Suspicions, inferences and reasonable concerns are perfectly fine. Answering questions with questions is less fine.

Statements of categorical fact about a whole class of things (in this case VPNs) demand more than that.


Well, it's not my bank account and it's not my IP address.

You do you.


Not the first time I've seen it organically recommended, and I'm not surprised. A buddy has some of this stuff, he usually ages it for a minimum of a year, ideally 2+, in the fridge. Will sometimes have fantastic crystals, and even if it doesn't it's still exceptional sharp cheddar.


Unfortunately, documentation simply isn't sufficient. In addition to parts or components not being manufactured anymore, you also would have the likely bigger issue of clinicians being hesitant or unwilling to work with the hardware, and / or insurance not covering the doctor's time or procedures. I believe such things already happened with the Second Sight fiasco.


Came here to post this in case it hadn't been.

This case is very infamous in the disability & tech academic research community -- kind of their version of the Therac-25 in terms of ethics, damage to people, etc.


Next they need to disable the Starlink terminals being used on narco-subs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44477601


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