Posts by xtam667

EU lawmakers argue against signing US data-transfer pact

The IMF is the lender of last resort. Countries go there when nobody else wants to give them a penny anymore, mostly because they screwed up their public finances through incompetence and graft. The IMF lends at low rates but in exchange you need to fix stuff. Basically, be more competent, steal less, and act with some responsibility. It is all very transparent but politicians do not like it because it means they may get the boot at the next election.

The Chinese loans, those are very different.

Microsoft took its macros and went home, so miscreants turned to Windows LNK files

The shift to LNK does not strike me as a good indication of how clever these attackers are. Abusing links to executables is nothing new. In fact, it is an older attack vector than Windows.

Warehouse safety citations could cost Amazon seconds in revenue

Re: intends to appeal

Once you admit fault in the US, anything is possible. That's why every company tries to avoid it, even in the most blatantly obvious cases.

World of Warcraft Classic lead dev resigns to protest 'stack ranking'

There are exceptional, average and weaker performers in any team. However, it is very frustrating if performance rating thresholds are relative. If one is relatively weak compared to the star performer but meets clearly defined targets, then they cannot be in the "needs improvement" bucket. I would agree with the bell curve approach if targets were defined relative to the best performer. But that does not work in business.

Top consulting firms used to apply the bell curve approach quite ruthlessly. One could be two times the weakest in a team, at most. Or, they would routinely hire more fresh graduates than needed and get rid of the weakest bunch after a year.

Smartphone gyroscopes threaten air-gapped systems, researcher finds

If one cares enough to airgap their systems surely they put those systems in places from which neither sound or light leaks. Who saw airgapped systems in real life against which threats like this were plausible?