Posts by Reginald O. 77 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Dec 2022
ChatGPT is way too nosy about personal data to be up to any good. Seems like it's already becoming just another ordinary mass surveillance and exploitation tool for the master class.
And, a pretty dishonest, biased and mentallly unstable one at that. Like having a crazy girlfriend that's just a little too cozy.
What does she really want?
We know that.
We we don't know is how it will be made productive, what it can do very well, what it can't do at all. No one knows for sure.
That's somewhat different than the PC boom since the experts knew pretty clearly what personal computing might do, how well, and what would be productive (such as as spread sheet).
Personally, I have been underwhelmed by AI for practical reality based uses. It seems to take you so far, then hit a wall, start hallucinating, or bog down, making it an unreliable friend.
Lastly, and most important, I haven't found a model yet that does not show ethical and political bias, puritanical censorship leanings or mass surveillance and profiling baked in to the core.
Indeed, the essential purpose of some models seems to suggest: Just another mass surveillance tool to the feed data brokers.
That's may be a deal breaker for some folks right there.
I suppose it comes down to is: do most people in India trust their government to do the right thing?
Also, to what extent can the law be enforced?
From where I sit, it seems like the law may be a requirement for the usual government back door and key logger for mass surveillance, but what do I know?
When Facebook took over, we knew whatever data WhatsApp has, ever had, or ever will have was at risk of loss, diversion, subversion or exploitation.
This looks like the Austrians stumbled on an intelligence agency backdoor, to me, likely one of many.
There are no significant consequences for FB over this loss. Or any of the other big tech players.
Why is that?
Once "they" get a certain percentage of users into the cloud, the price will really start to climb. If nothing else people and businesses ought to run their own parallel internal "cloud". I think they would find, if done right, it would be safe, reliable and at much less cost.
These trade war tiffs are just the beginning.
The Chinese manufacturing machine is on the edge of disaster. Producers and manufacturers of every stripe need to find alternative sources for parts, manufactured goods, even raw materials.
It doesn’t necessarily need to "come home," but alternate sources need to be developed everywhere because China is becoming an unreliable source of just about...everything.
Let capitalism work it's miracle.
The solution seems easy enough: Deny all requests from places like CHINA that abuse data privileges.
I would use the one strike and your out rule.
In other words, if we catch you doing something shady, one time, you are OUT!
Ditto for slop requests: Do it right, or don't do it at all!
Do I have to think of everything for you guys?
First, in a free and democratic society, the peasantry is supposed to have the right to ask pointed questions and get full and honest answers. Regardless, "things at risk“ is vague, and it seems their appetite to know everything means "we" are all risky things. Last, since they insist on forcing Swiss Cheese security measures on the WWW internet, it means all the crooks and risk entities in the entire world have the same access as they do, which puts all of us at risk of harm. Do you know anyone at all who has NOT been victimized by internet criminals?
I would think Five Eyes and virtually all the other spy shops in the world have a direct 24/7 feed of almost every VPN in the world.
Why would they work so hard to pass oppressive, intrusive laws, then let the masses circumvent the all-seeing eye by paying a few dollars/pounds/euros?
I wouldn't be surprised if even some of the best known VPNs are gov-ops.
You got to ask yourself, ...who has the key?
Think man, think!
Don't give up your DNA to anyone without a fight.
It will never, ever be private and will be used against you and your family sooner than later for certain. The corporations and governments are fully aware there's a lot of money to be made and power to be gained by having a large DNA data base on the server. Despite what they might say, they are not going to keep your data safe, secure and private whatsoever.
Might as well print it on a highway billboard.
The governments want the data as much or more than the corporations.Tthey aren't going to protect us, no matter what holy flim flam Swiss cheese law they might pass.
Every day, a new episode of cray-cray improbabilities that turn out to be real. People in high places say, “He can't do that", but he does.
Trump is running the country like he's the leading man and star player in his personal fantasy-reality sitcom. He hires the cast for their ability to create controversy and attract clicks, ratings, a buzz, or something. The suspense is terrific. Will the country survive this?
I am not really sure it will actually. I used to think we could do better. I don't think that anymore.
The free speech argument is a distraction and diversion. The Chinese government and it's citizens do not have U.S. Constitutional rights.
The problem is, by Chinese law, all companies must make all data collected and transversing their internet apps available to the Chinese Communist Party to further espionage, PI abuse, data theft, and all manner of activities which would be considered against the national interests and national security of the USA.
So it's entirely reasonable to enact a law preventing data on the TikTok app from being available to adversarial political parties as well as Chinese government sanctioned criminals.
The last Windows update 11 borked Notepad so that now it gives a "Bad image" error. There is no fix from MS for it, but there is a suggested fix involving replacing some C+ library using an outside installation app, power shell and the ability to follow a 15 step convoluted process without one mistake. Actually, there are several suggested fixes, none the same as the other. Which one to choose?
Why after all these years must they break...notepad? And, apparently several other lesser apps?
Meanwhile, W11 is making or trying to making about 20-30000 contacts a day to a multitude of ms addresses keep my computer up to date, ...or something.
What's not to like?
I am not technically able enough to decide what is the best course, whatsoever.
However, what I see lacking in this discussion is what the poor bastards stuck in that tin can think should be done. I am guessing they want to come home the fastest way possible, with the least risk.
Boeing's or NASA reputation should be the least concern.
There's no reason at all to keep either detailed personal identification data on the instantly available internet WAN network or all of our medical data such as diagnoses, prescriptions, etc. But, 'they' all do.
Even attacks like this do not faze corporate execs. Seems there is no price or pain too high to stop them from putting it ALL out there on the table.
The majority of OUR data should be buried on drives NOT accessible to the internet and so conversely only available locally. A real person via phone or in person could verify personal data or dig up summary medical data as necessary and distribute it via voice, real paper, encrypted text etc.
Maybe there would be pitfalls with some of that. But I am sure whiz kid security experts could devise a system much better than what we have now IF they were allowed to do it.
But, governments and corporations all want all the information at their finger tips. And so, it becomes available to criminals.
The corporate double talk and eventual terse non-response response strongly suggests validation that Recall is a joint corp-gov mass surveillance op being rolled out. I wonder if the other major tech companies will be offering very similar products soon with similar displays of thuggish opacity?
Will this feature be mandatory no opt out soon? Pretend to be surprised when they announce, "ha-ha we've been sucking it up all along".
This app certainly has many characteristics of a corporate, government, military, police mass surveillance tool.
MS says their policy is to keep data local. But, the policy can change tomorrow with a few key strokes.
Also, the programming can be changed to route the data anywhere they please via updates down the road a bit.
Corporations and governments would likely pay sizeable fees to have access to such detailed data.
Last, MS could easily have everyone's password to everything in the world with this tool setting up cloud review data without every touching the users device.
And, why wouldn't they want all that data?
Meanwhile, laws could be easily interpreted, changed or written to make it mandatory to have the app up and running.
Note, Recall DOES REQUIRE new and better hardware. So I would guess simply NOT buying the latest greatest Windows device is one easy way to prevent Recall getting on or wirking on a personal device. For now.
Recall is a long game project. MS will be tweaking it for many years to come. This is the first page of a very long book.
Recall that end users are targets not customers. MS's customers are the coporations and governments.
In a generic sense paying for a productive AI service seems entirely reasonable. The problem is the thoroughly unethical and greedy Google elbwoing their way into the lead. And, that's not taking in account their very cozy relationship government mass surveillance opertations. Who are the good guys in the AI gold rush?
It's about the police wanting the ability to effortlessly conduct warrantless searches of all electronics without a reason at all except for "just 'cause":
"Just 'cause we feel like it". The police lobby is more powerful than the people lobby so you already know how this story will end. Likely the deed will be done in midnight sessions behind closed doors.
Ain't democracy grand?
"Sports Illustrated, came under fire last week for publishing AI-generated stories under fake bylines that included AI-generated photos and made-up bios for journalists that don't exist."
Bullshit sinks to a new low. Of course, 'they' will all be doing it soon. And, charging top dollar for the honor of being deceived. Who can you trust anymore?
This is a good write up on this threat, concise and to the point. But, personally, I would like to see a little more from articles like this. In general, I think information that would help others prevent an attack would be helpful. For example, with this crew, what IP addresses are they working from? Is there a spcific list of their most common tricks and tactics that we should know about? What are the best practices to prevent it and resolve it (if possible). What is the most important thing users and targets must know and do?
There's absolutely a cyber war on between the west and the new axix of evil: Russia, Iran, NK, China, et al. What I don't get is why the "west" is content to sort of monitor it and whine about but little else.
Fight back for godsakes. At least try. Assuming the info is right that Iran attacked critical US infrastructure the USA should at the very least attack right back. I don't see any problem with shutting down their utilities, indeed shutting down their access to the internet altogether.
Give us targets ways, information, hardware and code to fight back or at least protect ourselves. Virtually every one of the articles mentioning attacks are so sparse on detail you cannot take one measly step to protect yourself from it. Are the attacks literally coming from Iranian IP addresses, or not? If so name the numbers. Give us SOMETHING! And, don't tell me they are only going after gov facilities or whatever.
An attack on Pennsylvania is an attack on all of us. Stand up and fight!
Everyone should look themselves up on the internet. First you will be totally floored and aghast about how much accurate information is out there about you at the tap of a few keys. Also, you will be just as astounded. All of it is used against in every way imaginable. And, that's the tip of the iceberg. The data brokers know...everything and even more than that that's not about you, too.
NSA is gonna' do what they do. There will be some crisis and Congress will be forced, I tell you, forced fiercely to protect us and give them anything they want.
OR, there will be some literal midnight session and whatever they want will be packed away way deep in some mandatory passage bill to save us from chaos. Again.
I am convinced Congress doesn't understand or care how bad this looks regarding our formerly inalienable rights or what other countries see as our uncompromising hypocrisy.
Wyden is the designated fall guy conscience of America and the Constitution. (There's been others in the past.)
It's understood by the powers that everything he says is pablum for the rubes and in the end the government (and vendor corporations) will do anything it wants in regards to spying on us without the inconvenience of standing law or the Constitution getting in the way. Even if the data takes down a few high elected officials occasionally.
The data is out there, they are going to take it and use it against us in every way imaginable.
Protect yourself, the government will not.
The insurance policy?
I read some time ago computer insurance for malware hacks was extremely cheap. It's so cheap the corporations figured out they only needed to have the lawyers draw up an iron tight TOS and privacy policy then pay for insurance and they were covered.
One guy was enough for "security" and it was his job to fall on the sword when something happened which was inevitable.
So, this is different how? Did someone forget to pay the premium?
The government must victimize us to prevent us from being victimized by foreign agents. Sure.
FBI pried open the cookie jar of NSA data during the 9-11 frenzy and they are not going to allow the lid to be put back on willingly.
Or, as required by the law, or anything else, apparently.
And, neither will Congress.
So much for upholding the spirit, intent and indeed letter of the law and our Constitution.
It's best not to think this episode through to it's logical conclusion.
"... which triggered a rollback … which failed". I hate it when that happens. It's definitely a "bad thing".
However, trying to blame some defenseless imported generators for the more recent debacle seems un-ninja like for the CF cyber warriors.
Sounds like something I would say.
The story of broken McDonald ice cream machines is so old it's become legendary.
Yet, nothing really happens at the corporate level to correct the situation.
It's easy to blame Taylor, rightfully so, but I do wonder very seriously why McDonald's let's them get away with this for years on end?
How are McDonald's execs benefiting from this fiasco?
Are franchise owners getting milked by these ice cream machines?
Who pays the repair fees? Where does that money go?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
