Posts by Death_Ninja 202 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Oct 2007
They don't care about small scale counter-revolution.
They care about mass public sharing ripping through the country and destabalising it... you know, like another country in the West saw recently that lead to riots.
That internet amplification is what they fear. The guy on the street corner handing out leaflets and shouting at seagulls isn't a risk to them (and even if he is, you just sling him in the back of a van)
Planning? So seeing if the enemy have got anything different to the last time you saw it is a good idea.
Maybe they've built some more structures? Maybe they have some point defence? Maybe some trees have grown up?
Loads of reasons why the "as built" blueprints even if you have them are not what you need for a military strike.
Its kinda important when you are lobbing long range stuff, particularly high precision weapons and not just a grad barrage.... which you probably don't want to do when its a nuclear power plant thats close to your own country (even if you are a maniac who ignores that you shouldn't risk nuclear power plants)
Although to be fair, most of the screaming from BOTH sides about the other deliberately targeting nuclear reactors is just attention seeking. Its as much a war for opinion as anything real on the ground.
"The only time-sensitive stuff would probably be any air defences Ukraine might have defending those sites"
Or bomb damage assessment post strike.... remember they are trying to knock out Ukrainian power supplies. They need to see what possible targets remain.... as well as air defence units.
Concealing or faking damage is a thing when you are a target of enemy bombing missions. Either using obscuring smoke during enemy recon missions or making your still functioning target look like its been killed with some set dressing (which obviously can't be actually moved into place when they are watching either)
"Russia's using Chinese satellite data. Which is.. curious given Russia built Ukraine's nuclear infrastructure and has their own satellites.. Which is one of the things Russia's been launching regularly since the SMO started."
Reconsats have a predictable path and time over target.
The enemy can and will be aware of that and time movements in those windows (especially if getting such advice and data from some clever people backing your enemy)
If you can use someone else's flagged satellite you can maybe see things they thought you wouldn't...
Probably all they are using tho are one of the many commercial satellite photo sources rather than super secret Chinese military birds.
"Some have been found with 4G modems"
More importantly some have been found with Ukrainian SIM cards in them... meaning they are leveraging Ukraines 4G network against them.
Very little I suggest you can do with any of this stuff - these things appear and get used up in a one way mission and onto the next one.
If you've ever tried to play whack-a-mole in cyber you'll appreciate how fruitless it is - or if you don't, read this and learn.
Vpn servers and the like are Internet facing. They also are the keys to the kingdom.
Hence they are number one top of the list for people to develop new hacks for.
If you manage to find a zero day then you have a very valuable exploit that you can sell.
That's why they keep getting broken
Of course its only going to be the usual suspects.... because SME's don't have a billion in cash to buy the hardware and more importantly don't have the cash to extend the credit the NHS want in the deal.
NHS won't be paying cash up front, they'll be wanting to pay at the very least several staged payments if not monthly.
And then they also will want all of these delivering to end users, maintaining asset inventory and setting up, plus replacement devices ready to roll as they need them...
Its a vast undertaking for whoever gets it and its only ever going to be the usual suspects because nobody else can run at that scale but the biggest issue is having the money to front the deal and take it back from the customer over time.
I'd expect the actual device cost to be maybe two thirds to a half of the 1.5bn, the rest will be service charges and finance.
Alternatively you could give every NHS employee a Curry's voucher and go get them to pick their own stuff up....then you might get near a retail price per device. Not really what they want though.
I suppose if the Tories were still here you could pretend you were capable of doing this as a one man team - I mean PPE and Ferry Companies were created out of thin air....
Our electoral history has always been its Labour's job to not lose and the only time they get in is when they use the "ming vase" approach (first used by Blair, now Starmer is doing the same)
This means a centre-right position.
Which always makes me wonder why a declared centrist party can't actually be successful.... but I guess it needs the die hard Labour voters to hold their nose and vote Blair/Starmer as well as swing voters - ie centrist plus left equals more votes than the tories.
Time for PR. Well beyond time for PR. End the sham that is British politics, make everyone's vote count!
Hopefully "Stop the Tories" will suceed with this (their plan is to use their weight to push on the next non-tories to give us PR)
From my view palo is the best Internet firewall you can buy. Fortinet is the cheapest you can get away with.
Non Internet facing is a different game.
Palo is very expensive even compared to checkpoint.
The question though really is can palo make an integrated platform for all security devices and applications. I've largely ignored their non firewall products as I expect most others have. If they can create a unified platform I'm sure there are customers who'd take it.
... I thought Palo were being quite bold here.
To state that they can see a future where they become less relevant and to announce a major capital investment to head that off is unusual in a publicly traded company.
Obviously it's a gamble on their part and many investors shy away from risk so quit, which drove down the price.
America being America of course someone sued.
Have a look at just how many of these legal actions happen. Most tenuous at best.
I'm more interested in what IT people think about palos strategy. Single vendor isn't something I like much personally. I do understand what palo mean about trying to glue different products together though to make a comprehensive security platform. It probably would be good if they can actually make it work.
Palo come from a disruptive background so I can see why they'd go this route. They've been a bit not radical for a while, this is their attempt to get back to where they came from.
Because if you blacklisted all of the failures one of two things would happen...
Firstly any of the suppliers would sue for unfair barring.
Secondly if you got away with barring the f ups, you'd have none left to bid for anything.
It's almost like there's a common denominator in government IT projects...
"I really shudder to think what the consequences would be of a prolonged power outage once we've moved to an all digital telephone system."
Well, we'll never know because you won't be able to communicate with us ;-)
If you are reallly that isolated, I recommend a sat phone - they aren't too expensive now.
Assuming of course that WW3 isn't the reason why the rest is offline, in which case you'll have nobody left to phone even if the satellite is still in the sky
If you unlock a feature in your in car shop (many others besides BMW have this sort of thing), when you sell the car the "feature" is tied to your login.
The hundreds/thousands you've spend on dynamic headlights or cruise control isn't available to the next purchaser, its tied to your account - and probably locked to the VIN of the car so you can't even buy another BMW 3 years later and automatically enable the feature on your new one....
Bit like with paid for digital downloads on your console - no resell possible.
"Convenient but unwise, the best will leave first, the dross will remain as they won't be able to find something else."
Ahhh but that would assume that in a giant corporation senior management don't think that any resource is the same as any other resource.
Except them of course, they are unqiue f***ing geniuses without whom the world would end.
I suspect the biggest cost saving could be made by either offshoring the C level or replacing them with this:
https://easydecisionmaker.com/
That's outsourcing in a nutshell, cheaper but worse.
Well, its cheaper if you stay within the terms of the agreed deliverables and then gets very expensive quickly when you ask for a variation...
But afer all these years, plenty of companies don't seem to understand this - I guess their "IT managers" also suffer from rapid turnover and muppetry.
From what I've seen demand for new cars is definitely there as always, but many people are put off once they are told that either the delivery date cannot be defined or they get spun some bs about it being 3 months only for it to keep slipping or in some cases being told its 40+ weeks.
And thats fairly universal across all marques too - and nothing exotic either!!
Off the back of that, a lot of people are not ordering or cancelling orders and keeping their current car a bit longer.
"Would work as a capital ship killer but there are already plenty of conventional missiles which do a better job by flying under the radar"
Yes but what if your target was 2000 miles away?
The point of this sort of weapon is unlimited range, unpredictable attack vectors and combined with impossible counter measures.
It makes the main weapon of US force projection (the carrier battle group) vulnerable anywhere in the world at any time, whereas today once at sea its largely invulnerable to even saturation attacks.
The time for a warhead from an ICBM to reach its target after seperation is less an a minute and thats at 2000mph - which is less than half the speed of a hypersonic. Most of the ~30 min flight time of an ICBM is mid course, the warhead reentry is the shortest of the 3 phases.
In space you won't be getting the plasma effect, meaning you can do all of your terminal guidance perfectly ok before the firey plunge.
How far can a ship move in say 15 seconds and is it predictable?
I'd say given the short amount of time and the slow speed of a ship, its entirely possible to hit it without needing to make adjustments during the atmosphere stage.
Lister: D'ya think Wilma's sexy?
Cat: Wilma Flintstone?
Lister: Maybe we've been alone in deep space too long, but every time I see that body, it drives me crazy. Is it me?
Cat: Well, I think in all probability, Wilma Flintstone is the most desirable woman that ever lived.
Lister: That's good. I thought I was going strange.
Cat: She's incredible!
Lister: What d'ya think of Betty?
Cat: Betty Rubble? Well, I would go with Betty... but I'd be thinking of Wilma.
"Researchers have found that people who would go with Betty were more likely to vote Leave than those who would hold out for Wilma"
Wall Street isn't about "long term" anything any more.
Its operating since 2008 on a post-growth model.
The idea that someone gives you $1m to make your company make more product and more profit that is shared back to the lender in dividends is such an outdated concept.
Its all about non-GAAP numbers and Wall Street concepts of casino gambling gaining money out of thin air.
Nothing in the world of big finance fits the concepts you have in your mind about how things work any more and its this complex web of dependencies that creates both massive wealth for the few and economic disaster for the many.
And there is no putting that genie back in the bottle as far as I can see.
I don't know about you but I am pretty fed up with adverts for jobs with utterly ridiculous skill requirements from major employers. (I understand that in a small company you might have a tiny handful of "technical people" trying to do everything but not from say a household name bank or insurance company)
"Must have CCIE" - ok its a network job
"have 5 years+ of Oracle" - you expect me to be able to deal with databases too....
"Javascript coding experience desirable" - a developer too?
"Prince2 methodology" - and a PM?
Just ffs tell me what it is the person is expected to actually be able to do on a day to day basis!
Notes was always a bit clunky, totally refusing to accept Microsoft look and feel in any way whatsoever.
Once you got over that user shock, it was pretty good.
We swapped it out for Exchange after about two decades and in many ways its not as robust and predictable as Notes was.
The other thing with Notes was it was eye wateringly expensive and needed specialists to look after it. I guess very much an IBM product.
I don't think anyone would be bold enough to start with Notes now, but I'm glad to see someone has kept it alive.
The difference between UK and USA and why these spendings are different is that one is totally post-empire, the other not quite yet - or at least hasn't recognised it.
Your priorities can be different when you aren't trying to control huge swathes of the world by force of arms to ensure free movement of your commerce activities.
If the British Empire hadn't fallen, I doubt we'd be talking about an NHS at all. We'd be talking about how the Royal Navy was the biggest recipient of money and clapping Grand Admirals at 8pm every night.
I wonder what the national Holy Cow is in India? No pun intended, well, maybe a little.
Yes, which is somewhat surprising. Who'd have thought the entire IT world could be disrupted by a bookshop.
Can you imagine what would happen if the reverse had occurred?
IBM: we're going to start selling stuff from a website
Shareholders: what sort of stuff? you already sell stuff.
IBM: We'll start with books but you know,anything really. We are going to sell anything and everything and we're going to use our ecommerce skills to do it.
Shareholders: *screams about core business* *mass panic* *dumps shares*
Unless you started out with working for today's big fish, the story of takeover after takeover and TUPE'd between employers is pretty much most of this industry.
Even if you work for the current big fish, it can still happen to you - look at this story - DXC getting bought out?
Prior to that EDS/HPES bought by CSC to make DXC.
IBM ITO is next
Eventually we will all work for Amazon/Apple/Tesla/The Lizard People Corp
...are going to get expensive with all of this.
Sure many of us have a spare bedroom that could be an office.... but what about when your partner also needs a home office.... or your grown up kids (which you can't get rid of due to house prices)
We don't need taxation on WFH, we actually need tax relief. We certainly aren't about to see employers go "that money we saved on your office, we've divided it up, here is your annual allowance of £10k each to pay for company rental of your house"
Although I suspect what will actually happen is that your local authority will decide you need to pay business rates for the "office" space.... not the case yet, but watch this space.
I have a K70 Mk2 (and there is a newish Mk2...I guess Mk2b) with Cherry Reds - you can get Red silent, Red, Brown or Blues.
Gotta say its very good, better than my K55 I have on another PC here.
The K70 is very solid, heavy so stable and really nice to type on all day - I am not gaming with it.
Apparently, I am hammering it less than I was the old Lenovo one I was using - so a definite plus for WFH.
Expensive, sure but feel like its one of my better purchases recently. Makes my endless days of keyboard bashing a bit better.
Transfer Pricing is how these companies syphon taxes out of countries and into a low tax location.
That Mega Corp logo on the packaging? $5 per use payable to the IP owner of The Logo - Mega Corp Cayman Islands Ltd. The carboard box? Patent owned by Mega Corp Cayman Islands Ltd and it costs you $10 per time you make one..... and so on. Just so happens that $15 is most of the profit on each sale, funny that. UK branch of Mega Corp sadly reports each year it made hardly any profit. Meanwhile in the Cayman Islands, Mega Corp have agreed to build a school or some money into the civil service retirement fund in return for paying $1000 of tax - afterall, they only have a mailbox address there at an office of a law firm.
It has fully legit purpose, of course, its just they like to play the game and abuse it. It remains totally legal however.
It is possible to counter it, assuming of course the normal process of democratic government isn't subverted by lobbying or being lent on by a government of the country where the giants come from...
https://www.taxjustice.net/topics/corporate-tax/transfer-pricing/
What most often fail to understand is that WW1 and WW2 are continuation wars.... and I don't mean from just 1 to 2....think of all of this as continuation wars from the break up of the Holy Roman Empire.
And then look at the technical advances...
When you see things massively shift though is in line with the arrival of the industrial revolution. It increases technology both civillian and military from the late 19th century. Even the technology of the 1870 Franco Prussian war is not the same as the Napoleonic war in many many ways.
The wealth of the Old Empires of Europe had already ended up in the USA by 1918.
WW2 just finished off what had already started, but it was certainly *by design*.
American superpower post WW2 industrial and military dominance wasn't by accident and those behind it saw it as a continuation of the founding of the USA, to have come full circle and finally crushed the "enemy" of a free America - the old Empires - without having to fight them!
Radar could determine the difference between a bomber and a fighter in 1940?
I didn't think it could actually.
Actual enemy aircraft type identification was done by the Observer Corps - once it had come into sight.
And both the Spit and the Hurricane were interceptors.... big type difference there - as they were to learn when Allied bombers needed fighter escorts later. Interceptors need to climb fast and be agile but be short ranged.
"Fighter" is a generic term and not everything labelled such is useful for multiple air to air warfare types.
Me110's were lousy air surpremacy fighters for example, but excellent night fighters. Same with the Mossie.... or even the Ju88!
True, but in summer 1940 the Common Wealth wasn't about to come under heavy air attack or stood waiting for a seaborne invasion.
At that critical moment, everything hinged on the island holding out and critically the very moment hung on what Downding described as "Our young men will have to shoot down their young men at the rate of five to one."
The power of the Empire would come to play later and ultimate wartime victory in Europe was only possible because of the weight, plus of course the industrial might of the USA and the sheer military muscle of the USSR.
Allied victory is what was achieved, not British, not British Empire, not USA, not Soviet.
Allied.
Yes, the Dowding System.
Churchill himself gave credit to this as the key to victory:
"All the ascendancy of the Hurricanes and Spitfires would have been fruitless but for this system which had been devised and built before the war. It had been shaped and refined in constant action, and all was now fused together into a most elaborate instrument of war, the like of which existed nowhere in the world"
I should have also mentioned Y's involvement in countering "Headache" - the Lorenz/Knickebein beam guidance for Luftwaffe night bombing.
And then later the X-Gerät and Y-Gerät systems which improved on Knickebein.
But its just another example of quite how high tech WW2 became vs WW1.
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