Posts by Donn Bly 511 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jan 2008
The title to this article has a bit of an issue. US Bank (NYSB:USB) and River Financial Corporation (OTCMKTS: RVRF) are two very different, unrelated companies. By using the name of US Bank to refer to River Financial, even inadvertently, people will get confused, and lawyers are likely to generate a few pages of correspondence and leave a few pockets lighter.
Of course they _HAVE_ validation and quality procedures, but having them and following them are two very different things. The old policy of "don't ship it until it works" from the engineers of old has been replaced with a culture of releasing anything that compiles cleanly, or at least compiles without too many warnings.
There are several problems with the study, and you don't need to be a cynic for the study to red-flag itself.
The term "ghost gun" originally referred to any firearm manufactured before the October 1968 law that required all guns imported or manufactured to have them -- and still does. While most of the "ghost guns" seized may be 3D-printed garbage that is more hazardous to the one holding it than the person standing downrange, we really don't know the ratio to old/new guns or whether 3D printing was involved at all.
The fact that a gun was recovered as part of a crime investigation does not mean that it had anything to do with the alleged crime - and I say alleged because they count weapons from people who had them legally as well as illegally, from situations where no charges were filed after investigation, as well as from situations where the only crime was a prohibited person being in possession of the firearm without any immediate intent to use it illegally -- all while trying to inflate the numbers of "gun crime".
Readers in the UK who are familiar with their system of filtering spent convictions may be surprised to learn that in the USA, people who were once convicted of a minor felony, even if the crime was nonviolent and occurred decades ago, do not get their records expunged or filtered. Their debt to society is never considered paid in full. Even after their sentence has been served, they are permanently barred from certain civil liberties, including the right to own weapons. However, those people may feel the need to protect themselves and their family from violent criminals, and thus they acquire and possess weapons illegally.
Confiscation from these prohibited persons is a significant contribution to the study numbers. For these prohibited persons, even pepper spray can be considered a banned weapon and carries the same penalty as having a gun, so 3D-printing a weapon at home so that they aren't forced into the black market to buy one is a potent driver. Just to highlight the scope of this issue, recognize that in the United States a full 33% of all adult black males have felony convictions on their records and fall into this class of prohibited persons.
Of course, the so-called study was from Everytown, so you already know it's just a piece of political propaganda. History has shown us that they would rather lie than tell the truth, even when the truth would support their politics.
1. Pre-enroll the device so that you have matched a device to a user. Standard MFA stuff there
2. Push a challenge code to the device, which then displays a 2d barcode so that the camera can see it that has a payload that includes the user's name, device identifier, time-based one-time code, all digitally signed with the challenge code. Again, standard MFA stuff. The challenge code could even be pushed using a QR-like code displayed on the facial scanner so that you take the ability for over-the-air interception or service interruption out of the equation. This satisfied the "device locked" claim.
3. Take a picture of the user's face for future facial recognition training
Nothing really groundbreaking.
The part that might make it unique and patentable would be using a barcode similar to QR, but incompatible, changing the encoding algorithm so that standard QR generators/decoders cannot process it.
Once they have a sufficient number of facial images, they can train and tune out false positives/negatives, and once they are satisfied with the accuracy, they can change from "collecting" to using it as an additional validation method.
I'll accept the premise that data centers create a localized heat island. After all, everything that man does on an industrial scale generates heat in some form. Whether the vast amount of BTU's from a mill with blast furnaces producing steel, or 10's of thousands of small air conditioners in a city pumping heat into the outside environment to cool the inside, we generate a LOT of heat. But I also have concerns about their testing methodology if they recorded a 9°C difference to the surrounding land, as that sounds so excessive to be sensationalized. The cynic in me also wonders how many CPU cycles in a data center they used to create a model showing that data centers generate heat, and if any comparison was made to other forms of industry.
More likely they have a plugin in common that can be exploited. It is trivial to search for WordPress sites, and then look to see if a given plugin is installed. WordPress is good -- but many community plugins and themes are not.
That is why I have a cron job that runs on my web server that scans every WordPress site, compares the checksums against the distribution release, looks for files that shouldn't be there, looks for tampering on non-core files, checks to see if there are any new users with admin rights, checks to see if there are any cron jobs associated with the website user, and checks to see if there are any new triggers on the mysql database, and a few other things that I am probably forgetting right now. This is all in addition to the web application firewalls like wordfence or iThemes security which also run on those sites. At least with those scans I have been able to detect compromised sites relatively quickly, and I can shut them down pending analysis of attack vector, and restoration or remediation.
Given the amount of sex and violence in the Bible, the rating most certainly would be 18+, and there are enough anti-religion groups out there that would make sure that they would be included right along with Harry Potter. Eventually, everything on the Internet will be 18+ again, just like it was 35 years ago when you had to be an adult or be shepherded by an adult to even access the Internet.
And that is part of the problem, because a good law is never ambiguous. If one can not be sure by the clear text of the law, then the law is bad, and so are the lawmakers who created it.
If I ran a service that California legislators used, then I would be modifying my system to make them (and only them) jump through age verification steps every time they logged in, and keep changing the verification requirements so that all previous verifications were invalid. Eventually, they might get the hint.
I remember having an electromagnet specifically for degaussing TVs. Plug it in and turn it on a good 6 to 8 feet away, then slowly approach while keeping the coil constantly moving in a circular pattern until you were right up against the tube, let the TV make all sorts of pretty patterns, and then slowly back away - at which point we could stop making circles and turn it off. Kids have it so easy these days ;-)
This will enable us to deliver greater value, stronger execution, and a more streamlined experience for Broadcom's customers and enable an alternative competitive offering to the hyperscalers through our VCSP partners squeeze the last bit of profit out of the company before the house of cards implodes.
I don't use Grok or any of the other major AI platforms, but of all of the reasons to ban an app from the App Stores these are some of the weakest claims. If we start banning things because they "can" do something, we will end up banning web browsers (they are just as capable of being used to do the same thing) or even any computer that can access the Internet.
Grok can't do anything that a skilled artist can't already do in photoshop, it just makes it easier for people to do. Should we ban Photoshop as well?
Developers can put in guard rails, and the people actually doing the image creation need to be held accountable for their actions.
I'm waiting for the eventual press release that says "The third-party vendor we used for age verification was compromised. No account names or passwords were exposed, just front and back images of the visitor's driver's license and the IP address used to submit the state-required verification."
Let me fix that for you: "its well-worn strategy of catering strangling to its largest customers should result in those customers moving more less of their work into VMware’s remaining products, meaning more VCF cores being put to work out to pasture."
At this point in time, I cannot see any organization with any foresight putting MORE work into VMware infrastructure. Anybody with a brain who has not moved off of VMware has to be actively working on an exit plan. I was lucky to secure a 3 year support contract with perpetual licenses, right before Broadcom bought them out, but you can bet I'm working on migrating all loads off of VMware. There will NOT be a renewal.
I saw something the other day (most likely AI-generated) about a teacher assigning her students homework which consisted of having ChatGPT write a report on a given subject -- then write a second report explaining why the ChatGPT-generated report was wrong. I thought it was an interesting approach to demonstrating why you can't trust AI
This is where theoretical physics meets practical physics. You would think that the 50% increase in weight would be a marked increase in risk, but the amount of practical force transferred from the 2000kg car to the 80kg human at low speeds isn't significantly different than the amount of force from the 1000kg car. Neither is going to slow it down before taking the human off their feet and becoming part of the moving mass. The only thing that makes a difference in the scenario is the effective braking force on the vehicles.
On a low-speed impact, most of the injuries are not caused by the impact with the vehicle, but the body's impact with the ground once the vehicle has stopped. At that point, the weight of the vehicle, whether it is a bicycle or a locomotive, no longer has any influence - only the weight of the human.
And they might have gotten away with such a defense, if Bondi hadn't already publicly admitted that the government DEMANDED that the app be removed and that in the perspective of the government the removal was a direct result of that demand. Those admissions will definitely be entered into evidence, especially as Bondi was acting in the capacity of a representative of the government when they were made.
Lawyers have a duty to defend their client, but they have a higher duty to be honest in their dealings with the court. Any attorney trying to make such a defense, even a government one, would likely find themselves subject to a bar complaint and a "request" that they voluntarily relinquish their license or face possible public sanctions.
Not that I expect that the administration will allow the case to move forward, I am sure that they will find some other shady means of manipulation to make it -- or the plaintiff -- disappear from public view.
My parents and grandparents wouldn't know either. Some of my kids might, because they took business classes in college, but my grandchildren certainly wouldn't. Rupert is even older than I am, and I am wondering if he thinks that the target audience of the Reg is his grandkids instead of his peers. After all, the phrase "jumped the shark" actually jumped the shark itself about a generation ago, right along with "where's the beef"
Me as well - When I read the problem description I realized that exactly mirrors the problems that I have on this system that I use as my work-from-home terminal. Every time I have to restart - usually once a month after updates, I have to reboot 2 to 5 times before I can get my start menu and task bar and do work. It has been that way for months -- and the start may align with the July updates. Now at least I can research workarounds other than "reboot and pray".
Tell me again why "cloud" is always the go-to?
Because cloud services are expenses that are paid with pre-tax money and written off immediately, which lowers your annual taxes. On-premise equipment is a capital expense for an asset that you are probably borrowing money to buy, and is still on the books and incurring property taxes well after it has outlived its useful life -- sometimes even before the loan is paid. Choosing Cloud vs On-Premise is often more of a balancing act of the company's books than it is a technical decision.
Agentic OS? I would rather have a Geriatric OS. I want a mature operating system that has experience, follows procedure, that does what it is told, and does it well. An operating system that enables me to run the applications that I want and need, and notifies me if there is a problem or has a suggested change of procedure.
I do NOT want an agentic OS that ignores the instructions given to it to do what it "thinks" is best like a newbie employee. If I tell it to open the pod bay doors, I want to open the pod bay doors dammit!
Actually, yes. They removed it from Windows 11 24H2 in August, just in time for me to be rebuilding a stand-alone computer for a legacy document management system that used SQL Express 2014 as part of its installation process. The SQL Express installer uses Powershell 2, even though the application itself does not, and although it will run with a modern version of SQL I can't install it so that I can upgrade it. Eventually I will just have to build a 23H2 workstation to install it on, then upgrade Windows to 24H2 and SQL Express to 2022. I really wish they had just left it as an optional component, most people don't want or need it but those of us who do, DO need it.
I can only assume that you have never had to deal with a stolen credit card. The dollar value of the charges is far from the only liability. Time is money, and it may take you dozens of hours to document and contest each individual fraudulent charge, or even more to fight cases where the credit card company initially takes the vendor's side instead of your own, etc. You don't get reimbursed for the lost time. I had one case that took me over 6 months to get my money back. So no, it is NOT foolish and pointless, it is being proactive. It is like saying you shouldn't bother to run a firewall or anti-virus software because you can always reset your computer and restore the operating system.
I keep a credit card with a $1700 limit that I use for recurring subscription expenses for websites and for out of town trips. I keep the limit low just to limit my exposure should the card be stolen or otherwise compromised. This weekend I was out of town and by my custom I put all of my bills, including my hotel bill, on that credit card. On the return trip I couldn't fill my gas tank because the card was run overlimit by the hotel charging me for the same room multiple times.
I use this to illustrate that just because someone offers to refund money charged in error, it doesn't mean that there was no harm caused by the overcharge. If I only had a single card or didn't have cash, then I would have been severely impacted, and it could cause a cascade of effects that could cost a lot more to correct -- missed flights, cancelled reservations, etc.
The purpose of a lawsuit isn't always to recoup your losses, it is to make sure that they don't screw over the next guy. Think of all of the lawsuits where the plaintiff sued for one dollar plus attorney fees.
Standard WiFi operates at 2.4 GHz, which is the harmonic of water. A leaf that has a high moisture content acts like a mirror at that frequency, reflecting the signal, and a leafy houseplant can cause significantly ***MORE*** attenuation than a plaster wall. I used to install a lot of outdoor point-to-point and point-to-multipoint bridges back when I operated an ISP, and we knew that tree leaves were seasonal chaff clouds that attenuated and dispersed any WiFi signal that you might try to shoot through them.
The reason for the UAC prompt when you are the only account on the computer is to protect you from drive-by installers. If that prompt shows when you aren't expecting it, then do a scan and make sure your data is backed up.
As to the file delete being denied, most likely it is because the file is locked by a process. It doesn't matter what access level you have, you aren't going to delete a file that is in use before killing the process that is locking it.
AWS launched in 2006, not 2016. It has been around for 19 years so far.
I find it ironic that his account was deleted so quickly, when I had to fight to get mine deleted earlier this year when I realized that I still had an account and data out there from 2007 that I had created for testing the service and storing large video files for a website, but never really utilized.
If they are air-gapped, then someone needs physical access, and if they have physical access then no amount of security patches will make a difference, because, well, because it is Windows. That is why the most up-to-date security patches aren't a priority on those systems, touching them periodically to check logs and hardware health and apply any necessary updates at that time is generally sufficient.
I wouldn't go so far as the "sponsored article" trigger warning, but the rest of your points are valid.
The nice thing about air-gapped systems is that I don't have to worry very much about security updates. Updates on initial deployment, however, can be a pain.
I can't even do a manual install of an update on Windows 11 that was previously downloaded from the update catalog without the machine having a connection to the Internet. Even with Windows 10, I could do an offline install and then run a batch file that would install each of the updates to bring it current, all from a single USB without it requiring a network connection. Many locations I support have minimal Internet connections, and going cloud-based for everything is not always an option.
I support small businesses that are large enough or have software requirements that result in them having an on-premise file server, but for various reasons do NOT use Microsoft 365 or Entra.
Our process for these businesses is to take any hardware purchased or turned in during turnover and start with a fresh repartitioning, format, and operating system load of Win 11 Pro. These steps all take place offline. Then we disable automatic updates and put this known-clean system on a designated VLAN, load OEM drivers, an initial set of pre-downloaded Microsoft updates, and install our RMM application. Then we use the RMM to finish the updates, log system inventory, etc.
It then goes back on the shelf until needed, at which time I join it to the domain. All of the preceding steps take place at a location that is inaccessible to the domain controller, in fact, we often don't even know to which site or domain the machine will eventually be deployed. Of the machines that we DO know, we usually have no idea who the end user will be. It may be a new hire or be used to exchange existing equipment.
At no time during this process is a Microsoft account wanted or needed. If a user is using Microsoft 365, THEN a Microsoft account can be added.
Given these changes, what will be the "Microsoft recommended and supported" method of preparing these machines?
As someone who writes WordPress plugins, hosts websites (including some developed in WordPress), and manages WordPress sites hosted elsewhere, I have used the phrases "managed WordPress", "hosted WordPress", and "self-hosted WordPress" many times over the last 10+ years in bother verbal and written communications with my clients when referring to some of the work that I do. I don't claim to be original with them, but just giving examples of how others used the phrases in commerce long before the WordPress Foundation (which neither manages nor hosts websites for others) have been used in commerce.
If Mullenweg was successful in obtaining these trademarks, can you imagine how this would affect the rest of the industry in terms of other products if companies could start just sticking "managed" or "hosting" in front of their product and exclude all others from using the terms?
My preference is on the side of a hill at 100 yards as I sight in a new rifle. Although as an American I don't NEED an excuse for another rifle, I will take whatever excuse I can muster ;-) The hard drives just get the 3/8" drill bit in the drill press. Quick and easy.
This isn't an AI problem. Editors in news media have been creating "click-bait" headlines for shock value since long before the days of the Internet. How often have you picked up a newspaper or read an article from a mainstream news source where the headline contradicted the article that followed it? The only thing here is that computers are doing it faster, putting hard-working editors out of work.
Thieves, miscreants, and EVERYONE ELSE gets their loots mixed -- just like at your local bank.
If I deposit $1000 from selling a bike, and you later withdraw $500 to hit the casino, and some of the bills you withdrew came from my deposit, did the money you withdrew come from the sale of my bike or from the paycheck you deposited last week?
If you have made five $1000 deposits via check over the last month, and then later withdraw $100, which of the five deposits did that $100 come from? None of them? All of them? Since they were check deposits, the serial numbers of the $100 you withdrew would have absolutely no correlation to the source of the funds.
Mixing is a fact of life. Yes, it happens when criminals launder money -- but it also happens in legitimate transactions every day. So yes, it is the same.
It has been known for years that 90% of all US $20 bank notes were contaminated with measurable cocaine residue. A study published in Forensic Science found that 92% of $1 notes were contaminated. These are the small bills in your pocket, in the tills of every bank and cash register in the nation, not the $100 bills used in bulk to fund the large illegal transactions. We are talking about two completely different things.
You could say the same thing about your paycheck, as a portion of that money may have been used for a murder for hire at some point.
If you have a $20 bill in your pocket, there is a 90% chance that banknote is contaminated with cocaine from the drug trade.
If you have any currency, physical or virtual, then you have a mark on your back.
"WP Engine can and always has been able to access the WordPress software and plugins available on WordPress.org, as can anyone."
That is a very interesting claim, considering that this started with Automattic BLOCKING access. Everyone who has been following this fiasco knows that they are lying through their teeth. Not that they had a lot of credibility left, but they certainly lowered it even more.
When it comes to the ACF plugin, I don't think that "forked" is the right word to describe what they are doing. They made a copy, renamed it, and are apparently pushing the renamed version out to existing websites without the website owner's explicit consent under the guise of a "security fix" on an issue that has already been patched. To me it looks more like a Hijacking.
Yes, but just because Mullenweg says that WP Engine doesn't contribute doesn't make it true. If WP Engine didn't contribute to the community, then we wouldn't be talking about how WP Engine isn't going to be allowed to continue to sponsor community events such as WordCamp, how their employees and developers are no longer going to be allowed to participate in events or contribute code, or how a WordPress plugin developed and maintained by WP Engine is being forked by Automattic and renamed. Those are all contributions to the WordPress community, they just aren't direct contributions to Mullenweg's bank account.
The problem I see is that if existing licenses aren't transferrable, then anybody who has such a license and has developed products or intellectual property with it cannot put any kind of a value on that IP or product design, as it would go away in any sale or merger.
The second problem is that if ARM is trying to build a business model on non-transferrable licenses, then they really can't consider those licenses to have recurring revenue because all a licensee has to do to terminate is sell themselves to themselves.
