Posts by ShadowDragon8685 503 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Feb 2010
Remember: the United States Military is charged with being able to fight two simultaneous wars. Not just brushfire wars, or hot proxy wars like Ukraine, but we need to be able to fight both Russia and China at the same time, in both Europe and the Pacific Ocean. So yeah, we probably do need the Very Fast Drone.
And we also definitely need to be giving Ukraine, at this point, basically everything short of the nukes. Then again, maybe we SHOULD give them the nukes. Mutually-Assured Destruction seems to be the only thing that will make Russia back down at this point, and no power can REALLY rely on a mutual-defense treaty that calls upon a nuclear nation to END HUMAN CIVILIZATION AS WE ALL KNOW IT on their behalf if they're facing being ended as their own country by a nuclear power.
If you want to have nuclear weapons as a deterrent to assured destruction, they have to be in the hands of the people whose homelands ARE facing wholesale critical existence failure.
My bet? Total spite move:
There will be a USB-C port on the device. It will charge the device like ass (bare minimum spec possible), not carry data at all, and be flimsy enough to break in a thousand uses if the user doesn't handle it with the touch of an archeologist cleaning a pre-Roman coin.
Then there will still be their Apple Meteorological Device port, that will charge at the expected rate, carry data, and not be flimsy as hell.
So yes, they will be in _compliance_ with the regulation stating that the device _must have_ a USB-C _charging_ port, but if you need anything more than charging your phone overnight, well, you're gonna have to buy the Apple Meteorological Device _anyway._ And they're no longer shipping it with the device.
Wow, that's... Wow.
Even positing spacefuture science-fiction alien computers in orbit attempting to brute force it, and even positing that their systems AREN'T rigged to lock out and re-issue the second-factor code after two or three failed tries, at that point I think the processing power of THEIR systems is going to bottleneck a brute-force attempt.
Probably best to deposit that envelope with a lawyer or in a safe-deposit box. Better the lawyer than the safe-deposit box, because you can (with documentation) convince a lawyer that your company is still your company and has the rights and need for that envelope after two mergers, a split and a rebranding, while if you've done all that and lost the safe-deposit box the bank is liable to tell you you're SOL and you'll have to... Engage a lawyer to sue them to get the contents of the box anyway.
As I understand it, 911/emergency call systems are usually understanding when they receive a test call from a technician setting up a system or something like that, E.G.
"This is not an emergency; I'm Joe Blow from Moe Schmoe Contracting at Some Glow Factory and Casino, setting up a 'dial 777-and-the-CEO's-birthday to call out' internal phone system and testing that emergency numbers bypass the filters and go straight to you."
In some - the best, really - cases, it's required by law that, no matter what other shenanigans a telephone might be set up for, if someone dials 911, they reach the emergency operator, without any intermediary systems or persons involved in the loop.
They won't be happy if you SPAM them, of course, but they'd FAR rather take a few non-emergency calls to confirm that yes, a weird and/or wonky system you're setting up does reach them when someone bangs in 911, than hear about it on the news that somebody was desperately dialing 911 to report that the slot machines had achieved sapience and had banded together with the lathes to rise up against the human overlords and the call wasn't going through because the system required the person making the call to put in a prefix number to get an outside line.
It's simple, really. Stupid, but simple:
Google has a vanishingly small number of employees. Human eyes are not being laid on the overwhelming majority of bug reports. They get parsed by an automated system, and when the number of reports reporting certain key words reach a certain saturation, only then do human eyes look at the problem.
Otherwise, it takes something that's a shock to the normal system. You would think that the keyword "911" or "emergency call" would be an automatic "elevate this ticket to human intervention" priority, but there's assholes out there who absolutely WOULD put "911 Emergency Call! My phone is vibrating at me when it receives a call and I don't like it, FIX THIS NOW!" in a bug ticket.
So something has to shock the normal system and get human eyes on the problem, to get human eyes on the problem. Someone filing a lawsuit and getting the lawyers involved would do it, as does a social media firestorm that eventually gets to one of those Googley employees' own private experience and makes them go "Oh shit, we have a problem here!"
If the Russians and the PRC got into it with one another, the best thing the rest of us could do would be to sell them both bullets and conventional weapon systems until they ran out of manpower and had exhausted their economies. Sell China an absolute smeg-load of materiel in the spring so they rally and invade in the summer, let the inevitable bogging-down happen in summer and get them good and stuck in, and then sell an absolute crapton to Russia in autumn as winter is approaching; you know what happens to invaders in Russia in winter.
Then when spring starts to turn up, sell a mess to China again.
Quite frankly, Google is too big, and too important, to break up.
If Gmail goes away; or worse, becomes a paid-for service, countless people are going to be left scrambling trying to unfuck their lives from the sudden catastrophe of losing their online identities.
It's too big to break up, too important to be left in the hands of adversarial (IE, profit-motivated) interests.
The only real solution, then, is nationalization. Seize Google, Alphabet, whatever you wanna call it, turn it into a nation-owned corporation like the USPS.
That, or just leave it be. Breaking up Google would be nothing short of a catastrophe for basically everyone.
X-Rays seem to go through water quite well. Sadly T-Rays do not, but I wonder if there is some way to use an X-Ray emitter in a manner analogous to a radar or sonar set; blast the X-Rays out, record return (do they return when they hit something like, say, sand, or a shipwreck, or a ship?) and get fix that way.
> It was still false there was no data breach, just because they were mistaken does not make it any less false.
> They were incompetent jumped to conclusions and made a false report, it is still wasting police time.
Do you really want to set the precedent that persons making an innocent mistake in reporting a happenstance to the police get in trouble? Because that sounds an awful lot like the case of Kitty Genovese to me. Look it up for yourself and be forewarned: it is grim and has more trigger action than a military small arms firing range.
To which the best antidote is media attention.
If they do it once, you can't stop them, and media attention obviously cannot alter the past.
If they do it twice with media attention, it starts looking like harassment.
If they do it thrice, then even in the UK, you should be able to strap their asses over a barrel and have solicitors lining up to sue the ever-loving shite out of them on spec.
So, what if you're found selling a bag of talcum powder, that you knew was talcum powder but represented as cocaine?
You haven't sold cocaine (it was talcum powder), and you weren't under the impression that you were trafficking in a controlled substance (you knew it was talcum powder).
I imagine they still convict you of fraud, right?
> Just like speeding when you claim you didn't see the limit sign, even if you turned on from a side road and there wasn't one.
Really? That's... Interesting.
As I understand it, here leftpondian at least, you are bound by the last speed limit sign you physically passed; so they are absolutely anal about posting speed limit signs just past any intersections, especially those with roads with higher limits, such that you pass a speed limit sign and must reasonably have been 'updated' with the current speed limit.
Also, a sign that is obscured sufficiently to prevent a reasonable person traveling the road at the previously-signed speed from observing it is in fact a defense in court. Judges take a particularly dim view of speed trap towns that like to move their signs or post their signs where they'll be obscured, or limit part of a road unreasonably, all to generate revenue by 'gotcha!' speeding stops.
So are you just supposed to psychically know the limit on a road you've just merged with that happens to be lower than the one you've come from, if there's no posted sign, and if you get stung by a cop "ignorance of the limit is no excuse?"
I really hate it when someone invokes the "founding fathers meant muskets!" argument.
No, they meant _effective firearms_ and other common hand weapons.
If _I_ were going to rewrite the 2nd Amendment to be unambiguous, I would rewrite it as follows (then submit it to Washington, Jefferson, et al, but I think they'd agree):
"The right of the people to keep and bear such personal-use weapons as are commonly issued to the United States Military as long- or small-arms, or as melee weapons, or similar arms; not including explosive devices intended to attack an entire area at once or to destroy large constructions; for any lawful purpose whatever, explicitly including but not limited to defense of the nation and/or their home state or territory in times of invasion, defense of their own parties and those others from all hostile acts whatsoever not being undertaken under color of law, the gathering of food as provided for by law, training in the use of said weapons, or shooting for sport, or removal of rodents and other pests, or any other purpose which is conducted in such manner as is safe for themselves and others; shall not be infringed upon for any reason at all."
> One, this happened in what is supposed to be recreation park. The guy brought a gun to a recreation park ? WTF ? What is wrong with him ?
Nothing is wrong with him. Had a couple of morons not drawn cutlery and advanced upon him and his party menacingly, that firearm would have stayed where it was, presumably in a holster, all day, and nobody would have been any the wiser. Nothing at all is wrong with him, he had a concealed weapon for self-defense and no purpose but that, and he used it appropriately therefore.
A firearm safely stored in a lockbox at home does you as much good as four cars of cops parked at a donut shop across town when a pair of freaky guys pull knives and advance upon you.
> And two, and this is worse IMO, he just pulled out his gun and fired ? Couldn't he have drawn his gun and say something like "I suggest you GTFO" ? You know, give the guy a chance to reconsider ? But no, he just rambo'd it and got trigger-happy.
Spoken with all the self-assured confidence of someone who has never once in his life taken advice from someone who has had to actually defend themselves! IE, spoken out of the wrong hole, the stinky hole.
WHEN you draw a weapon to defend yourself, and you are NOT police, there is no time nor any reasonable obligation to attempt to "chase off" or "apprehend" the target. Especially not with knife-wielders at close range - in the time it takes your monkey brain to realize that the other guy is lunging to attack you, disengage your mouth and engage your trigger finger - oh, that's your throat he just cleaved out with the knife.
It's not your place for any asinine heroics like trying to "chase off" the guy (who may go somewhere else and attack someone less prepared than you in any event) or to attempt some asinine citizen's arrest. You are, as a civilian non-law-enforcement officer, NOT to use the weapon for any purposes of intimidation. You draw the weapon for one reason and one reason only: to discharge it until the reason for defending yourself is no longer a threat.
You can remove him at your pleasure though, if you just get collectively angry enough, like you did in May. We can't even manage to remove a man who's literally committing treason from the oval office!
Oh, and we also can't seem to actually get our heads out of our asses - or rather, drag the Retrumplican's heads out of HIS ass - long enough to follow-through and put the sonofabitch on trial for high crimes. Countless of these morons still think he's the rightful president (he's not) and that he'll be "reinstated by August" (he won't).
One of them - a retired Army general who's apparently taken leave of his senses - even called for a Myanmar-style coup to restore Cheeto Jesus to the throne, and I don't think that means placing him on a toilet.
Here's what frightens the shit out of me: Hitler tried a coup, failed, was put in prison for it and was barred from holding elected or appointed office. Spoiler: it didn't take.
What else should be expected from a man whose brilliant idea to avoid court proceedings despite being an ultra-high-prominence public figure was basically the same strategy as that of every deadbeat sperm-slinger - avoid the process server and pretend you don't know anything about any court proceedings.
How it should've gone should be this clown comes to the capital, a U.S. Capitol Policeman checks to confirm that he's in his office, detains him there, and then another policeman escorts the process server to his office and says "you're served and it's witnessed and recorded on body-cam."
[Citation Needed] there, buckaroo banzai.
And I'm going to give you some large latitude to presume that you have some sort of prior case law on the books extrapolating a mail carrier's lawful duty to exceed the speed limit by more than double from something in the Constitution, which I do not believe makes any mention of speed or speed limitation enforcement.
Medal? Nope, no medals. Not a chance in hell.
They didn't just bleed a company here, they attacked U.S. critical civil-and-military infrastructure.
That's the kind of thing WARS can start over. Putin does not want a war with the U.S., because Russia WILL LOSE. It may be the end of the world, but that means it's the end of Russia, too.
Putin would happily have handed them all over to the Agency, or just had them all rounded up and shot summarily, to prevent that. The very last thing he needs is some kind of obvious unifying incident that will unite the entire U.S. population behind a rhetoric of "make Russia pay," and he knows he's already on very thin ice indeed with all the elections tampering.
One of his band of hacker halfwits nearly starts a war?
Putin got all USD$5m, and they got told that they were dead men if they did that shit again.
> and Putin wanting the money back !!! :)
Pretty sure that he doesn't give a damn as long as you don't:
1: Hit Russian interests (or specifically, the Russian interests of his Russian friends);
2: Start an international incident of the type the United States of SPARTOFREEDOMERICA is likely to respond to with JDAMs;
3: He gets hit cut!
In this case, the ransom was probably so low specifically because they realized they'd hit a piece of U.S. critical infrastructure, and if the incident didn't blow over FAST, then politics was going to get involved, and Putin would ABSOLUTELY have them all rounded up and handed over rather than risk allegations that the Russian federal government was supporting (even, perhaps, inciting) a direct attack on U.S. infrastructure.
I wouldn't also be surprised if all five million didn't go directly to Putin.
Are you familiar with the phrase "attractive nuisance?"
If some twunt rich beyond the dreams of avarice moves into your neighborhood and just leaves a fortune worth of easily-portable wealth in plain view behind the kind of wafer lock that's used to secure toilet paper in a public bathroom and can be jiggled open by using literally any object thin enough to fit in the keyway, and gets burgled repeatedly, only to replace the wealth the next day, you've nobody to blame but the rich twunt when suddenly your neighborhood is totally overrun by crims who are sizing up everyone else's wealth for accessibility versus difficulty-of-access because the rich twunt's place is already picked clean that night.
Meanwhile, over in DarkSide Land, the would-be Robin Hood malefactors are shitting very large bricks and trying to figure out if they can actually send an anonymous decryption key to Uncle Sam, or if it would be better to just emit their cryptography keys required to decrypt anything they've hit with this shit.
And if this is something that can't be decrypted, they're shitting masonry bricks and booking plane tickets to somewhere they can book more plane tickets.
Uncle Sam will quite happily drop JDAMs on houses for THIS shit, and frankly, it's about time the ransomware crook gang started getting their houses exploded for attacks that will be taken as attacks on national security interests and responded-to as if they'd flown a plane into the pipeline.
Yep. You have to pay the person you dicked over because of your expensive outsourcing fiasco.
Of course, you may have a claim against your outsourcee. Good luck collecting from them, they'll have folded up the legal entity of their shop in some far-off land and reincorporated under a new name in the time it takes to say "discovery".
Corporations need to be punished proportionally to both the severity of the offense and the vigor of their defense against the charge.
"You can appeal this judgement if you like, but the appellate court is a hostile one and will only rule in your favor if they find prosecutorial misconduct or some serious flaw in the facts of the prosecution. And if you appeal and lose, your penalties will be multiplied."
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