Posts by sisk 2455 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Mar 2010
Microsoft's long-term plan for dealing with competition hasn't changed in 30 years. I see no reason to celebrate their embracing of something I currently use.
Then again, their position isn't as strong as it once was. Linux completely owns the OS market. The year of the Linux desktop is probably never coming, true, but the year of the Linux everything else just keeps repeating itself and getting bigger every time. Everything else is a MUCH bigger market.
Care to clue us into why, Mr. Tinfoil Hat? What do they have to gain? They don't do things - especially things that cause issues in the public sphere - unless they have a reason.
The US government has done worse to the public than WannaCry - Tuskagee for instance - and attempted even worse than that - Operation Northwoods for example. And that's just what they openly admit to. When you get into the top secret stuff, who knows what goes on in the minds of spooks.
Not that I actually believe for an instant that this was a US/UK intelligence mission. That's absurd. But don't kid yourself into think that the reason it's absurd is because they wouldn't. If some CIA analyst thought that the US might stand half a chance to gain something of even the most wispy significance from it they absolutely would, and their reasoning would not necessarily be readily apparent. It's absurd because the whole thing was orders of magnitude less sophisticated than it would be had it come from a group of 1st world state sponsored hackers.
By my understanding of the GPLv2 Grsecurity is completely without a legal leg to stand on here. They're illegally tacking conditions onto existing code which MUST be licensed under the GPL (as all Linux kernel patches must be thanks to the copyleft nature of the GPL). In short, either GPLv2 is valid or Grsecurity will lose.
Wasn't this already known? Or am I mistaken about that?
At any rate, I've never had much of a problem with onions. Only the most potent of potent onions seem to affect me, so 99% of the time I can cut them up with impunity. The other 1% of the time folks in the next room are tearing up from them.
My ex accessed my email without permission during our divorce (about 90% sure it was her anyway, given that I traced it as far as the tiny town that she was living in at the time and, frankly, what are the odds that the only time anyone has gotten into my email it was anyone other than the person who had a reason to be digging up dirt and happened to know the password?). There was nothing in there I'd be unwilling to publish to World + Dog, so I changed the password and let it go and made sure she knew she'd been caught. It just wasn't worth the effort of pushing it any further than that. Hell, I even racked the whole thing up as my own dumb fault for not changing the password as soon as she moved out.
Still, I'll be interested in the outcome here.
The educational focus of the show was more on history, not science.
It was actually about half and half. Go back and watch season 1 of the classic again and you'll see it, particularly in The Daleks (the second story), where they go into pretty good detail about the basics of electricity. Considering that they were working with a 20 minute episode format the amount of time spent on the subject can't be anything less than an intentional lesson for the viewers.
The Doctor has always been decidedly of the male gender and mostly - with the exception of a couple incarnations - of asexual orientation. It least he's always seemed completely uninterested in romantic/sexual entanglements. Which, if you've ever read the book that deals with Time Lord reproduction (I'm not certain of the title right at the moment. Lungbarrow maybe?), makes perfect sense. 8 and 10 seemed heterosexual, 11 seemed omnisexual (in the sense that he was totally oblivious to gender beyond using it as a method to assign pronouns) but didn't have much of a libido. 12 has hinted a couple times at a mild, cautious attraction to Missy, but he's unwilling to explore it for, I think, obvious reasons.Though that may just be me reading into scenes something that wasn't there. And I think it quite obvious, especially in the last couple episodes, that Missy was very attracted to him.
I think we can safely say that Time Lords do indeed have male and female genders.
As I've been saying for years, I've no problem with a female Doctor provided she got the role for the right reasons. If Whittaker happens to be the best one for the job in a fair decision process, great. In that case she'll be a great Doctor and we've much to look forward to. If they went into the process set on a female Doctor for the sake of PC and that's the only reason they picked her then I've a problem with it. "This role needs to be a woman because it's always been a man" is an absolutely stupid reason to cast a female actor for the role. "This actress will be great in this role that's always been a man" is a great reason for a gender swap.
I suspect that 3 or 4 episodes into the next season we'll all be able to tell which has happened.
systemd with faint praise
If you consider that half the Reg readership moves to DEFCOM 2 at the first mention of systemd
There's a good reason for that. Systemd is a horrendous bit of code being foisted on us by a small group that refuses to take constructive criticism as a cue to improve their product. And, on top of that, some of their decisions are just stupid to begin with. For instance, what kind of fool thinks binary logs are a good idea? What are you supposed to do with those when you can't get into the system, the time you need the logs most? And that's just one of a dozen major design flaws with it. Forget the fact that the entire thing utterly fails the test of doing one thing well and instead is mediocre at a whole bunch of things. It's just got flawed premises at the foundations.
There's an axim that states that a complex system that's broken will be found to have either evolved from or replaced a simple system that worked just fine. This is absolutely the case with systemd. Fortunately, at least for the time being, most of us (sorry Gnome users) can switch to OpenRC instead.
PETA are simply insane, human-hating, SJW Marxists
I disagree. Even the reality challenged group that is SJWs look good next to PETA. The typical SJW actually believes that their views are valid and need to be heard, including the shouting down of dissenting voices (which, more often than not, are the voices of reason when SJWs are involved). PETA, on the other hand, are as a group so hypocritical that I have difficulty believing that anyone who remains associated with them for more than a few months could actually believe their rhetoric.
Not to mention such insanities as arguing that Mario's Tanooki suit somehow harms animals. Even the most mentally challenged and hardcore animal rights activist would have trouble actually believing that one.
It also reveals how ethically challenged PETA is.
In order for that to be the case their ethical problems would have to have been hidden in the first place. Or do you seriously think that any rational person could mistake a group that thinks it's OK to throw red paint on someone for wearing fake fur even while euthanizing more animals annually than any other group in the world for an ethically sound group?
Bah, I use public embarrassment as a deterrent. For instance, my daughter knows that her learning to twerk will result in me learning to twerk and then chaperoning all of her school dances. For some reason her interest in learning to twerk evaporated the instant she was made aware of that fact.
often refuse to entertain chrome or firefox , let alone a Linux browser.
Most systems don't know the difference between Chrome or Firefox on Windows and Chrome or Firefox on Linux. This is doubly true since DRM has been implemented in the browsers themselves (hence why we now have Netflix on Linux). It's incredibly difficult for me to imagine what, in this day and age, you could do to a web based app that would make it run in Chrome or Firefox on Windows but not in Chrome or Firefox on Linux. And if your web based app only supports any one browser then, in my not-so-humble professional opinion, you've done it very wrong.
There's no particular reason why Linux is more secure than Windows.
False. The architecture of Linux makes it inherently more secure (note: more secure != perfectly secure) than Windows. Unless Microsoft throws out all existing Windows code and starts from scratch that will never change. You just can't equal the security of Linux with the foundations that Windows is built upon (though, in all fairness, they have gotten closer than I would have believed possible in recent years).
If Linux becomes the dominant OS, that'll get attacked too.
Linux IS the dominant OS. It's got an install base three times that of all other OSes combined. Just because it doesn't have much presence in the tiny fraction of the market that is desktop PCs doesn't mean it's got a small attack surface. It also gets attacked all the time, and every time a Linux attack enjoys widespread success it makes headlines. Which, I think, says a lot for how rare such an event is.
And just at the moment it seems that Linux security is in a bit like a mess
Um....are we living in the same reality? Because, no, it's not. What is a mess is the security of Linux based IoT devices, but that's the fault of manufacturers who ship the things with absolutely absurd configurations like an unsecured adhoc wifi network with no easy way for the end user to shut it off. Just as you can lock down any OS pretty well these days you can also turn the security of any device into Swiss cheese with bad configuration, and that is exactly what's happening.
10 years? Normally I'm optimistic about Musk's projects, but I think the necessary radiation shielding for a viable, long term Mars colony is more than 10 years out. And then we need to figure out a way to grow enough food for a million people there. Sure, you've got free fertilizer a la Matt Damon once you get rolling, but that's going to take some time to build up the levels you're going to need.
Sadly the rocket to get people to Mars en masse is nowhere near the only technical challenge here.
To catch the malware you have to not only leave your pi on with SSH ports open to the internet, but you also have to leave your password on the default. The current version of Raspian will complain every time you log in if the SSH server is on and you haven't changed the password. What kind of fool uses default passwords?
Professional astronomers are such killjoys. Wow signal? Comets, not aliens. Tabby's star? Probably comets or asteroids, not aliens. Streaks of light outside the ISS? Lens flares, not aliens. Anal probes? Drunk rednecks, not aliens (actually, I'm kinda glad that one's not aliens...I don't think I'd be interested in meeting an "advanced" species that obsessed over another species rectums to the point of kidnapping people just to stick something up their butts).
Ah well. Sooner or later something's gonna be aliens. Probably. I hope.
One of the latest sentences included conviction for the possession of 'The Anachist Cookbook'.
Have you, ever, read it?
I have.
It was published in the early 1970s; the contents are approaching something like 'Dangerous Things for Boys
Not dangerous. Suicidal. It doesn't take much chemistry knowledge to realize that mixing plaster with explosives then chucking it into the oven to dry faster isn't going to end well. Or that nitroglycerin is liable to ruin your day if you don't do something about the waste heat from the chemical reaction that produces it. Or...actually, you know what? Just give the thing to terrorists. Air drop pallets of copies of it into ISIS training camps. That alone should make a big dent in the problem. Granted the ones that survive will be the ones with more than two brain cells to rub together and thus be harder to catch, but the total volume should be down to manageable levels.
False dichotomy.
The dichotomy is in no way false. You cannot have your cake and eat it too: either you're secure or you're not. There is no false dichotomy here, just the only two options that exist in reality: strong security or no security.
And, for the record, if your voicemail isn't encrypted then it should be. Unless, of course, you don't care if your nosy neighbor listens to it. It's not that Whatsapp should have more security than your voicemail, it's that your voicemail should be at least at the level that Whatsapp is if you care at all about your privacy. And your money already enjoys end-to-end encryption (unless you're so foolish as to log into your bank account without SSL that is). Were I explaining this to my nosy neighbor I absolutely would sidestep the question with a more relevant one: what makes him think he should be able to listen to my voicemail?
This is why election machines need to have no network connections. The data on them needs to be carried, via some sort of removable storage medium, to the counting center by a small group of people, preferably with opposing political views to prevent collaboration, who can ensure that each remains honest. And then the votes need to be done using machines that do not have network connections. If you really need to have the votes tallied quickly you can use unofficial, preliminary counts transferred by email or phone, but the final, official count needs to be from data that has never directly touched or been touched by the internet.
Keep the whole process offline and it becomes massively more difficult to hack, and given what's at stake that's an absolute must-do.
Not to defend Trump or May or to deride the main point of the article but damn that's a lot of bias.
Mind you I don't actually disagree with anything that was said here (Trump's a blight, I don't know enough about May to have an opinion - yes, that's embarrassing typical 'Merican of me, and I do indeed think that taking care of people is a much better solution to the current problems than clamping down on them), but more hard fact and less opinion in news - especially news involving politics - is usually a good thing.
This isn't exactly news to anyone with more than a passing interest in space. Actually the only part I found surprising at all is that a trip to Mars ONLY doubles the cancer risk. I'd have guessed it would triple or quadruple the risk.
The take away is that we need better radiation shielding before we can seriously consider a manned mission to Mars.
Don't worry too much about it. I'm convinced that sooner or later social media be viewed in much the same light as tobacco use: socially acceptable, but only just barely because we all know how bad it is for your (mental) health. When (not if) society hits the point where social media addiction enjoys the same exposure and stigma as gambling addiction people will leave Facebook in droves.
There's no reason that IoT has to use Swiss cheese as a firewall. I think you'd be hard pressed to break into any of the various IoT devices in my house. Mind you these aren't off-the-shelf IoT devices. They're bespoke devices with various SBCs and Arduinos at their cores put together by someone who knows a thing or ten about security and that, unlike most commercial IoT devices, get updated regularly. They're both less expensive - the latest device, controlling 8 light switches, cost about $10 to build and could have been less expensive if I'd used an Arduino instead of a SBC but I was being lazy - and far more secure - I'm fairly sure that they're all a good deal harder to break into than the my router - than the stuff I could buy to do the same jobs. But if a middle aged nerd can build IoT devices in his spare time that aren't chock full of security holes I don't see why a company building delivery bots that are going to be responsible for millions of dollars worth of product couldn't do it.
Personally I've got a pretty low opinion of Assange as a person and from his public behavior I believe it is entirely possible that he is exactly that kind of douchebag. That said, the accusation doesn't make it so.
All the same I believe his fears of extradition to the US and harsh treatment therein are completely justified. I also believe he missed his best window of potential freedom. Had he left the embassy six months ago Obama would have probably been inclined to leave him alone. I mean how would it look if the man commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence and then went after Assange? Now though? With a lunatic^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^hTrump at the helm? Yeah, he's got more reason to be afraid than ever.
the Linux kernel is only a part of Android. Google could at any time decide to swap it for something else
Technically they could, but why would they ever consider such a thing? The Linux kernel is available to them for free, and every time Torvalds and co. release an update they get a raft of bug fixes, performance enhancements, and feature additions available them without having to put a penny into R&D. Dropping Linux from Android in favor of a different kernel would be a stupid move for Google.
I've not ever bothered looking her up - honestly I don't care about the man's personal life and likely never will unless by some unlikely fluke of fate he someday ends up in my circle of friends - but I can just imagine the type of woman who could handle Linus in all his ill tempered, foul mouthed, genius glory would not be the type of woman you'd want to cross.
Thinking about it artists uploading stuff to YouTube may be part of the industry's problem here. They can't control what we listen to anymore. They tried to shut down Lindsey Stirling, but thanks to YouTube she's a millionaire now. They tried to shut down Pentatonix, even broke their record deal AFTER they spent their savings to move to LA, but thanks to YouTube they're now one of the more popular groups around. There are dozens of success stories like that. If the industry had their way we wouldn't know who any of them were.
Maybe, just maybe, YouTube isn't the problem here.
This is a repeat of the research done years ago that showed a boom in the music industry correlated strongly with Napster activity. I don't recall whether or not they were able to show causation, but they certainly had good evidence to at least look in that direction. What the music industry was getting was basically free advertising. Things have change a bit since then so it's probably not as good for the industry as it was back when it took half an hour to download a song, but I could see the concept still working.
All the same when getting music from YouTube it's probably best to stick to the artists' official channels. That's what I try to do.
So...the nation's cybersecurity is now directly in the hands of an administration who's transition plan included intentionally creating thousands of dead links on their own website. I'm truly beginning to think that doomsday preppers might have a point, even if some of them are clearly off their rockers.
I'm curious, genuinely curious, how may people in this age of webmail and smart phones are still using Thunderbird. Or, for that matter, any other desktop email client not chosen for them by an employer. I mean I know the things aren't dead and I'm not implying that they are or should be, but certainly their usage has to have fallen off rather dramatically in recent years, right?
There's a strong correlation between Facebook usage and clinical depression. We all know that correlation isn't causation, but when you've also got data to prove that FB users' brains are absolutely swimming in dopamine - which is abruptly cut off the instant they post something that doesn't get any likes or, worse, log off and go outside for some fresh air - it's pretty clear that in this case it's at least a contributing factor.
I left FB temporarily about a year ago on the advice of my divorce lawyer. That temporary departure became permanent as soon as I realized how much better my life is without it. Just one more piece of trash to be kicked out of my life in the name of making my life livable again.
But can I be certain that Microsoft’s offering will work with my Office 365 world?
Erm...No, actually. Microsoft has broken IE compatibility in O365 at least twice that I know of. That's actually the entire reason we finally added Firefox to our system images around here instead of simply allowing users to install it if they needed it.
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