Posts by dlc.usa

NASA wants a telescope on the far side of the Moon

Re: Telescope on the Moon?

"The flat earthers seem to be the least harmful of our resident nut-jobs"

Especially since they're not seen in positions responsible for nautical and aeronautical navigation.

To build a better quantum computer, look into a black hole, says professor Brian Cox

s/Narian/Narnian/ -- I was a far better proof-reader in my youth.

Nerdy Musicians

I'd love to listen in on any discussions between him and Dr. May. I wonder what they think of C.S. Lewis' idea that the Narian 'verse was sung into existence by Aslan?

BOFH: Would I lie to you, Boss?

Incomplete

Do not forget to ensure all traces of this function are also eliminated at the same time (backups?).

SpaceX Starship booster in flames after unexpected ignition

Oops

The first FAA acronym expansion is incorrect. The second is correct but aviation is misspelled.

Microsoft accidentally turned off hardware requirements for Windows 11

Meaning of "great"

The scope of great in this context is Windows and only Windows. No Windows release can ever be great within the context of all operating systems.

Waterfox: A Firefox fork that could teach Mozilla a lesson

The Browsers Are The Symptom, not The Problem

It is the ever-extending HTTP(S) protocol that has produced all these warts on warts we have to deal with, combined with anti-free-software and ethics-challenged profiteering agendas associated with the development of these "improvements". May the straight-forwardness of Gemini increase in adoption. Does anyone remember Gopher?

If your apps or gadgets break down on Sunday, this may be why: Gpsd bug to roll back clocks to 2002

76 Upvotes

Made me think of 76 trombones in Iowa (River City to be precise)--more coffee, stat! Anyway, applause, whistles, cheers, and marching bands for Mr. Miller!

Sysadmins: Why not simply verify there's no backdoor in every program you install, and thus avoid any cyber-drama?

Re: Linux proves that doesn’t work

While gcc may be the elephant in the room, under the room lurk the true leviathans, as Thompson mentioned: in the microcode, ME technologies, etc. Some years back I read an account of installing GNU/Linux in an HDD drive's controller--gave a whole new meaning to installing something on your hard drive.

After staff revolt, Freenode management takes over hundreds of IRC channels for 'policy violations'

The Suicide

So are yesterday's actions discussed here or has a new article, like https://www.devever.net/~hl/freenode_suicide been published for commentary? This is so bizarre.

Re: Sinking

Which leads to musings about who might want that outcome and why...

BOFH: But we think the UK tax authorities would be VERY interested in how we used COVID support packages

Re: IT Education (Funny thing...)

And I always strongly recommend reading the Reader Comments when I cite any El Reg article.

IT Education (Re: Funny thing...)

I like to point newbies to "https://www.theregister.com/2014/08/01/bofh_2014_episode_7/" when the subject of backup SOPs comes up.

NASA pops old-school worm logo onto Orion spacecraft

Re: Watching at the time?

I do, but what I really remember is 13. I suspect there were orders of magnitude more followers of that mission all over the planet, and it was riveting even if you weren't normally a fan of manned space flight. That's what comes from relatively open and public missions. Well has it been called NASA's finest hour.

University duo thought it would be cool to sneak bad code into Linux as an experiment. Of course, it absolutely backfired

Re: Place your bets...

Maybe it's okay if they make up for the resources wasted by the kernel.org folks by providing far more resources to the project, sort of like "carbon offsets" in the climate change community. Money is likely to be more welcome than labor, though.

No JavaScript, no trackers, no SSL security: Retro computing boffin gives Google News a Netscape 1.1 makeover

Nobody Mentioned Gemini

The TechRights website is pushing the Gemini facility/protocol (much like Gopher) and I think this is an alternative technology to pay attention to as it's attracting mindshare. Most browsers don't speak gemini so you need one that does, with bollux (a bash script) preeminent. It's like using lynx or links2 to a large extent. To get it:

cd ~/my_git_tree

git clone https://tildegit.org/acdw/bollux

cd bollux

cp -p bollux bollux.sh

chmod a+x bollux.sh

man -l bollux # to read the man page

man -l bollux.conf # to read about configuration

./bollux.sh gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2021/02/28/gemini-ddos-protection/index.gmi

To open a link, type a lowercase o and type the note's number.

Bell Labs transfers copyright of influential ‘Plan 9’ OS to new foundation

Re: Given that there's been no development on Plan9 since 2015...

If you search "9front", you'll learn where Plan9 has been going...

Forget Snow Day: Baltimore's 115,000+ public school kids get Ransomware Day, must check Win PCs for infection

Baltimore County != Baltimore City--the intersection set is null. Baltimore City is effectively the State of Maryland's 24th county.

Arecibo Observatory brings forward 'controlled demolition' plans by collapsing all by itself

Re: Very sad, but...

At first I wondered if you were referring to the USA's Union Arch bridge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Arch_Bridge). The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers maintains that as part of the Washington, DC water works system.

Mysterious metal monolith found in 'very remote' part of Utah

Dimensions

According to the book, the dimensions continued with 16, 25, 36, etc.

Every major OS maker misread Intel's docs. Now their kernels can be hijacked or crashed

Linux Patch Was Developed in 2015

...according to Alan Cox who posted this link in support of the statement:

https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2018-8897

so the question becomes why wasn't it picked up before a few weeks ago?

Well, the third internal link explains that:

On Linux, the issue is fixed by commit d8ba61ba58c8 ("x86/entry/64: Don't use IST entry for #BP stack"), which has been available in Linus' tree and -stable kernels for some time. (Yes, the patch really was written in 2015. I fixed the issue as part of related work by accident, but I wasn't aware that the issue was at all urgent at the time, so the patch was never pushed out.) Most other vendors should have their own advisories and fixes available now.

BOFH: Honourable misconduct

Re: who would play BOFH and PFY?

"Given the rate at which Bosses are introduced to rolls of carpet and quicklime this would need to be a series of guest appearances."

Indeed. They are the equivalent of original Star Trek Red Shirts...

Astro-boffinry world rocked to its very core: Shock as Andromeda found to be not much bigger than Milky Way

Re: Nice photo!

"They use what's called a clock drive to rotate the telescope/camera so that it cancels out the Earth's rotation."

Which is useless unless the instrument uses an equatorial mount to provide a suitable rotational axis, one parallel to the rotational axis of the Earth itself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equatorial_mount)--portable telescopes can be tricky to set up with adequate alignment.

Wanna exorcise Intel's secretive hidden CPU from your hardware? Meet Purism's laptops

Relevance of Link to https://haspoc.sics.se/material/HASPOC_platform_overview.pdf

This is not documenting the NSA HAP specification based upon Intel x86_64/ME motherboards. Rather, it provides an overview of an apparent parallel effort to design a High Assurance Platform by an organization named High Assurance Security Products On COTS platforms (HASPOC) using a Swedish domain and, most interestingly, their design is based upon ARM, not x86_64. I do not know why this was cited in the article, but I am quite happy you brought this group and their work to my attention.

Linus Torvalds may have damned systemd with faint praise

"That's interesting..."

Where are all the fanbois?

Presto crypto: IBM releases gruntier, faster Z14 mainframe

Market It Better Than Usual

Prove to us that there are no backdoors, and that decrypted data cannot be exfiltrated by SEs and HMCs. Please!

First-day-on-the-job dev: I accidentally nuked production database, was instantly fired

> "Do what you feel is right, Sir. However, I promise you that if you get legal involved, I'll make you famous."

I would never say that. You need to complete the live test of the madhouse by including legal. If they decide to go after you, the lawyers also have earned their share of the notoriety.

For now, GNU GPL is an enforceable contract, says US federal judge

Re: The Shockwave Rider

Relevance: "Hippies were a thing when The Shockwave Rider was still science-fiction..."

TSR was published about ten years before the IBM PC was announced, and the hippy counter-culture was already past its heyday. One can argue when TSR ceased to be fictional but surely opening the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation_Network to commercial traffic had to be a prerequisite. I would argue the legitimization of working as a "rasher" is also a prerequisite.

'Crazy bad' bug in Microsoft's Windows malware scanner can be used to install malware

Re: Too true

<cough>Intel AMT authentication</cough> (if you believe SemiAccurate)

Red alert! Intel patches remote execution hole that's been hidden in chips since 2010

Re: PANIC!!!!!!!!!! :-)

"Neither of my Linux laptops seem to have it"

See http://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/INTEL_MEI_ME.html for a list of PCI IDs.

A switch with just 49 ns latency? What strange magic is this?

Re: The future...

"The trading systems should add up to 5 seconds of random delay to each trade to stop traders wasting money on technology and location trying to screw each other."

If the markets were truly free, yes, but that was the point regarding the broken financial system comment--markets are NOT free anymore, and no governments with the necessary jurisdiction are inclined to intervene. This is not a problem of technology, of course, but one of societal corruption.

Our Sun's been using facial scrub: No spots for two weeks

Not As Usual

The article is totally oblivious how remarkably minimal the past maximum was. It started late, didn't get very high, and abated earlier than has been typical. Scientists are still trying to understand it. The Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_maximum is rather helpful.

Arch Linux: In a world of polish, DIY never felt so good

! systemd Arch

Exactly. But there's CRUX, from which Arch arose, which is even more Spartan and devoted to KISS principles, and will never, ever incorporate the systemd madness. These days documentation for build-from-source distros is more similar than not, so CRUX lets its community search Linux From Scratch, Arch, Gentoo, etc. for insights to issues rather then spend a lot of time developing package-specific prose. CRUX may be for an even more experienced GNU/Linux user, but it should be investigated if you are considering Arch, especially if you're a real purist.

Eric Raymond revisits his biggest mistake, updates 'Pilot' language after 20 years

Re: Software luminary?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond

"From the late 1990s onward, due in part to the popularity of his essay, Raymond became a prominent voice in the open source movement." Hence, luminary. Maybe that was before your time.

He has writen dozens of essays/books, including "The Art of UNIX Programming", "Homesteading the Nooshpere", and that short UNIX newbie gem, "The Loginataka" (http://catb.org/esr/faqs/loginataka.html).

Visit http://www.catb.org/~esr/ to go to the source.

FBI won't jail future US president over private email server

Confirmation Hearings

The "confirmation hearings" for elected positions are supposed to be the election campaigns, the judges being the voters supported by an entirely unbiased, objective free press. What the Founding Fathers voiced as one prerequisite for the viability of the government they designed has ceased to manifest (another was franchised citizens were themselves reputable, moral, and responsible). They effectively guaranteed their government would break down if franchised citizens would not or could not exercise appropriate due diligence over those running for office. Jefferson in particular believed their government would inevitably become corrupted to the point of necessitating an armed revolution as the only possible remedy.

Hillary Clinton: My promises to America's tech industry

Trust

Politicians are famous for saying whatever the immediate listeners want to hear in an effort to garner their votes. It is unsurprising they will support polar-opposite positions depending on their audience. What is surprising is how coverage documenting such inconsistencies does not change voters' beliefs about the reliability of campaign promises made by such deceivers.

This is an amazing election. It is illogical to believe this can end well regardless of the outcome.

Russia poised to unleash 'Son of Satan' ICBM

What has changed to make the outcome different?

Perhaps the ratios of debt to GDP?

Storage-class memory just got big – 256Mbit big, at least

Re: Does It Also Need DRAM-style Refreshing?

The Wikipedia article makes it plain it persists without power--no refreshing required.

Does It Also Need DRAM-style Refreshing?

No mention of that so I suppose it shares that feature.

Show us the code! You should be able to peek inside the gadgets you buy – FTC commish

Re: We need another Underwriters Labs!

UL does not test for resistance to sabotage/subversion.

Trend Micro AV gave any website command-line access to Windows PCs

"Ouch! That has to hurt."

Indeed, but entirely earned. They clearly need outside help.

VMware lawsuit fallout causes funding issues for GPL lobby group

Re: Please help Conservancy !

Do you have evidence they are ignoring non-compliance regarding any rights they hold?

Re: Please help Conservancy !

"Conservancy is the only organization doing GPL compliance work in the USA."

Ah, I think you forgot about the Free Software Foundation. They also seek to assist offenders with becoming compliant, and a lot of GPLed software copyrights have been assigned to them so they have standing to go to court if necessary.

Junk patent ditched in EAST TEXAS

Re: USPTO is the real problem.

Outsource it to the Swiss? An interesting approach and worthy of a feasibility study that probably can be completed within a few decades.

US librarians defy cops, Feds – and switch on their Tor exit node

Unique Experience

Hands down, The Donald has more experience going bankrupt than all the other candidates combined. I expect that will come in handy for the next POTUS, if not the sitting one. On top of that he's a sublime twofer--bread AND circuses.

Sunk by 'patent troll': Iron Speed director asks 'anyone want to buy us?'

"Also if the patent is found to be bogus then the Patent office should foot half the reward to the wounded party."

This assumes the responsible people in the Patent office really care about the taxpayers' money; i.e., this is not good enough, but it's moving in the right direction.

Mind-blowing secrets of NSA's security exploit stockpile revealed at last

Re: "Extra Toner"

Inquiring minds want to know if the increased expense of magnifying apparatus for vision-challenged employees and contractors was accounted for.

UH OH: Windows 10 will share your Wi-Fi key with your friends' friends

Ignorant Users

"When it comes to technology, they are utterly clueless - they wouldn't have the first idea how to look for them through the file system (let alone know what a file system is), and I'd be amazed if they had the wherewithal to go downloading apps to reveal the passwords."

I think many script kiddies fit that description. Heroin addicts usually start by associating with a pusher.

Where Were The Lawyers?

Wasn't their legal staff involved in looking at the liability exposures the design could potentially allow? Do they believe MS is immune here? Or is there no defensive legal section? These decisions are not making good sense from a shareholder's perspective.

Chrome, Debian Linux, and the secret binary blob download riddle

Re: Change Is All That Matters

Note to DDs: anything_newer != always_better ;

Funny definition of evil Google has there.

That's only the second time I've upvoted an AC comment.