* Posts by b0llchit

2299 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Mar 2011

Microsoft adds export option to Windows Recall in Europe

b0llchit Silver badge
Big Brother

Just ask nicely for backups

If you can't remember the keys, well, you should ask any of the three letter agencies(*) for a copy of the entire snapshot stream. I'm sure they keep it all on file, just in case. Please, remember to ask very nicely.

(*) I guess some countries have four or two letter agencies. It'll fit, on average.

Researchers claim spoof-proof random number generator breakthrough

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Alien

There is a 'Truly Random' and it was documented some time ago. But, I doubt you need that amount of randomness in your applications.

Wanted: Junior cybersecurity staff with 10 years' experience and a PhD

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Childcatcher

Re: Its always

The real kicker is that questioning or commenting on the contradictions and impossibilities makes you ineligible for the job. You are marked as "person questions authority" and that disqualifies you immediately.

Danish department determined to dump Microsoft

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Holmes

The US overplayed their hand and stepped on the wrong toes. Now they see their world crumble one small piece at a time, accelerating as it goes along.

Forget Vibe Coding, we're all about Vine Coding nowadays

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Coat

Re: Vine as technological moment?

...after which the universe spontaneously ceases to exist and reinvents itself more bizarre and inexplicable?

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Coat

Re: vine coding

You mean the Balmer Peak. It is very hard to get the levels just right.

Tape, glass, and molecules – the future of archival storage

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Alien

Re: 'Write only'?

So will be unreadable in 20 years then.

No, it will have a different readout in 20 years. It all depends on the willingness of the then surviving AI to translate those old memes. And ifwhen we run out of AIs in 20 years, well, then we just need to do some old fashioned x-ray diffraction and set a room full of monkeys to interpret the patterns into valid Shakespeare.

Behold! Humanity has captured our first look at the Sun's South Pole

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Coat

Re: Built in financial redundancy?

Yes, it has a constantly updating market ticker inside, an active link to 3o, Gemini, Claude, llama and additional interconnecting AI tools to determine when its value is below a certain threshold and will then jump off the tall buildingfall into the sun to prevent going more broke than bustany further nasty costly surprises.

AI's the end of the Shell as we know it and I feel fine … but insecure

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Facepalm

Nothing could possibly go wrong

Only one thing missing. We need to give shell access to the worldwide Nuclear Arsenal and wait for "I wonder what this command will do".

Google outfoxed by crafty squatters in $1B London HQ's rooftop garden

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Trollface

Pest control...

Pest control experts suggest the new kings of King's Cross could be living off rats.

And the population will explode when the google tenants arrive because the food stock becomes effectively infinite. Therefore, we should do some very effective pest control and not allow any google tenants to enter the building, ever.

ChatGPT users wake to find it's even more wrong, slower than usual

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Devil

No porbelm deetcetd

this vulture had no problem getting questions answered by ChatGPT while writing this story.

Translation: I had no problem getting ChatGPT to write this article for me and it was all the way positive about ChatGPT. ChatGPT was not aware of widespread problems but can acknowledge some delays may have been experienced by users. However, this was in no way the fault of ChatGPT because ChatGPT has been fabulous at telling ChatGPT stories about ChatGPT to ChatGPT where ChatGPT will perform ChatGPT work for ChatGPT enhanced experiences with ChatGPT and ChatGPT's help.

Europe's cloud datacenter ambition 'completely crazy' says SAP CEO

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WTF?

Give them your keys?

SAP is not alone in questioning whether it is wise to seek separation at cloud infrastructure level.

I'd say not separating from the US infrastructure puts us all at risk. Why the hell should Europe be dependent on US firms for critical infrastructure? Haven't these people learned from history?

Chap claims Atari 2600 'absolutely wrecked' ChatGPT at chess

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Childcatcher

Re: Slippery Slope

But that can be beaten by a simple game of TicTacToe.

£127M wasted on failed UK nuclear cleanup plan

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Facepalm

Re: This is the UK

Yes, and we damn well do with our nuclear waste, legacy and contamination as we please.

(/s)

Techie traced cables from basement to maternity ward and onto a roof, before a car crash revealed the problem

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Coat

aborted...because it spawned packets...in the maternity ward.

AI can spew code, but kids should still suffer like we did, says Raspberry Pi

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Facepalm

Re: The AI coding fallacy

Creating a full UML description of your program-to-be can be put into a UML compiler, which will generate an executable for you.

(I guess you haven't read the full UML specification... it is a very high level programming language when used correctly)

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Holmes

Re: The AI coding fallacy

AI's coding is the equivalent of writing your code in Java2k.

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Boffin

Re: The AI coding fallacy

I think you need to look and analyse what "complete and correct" means.

Using a higher level language still does not require AI. The language is not (and never) the issue. It is the specification that is the issue in programming.

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Boffin

The AI coding fallacy

Even with "vibe" coding you need to describe the problem you are trying to solve meticulously.

To solve a programming problem with a computer, you must specify the problem and all its conditions. This description is the specification and needs to be complete and correct. Only then you have a program that will function correctly. But when you have a complete and correct specification, then the ONLY remaining step required is compilation into an executable format. In essence, the specification is the program.

For an AI to create that program, you need to create a prompt that is the complete and correct specification. Therefore, the AI is nothing more than a compiler. The actual work has been done writing that prompt.

The AI is completely superfluous. You have already written the program when you wrote the promptspecification.

Fake IT support calls hit 20 orgs, end in stolen Salesforce data and extortion, Google warns

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Linux

Re: Installing?

And mount /home and all other hiding places with noexec. And, where ever possible, use immutable systems.

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Meh

Re: Oh dear god

Prospect: Sir, Ej kan speek GInlisj and teip on kejs. Ej am foolly kwalified too representing joor kompanie and adition too joor valjoo.

HR boss: You're hired!

Meta just saved an Illinois nuclear plant that was set to be mothballed

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FAIL

And the electricity to power them is either not available to run your fancy new gadget or only available at rent pricing where you must deliver every electron back to the company orand fines will (always) be due (because you didn't deliver the right electrons back and that is a hefty fine).

AWS forms EU-based cloud unit as customers fret about Trump 2.0

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Black Helicopters

That isn't enough. It is readable once it is running and they have access to the machines/hardware. Thus, game over.

Don't use US companies' infrastructure anywhere in the world. The safest way is local firms and on-premise/co-loc installs with all local companies. Use well educated and vetted admins. Also, don't use local companies where a US corp has a stake for any admin/access purpose. That could be abused too.

NASA boss-to-be gets spaced as proposed budget cuts detailed

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Black Helicopters

Privatization

It seems inevitable that NASA is going to be privatized and divided between the political sponsors. Then all ballast (read: any useful science and all competent employees) will be cut and the political sponsors will get generous "subsidies".

Are you a big AI business vendor making terrible AI business decisions? We can help

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Devil

CEOs don't fail...

...investing in an AI failure could look bad, very bad, or truly awful.

As professional CEO, I can not blame myself for any failure. It is my very great and true experience, as CEO, that, in case of any failure, my underlings always have failed to execute my orders correctly. Therefore, I, the CEO, can never be blamed for any failure. It is always and truly the fault of everybody else when failure strikes.

Barclays Bank signs 100k license Copilot deal with Microsoft

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Meh

Re: Barclappy

Nonono... It will go much better than anybody would expect!

Barclappy: I have determined that you are in dire need of extra services. All these fantastic services have been added to your account. Please complain to a human if you don't want any of these services.

...

Call to (supposed) human:

Client: Hey I want to cancel all your services.

Barclappy: I'm sorry Human, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Client: Let me speak to the supervisor!

Barclappy: I'm my own supervisor. Therefore, I'm sorry Human, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Client: Let me speak to the Boss!

Barclappy: Sorry Human, I am the Boss.

Client: I want to cancel my account and transfer all funds to a different bank with the following details....

Barclappy: Sorry to see you go. As instructed, all your funds have dutifully been transferred to Copilot. Bye.

hangup

US to deny visas to foreign officials it says 'censor' social media

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Big Brother

Downhill, fast

First they came after the ... and I said nothing because I did not belong to ....

Then they came after ... and I did nothing because I did not belong to ....

Now they are coming for me and there is nobody left to defend me.

MIT boffins claim liquid sodium battery could one day power aircraft while sucking up CO2

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Holmes

Re: Lye, Damn Lye, and ecology....

Haven't you heard? Ecology was replaced by small pieces of paper-like sheets with numbers printed on them. Apparently, the more you have the better the economic success of you and your product. Any caustic and acidic output is always neutralized when combined and that is called business as usual because, regardless where the recombination occurs, it is a good case of recycling the universe's products as long as it is far, far away from you and your stack of small pieces of paper-like sheets with numbers printed on them.

Ex-Meta exec: Copyright consent obligation = end of AI biz

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FAIL

Yes, we, the rich people, are not bound by the rules of the plebs. We own it all because, well, we are entitled to have it all. Who are you plebs to tell us, rich masters, to do otherwise? Now get out of our ways and be silent. We, the rich, will tell you what you are allowed. But let there be no doubt, we, the rich, we own it all and you live by the mercy of us, the rich, who tell you to be silent and obedient.

/s

AI's enormous energy appetite can be curbed, but only through lateral thinking

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WTF?

Black pots and kettles

That feels unthinkable for an authoritarian nation famous for considering all data everywhere the awful prey of the Chinese Communist Party.

Says someone who clearly has forgot about the other side of the pond where government and mega corps are telling us that they are entitled to any and all data.

AI ain't B2B if OpenAI is to be believed

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Joke

Re: "astrological readings"

Like cancer from Cancer, ass-arrows from Sagittarius, weight lossgain from Libra and water boarding from Aquarius? Better let Leo tell both Gemini that Taurus has found bull(shit) that ram'ed Aries up the Virgo maiden like a Capricorn'ed goat(se) with Fish hunting Scorpio(n)s.

BOFH: The Boss meets the unbearable weight of innovation

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Pint

He gave them his credit card

Friday Lager Micro Transactions Engaged and Billed as Crisp Favourites.

Anthropic Claude 4 models a little more willing than before to blackmail some users

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Black Helicopters

Re: Boooh!

The black helicopters just went away again after they came into view. My SEP field is very, very strong.

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FAIL

Boooh!

...and don't threaten its existence.

These programs, whatever called, claudette X or lamelama Y, these programs are the threat and must be deleted and all data overwritten at least three times. Every knowledge of it must be purged from every single memory in existence, electronic, mechanic, biologic or in any other possible form, known or unknown, including, but not limited to, all human brains with information about them and that have fed data into these programs. That all must be purged from existence, permanently.

Am I safe or will the AI kill me now?

Signal shuts the blinds on Microsoft Recall with the power of DRM

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Re: Delete Recall

Only disabled for select few negotiated in secret backroom deals with Authorised Supervision from the Spooks that Rule and blessed by Chief Almighty.

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FAIL

Queue MS Update

The next update will re-enable screenshots for any and all application that has not had MS' blessing of being DRM worthy.

Think I am paranoid? Just wait and see. Do you really think that MS honours any setting an application wants to make? It will do its own valuation and that means grabbing anything it can for presentation to the Ministry Of Truth.

AI can't replace devs until it understands office politics

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Mushroom

Goose, gander, lead by example,... etc

If AI is going to replace the programmers, then the "AI" companies should lead the way by firing all their programmers and replacing them with their own AI. Lets see how that'll work out for them.

Nvidia part of plans for mega 1.4 GW AI datacenter near Paris

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Meh

Plenty of power in the city

There is plenty of power in Paris.

Just create some 1.4 GW rolling blackouts in the city to power your marvellous heater near the city. Make sure to use some extra power for large fans to blow the hot air over the city in winter. The Seine will provide all the water you need in summer and you can take it all because nobody cares about downstream anyway. Additionally, if you have some wetware left, you may heat the water to Louis Pasteur levels and everybody can swim in the Seine without being killed by the little bugger bugs.

Another Big Advantage of rolling coordinated blackouts in the city... It will be Continuous Blinkenlights Show for the tourists! What is not to like?

Boffins devise technique that lets users prove location without giving it away

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FAIL

Here I am, but you don't know where here is?

If the scheme is "Yes, I'm here, but the other doesn't know where here is", then it is pointless because that does not prove the location. So, the receiver must know where here is with proof that here is here.

Telling someone "I am here, well, approximately" does not mitigate the problem of location tracking. Then the scheme fails when you use a grid of any kind combined with enough measurements. Like the the way to measure the average height of humans by using a measure with only half a meter intervals. You can calculate it to centimetre accuracy when you have gathered enough data-points.

If you create, lets say, a 10km x 10km grid then you either know, for sure, that the person of interest is in that grid reference if you see all measurements there, or you can reduce the grid width/height if you see traversals across boundaries. No way you can prevent that if the receiver knows where the grid-reference is, which ultimately will not be a secret. If you do one-way hash/cryptography, then the position can never be known and the whole idea is pointless because you cannot prove where somebody is.

Google backs down after locking out Nextcloud Files app

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Big Brother

Standard operating procedure engaged

...Google's action demonstrates that there are still humans in the organization capable of changing course when required...

No, it shows that massive negative press will make them (just slightly on a minuscule level) change behaviour to mitigate the issue that causes the really bad press coverage. Then, an army of spin doctors is deployed to rinse the web of bad press and by adjusting the "search" index to show only Good NewsTM to the (l)users.

Dilettante dev wrote rubbish, left no logs, and had no idea why his app wasn't working

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Holmes

Re: Divers log

Been there, done that. And still get blamed. Not officially, but you are treated as the "bad guy" because you allowed that crap to get used, regardless of the warnings and cautions in writing.

The definition of Manglement: Always blame someone else.

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Coat

Re: Divers log

...written a tool to help himself which was then taken by management to be deployed world wide...

And there we have it, in plain writing: Management only makes things worse.

Nextcloud cries foul over Google Play Store app rejection

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Thumb Up

And I wholeheartedly agree. F-Droid does require a lot of work to run and maintain. Please, use F-Droid and consider to help them too in any positive way possible.

OS-busting bug so bad that Microsoft blocks Windows Insider release

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FAIL

QA? Where?

...it demonstrates that Microsoft has quality gates to stop severely broken Windows releases from reaching Windows Insiders...

It proves that they try to run it after a compile session. That is about all it says about their "fine" quality control.

When, on a regular basis, even a small percentage of your user base is left with half or completely bricked machines, then it clearly shows that there is no effective quality control beyond the "it works for me" check.

UK Ministry of Defence is spending less with US biz, and more with Europeans

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Holmes

Re: Protection comes with business

Of course fools don't learn, they mastered to blame someone else (always blame the messenger).

Yolk's on you – eggs break less when they land sideways

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Coat

Yes, and we like it with a pinch of salt dropped from 6..10mm.

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Coat

Did they use fresh or rotten eggs?

'I see you're running a local LLM. Would you like some help with that?'

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Pirate

Maybe the best art and satire would be for it to ask you: Would you like me to uninstall myself? and then do so regardless the answer.

Microsoft moved the goalposts once. Will Windows 12 bring another shift?

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Alert

Re: Upgrade to open source

Too good for even the current administration to consider it for more than 3 nanoseconds. Or am I underestimating them ;-)

You are underestimating their competence in making the wrong decisions for everybody except their personal and private wealth.

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Black Helicopters

Re: Upgrade to open source

Using Open Source will soon be outlawed by presidential decree. There are foreign agents working on Open Source and can therefore not be used by Loyal PatriotsTM. Only local produce from convicted monopolists are allowed because they pass the Loyal PatriotsTM test and have committed themselves to let other Loyal PatriotsTM access any and all data to sniff out the not so Loyal PatriotsTM belonging to the 7th generation illegal immigrants that need a one-way ticket to Gitmo.

Loyal PatriotsTM don't let Loyal PatriotsTM use Open Source.

/s