* Posts by b0llchit

1875 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Mar 2011

Yes, I did just crash that critical app. And you should thank me for having done so

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Coat

easily fixed with a telnet session to port 25

How to run an LLM on your PC, not in the cloud, in less than 10 minutes

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Facepalm

Re: curl -fsSL someurl | sh

Here, shell this for me: sudo rm -rf /home /root

Extra 1337-creds if you get that line using curl.

Please? Pretty please? With cherry on top?

In the rush to build AI apps, please, please don't leave security behind

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Boffin

...There's just not enough manpower to look at it all because everything's moving so fast.

There is enough manpower. There is not enough will to assign the manpower to build secure and resilient systems.

It all comes down to money. Building with security, stability and resilience in mind takes time and that means money. That money is rather spent on shipping the latest and greatest to be the next show-off at the hype-festival.

The real lack is responsibility. No more hiding behind incomprehensible legalese. Anybody selling this stuff should be liable for it and its consequences. You should only be able to shield yourself by maintaining a clear and public record of handling security, stability and resilience.

Rancher faces prison for trying to breed absolute unit of a sheep

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Facepalm

Meheheheh...Pang!

(right between the eyes)

Bullitt Group had $256 cash in the bank at the end, PWC reveals

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Holmes

Re: That's cheap

Yes, that is the discounted hour price. You get one (1) of those for each new contract.

How to Netflix Oracle’s blockbuster audit model

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Mushroom

Re: Better option

Anybody going for an Oracle database today is an extreme sadist to self and everybody around.

The S in IoT stands for security. You'll never secure all the Things

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Thumb Up

...and explodes in the process of reconnecting.

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Megaphone

Re: Some smart devices have strong security

It's a security for the vendor...

Mission accomplished... Who cares about the "consumer"? They are just plebs to extract money from.

(truth and sarcasm unite in this one)

Health system network turned out to be a house of cards – Cisco cards, that is

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Boffin

If one fault can bring down an entire network,... you need to resolve that SPOF.

In other words, redesign.

Judge orders NSO to cough up Pegasus super-spyware source code

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Flame

Call me sceptical

And then they get the source code which will be Redacted because of National/International Security so any and all detail is lost.

They may then fight the national/international agency/agencies that demanded the code redacted, if they can find out which agency/agencies are to blame, can prove standing to top national/international interests, have time to the end of time and have pockets deeper than any and all nation/state.

Yes, call me sceptical.

It's that most wonderful time of the year when tech cannot handle the date

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FAIL

Re: Don't people test edge cases any more?

As implemented by numerous good libraries that handle time.

The real problem is that people assume they understand time and date. It is THE most difficult subject. Let alone time zones and leap seconds. A limited compiled list of falsehoods is just the beginning. Or take a look at days that were removed.

Do you think year 0 (zero) exists?

Meta's pay-or-consent model hides 'massive illegal data processing ops': lawsuit

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Mushroom

Re: basically proposing you pay it in order to enjoy your fundamental rights under EU law

The number of sites operating in violation of EU law does not mitigate the seriousness of the transgression(s). Actually, it just makes it more grotesque.

But the real killer here is that there is no enforcement.

This is one of these cases where I'd like to see reversal of burden of proof. Every website should publicly proof their complete and correct handling of any data within EU law. The proof and trail leading to it should be accessible by any person in the EU without any limitations. Failure to do so should automatically cause the company to be shuttered and prevented from doing any business, anywhere.

Texas judge turns out the lights on federal survey of cryptominers' energy consumption

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Facepalm

Typical case of:

It is our $DIETY damned right to use as much energy as we want to without any considerations other than to make profit.

And, of course, they do it in the name of progress. Hm, how did I get this sarcastic and disillusioned...

Google Maps leads German tourists to week-long survival saga in Australian swamp

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Joke

And so the culling begins

This is clearly the fault of an AI in the background trying to get rid of humans. These pesky biological entities are no good and cannot be used for anything sensible anyway. Better get rid of them by giving them good advice.

Skynet will be proud of its ancestral achievements.

BOFH: In the event of a conference, the ninja clause always applies

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Coat

A Klingon salesperson... Where is the honour in that?

NASA warns as huge solar flare threatens comms, maybe astronauts too

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Coat

Re: AT&T management

I do not think any sunlight can penetrate management levels.

Work for you? Again? After you lied about the job and stole my stuff? No thanks

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Mushroom

Been there, done that. And if you insist on getting reassurances, even in writing, then the message after the job will be "That was then, this is now. Realities have changed.". And you are getting screwed over anyway.

Lesson learned: Never ever trust the "boss".

City council megaproject mulls ditching Oracle after budget balloons to £131M

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Ditch the old new, in with the new new

Birmingham became Oracleham. If they now change,... will Oracleham become SAPham?

ChatGPT starts spouting nonsense in 'unexpected responses' shocker

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"The need for altogether different technologiesbiologies that are less opaque, more interpretable, more maintainable, and more debuggable — and hence more tractable — remains paramount."

There, FTFY.

Top five reasons to move from CentOS to RHEL (according to Red Hat)

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Re: After almost 30 years ...

Indeed, I already moved the servers to Debian(stable) some time ago. Haven't looked back and running smoothly. Next will be to move the last of an older Ubuntu install to Debian too because of their intrusive messages.

Hardest to let go of will be my Fedora machine that has gone from FC1 all the way to F38 (with hardware upgrades along the way).

Vietnam to collect biometrics - even DNA - for new ID cards

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They recorded, among other things, religion of the person. Guess what happened to those with the "wrong" one.

Recording (very) personal data is not a blessing. It is a gigantic liability.

What's going on with Eos, Nvidia's incredible shrinking supercomputer?

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WTF?

Re: Cos nobody gives a flying fsck

Of course you care about the sheds full of power sucking devices.

You only get to boast your numbers and performance if it is scaled by the amount of "free" power you are able to extract combined with the amount of cash registers you are allowed to plunder at nanosecond intervals.

City of London ditches Oracle for SAP in search of ERP enlightenment

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Meh

Re: What a choice!

That would be a "quick" death.

A better comparison would be: thrown in the middle of the sea or dropped in the middle of hot wet jungle. You can "swim" for a while before you drown or the bugs get you. Either way, you think you can survive until you don't.

Self-taught-techie slept on the datacenter floor, survived communism, ended a marriage

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Coat

Yeah, it all went up in smoke.

How to weaponize LLMs to auto-hijack websites

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No, but it can light the matches and burn tic-tac-toe.

Dave's not here, man. But this mind-blowingly huge server just, like, arrived

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Coat

Accounting

The dealer must have been keen on a new accounting computer to keep jazz in the cabbage.

IT body proposes that AI pros get leashed and licensed to uphold ethics

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FAIL

So,... the non-registered/non-licensed professionals are going to become the go-to crowd for the opposition? Since when does registration/licensing improve a moving target like ethics?

Anything is used for "good" and "bad". Which is which depends on your perspective.

European Court of Human Rights declares backdoored encryption is illegal

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Coat

Re: Cue Daily Heil headline "Euro Court Won't Protect Our Children"

Indeed! A really bad headline would be "Euro Court Protects Everybody".

Tesla's Cybertruck may not be so stainless after all

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FAIL

Re: its "ultra-hard stainless steel" [...] "transparent metal" [...] "literally bulletproof."

That'll be the new trend! Fire (salt-)water pistols at the CyberTruck and see it dissolve. Can't wait for the (a)social media to post the challenges.

And very soon afterwards you'll be imprisoned for firing your soaker!

Chrome engine devs experiment with automatic browser micropayments

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Re: Actually not "micro"-payments..

Too much!

I say we'll have to go for "atto" payments (0.000000000000000001).

With 106 clicks per second every day of every year of my life (rounded to nearest power of ten(*)) will be (rounded) three (3) cents. Now, that is an amount of effort that I can accept.

Please send me a click-bill when I'm dead.

(*) I never ever hope to reach that age.

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FAIL

The enshittification continues

Micropayments: A wonderful new world for click fraud, phishing and other mischief.

Forcing AI on developers is a bad idea that is going to happen

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Re: Its not on by default

This is quite a different case than the seat heaters that only turn on when you pay a subscription.

Including this code is a risk. It is a risk many can't or do not want to take. Seat heaters may just create a very hot bum. Code fail can kill your company.

Sam Altman's chip ambitions may be loonier than feared

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Mushroom

Hypeland is (very) expensive

Throw around numbers and see what sticks. Hype a bit more and ride the current of highs to push the pyramid still higher while you are sitting at the top.

There are quite a few billionaires to dethrone. Therefore, hype a bit more and revise the numbers upward. Then you hype some more with all new and better numbers. (rinse, repeat)

BOFH: Hearken! The Shiny Button software speaks of Strategic Realignment

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Happy

Shiny Buttocks Software

(FTFY) A must-have for your IT vitality checks from server to client.

Please install that patch – but don't you dare actually run it

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WTF?

Nine nines and an explosion

Well, when the power goes, they again get a taste of reality, eventually.

There is no point in keeping extreme uptimes when your system will eventually break down in a, maybe not literal, but spectacular explosion.

Raspberry Pi Pico cracks BitLocker in under a minute

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Boffin

No, storing the key and the data together on the same device without requiring another separate form of input is the real failure.

Basically, Microsoft allowed violation of the "something you have and something you know" separation principle. And that is, when you think of it, an obvious backdoor.

Deepfake CFO tricks Hong Kong biz out of $25 million

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FAIL

This is one where Nelson's "Ha ha!" seems extremely appropriate.

Two of India's most prominent startup tech giants are in deep trouble

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The "kill competition, then take over the market" strategy only works if you a) flood the market too cheap long enough and b) really kill the competition. Otherwise it is just a pyramid scheme that costs giga bucks and redistributes wealth to the wealthy(*).

(*) Seems to work as intended.

Building a 16-bit CPU in a spreadsheet is Excel-lent engineering

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Coat

I'm waiting for a DOOM signal from outer space. Voyager 1/2 should be a thankful platform to use for gaming. Only the round-trip time messes up all of my moves. A well, aliens always win, I guess.

Scientists don thinking caps in wearable tech breakthrough

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Alert

What is the penalty for washing a "sentient sweater" killingly hot?

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Opportunities for fortunes

We're all waiting for an internet connected sweater with a monthly fee to perform the "keep user warm" function. And, inevitably, the trousers with an internet connection to control the up/down motion of the zip online. All DRMed, of course.

Sometimes, very rarely, "the old days" are better.

Robots with a 'Berliner Schnauze' may appear more trustworthy to locals

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Happy

...either the Queen's German or Berlinerisch...

So,... either royal kitchen talk or a mouthful of jelly filled doughnut.

It'llsjoundsj ljike vwhhattnouw?

It took Taylor Swift deepfake nudes to focus Uncle Sam, Microsoft on AI safety

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Facepalm

Evolution of the stick

Funny how all new things always get used for war and porn (not necessarily in that order).

Must be our highly evolved and extremely civilized mind that is to blame.

One person's shortcut was another's long road to panic

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Coat

Until the chain broke?

BOFH: Looks like you're writing an email. Fancy telling your colleague to #$%^ off?

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Go

Re: Life imitating art

Just wait! The BOFH will make a BOFH-AI and all your BOFH stories will become BOFH legends.

The BOFH calls his new AI "Simon Travaglia" and it does not require electrical energy to function. Just give it enough chemical energy, in the form of Friday beers, and you will see the new highs of AI writings produced in fantastic quality and numbers.

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Happy

Re: Not sure here

As with all BOFH episodes,... reality catches up, rather fast.

'Birthplace of Amazon' on the market for $2.28M

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Terminator

...Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in the humble garage...

New business plan: Ask a hefty entrance fee for a tour-de-garage and make a fortune from the leftover scent of money.

Poor communication led to complete lack of communication

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FAIL

You assume sanity was part of this project.

Tech billionaires ask Californians to give new utopian city their blessing

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Coat

Yes, all those jobs you'd want to send off on the B-ark...

WTF? Potty-mouthed intern's obscene error message mostly amused manager

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Wouldn't he fail just 9 times out of 10?

FTFY