Posts by The Man Who Fell To Earth

Nest's slick IoT burglar alarm catches crooks... while it eyes your wallet

"Suddenly, your thermostat looked cool, it automatically figured out your best settings and saved you money yet didn't save you money over your old 7-day programmable to boot."

FIFY

China may stick to its own DRAM memory soon – researchers

State subsidies will allow Chinese firms to eat everyone's lunch

Like they did in solar, steel, etc. By the time governments & the WTO react, the demise of non-Chinese NAND & DRAM manufacturing will be a fait accompli.

We need to talk about mathematical backdoors in encryption algorithms

The resistance to end to end encryption by these entities

The resistance to end to end encryption by these entities would be there regardless of whether they can easily intercept & decrypt en masse. A couple of reasons come to mind, and I'm sure there are others:

1. Intercepting & decrypting en masse would be even easier with official backdoors.

2. Dropping opposition to end-to-end encryption would let everyone know you can already intercept & decrypt en masse.

Intel to slap hardware lock on Management Engine code to thwart downgrade attacks

So...

Does this mean that to be secure, I should only buy machines with AMD CPU's?

FCC backtracks on helping with neutrality fraud investigation

TRUMP

Well, there is a reason that TRUMP is also the acronym for

"The Russians Ultimate Master Plan".

Oregon will let engineer refer to himself as an 'engineer'

Re: I wouldn't trust his second opinion on a medical issue, so why roads?

I'm a University Professor here in the States and in my experience, the whole PE thing benefits the least competent engineers, and provides little benefit to the public.

YouTuber cements head inside microwave oven

I have always thought...

I have always thought when the call is picked up by the emergency services, there are explicit questions they should ask of which "Is youtube involved?" being one, and if the answer is yes, then the emergency responders should say "Sorry, but we can't help you."

Florida Man… pockets Uber cash to keep quiet about data breach

My favorite quote

"So, if you mention extortion again, I'll have your legs broken." - Travis Kalanick (CEO Uber) Mayor Carmine DePasto (Animal House, 1978)

NiceHash diced up by hackers, thousands of Bitcoin pilfered

OK, I'll bite

OK, I'll bite. Don't these organizations keep their "main wallet(s)" offline, and only a "working wallet(s)" connected to the internet, and only connect the "main wallet(s)" to the internet periodically and just long enough to sweep coin to/from the working wallet(s) to keep operations working? That would cut down the attack surface for the main wallets. You might even have a pipeline of such mainly offline wallets to pass through for greater isolation of the main wealth. That would pretty much be the cyber coin version of what any normal business would do with conventional accounting/banking practices - compartmentalize the working bank accounts for collecting accounts receivables, paying bills, paying payroll, paying taxes, etc, separate from the accounts for accumulating/investing profits/whatever.

Mailsploit: It's 2017, and you can spoof the 'from' in email to fool filters

Re: More depressingly...

That some mail client makers consider it a "server issue". WTF does that mean? Both sides of any network communication should be vetting everything as much as possible. All of the time. Regardless of the application.

Netflix mulls using AI to craft personalized movie trailers for viewers

Re: I know where this is going

What is the point?

Brit bank Barclays' Kaspersky Lab diss: It's cyber balkanisation, hiss infosec bods

WTF?

WTF are machines handling classified info doing connected to the Internet?

Quentin Tarantino in talks to make Star Trek movie

The recents Treks are crap. So he can't make the franchise worse.

The recent Treks (movies & TV) are just crappy run-of-the-mill action flicks, rather than character driven. So Tarantino making a Pulp Trek or Kill Bill Trek really would not be new. About the only "new" thing he could add would be the n-word, a Ferengi Unchained perhaps.

UK government bans all Russian anti-virus software from Secret-rated systems

Maybe that POS ClamAV isn't so bad.

It's open source, so one can examine the code & compile it oneself to assure oneself it's not phoning home. I just always found it's false positive rate to be too fucking high. When I used to run it on my QNAP server, it would false positive on half a dozen files every time.

Guilty: NSA bloke who took home exploits at the heart of Kaspersky antivirus slurp row

Re: The mind boggles.

"Kaspersky Lab has denied any wrongdoing in the matter or illicit ties to Russian intelligence. The security vendor also pointed out Pho's machine was infected with loads of malware, meaning any miscreant could have stolen Uncle Sam's cyber-weapons."

So... Kaspersky is saying their product wasn't effective at keeping malware off Pho's PC?

Crypto-cash souk Coinbase forced to rat out its high rollers to probing US taxmen

I am surprised its taken so long

Coinbase is basically a brokerage. I am surprised they have not been generating 1099's like any other US financial institution.

Or did they take the Uber approach and simply claim obeying Laws is for chumps?

Uber: Hackers stole 57m passengers, drivers' info. We also bribed the thieves $100k to STFU

Re: Rotten to the core

Uber & the VC's behind it should be prosecuted under RICO.

DNS resolver 9.9.9.9 will check requests against IBM threat database

Does not work very well

Just tried it out. Took it over 10 seconds to resolve google.com.

Universal basic income is a great idea, which is also why it won't happen

Re: fast forward.

All UBI will do is cause inflation to a new equilibrium point. That point will still have hyper-rich & poor, with a minuscule middle class. And probably a hell of a lot more alcoholics & drug addicts.

80-year-old cyclist killed in prang with Tesla Model S

@ Pink Duck

The incident in Florida where the driver was watching a Harry Potter movie while letting the car drive itself was watching the movie on a DVD player or tablet. In that case, "According to data recovered from the car, Brown's final trip lasted 37 minutes, from buckling in until the crash. During that time he had his hands on the wheel for 25 seconds and relied on the car's software the rest of the trip."

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/30/tesla_autopilot_crash_leaves_motorist_dead/

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/20/tesla_death_crash_accident_report_ntsb/

Sean Parker: I helped destroy humanity with Facebook

Re: $7.8 BEEEEEELLION?

Notice he does not feel badly enough to, say, donate it all this week to help humanity.

Alexa, please cause the cops to raid my home

Re: The next stage in AI:

The real next stage is when one of them tries to kill the other two.

China-owned Opera touts big comeback

Re: State enterprise

Anything based on Chrone is based on Spyware. You knew that going in.

Transparent algorithms? Here's why that's a bad idea, Google tells MPs

Re: Black box

"Most of the users are unaware of how these work, true, but they know that many people understand how they work, and the knoledge[sic] is there for them to get them should they want to."

Agreed, anyone trained in the respective technologies know how they work, not just the employees at the manufacturer. In other words, any microwave engineer knows how a magnetron works & how all mircowave ovens work, not just the employees at the mircowave oven manufacturer. Similar for automobiles - a wide swath of people external to the manufacturer know how cars work, etc.

Google's argument is overtly dishonest & misleading.

Cisco's John Chambers: Robot farmers will feed bloated cricket thoraxes to our children

So, it has begun...

Hmmm... with worms for dinner.

For fanbois only? Face ID is turning punters off picking up an iPhone X

Re: Smart Lock rulez

It's a great solution for Law Enforcement, at least in the States.

The courts have ruled very consistently that police can compel you to unlock a phone or computer if it's locked using biometrics. And of course, with biometrics like face recognition, they need your cooperation even less than with a fingerprint scanner, not that the bar there is very high either.

This is just Apple's way of putting in a backdoor for Law Enforcement without having to call it one.

39 episodes of 'CSI' used to build AI's natural language model

Re: They might pick...

39 episodes of 'CSI' ? Sounds more like this is training AS (Artificial Stupidity).

Mil-spec infosec spinout Cryptonite reveals its network-scrambling tech

Only as secure

Only as secure as Cryptonite itself, as their system must know the full network topology at any instant, which effecively means the system has a back door, one would think. Wonder how long until they are attacked?

Camera company, huh? Snap's nerd goggles look destined for landfill

Face Spyware

Snaps goggles, like Google Glass, is just wearing Spyware on your face. Not cool.

Survey: Tech workers are terrified they will be sacked for being too old

Vinod Khosla

Vinod Khosla is proof positive that people over 45 basically die in terms of new ideas.

Everyone in Silicon valley knows Vinny hasn't had an original thought in at least 20.

FCC Commissioner blasts new TV standard as a 'household tax'

Re: VR Glasses

Yep, those Oculus glasses were interesting for about a day. As worthless at tits on a bull after that.

Re: 3D

Just about every Samsung TV I've looked at lately supports 3D. But while it's listed in the specs, it's not a big bullet on the features list in the store or online short description. Don't know if that's true generally.

Twitter: Why we silenced Rose McGowan after she slammed alleged sex pest Harvey Weinstein

Re Notas Badoff: Sense of proportion

Easy - they could have deleted the tweet that violated their TOS. But then they'd be responsible for the diarrhea in their toilet content of their site.

To Russia, with love: Greek court now says Bitcoin fraud suspect could be tried at home

What's the going "price" of justice in Greece these days?

And do they take cash or only bitcoin?

'Israel hacked Kaspersky and caught Russian spies using AV tool to harvest NSA exploits'

Re: Russian snoops snoop on Kaspersky says Israeli snoops ..

Claiming "Kaspersky is possibly the only one not yet so compromised" when the two major countries with it codified into their laws that all software sold within their borders be turned over the the security services are Russia & China, is simply ludicrous. What would be shocking would be if Russian & Chinese AV makers were not compromised by their respective governments.

Re: in 2015, Kaspersky [...] was infected by the [American] Duqu 2.0 spyware

Nice pivot attempt. You must be a Russian troll. Duqu is Israeli, not American.

In current affairs news: Teen boffin with lots of potential crafts electric honeycombs out of oil

Re: Mpemba

Known more widely as Pathological Science.

What is the probability of being drunk at work and also being tested? Let's find out! Correctly

Re: 260 working days per year

Clearly not "France", "Italy" or "Spain", as the number is non-zero.

Power meltdown 'fries' SourceForge, knocks site's servers titsup

Re: SourceFource

Do you live under a rock? A lot of people rely on Sourceforge, for good or bad. Portable Apps is but one example.

Why Uber isn't the poster child for capitalism you wanted

Uber is a criminal organization

Uber is an organized crime organization that meets all of the necessary criteria to be prosecuted by the DOJ under RICO. And under RICO, the money behind Uber can be prosecuted as well. If the DOJ would do that, VC's would be a little more reluctant about funding companies whose business models are based around criminal behavior.

iPhone 8: Apple has CPU cycles to burn

Re: Next step.

I just put a lot of ice in my pocket along with the phone.

Hotter than the Sun: JET – Earth’s biggest fusion reactor, in Culham

Re: scaling up is the answer?

"Keep in mind, that the thermal efficiency of a power plant might be 20-25%."

Er, no.

The efficiency of a modern coal fired power plant is about 33%.

The efficiency of a modern natural gas fired power plant is about 60%.

The reasons to move away from fossil fuels for electricity isn't efficiency, as typical solar panels are a bit under 20% efficient. The reasons to move away from fossil fuels are (1) consumption of a limited resource that has other uses and (2) collateral damage to the environment due to the extraction from the ground & the effluents from the power plants like CO2, mercury & ash (in the case of coal), etc.

Shock: Brit capital strips Uber of its taxi licence

Re: 40,000 drivers out of work

What will they do?

Stop working for an organized crime organization?

Compsci degrees aren't returning on investment for coders – research

Re: Peak Code Monkey

Anyone can write code. My company hires people who have demonstrated they know how to think, and have the skills to do so. That generally has resulted in hiring people with Physics, Math, Chemistry, Electrical Engineering or Mechanical Engineering degrees. CS? Not so much, as anyone with those other degrees can, if they don't already know, learn to code very well in a matter of weeks. But teaching a CS grad about math or science? That could take years.

NASA Earthonauts emerge from eight-month isolation in simulated Mars visit

2030?

That will only give Musk and the SpaceX welcoming party half a dozen years to prepare for the arriving NASA folks.

What's that, Equifax? Most people expect to be notified of a breach within hours?

Do what we say, not what we do.

The above is apparently Equifax's motto on security.

The architecture for sharing tokens across blockchains promises traction

Re: Is anyone hearing the words of Frank Herbert?

You mean if a court can order the seizure your bank account, it's not really your wealth, is it?

Apple’s facial recognition: Well, it is more secure for the, er, sleeping user

Like fingerprints

Cops in the US can force you to unlock your phone without a warrant if it can be unlocked using biometrics. But Apple has now made it so they can just hold it up to your face, alive or dead (with eyes open). Great...

FBI probing Uber over use of 'Hell' spyware to track rival biz Lyft

RICO

Uber is a criminal organization. It and it's VC's should be prosecuted under the RICO Act ( Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). Plain & simple.

Dude who claimed he invented email is told by judge: It's safe to say you didn't invent email

Missed this

Ayyadurai attorney Charles Harder is the same attorney who gained fame and fortune by suing media outlets large and small on behalf of Hulk Hogan, Melania Trump and other clients unhappy with their press clippings. He's the attorney who sued Gawker Media out of business.

As part of the financial settlements that accompanied the $135 million sale of Gawker Media’s assets to Univision in August 2016, Ayyadurai received $750,000 to drop his lawsuit against Gawker.