Posts by DerekCurrie

Yes, it's true: Hard drive failures creep up as disks age

Oh! That's How Backblaze Lost My Data!

I'm so glad they figured it out after all these years.

But sadly, that doesn't improve my confidence in their cloud services.

China's Xiaomi teases tech to control smart homes with brain waves

Re: What's the breakthrough?

"So they've "invented" a crude EEG (1924). Making it adjust your room thermostat is a rather different challenge. I wonder whether they'll manage it."

...Sure, if Xiaomi can find new research and IP to rip off.

Claims of AI sentience branded 'pure clickbait'

Monkey See, Monkey Do...

...Just like good old ELIZA of olde.

I recall from the 1990s convincing ELIZA to remember the name of its developer and to plot his murder.

What's needed is a Turing Test variant for humans, used to discover if Turing testers are capable of detecting real people conversations from coded fakes. Apparently, that's important.

Apple tells suppliers to use 'Taiwan, China' or 'Chinese Taipei' to appease Beijing

Cook's China: Criminal Nation Enablement Rewards

China's cheap labor exploitation made you and the stockholders loads of dough!

And it's, as predicted, destroying your human rights credibility!

Oh and you know full well that China's has been stealing your IP, seeing how by law you've had to hand it over to them in order to exploit their slave wage labor.

So, has enabling Cbina: Criminal Nation been worth compromising Apple's ethics?

You were warned... by me, among many, decades ago.

Enjoy what you've reaped!

(o_0)

Remember the humanoid Tesla robot? It's ready for September reveal, says Musk

Let me guess...

... It has a cable connecting it to a real human hidden behind the curtain providing the 'robot' with motion and speech.

Oh it uses Bluetooth! That would be an improvement.

Why do I still hear the sound of a shovel digging? Is it 6 feet deep yet? No?

China seems to have figured out how to make 7nm chips despite US sanctions

Pointless Question:

Q: Does China: Criminal Nation, rip off technology?

A: Every day!

A very short list: What China hasn't ripped off.

Such is the nature of 'communism' that creativity, invention and innovation incentives are killed and stealing from the non-'communist' nations is required. The end game of course is that the creative nations get sick of being ripped off, resulting in world stagnation. That's bad.

Microsoft Defender goes cross-platform for the masses

Further anti-malware I suggest, use and admire

Background blahblah: I've been studying, working with and writing about Mac security since 2005. In that time, I've been able to work with a few anti-malware apps I admire:

Intego VirusBarrier: Since it changed hands to new management, it has only improved. These days I have it running in real time. Set it to "Scan with low priority" and forget it. It never drags on my computer speed. I've always had a good rapport with their support.

Malwarebytes: The free version is great for manual scanning. The browser add-on can be over-enthusiastic in its defensiveness, but is easily overridden when desired.

ClamXAV: It's been greatly enhanced since its free days and works well with Macs. Its developer is terrific.

I'll point out that these anti-malware apps have repeatedly proven to be problematic with Macs:

Norton Lifelock - Now a spinoff of remarkably infamous Symantec. It's recent addition of Ethereum crypto mining software from which Norton takes a 15% cut has not enhanced the software's reputation.

Avira/Avast/Jumpshot - They became infamous for tracking their users and selling the data. They were recently acquired by Norton Lifelock.

MacKeeper used to be on the nightmare list. But so far, their new owners, Clario Tech, have made an honest effort to remove its infamy and make it worthwhile.

RUN AWAY AND DON'T LOOK BACK!

Right now, at this moment, I'm attempting to help a very dear friend who foolishly installed this crapware from Microsoft onto his new M1 MacBook Pro. His MBP is BRICKED! And he's a Mac expert who runs a Mac user group.

I can only assume that Microsoft is out of its mind, again. It served up dangerous code, unworthy of even being alpha code, but instead worse than the worst malware anyone can imagine.

If I receive any useful information about this horrific situation, I'll post further.

Just know: DO NOT INSTALL THIS GARBAGE!

SpaceX reportedly fires staffers behind open letter criticising Elon Musk

Re: "we will strictly uphold our no A-hole policy"

"...Or he believe the right applies to those with a billion or more?"

Yes, the latter. Don't expect Mr. Musk to make much sense these days. I chalk it up to a devastating midlife crisis. (IMHO of course). I wish his businesses well. But I also advise avoiding anything and everything Musk. He is unhinged, as I put it.

Brave roasts DuckDuckGo over Bing privacy exception

Get a cookie control app in any case

Thank you Brendan Eich @Brave for calling out DuckDuckGo! They severely screwed up. That's a shame.

I've been supporting DuckDuckGo from very early on. I knew a significant amount (not all!) of their search results were gleaned from Microsoft's Bing. Note that I ALSO know that Bing itself gleans a significant amount (not all!) of their search results from Google!

But I know the cookie biz well enough to put control of cookies into MY HANDS and no one else's. On macOS I use, support and even beta test the Cookie app from SweetPea Productions. It has consistently worked brilliantly. (Thank you Raymond). No cookie runs free on my computers.

So, shameful as it is that DuckDuckGo made fools of themselves, I Don't Care. I've had idiotic chat warz with even Internet experts. (Hello, Adam). DuckDuckGo works great, if not better than Google in most cases. What are the alternatives?

Quant

Startpage

That's about it, other than the sad wannabes and antiques.

I do regularly run Google in pursuit of its obvious expertise above all other search engines. But I kill its cookies as well as its dialing home via a 'reverse firewall' (Little Snitch app), without regret. I stick with DuckDuckGo because they've successfully and consistently improved themselves over time and I appreciate what bit of anonymity they do provide.

Sadly, what a black eye DDG has given themselves. Stop Hitting Yourself! Stop Hitting Yourself! . . .

I was fired for blowing the whistle on cult's status in Google unit, says contractor

No, these fanatics @Alphabet / Google are NOT the Quakers

As a member of the Religious Society of Friends, I must point out that our organization has nothing-at-all to do with the fanatics calling themselves "The Fellowship of Friends."

Enough said. No comparative diatribe required.

https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/religious-society-of-friends-quakers/

Microsoft forgot to renew the certificate for its Windows Insider subdomain

"Didn't they let the main domain registration expire once and somebody renewed it for them?"

Yes:

Passport.com Payer Auctioning off $500 MS Check

Again, again, again, again?!

A few more times Microsoft forgot to renew...

1999:

Microsoft Hotmail/Passport Service Interrupted:UPDATED

2003:

Microsoft forgets to renew hotmail.co.uk domain

2020:

Microsoft’s failures to renew: Teams, Hotmail, and Hotmail.co.uk

2021:

Some Windows 11 features are breaking because Microsoft forgot to renew a certificate

No more fossil fuel or nukes? In the future we will generate power with magic dust

Why Nuke Plants Are A FAIL

1) The best nuclear plant designs, some of which are decades old, are never even considered because: They cost more money than the unsafe, guaranteed-to-fail designs. IOW: $$$$$$$

2) The best solutions for dealing with nuclear plant waste, some of which are also decades old, are never even considered because: They cost more money than shoving the problem off on someone else, specifically the future generations of mankind. IOW: $$$$$$$

There ARE guaranteed safe nuclear plant designs and safe, realistic solutions to nuclear waste. Not a single proponent of building new nuclear plants gives a rat's that they exist. They only want to build the cheap crap that are guaranteed unsafe and ignore nuclear waste. Examine every plant design proposed by nuclear plant proponents! Examine every nuclear waste solution, if any, by nuclear plant proponents!

Until humans get realistic about solving (1) Nuclear plant safety, and (2) Nuclear waste, Nuke Plants Are A FAIL.

IOW: It's not design and solutions that are the problem. It's stupid, selfish, money grubbing, psychopathy-leaning idiots that are THE PROBLEM. Until human FAILings are solved, nukes will never be safe and will never have a waste solution.

Prove me wrong. Please!

And no, quoting the tired old rhetoric won't pass muster. Read what I wrote again and address that, and only that. I won't respond to the usual talking point BS.

Majority of Axon's AI ethics board resigns over CEO's taser drones

Big Drone Is Watching You

So don't be naughty, or ZAAPPPP!

As a part-time cynic, I know perfectly well that CONTROL of the citizenry is one of the goals of governments with bad attitude. The result is CRMMs, which in this case stand for Citizen Remote Manipulation Machines.

Tasers on drones in schools isn't just an unrealistic idea. One gunshot or swing of a baseball bat and the things are out of commission. They're also a toehold into yet another method of controlling the citizenry in ANY scenario. Example: The government's significantly faulty surveillance camera software identified a bad guy walking down the street. Unleash the CRMMs! Zap, zap, zap, your Dad got nailed and is off to jail. Blunder accomplished. Or how about they participate in a Trump-quality mob clearing procedure? Gotta get that Bible to hold up at the church across the street? Zap the hell out of those pesky citizens who are engaged in using their right to free speech and assembly. Clear the herd.

We humans as a whole find disagreement among ourselves to be disagreeable. Using cowardly and remote tools to end disagreements, temporarily or permanently, is entirely within our behavioral history and capabilities.

Tweaks to IPv4 could free up 'hundreds of millions of addresses'

If only...

...The IPV6 standard had simply incorporated all the IPV4 numbers. It would have been dead simple. But no. It had to be a PITA with no backwards compatibility. Welcome to techno hell.

It may not be too late to fix it! Ask me how if you can't figure it out for yourself. It's NOT hard.

*sigh*

Taser maker offers electric-shock drones to stop school shootings

Welcome to another nightmare future

Big Drone will get you if you don't follow orders.

This is yet another avenue of citizen manipulation and surveillance.

We already have CRMMs, Coward Remote Murder Machines. Of course our overlords will use less lethal devices to keep the peasants in order. :-P

And have fun pretending these CRMMs, Citizen Remote Manipulation Machines, will ever stop a mass shooting. That's ridiculous. One bullet or swipe of a baseball bat and the drone is useless.

How about we stop championing crazy: Left, Right or Center.

New York to get first right-to-repair law for electronics

Look forward to more clunky devices, but...

For those of us with the knack for repair, this is great.

The pressure for decades has been for devices and components that are as compact and light as possible. That's going to have to be compromised.

Experts: AI inventors' designs should be protected in law

NO

And here are my thoughts of why NO:

1) AI has no rights. AI is a tool. That is all. AI will never be anything more than a tool for humans. Sci-fi is merely speculation, not fact, is fiction.

2) The authors of the AI have rights. They are not tools, they are humans. They can patent everything new their AI invents. Everything.

3) Add to that a REQUIREMENT that everything their AI invents is the RESPONSIBILITY of its authors. Everything.

4) Why this is important: Tools are just tools, are used by humans to help humans accomplish things. IF that accomplishment is murder, or other nefarious deeds, it is the AUTHORS who are responsible and must be held ACCOUNTABLE for those deeds.

5) CRMMs (Coward Remote Murder Machines): Being a part-time cynic and a fan of history I know full well that we humans will continue to perfect CRMMs for use as methods of murder. That most obviously includes war. Saying "The AI did it!" is outright insanity. The authors of the AI did it as well as those who programmed the AI in pursuit of murder. It is HUMANS who must be held accountable for the acts of their TOOLS.

That sums it up from my current perspective. Don't hand over rights of any kind to tools, not ever. The humans get all the responsibility. That must remain clear and standard, no exceptions, no 'AI patents' nonsense. Humans, just humans, are responsible for everything they invent and everything their inventions do. Everything.

If you disagree, you're ushering in an outright era of enabling human insanity hiding behind the acts of its tools. How does that make any sense to anyone but the IRRESPONSIBLE, which we humans must never be. Being RESPONSIBLE is the core point of civilization. If you want to become irresponsible, go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not collect fame or fortune. Do not enjoy the rest of your irresponsible life.

US cops kick back against facial recognition bans

When Will AI Facial Recognition Have Statistically Significant Results?

I'm unaware of a single facial recognition technology that can pass a statistical significance test. None of them provide even remotely adequate results. Please correct me if this has changed!

Then there's the subject of artificial intelligence HYPE! versus reality. But I'll spare us that sad conversation.

Elon Musk's Twitter mega-takeover likely imminent

√ Twitter: Dumped.

Not sorry, manic egoist billionaire blowhard.

The mayhem begins:

EU warns Elon Musk over Twitter moderation plans

Apple's grip on iOS browser engines disallowed under latest draft EU rules

Browser Warz

Background: Years back, I became so fed up with Apple's ruination of their macOS Safari browser that I permanently dumped it. I don't use it.

But why can't ALL browsers and their browser engines FOLLOW WEB STANDARDS?!

Why are we users being FORCED to suffer from BROWSER WARZ? I hate using a web browser and finding that it absolutely cannot resolve all the code on the page. It's idiotic in this day and age. Idiotic. ALL the browser providers are guilty. Every one of them.

S T A N D A R D I Z E

or get off the Internet!

Google: Stop foisting flakey, sub-beta formats onto the web!

Apple: Catch up with what finished, working, secure and reliable formats Google kindly provides on the web!

EXAMPLE: WebP

...Ad Nauseam...

What is a NOT a native iOS app on iOS?

"Many believe this barrier serves to steer developers toward native iOS app development, which Apple controls."

...As opposed to WHAT on the iOS platform?

What is a NOT a native iOS app on iOS?

I think this sentence requires revision.

Apple patched critical flaws in macOS Monterey but not in Big Sur nor Catalina

Another Era Of Apple Software Security Shaming

Apple blundering its software security isn't new. Of course, in the past they'd been the target of trolls and cyber propagandists who envied Apple software security. But that security began to fall away during the transition to Intel Macs in 2006. Out of that era was born a diverse group of hackers who shamed Apple into taking software security more seriously. Slowly, this resulted into embedded macOS embedded malware security and the iOS 'Walled Garden'. Today, there is a robust selection of third party companies devoted to analyzing Apple security as well as providers of macOS security tools, from firewalls to outgoing Internet connection control to malware detection, isolation and removal.

However, since circa 2016, Apple has gradually taken their eyes off the software ball and allowed for blunders that are obvious and annoying to users, while neglecting feedback from both users and developers calling for positive change. Apple's declining attention to software security is more of the same. Apparently, It's time for another era of Apple software security shaming.

Have At You!

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/have+at+you

Elon Musk buys 9.2% of Twitter, sends share price to the Moon

Blame the likes of me for calling out hypocrites

"We think we know what we're doin'

That don't mean a thing

It's all in the past now

Money changes everything

They shake your hand and they smile

And they buy you a drink

They say, we'll be your friends

We'll stick with you till the end

Ah, but everybody's only looking out for themselves

And you say, well, who can you trust

I'll tell you, it's just nobody else's money

Money changes everything"

- Tom Gray

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_Changes_Everything

Apple has missed the video revolution

Point Of Disagreement:

"The tools gamers use to share their mad skills never get refined on MacOS because there's so little demand."

- - In part only. The fact is that many or most of these tools are proprietary to Microsoft. Consider DirectX as a prime example. The loss of Intel x86 virtualization on M1 Macs is a problem in this respect.

I'm also not sure how useful it is to compare gaming to video broadcast. But certainly there is a lot of overlap.

In any case, Apple began neglecting video as of 2006 when it went to fully 64-bit hardware. I have no idea why. It showed in the decline of QuickTime. Apple has fumbled and bumbled around with 3D since that time, not taking up support for all the available standards. We used to have good tools for video streaming. But they were never professional quality and often qualified as clunky.

As usual, as a professional it is required to use the tools that best fit their intended use. Also, as usual, Windows has annoying deficits of its own, far more than enough to keep me thanking my Macs. But if the tool fits, use it! And tell Apple. Yell at Apple. Annoy Apple. I'm sick of the ever proliferating Apple blunders over the last nearly six years now, most specifically regarding the Mac platform. Making Apple hurt is typically the best way to make them pay attention. I do my best to participate in that endeavor and suggest all others annoyed by their failings do so as well.

Web devs rally to challenge Apple App Store browser rules

Ignoring the insincere nonsense that is the Epic Game's antitrust lawsuit...

Apple has indeed wrecked the ship when it comes to WebKit and Safari. Sadly, this is more of the same Apple bungling since 2016.

No Way do I want the walled garden of iOS to be breached! Anyone who bothers to watch knows what a catastrophe Android is regarding security, with infamous malware breaches affecting thousands or millions hitting the security news every-single-week without exception. It's that bad. iOS has a stunning security record in comparison. You're wrong if you disagree, So don't ruin it, good intentions or not!

However! Giving Apple several swift and hard kicks to the groin area regarding WebKit is REQUIRED at this time. Add a steal toe to your boots! This Apple stupidity has got to stop ASAP before the wall around the garden comes down, if only out of frustration with the crap Apple is pulling.

Let's get to it!

*Security is the goal.*

Do Not Let it Out Of Your Sight Or MInd!

Got that?

Techniques to fool AI with hidden triggers are outpacing defenses – study

Skynet...

...will be hackable.

The state of both coding and 'Artificial Intelligence' is so poor that we can count on AI being hackable. So much for it being scary.

What's scary is what we humans DO with AI, such as furthering our ambitions to kill one another with CRMMs, Coward Remote Murder Machines. :-(

World's top chipmaking equipment maker claims Chinese rival may infringe IP

Re: This Is How It Works, In Brief...

... So it's hopeless. The world is going to end up in stagnation with China having criminally wrecked the show.

I suggest you get busy proving yourself wrong. I stand by my post, especially my suggested solution. Come up with a better one yourself.

And a big "Hi!" to all the Chinese trolls who voted me down. (^_^)/ We know each other well. Stop hurting yourselves! Self-destruction is not a way of life. It's a way of death, obviously.

This Is How It Works, In Brief...

1) 'Communism' kills the creative incentive. If everything mine is your's, why bother.

2) Therefore, 'communism' immediately collapses into criminality, the crime incentive, the criminal nation.

3) The communist state therefore uses espionage, these days commonly using hacking (cracking) to obtain creative IP (intellectual property). China: Criminal Nation has been documented to have been doing this since 1998, after the US Clinton administration provided them with Most Favored Nation status. This resulted in The Red Hacker Alliance group, which in later years was integrated directly into the Chinese government. In 2007, the USA at last admitted this was going on after it had been determined that every government Windows PC exposed to the Internet had been found to contain Chinese bot infections. Businesses around the world found themselves to have been hacked as well and their IP exposed to the Internet stolen.

4) The communist state then trains citizens with higher education in order for them to be able to understand and put to use stolen IP.

5) The communist state creates and/or controls business within its country in order to integrate stolen IP and put it to work benefitting the state. With a few notable exceptions, this is the foundation of Chinese founded manufacturing. It uses relatively inexpensive labor and production to promote its derivative products over those invented elsewhere.

6) With time, sufficient IP having been stolen from them and copycat technology being cheaper from the communist state, the creative incentive around the world diminishes. We're at this point right now, thus the incentive to ban communist stolen IP producers and attempts to sue businesses using and selling copycat IP.

7) Worldwide creativity collapses and becomes stagnant. This is the inevitable outcome of communist espionage if it is allowed to continue. This stagnation is of course good for no one.

8) Meanwhile, the communist state builds up its military and financial structure, evangelically spreading its influence around the world, creating contention and war. Welcome to the future.

Immediate solution: STOP GIVING CHINA and other communist states MONEY.

[And no, the above is not a defense of parasitic, abusive and exploitative forms of capitalism. So skip that diversionary tactic please.]

Machine learning the hard way: IBM Watson's fatal misdiagnosis

Expert System Failure

Watson never qualified as actual Artificial Intelligence (AI). It qualified as an Expert System with speech-to-text and text-to-speech, IBM style, grafted on. Research into Expert Systems has been going on since the 1950s. They never were properly considered to be AI. Only marketing considered it to be otherwise. Watson over-promised and under-delivered. Within its niche, its was a brilliant accomplishment. But to hand it over to MDs as a diagnosis and treatment partner was unrealistic, imaginary, the victim of hype. Most "AI" of our current day is hype.

Before real AI makes a real mark and provides a real benefit to we humans, we have to dump the spin and begin to be realistic about what actual "AI" can do. It can't actually think beyond taking orders, interpreting orders, scanning a database, interpreting the data, then handing over the best result it could find within its interpretive limitations. Those limitations are vast and are going to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Consider the fact that we humans are ourselves vastly limited. We take in perceptions that are consistently faulty and incomplete. We conjure our own interpretations of the faulty data and push them through filters that vary according to our personality, experience and other Inner World influences. As I put it, we never know everything about anything. Take a look at the huge cost of malpractice insurance and you'll get an idea.

We can create machines that can compensate for human perceptual failings and calculations. But considering the limits on our own 'intelligence', it's nonsense to expect any AI to do any better than we can at coming up with correct answers to problems. What AI is good for is the providing of another perspective that can be immensely useful in addition to our own interpretations, output and outcomes.

AI is only a tool, as all computing is only a tool. If the tool doesn't fit the job requirements, drop it and find a better one. AI won't prove better than communicating with a fellow human who has different, if not better knowledge and advice than you do. Thinking is the best way to travel. Pretending a machine tool can do more than it's realistically designed to do is not thinking.

China reveals draft laws that heavily restrict deepfakes

The CCP Gets Something Right, For A Change

I have little more than contempt for the behavior of China's Communist Party (CCP). But, setting aside their grasping hegemony propaganda: Hobbling and denouncing deepfakes is an excellent idea, good for one and all across the human world. Marketing doesn't need further tools to abuse and confuse bad biznizz victims.

Hands up who ISN'T piling in to help Epic Games appeal Apple App Store ruling

ME!

If Epic was sincere, as opposed to simply being a whiny, bad attitude, conniving and contriving company, I'd have sympathy. But considering that the entire lawsuit was based on nothing-at-all, no sympathy shall be forthcoming.

“The Court finds that with respect to Epic Games’ motion as to its games, including Fortnite, Epic Games has not yet demonstrated irreparable harm. The current predicament appears of its own making,” Rogers wrote, arguing that Epic “strategically chose to breach its agreements with Apple” and thus disturb the status quo.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/25/21400240/epic-apple-ruling-unreal-engine-fortnite-temporary-restraining-order

Dummies like Epic are willfully self-destructive while acting as parasites. They have zero interest in actual customer rights, just personal profit at the expense of their customers. Justice from their ludicrous lawsuit is the loss of access to their market.

Apple: Please maintain your walled garden and continue to allow user app security to prosper.

US-China chip cold war? It's only helping the Middle Kingdom, silicon makers warn

√ Incorrect

Please know what you're talking about. Chinese surveillance implants into their hardware has been proven. It obviously works via the Internet. Please don't be DUH. China: Criminal Nation. Expect the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) influence in everything Chinese. It's not paranoia. It's proven fact. So be wise and don't give China: Criminal Nation your business, your money. it's that simple and important.

Don't Give China:Criminal Nation Money!

Feeding China: Criminal Nation is a form of national suicide. Stop it already. They've been documented to have been hacking the world since 1998. That includes spying, surveillance, stealing identities, stealing intellectual property, influencing governments and companies.... It's the entire litany of national crimes against the world.

So stop giving China money. Obviously. Stop the usual Short-Term Thinking, Long-Term Disaster. That disaster is here and now! Notice it! Stop it!

The climate is turning against owning our own compute hardware. Cloud is good for you and your customers

Two concerns: Function and Security

If your company bothers to use and keep up with current security methods, then keep your data to yourself! Don't trust it to anyone else. That of course means, among other strategies, that you adequately encrypt all your data and keep an ongoing up-to-date copy offline, away from your facility and the possibility of ransomware attacks. Good luck finding companies that even know what I'm talking about.

If real security at your company is either wishful thinking or utterly hopeless, you might as well let someone else take responsibility, thus rent-a-terminal and data stored off somewhere else. Theoretically, this keeps away the ransomware because the terminals are limited to only their function. No personal stuff allowed, no infection of the distant servers allowed.

IOW: YES and NO. It's all a matter of circumstance. Do the usual: (1) ID your problems (2) Brainstorm the best solutions (3) implement (4) Verify quality of success (a step the lazy ignore) (5) Repeat the process on a continual basis. (And again, the lazy forget about continual evaluation, to their detriment).

Please, no Moore: 'Law' that defined how chips have been made for decades has run itself into a cul-de-sac

"Light"

Technically, the term "light" refers only to the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Therefore, it is erroneous to refer to ultraviolet or infrared radiation as "light".

"Electromagnetic radiation that is visible, perceivable by the normal human eye as colors between red and violet, having frequencies between 400 terahertz and 790 terahertz and wavelengths between 750 nanometers and 380 nanometers. Also called visible light."

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/light

Bad apples: US customs seize OnePlus earbuds thinking they're knock-off AirPods

Re: Perhaps CBP

Considering the constant theft of IP (intellectual property) from around the world by China: Criminal Nation over the past 20+ years, the default expectation/assumption is that if it looks like a ripoff, it must be a ripoff. But in this case, despite some similarity in the devices to those of Apple, there's obviously enough difference to trigger a default conference with Apple before proclaiming them as ripoffs. Occasionally Chinese companies will, inexplicably, invent and innovate. Considering the incentive killing idiocy of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), I have no idea why this is the case. But it does happen! And when it does, I take interest and occasionally buy the result!

China slams 'dirty' America's 'clean network' plan, reminds world of PRISM snoop-fest exposed by Ed Snowden

Re: Pot, kettle

As I have pointed out in the past to members of China's Red Hacker Alliance:

The USA does NOT hack the world for its intellectual property. That is China's purview. China's CCP must hack for IP seeing as 'communism' destroys the creative/innovative/inventive incentive of its repressed and depressed citizens. The alternative incentive is CRIME, as demonstrated by the activities of China: Criminal Nation.

As to the worth of the USA's hacking activities in the world, that's debatable and of course is de rigueur as part of any modern country's defence, sad to say. Where the USA government face-plants itself is when it breaks the mandates of the US Constitution and international law. Such US crimes do not meet with my approval. Thank you to Edward Snowden.

Arrogant CCP Wants The World's IP For Free

WTF are they jabbering about now? - -> "Everyone can see that the US goal is to keep its monopoly in science and technology."

OIC. They think the world, especially the USA, should fork over all its IP to China for free. That's nothing new. Silly 'communists', aka parasites.

The solution to the China problem?

Stop giving them our $$$$$, obviously!

Apple said to be removing charger, headphones from upcoming iPhone 12 series

Charger: Don't need it. Headphones: Damned well Include them, cheapskates!

Kuo has been wrong, of course. But he nailed the Apple precipice dive into ARM Macs. Considering that ill-considered move by Apple, I could believe they'd pull the boner move of yanking their wired headphones. *grumble*

This isn't Steve Jobs' Apple any more, of course. But Apple has been perfecting its methods of how to tick off customers over the course of the last four years. *sigh*

As Uncle Sam flies spy drones over protest-packed cities, Homeland Security asks the public if that's a good idea

A Sickness

This Is Not America

Whatsapp blamed own users for failure to keep phone number repo off Google searches

Another App That Can Stop FAILing

There are a few apps that can't stop tripping over their own security failures, over and over and over again. Whatsapp is one of them. I cringe when people ask me to chat using WhatsApp. I only keep the thing on my computer to make them happy. Otherwise it would join my list of verboten apps. The best current alternative is still Signal.

Another popular problem app:

Zoom. User be wary.

On Mac, FaceTime is the superior alternative.

On Windows, the battle for best alternative limps onward.

Amazon declined to sell a book so Elon Musk called for it to be broken up

I Have A Directory Named "Elon Musk said what?!" . . .

... where I store all his raving gems.

Apparently, this is a cost of genius.

It could be 'five to ten years' before the world finally drags itself away from IPv4

If Only...

...IPv6 had been designed to be backwards compatible with IPv4!

Didn't that occur to the Internet Engineering Task Force? Why not?

Considering how popular IPv6 has not become, maybe it's time for IPv7 that IS backwards compatible with both IPv6 and IPv4?!

Internet Engineering Task Force

*Awaken*

Surprise! That £339 world's first 'anti-5G' protection device is just a £5 USB drive with a nice sticker on it

5G Facts Summary So Far = Not Much

So far, there is NO evidence that 5G can fry your baby's head. HOWEVER! The reason there is no evidence is because ALL the testing so far has been preliminary, mainly on rodents, not humans, not human baby's heads. IOW: No adequate research so far.

This leaves the possibility of 5G damage to human tissues wide open. I've ridiculously had to explain this to tech journalists I once thought were 'professionals', with references to existing, verified studies that prove cancer can and does happen in mice under specific test situations. That's a fact. Don't let ignorant people tell you otherwise. If you want the pile of reference links, it will be my pleasure. Just ask in a reply, nicely.

But any effects of 5G radiation are going to vary according to the usual FOUR FACTORS:

1) The type of radiation being emitted, specifically its wavelength or frequency. This is variable with 5G as there is no single standard wavelength used.

2) The amplitude of the radiation, akin to the volume or amount of radiation that reaches the subject of concern.

3) The length of time of exposure.

4) The sensitifity of the subject tissue to a specific type of radiation.

It may turn out that 5G radiation is as innocuous as the radio waves we've had traveling around and through us for over a century! OR, under certain circumstances, 5G may actually fry your baby's head. We still don't know.

The single best thing anyone can do is INSIST to their government that TESTING be done NOW. (Sound familiar?) Otherwise, the politicos will ignore the subject while the technical ignorami ignore science and chatter on about mere rumors.

You know this Land of the Free thing, yeah? Well then, why allow the FBI to trawl through America's browsing history without a warrant?

Fourth AND Fifth Amendments

#MyStupidGovernment, which is to say #MyConstitutionallyIlliterateGovernment is assaulting TWO US Constitutional Amendments at the same time. For those concerned:

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

♪♪ You can't have one without the other! ♫

Everything OK with Microsoft? Windows giant admits it was 'on the wrong side of history' with regard to open source

Shocking

The departure of all the Microsoft founders has inexplicably made the company wake up to their perpetual blunder-fest.

Now if only Microsoft would do something about their ongoing current blunders.

We can dream.

Multi-part Android spyware lurked on Google Play Store for 4 years, posing as a bunch of legit-looking apps

Ignorance...

Apparently iPhones aren't any more secure, they're just more expensive.

This is an ignorant statement in may ways. But irrational Apple Hate goes on forever. And yes, Apple deserves real anger and hate for many Apple Bungles over the years. It's just that Apple has never even remotely come up to the level of Bungles and outright carelessness of Microsoft and now Google.

Q1: Are iPhones found to have malware discovered on a weekly basis, like Android malware?

A1: Of course not.

Q2: Does the iPhone suffer from OS version fragmentation like Android phones, resulting in unclosed and frequently exploited security holes?

A2: Of course not.

Q3: Considering the usable life as well as functionality of iPhones, are they more expensive than Android phones.

A3: Of course not.

Q4: Which mobile phones are most often on the cutting edge of innovation? iPhones or Android phones?

Q4: iPhones of course.

. . . And so on. I could point out battery explosions, bendable/breakable screens, IP ripoffs, user surveillance tech vs privacy, warranty service, attitude toward customers . . .

And again yes, Apple has committed plenty of blunders. Apple is never perfect. Apple is simply the best. √ Fact.