Serves them right!
Bwahahahahahahhahahah! NSA! - gubbamint = competency is an oxymoron; or at least very likely a moron for sure! HA! :D
Posts by JCitizen
945 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jul 2012
NSA.gov goes down after ‘error during scheduled update’
DARPA slaps $2m on the bar for the ULTIMATE security bug SLAYER
Microsoft hands out $28K to bug-hunters
New Terminator-style 'bots can self-assemble, leap, climb and SWARM
Scientists to IPCC: Yes, solar quiet spells like the one now looming can mean Ice Ages
Wednesday 2nd October 2013 08:33 GMT 
I saw on the news...
just today, that for the 1st time in years, the average temperature dropped - I don't know by how much. I figure even if global warming is coming; a giant caldera explosion will put us in nuclear winter for 100 years, and we will all be crying about how cold it is!
Even better yet, just have faith that things are chaotic and, short of switching to nuclear power, beyond the reach of man to do any thing measurable to solve this perceived problem. Ever tried to control a chaotic system? I have - and no amount of math or engineering could figure it out - I and my fellow operators just had to fly by the seat of our pants. Human intuition is remarkable that way.
TAT-1: Call the cable guy, all I see is a beautiful beach
Wednesday 18th September 2013 03:36 GMT 
It is a wonder...
the Germans didn't attempt to bomb it - as that would have gummed up the link with the allies pretty well. And Morse code messages were hidden from eaves dropping by German intelligence, and so were even more effective than the attempt the Nazis made in encryption. Of course that failed miserably for them. I'm talking about the previous termination point of course, but it looked very similar to TAT-1. I'm not familiar with where it was at that time though. Telegraph cable was better than a Marconi, and much more secure.
Redmond slips out temporary emergency fix for IE 0-day
David Attenborough warns that humans have stopped evolving
Torvalds shoots down call to yank 'backdoored' Intel RdRand in Linux crypto
NASA: Humanity has finally reached into INTERSTELLAR SPACE
British spooks seize tech from Snowden journo's boyfriend at airport
Boffins claim Voyager has already left the Solar System
Monday 19th August 2013 05:45 GMT
Re: "Clearly we need more research. Let's build some more Voyagers."
"I think I can see an issue with using solar sails: beyond the heliopause they become interstellar-medium sails and the probe gets blown back again. Or way off course. Or somewhere."
No problem - eject said solar sails, and switch to nuclear power.
Attention, addicts: LEGO meth lab pays homage to Breaking Bad
An afternoon with Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer
Monday 19th August 2013 05:08 GMT
Re: Nice
Buzz became my hero too - when I learned he used one of the 1st digital pocket calculators to check the orbital calculation on-board systems on the Apollo rendezvous space craft. That pocket calculator was already light years ahead of what they had on that mission! I've been hooked on him every since!
NORKS build TROLL ARMY to tear down S Korean surfers
Monday 19th August 2013 04:51 GMT 
Sounds a lot like a similar dictator wanna be!
New York City Mayor Bloomberg has been paying trolls to visit sites that may sway folks on gun rights issues; and the surprising thing about it, is they won't deny it when confronted for trolling for Bloomberg! We have, long-ago, learned to ignore tin-horn dictators in the US.
Fiendish fake Flash plugin squirts grumble-flick ads into kiddies' websites
Monday 19th August 2013 04:33 GMT
Mitigation is possible...
Even if it isn't perfect - Microsoft has built in application and web site content control every since Vista. Even if the kiddies click through the application block, SpywareBlaster will block installation of Active X, as if any adult would give them access to the UAC - so you will have to limit browsers to Internet Explorer to maximize protection. The other browsers only have host controls after that, when using JavaCools protection, if I'm not mistaken.
Parental controls are always imperfect, but just as in security defenses, a blended defense is always best; and always better than nothing.
China mulls probe into IBM, Oracle, EMC after NSA hack claims - report
Monday 19th August 2013 04:21 GMT
I've protested this program everysince 911 in the US
And I still stand my ground. We didn't need this unnecessary intrusion in the 1st place. It was only a lack of communication in our system that blocked a tip off to the hijackers. For once - I tip my hat to the PRC for giving us hell, and we deserve it! - But only because we should aspire to a higher standard - it is a little self serving for the PRC to complain, when it is well known in certain circles that they've been burning firmware back doors in chips shipping world wide for some time now.
However - I still support their criticisms, because - as I said - we should aspire to a higher standard. Detractors will complain we may take some terrorist hits! BOO! HOO! We are supposed to be the "Land of the Brave" - did the UK cry and moan, when the blitz hit London? NOOOOOo! We have become a nation of cry-babies in the US! I'm not proud of it, but I will call it out!
Snowden's secure email provider Lavabit shuts down under gag order
Barbie paints Red Planet pink with NASA-approved Mars Explorer doll
Tuesday 6th August 2013 17:46 GMT 
Her suit is actually just as accurate...
as any designer could come up with. You don't need much of a suit on Mars, as long as it is made of tough rip stop no leak matterial. One could even envision, that oxygen could be concentrated from the sparse CO2 in the atmosphere, much similar to medical devices that do the same thing. There is just enough ATM pressure that any thing like it would work. Just sayin'.
Dumpsters begone! App matches diners with leftovers to broke, hungry
Tuesday 30th July 2013 04:14 GMT
I was one of them
IN the US the poor do have smart or at least cell phones with internet services. I was one of them - I lived in a flop house and was a credit card/student loan slave - everyone in the building had one - mine cost 15 cents a month if I made just one minute call every month; non usage would dock me $4.20, so I made sure and made at least one 1 minute 15 cent call a month.
Now everyone is getting those "Obama" phones - so yeah, the poor have cell phone\internet in the US. Even before this, we had reduced phone service for a small fee; - besides LIbraries are a favorite hang out for the homeless, and they can look at the same information over the internet there. This is not even a challenge really.
For pity's sake: DON'T MOVE to the COUNTRY if you want to live
Thursday 25th July 2013 06:44 GMT
God you metro people are so stupid! Nobody in their right mind would attack a domicile in the county here! You stupid people don't even know where your food comes from! You better wake up and smell the coffee, because some day you will have nothing, and you will need a friend! Many a friend from the UK has moved to my country and enjoyed complete freedom!
One day you will find out you are the enemy of your former countrymen, and they will enjoy your complete destruction without doing a damn thing! Have a nice day!
Confirmed: Driverless cars to hit actual British roads by end of year
Saturday 20th July 2013 00:00 GMT
Been there - done that..
In the US - Google cars racked up over 140,000 miles way back in 2010. They've done a lot more since then. I'm hoping they'll take over all the cars in congested areas, and ban cars that don't have the feature in future inner city trafic. The money they'll save from NOT having to build more multi-decker roads to relieve traffic congestion will make the tax payers happy. The extra cost in the vehicle price will be more than worth it. My truck already has computer controlled radar sensed auto parking now. All they need is an added sensor and control module package to complete the retrofit to my GM Hybrid right now - today!
Boffins build telescopic contact lenses to battle blindness
Tuesday 9th July 2013 02:08 GMT
Wow!
This blows the news I heard the other day about surgically implanted telescopes, completely away! If I had my druthers, and I had macular degeneration, I'd wan't the contact lens/LCD glasses solution!!! What is not mentioned in this article is the wondrous way the brain can tell that the center view image put in the wrong place on what's left of the usable retina, is counter acted by the brain. The amazing brain knows the view is center field an puts it in center view as realized by the patient. I hear this takes a while, but is pretty mind blowing stuff! This is how I understand it - hopefully someone who knows more can correct any mistakes I've made. I would suppose that the missing information shows up somewhere else in the field of vision. To bad it can't be transported to the natural blind spot where the blood vessels enter the retina.
Carbon capture to biofuel process gets go-ahead
Tuesday 9th July 2013 01:46 GMT
I have my doubts...
It is very hard to get an algae specie that can serve as both food for cattle and bio-fuel maker. Perhaps they are using genetic engineering? Or even worse the whole thing is a scam to take the hopeful coal industry for a ride, or even worse yet - they already know it isn't going to work, but have to scam the government to get an expansion to the plant. Governments aren't happy about supporting coal plant expansions in the US unless they are natural gas powered. This is not carbon neutral, but will at least stem the tide of carbon explosion in world wide energy needs.
I hope they are right, and I hope the feed stock at least equals what natural gas brings to the table, and reduces the emissions to near methane burning exhaust levels. The bio-fuel would at least slow the introduction of carbon into the atmosphere, and after all - it is better than no carbon filtration. I think they need to concentrate on a method and specie of algae that can grow explosively and efficiently and simply ship that back to the coal mine in the coal car train. The cars are empty all the way back to the mine, so this at least gives the load a useful mission. They could bury it in the mines for the next iteration of coal burning several thousand years from now - if in fact dry algae doesn't burn almost as good as coal to begin with?
Come to think of it dairy farms are already powering their operations with cow farts and poop methane, so even what carbon is not locked in the cow's (or our bodies for eating them), will serve another purpose in generation of power. Even putting algae underground may cause methane to build up in unused mines. They may have to build explosion proof robots to deposit the load in the abandoned mine; but vents can tap off the methane produced. As I said before - not carbon neutral but at least carbon complicated! HA!
Trend Micro turns RAT catcher as Taiwan cops cuff hacker
Facebook bug leaks contact info of 6 million users
Badger bloodbath brouhaha brings 'bodge' bumpkin bank burgle bluster
Tuesday 18th June 2013 20:20 GMT 
Maybe the UK has more TB in the soil over there...
But here in the US, we ignore badgers. They used to be a big problem when ditch irrigation was the method, but now we are kewl with badgers. Now prairie dogs! -That is another story - I wished the animal activists would BAN poisoning them critters - the pastures were actually full of more wild life when these scruffy little animals were out there. I must admit though, I like hunting them, so full disclosure there; but I also pushed to bring back the methods of local predator control, which would encourage more wildlife diversity still. Certain tricks helped the coyotes and Ferruginous Hawks keep the population down. There is the Blackfooted Ferret re-introduction program too; which is stalled because if poisoning - I say bring them all back on the prairie, and I'm proud to be part of that control process too - I have as much a right to be part of the natural control mechanism as anything else - Oh - and only humans have rights - sorry!
We want to put a KILL SWITCH into your PHONE, say Feds
Thanks, NSA: Amazon sales of Orwell's 1984 rise 9,500%
Kaspersky plans source code reveal to avoid Huawei's fate
Tuesday 4th June 2013 22:29 GMT
Re: To be honest I worry more about my own countries' governments
You got a good point there; unless you have serious IP to protect, the Russians are the least risk! I have never been able to get clients with the yips about the old cold war to go to Kasperski. The younger kids are not as reserved. Personally, I'd rather use Avast anyway.
I use Kasperski's rescue disc 10 and there is always something they can't find or remove/repair. Lately I've found MBAR to be particularly effective without even having to use the boot and nuke method. Malware-Bytes Anti-Rootkit does a better job of assuring the MBR will be bootable after action. With Rescue Disk 10 not so much.
Symantec retires low-end security software
Microsoft loads botnet-crushing data into Azure
Planetary Resources turns to crowdfunding to help with satellite costs
Thursday 30th May 2013 07:01 GMT 
Who gives a crap if the public is onboard?`
These are entrepreneurs! They don't need no stinking public money or gubbamint! This is no surprise, as I wrote about this in 1973, on astro mining with a system of translinear accelerators - now I'm no genius, so I borrowed on old ideas - but please this is nothing new! What people forget about is most of the cost of a modern enterprise is the shipping! Using buses that travel all the way to the Ort cloud or whatever, is no problem. We even have a new propulsion that can get us there FAST! All we need is surveillance - which this mission will supply. We can save HUGE energy by mining in space!
Russians draw liquid blood from frozen woolly mammoth
US National Intelligence Council boss gets personal email hacked
Apple says 'zai jian' to Foxconn, taps Pegatron for new iPhones
SEC slams NASDAQ with $10m fine for Facebook IPOcalypse
Who did Apple LIE TO: Australia or America?
How God and übergeek Ron Crane saved 3Com's bacon
Wednesday 29th May 2013 15:20 GMT
Re: There's no such thing as lightning protection
True - and lightning does what it wants to no matter what the well laid plans of mice and men are; but I think they are talking about that cutoff switch that is run by a servo on the card that literally disconnects from the Ethernet before the surge hits the circuit. This is not your ordinary "surge protector", this is a cut off switch. We never put dialup adapters in our remote offices without this being onboard the card either. If you didn't do it, the POTs line "surge protector" was not going to save you.
Trying to kill undead Pushdo zombies? Hard luck, Trojan is EVOLVING
Tuesday 21st May 2013 02:58 GMT
Not only that...
but just trying to detect and remove the new malware is becoming more and more difficult - it is coming to a point where only the best blended defenses will help keep that crud off the computer in the first place. However, even clicking on bad email attachments have been averted by some of Windows defensive features. It is getting where a honey pot lab can be a dull place - unless you purposely blow through the UAC and other protections on the way to testing the latest and greatest anti-malware utility.
NT5 and the old smoldy XP are just about toast though - that OS is about totally defenseless now.
Jailed Romanian hacker repents, invents ATM security scheme
Tuesday 21st May 2013 02:47 GMT
Re: Erm.
Magneprint could end replays of skimming data; so using that technology would defeat skimmiers wihtout paying the huge costs of Chip-n-Pin. I've seen news stories of C&P being defeated by a simple paper clip. I'm not sure I wan't businesses in the US going down in flames from the bad investment in expensive technology that can be defeated anyway. If you can hack a computer - what makes you think the chip can't be cracked?
With the nano technology and algorithms that exist in the MagnePrint system. you cannot replay or skim the information, because it is like trying to copy someone's finger prints only more difficult. No single swipe of the data band on a MagnePrint card is ever the same - so recording it is a fruitless effort - the authentication system would catch it in a heart beat - combine that with the very economical PassWindow, and you have double trouble for the crooks, and still have technology that can be affordable across the world. This system would also be greatly scalable with minimal expense. We don't fall for expensive failures in the "Unsecured States of America" Federal Insurance and other improvements to security will nail this problem without breaking the bank or the consumer's pocket book. That is the way we think in the US.
German publisher accuses Microsoft of URL sniffing
Wednesday 15th May 2013 03:44 GMT 
I don't trust Redmond, but..
What I actually think is going on is a hidden criminal gang within their organization - or at least a few rotten insiders. I have clients who were attacked within the supposedly trusted Partner's network, and Microsoft just puts a blind eye on it, and doesn't do anything to check on the complaints as near as I can tell. They need to look in their own back yard as well as police the botnets.
Techies at The Onion: Here's how Syrian Electronic Army hacked our Twitter
3D printed gun plans pulled after US State Department objects
Friday 10th May 2013 04:56 GMT
Re: Export regulations for this thing?
Uuh! The law in the US say you have to physically transfer the weapon - transferring plans, material to make, or machines to make weapons has NEVER been illegal. They don't have one single legal leg to stand on. The man only capitulated because the BATF bullied him by threatening to pull his license obviously. We will see what happens in court when the NRA comes to town!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
