Posts by JCitizen

'First ever' snap emerges of something vaguely resembling our solar system 300 ly away. We'll take 10 tickets

I second the emotion!!

And emotional it very well is!

Re: If that photograph

It is absolutely astoundingly incredible! I agree! :O

China successfully launches Mars probe that packs an orbiter, lander, rover

Re: Best wishes

Just what I was thinking! I may not approve of the PRC leadership, but I'm happy to see the people making progress! I'll tip a cool one for them tonight!

Congrats, First American Title Insurance, you've made technology history. For all the wrong reasons

It's about time...

That somebody got their butt kicked over lack of security like this; even if it is just a state prosecution. I'd like to see more Federal butt kicking going on for interstate/national companies. But, maybe the SEC will also weigh in on this one.

United Arab Emirates’ Mars probe successfully launched and phones home

@David Nash

Thank you for that post; very interesting and encouraging. Looking at the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre,on Google Earth, it is not clear where the launch pad is.

Seven 'no log' VPN providers accused of leaking – yup, you guessed it – 1.2TB of user logs onto the internet

Want an almost sure method?

Not sure if he uses VPN, because much of the lines of communication are cut up and rather random; but if you really want to communicate in a way that even the heavy deep state hitters find it hard to intercept you; do it the way the Dalai Lama does it. I'll just leave it at that - just think about it and you will figure it out. The PRC doesn't need to know. He is always two steps ahead of them, all the way!

Re: So, recommendations?

Check Point is the only one I'd trust, they kept the Chinese out of my network for five years, when the PRC finally gave up. I only used their hardware too.

But if you are in Hong Kong, you might as well forget it; although if I were a protester, I'd have a plan to roll my own using friendly advice; and open source methods. None of the details, which I'd discuss in public anyway.

Report: CIA runs secret cyberwar with little oversight after Trump gave the OK, say US government officials

Like they haven't already??

How long is the US expected to stand around with a giant "kick me" sign taped to its butt! Why is the US always expected to withstand the slings and arrows, and not do a damn thing about it?

Not a bullet was fired..

other than the one that shot the US in the foot - big time! That is the way America will fall - and this latest CIA thing is just one of the problems going on for some time.

Twitter says hack of key staff led to celebrity, politician, biz account hijack mega-spree

Re: Twitter Loses Credibility - Again

You mean Twitter had any credibility at all? Just wondering!

Citrix denies dark web claim of network compromise and ransomware attack

I remember when...

I was introduced to Citrix while working for a local school client, and was very impressed with the dumb terminal Citrix product. At that time many schools were still using Windows 98, and had serious security problems because of that. Citrix solved the problem, in that only the main servers needed to be upgraded and advanced security practiced in that area of the network. The dumb terminals only used the base OS when not doing school network business. So they were technically isolated from the server network at that time.

However, I felt like Citrix was sitting on their laurels for years after that, and would probably go the way of many other failed corporations if they didn't work to constantly advance their products and systems. I still feel that way now, but I am also a lot less familiar with it now that I'm retired. I hope they can think outside the box and continue to innovate as they did with wondrous flare in the decades past.

Cambridge student rebuilds Polish Enigma-code-breaking box that paved the way for Turing ... and Victory!

Re: Presentation

Yes, that's it! I like to call it the "guessing machine" because it made it easier to setup tables to eventually find the keys. It was still horribly complicated task, but some of the German communications used less complicated machines, and lazy settings each day, which helped the Polish a great deal. Adding plug boards to the Enigma device made it necessary to use the latest computers at Bletchley to even have a ghost of a chance of decryption while the information was still valuable.

Re: Poor video

From what I read on the Cyclometer, much of the work was done by testing the settings by various methods, like the grill and catalog methods, then this machine could display data that could be used to continue guessing the entire key. There was information about using perforated cards to place on top of the raw messages to see if they made sense, the hence the key was discovered that way. I may be way off, but watching the movie helped me at least gain a basic understanding. So yes you could use this machine to decrypt but it was a tedious method that took a large team of people to work it out. It wasn't as good as the computers Bletchley made up later, that replaced hundreds of workers by using auto electro-mechanical means to find the keys.

Re: Poor video

I don't think any of the wheel control encryption machines were made to "find" keys, you were just supposed to know the key settings using a timetable book in each location. For each change in time, the key was changed to a pre-planned setting. However having that polish device to study made designing a purely decryption machine more likely, because the mechanical nature of it was obvious. Later, they just had to build a mechanical means to predict those wheel settings - like the Bombe machine. Later computers did it better using "valves" instead of individual cylindrical calculators.

Better get Grandpa off Windows 7 because zero-day bug in Zoom allows remote code execution on vintage OS

No worries mate!!

I'm still using Windows 7 and any patches that were cross platform with Win10 I will get also, though some things I won't need. I use micro patching and it works even better than what I had while MS was doing it - even my applications all get patched!! I will be using Win 7 for as long as my computer keeps running!

Trump U-turns on foreign student crackdown: F-1, M-1 visa holders allowed to study online mid-pandemic in the US

Re: They were getting sued.....

"That's how Republican loyalty works."; that is because they learned from Nixon how being loyal to your minions gets you kicked out. I'm sure each administration has their hidden dirty tricks; some of them are just smarter at how to hide them, and pass them off.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a charred white dwarf star blasted across our galaxy by an ancient semi-supernova

Stuff to think about..

I wonder if this formerly binary system was close to merging, and the event happened before this merger was successful - also the two objects could have been circling each other at astounding speeds as well - but because one of them went NOVA just before the merger, somehow the angular velocity was preserved and imparted a nearly equal and opposite reaction, instead of simply merging and becoming another form of star, or even a black hole. I've never read that a binary system merging like that ever ended up changing from original direction before, so I'm assuming as a novice astrophysics fan, that something completely different had to happen like that. It would seem that much of the matter from both stars would have coalesced however, and just an expanding blast wave with left over gases was left at the event site. Also, I wonder if anyone is gathering data on what are the known universe's fastest objects (relatively speaking of course)

With that incredible speed, it would sure be fun, to watch at a safe distance and see this rogue dwarf slam into another mass of any type in the galactic plane!! Just the thought of that thing moving so fast against the grain of the galaxy would seem like at least doubling the chances of a collision - but the disappointing reality, is that entire galaxies probably pass right through each other with barely even one of such meetings.

Trump reveals US cyber-attack on Russian election-misdirection troll farms

Re: Bet you missed

Russia is only friendly to "terrorists" when it serves their national interests directly; they almost got their asses handed to them in Chechnya and have endured conflict in other local civil wars inside the Federation up to and including ISIL - so they are not completely in love with all the groups we are against. I see no reason not to share information about groups that are both our enemies - but I'm not in favor of a complete dump of information about the entire area - although they probably know more than we do - so there may even be some value in that as well, as long as they are also forthcoming.

Re: Fake News

FCC Mass Media Bureau huh? I'll be danged! Who'd have known! HA!

An email banning our staff from using TikTok? Haha, funny story about that, we didn't mean it – Amazon

Re: Faceless evil

I doubt they even do that; I think they just try to code around it - unsuccessfully no doubt.

NASA trusted 'traditional' Boeing to program its Starliner without close supervision... It failed to dock due to bugs

@stiine

I plugged my PC into a 61" HDTV - NOW I can see everything!

Huawei launches UK charm offensive: We've provided 2G, 3G and 4G for 20 years, and you're worried about 5G?

Re: Code quality

Chips are not built in the US, they may be designed there, but only TI still builds chips in the US. My friend said these chips were in a lab in Malaysia and were not made in accordance to the design matrix - they were obviously piggy backing changes to the lithography mask were made - when my friend pointed out that they had even arrogantly put logos to their creations on the mask, my friend was quickly escorted out of the lab, and never allowed access to the rest of the tour. Now that just stinks, and I don't care who knows it!

Captain, the computer has identified 250 alien stars that infiltrated our galaxy – actual science, not science-fiction

Migrating stars..

Just imagine my surprise when a wandering star crashes into my Sun!!

The Moon certainly ain't made of cheese but it may be made of more metal than previously thought, sensor shows

@Mike Richards..

I see they found the craters to those experiments with the Saturn debris in 2016 - they didn't make much a a crater despite moving fairly fast!

Euro police forces infiltrated encrypted phone biz – and now 'criminal' EncroChat users are being rounded up

Good gumshoe work...

@HildyJ

Just like any good IT security tech would say, you have to secure your endpoints for VPN to work like you want it to. If someone hacks both ends, all bets are off!

Details of Beijing's new Hong Kong security law signal end to more than two decades of autonomy

Hopefully..

Maybe Australia could make some kind of offer that would not include some kind of apartheid like that land deal would. Of course I doubt they were serious; but really I think it would be a boon to the Australian economy! Of course I would think Taiwan might consider letting migrants to go there; although I don't know what the attitude is, for fearing PRC retribution.

CyberX, CyberX, does whatever a CyberX does. Locks IoT, machines too, Microsoft got it, so will you

Azure disaster..

I wouldn't touch Azure with a 10 foot pole. Back in 2010 when "Windows Azure" started, I had a client that found out the network was riddled with nation state bad actors and IP industrial espionage agents!

Once exposed to one of these, they'd take over your local network, and machines, and block all communications that would result in getting help to extricate yourself from tar baby! The victim was forced to contact Microsoft by mail, and the team at Azure would not lift a finger to help these hapless associates! I was so mad at the time, I thought whoever was running Azure at Redmond should be shot up against a wall!! Needless to say, after all the fighting to regain control over their life, their business was wrecked! Avoid Azure at all costs!

I myself had to contact my ISP to ask them to restore their switch and routers images, because the crooks had made it impossible for people to call me on the land line!! Fortunately my security on the network perimeter, and my in depth security posture, blocked any take over of my network and hardware. The phone company/ISP thought I was crazy until they did what I asked and found out I was right!

Brit police's use of facial-recognition tech is lawful, no need to question us, cops' lawyer tells Court of Appeal

Food for thoughts and comparison...

Okay - I get the reasons for push back - and that is healthy in any free society. But I live in a small town, where EVERYBODY knows who you are and probably even know things that are true, that even I didn't know myself, or forgot, at least. So it is difficult for me to see what all the fuss about cameras and facial recognition is all about. Now we do occasionally have a crime in Smallville, and everyone usually thinks they know who did it, but they are rarely correct, but because everyone sees everyone else going down the street, and they know them, it is probably assumed by a person from the large metropolis that Joe Local Sixpack is a goner for good in the courts; but that is rarely how it turns out. Here is the reason why - no matter how well the witness thinks they saw Joe going down the street near the crime scene near the correct time of the incident, they STILL have to prove the ID of the crook under suspicion. This part never ceases to amaze me, because when the police do a line up so the witness(es) can ID the perp, it never fails that they flunk the test for ID of the real perp!!

So I figure even if the plod have the suspect on CCTV, the court should wait until a camera facial recognition can survive a line up. Why not? Is this machine any better than a real human eye witness? Well actually I should hope so, but I have my doubts. Even people in my town have got away with murder, so just how bad is this surveillance after all. I really don't fear public recognition machines at all. It just comes from being from a small town - your mileage may differ.

Sorry to drone on and on but have you heard of Ingenuity? NASA's camera-copter is ready to head off to Mars

Re: Why

After watching that earth bound lab test of the drone deployment, I don't have a lot of confidence it is going to work. It looked like they had a couple of technicians with crow bars trying to get the deployment mechanism to work. We all know how disasters happen so easy on Mars! I reference the failed drilling device on that last fiasco!

There are DDoS attacks, then there's this 809 million packet-per-second tsunami Akamai says it just caught

Oh I bet...

@Marketing Hack and AndyD 8-)₹

I bet almost 90% of the problem was IoT devices!! Exactly spot on Marketing Hack and AndyD 8-)₹ !

Re: And the next step...

Well, we all know what this is - the article says a huge percentage of the IPs were brand new addresses; so it has to be the recent flood of IoT devices people are buying in droves. These folks will not have a clue as to what is causing the problem, even if they got a call from the ISP. What needs to happen is the government is going to have to step in and make a law that requires all device manufacturers put in configurations to assure, that these can't be hacked within seconds like they are now. The industry will be livid, because the clueless customers won't know how to get around the configurations to make the device work, but tough. That is just the way it is!

My last brand new router was fortunately setup this way, and they even gave me the wi-fi password, so I wouldn't have to make one up. I believe the cloud side of the remote administration was turned off by default - this is the way to sell device properly. It shouldn't delay too many customers, because most of them will NEVER use the features that make a router vulnerable, so why leave them wide open with standard user ID 'admin', and no password wide open for attack? That is just silly when it isn't that hard to do things the right way.

Australia's Lion brewery hit by second cyber attack as nation staggers under suspected Chinese digital assault

@My other car is also a Trabant

Where is this right wing media? I watch almost every news service on TV and haven't found one yet! BBC comes as close as I've found, as they seem to report all the news and the uncomfortable news too. Is that your single source?

Backwater internet trolls don't count, they are not big enough to provide coverage to the public at large; just fringe groups and there are plenty of those to keep all flavor if nuthatches happy. That includes Breitbart - nobody even heard of them until the regular news media started screaming about them.

Hey NYPD, when you're done tear-gassing and running over protesters, can you tell us about your spy gear?

Re: When police beat up protestors

That is peaceful protest done the right way! I read about the incident in a history book, and the soldiers guarding the bridge eventually got so sick of the mayhem, they threw up and passed out, and refused to continue their duty.

NASA to send Perseverance, a new trundle bot, and Ingenuity, the first interplanetary helicopter, to sniff out life on Mars in July

Re: future generations may well recognize the women and men of Perseverance

Off the top of my head - Gus Grissom, Chaffe, and White - may they rest in peace!

NASA scientists mull sending a spacecraft on a 13-year mission to visit Neptune's 'bizarre' moon, Triton

Assumptions..

What happened to all those assumptions made when it was first discovered? You know - the tidal functions of the planetary gravity well churning forces below the moon's surface? Maybe I should have got my coat instead?

The girl with the dragnet tattoo: How a TV news clip, Insta snaps, a glimpse of a tat and a T-shirt sold on Etsy led FBI to alleged cop car arsonist

Re: Gloves and goggles; whoda thought it?

Or rubber bullets - they can put your eye out!

@Symon

Yep!!

Re: See

Right on brother!!

Re: Missing info

How they got this information? Easy! Everybody quit practicing good privacy protection years ago! We put our thoughts, pictures, and video out there in public for all to view - the authorities don't even have to get a warrant anymore to gather PLENTY of information about all of us.

@RealityisntReal

Exactly what I was thinking!

@LucreLout - Re: Tut....kids today....

Why would they need unfettered access? Look how easy it is without such snooping. In today's world, where people leave their tracks publicly all over the web, it is a piece of cake to fine out everything you want to know about any potential suspect you can think of! You can even access hacker dumps online from corporate breaches that give a total picture of anything you want to know about anyone. The criminals know me better than I do - I found out when I had to fight them over my bank account and credit cards. It is all public knowledge - especially since the Equifax breach!

Re: Police cars rest easier

What I'm wondering is why the three letter agencies can't use investigation techniques like this to find terrorists, and quit trying to put back doors in everyone's device, when it isn't even necessary. Good ol' gumshoe work like this could find potential terrorists before they even strike - it is just using common sense deductive reasoning. Doh!

ESET rushes to defend rival Malwarebytes in legal war sparked by vendor upset at 'unwanted program' labeling

Re: i like ESET

Thank you for that - Panda is the only major AV I haven't tried (I think), besides SOPHOS I suppose.

Re: Only 2016?

That is exactly what I was thinking! I finally had to tell my clients that if they insisted on continuing using McCr@py products, then they were just going to have to do without my services!

Taiwan aims to trump China with new display tech industry development plan

Re: China thinks it owns Taiwan anyway

China did the same thing to the Japanese after Nanjing.

Trend Micro pulls another app over security fears: This time, the Privacy Browser in the Dr Safety Android suite

Trend Micro used to be on top...

In the early part of this century, Trend Micro was the only anti-virus that actually seemed to work - it and NOD32 that is. But after 2007 all bets were off and it seemed non of the AVs I tried did there jobs anymore, except Avast. None the less I temporarily used ESET's NOD32 until I started getting very difficult problems trying to reinstate my license when the subscription ran out. It was so difficult I quit and went to Avast. Now it seems none of the AVs truly detect any of the best malware out there, so I settled on MBAM for now. As long as I keep everything totally updated, at least malware is unlikely to pwn my computer - I'm not even sure MBAM can help any better, but it is a lifetime license, so I'm sticking to it. They don't have their own browser, but they have a Chrome extension that seems to work pretty well so far.

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

Re: I don't even see an option to make a comment.

@Sherrie Ludwig -

I had forgot about that one - good point. I'd like to think no one would get away with that now days. When you see city leaders being put on the hot plate in the 21st century.

Re: Purpose of survey questions

Exactly! - Wellyboot

Re: "lol they're just using them for surveillance"

I totally agree with you Chairman of the Bored!!

Re: You asked my opinion about drones...

I think drones are the best thing since sliced bread. Why wouldn't military and police use them to the upmost. They already were using helicopters, which were ineffective at identifying the actual bad actors in a crowd. I was trained in riot control in the National Guard, and we always employed snipers with the best visual equipment we could get to surveil from a tall building or other over look in troubled areas. This way the actual bad actors could be discovered, and video documented, and if need be, taken out if the danger to the public is perilous enough.

The only problem is leadership. You have to tip the balance toward 1st Amendment rights and use discretion when surveilling troublesome demonstrations that could blow up in your face. I think it is ridiculous to ham string our LEOs from using the best equipment and hardware available. However it takes good training and leadership which seems to be greatly lacking in these times; as it is obvious too many 1st responders were not behaving under a good SOP governance. Maybe the police went mad and rioted them selves? We need those assets to prove both sides of the equation. It can save lives or weed out bad law enforcement personnel; but it will take good directors and leaders to know the difference and be transparent with the public in their tactics(to a point) and mistakes. Don't tell me it can't be done - that doesn't matter, we need to strive to that goal no matter what.