Re: eliminating COVID-19 will be easier than polio
>Gravity: Not just a good idea - It's the law
That truism came from Mythbusters. I trust them more than today's loopy physicists.
146 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Sep 2012
Rather than discuss going to war over software security, why don't we just make it illegal to connect any public utility/critical facility etc to the Internet?
Until recently, New Zealand ran its electricity infrastructure on RS232, which is beginning to sound like a good idea, again.
Also, instead of blindly going to war, why not re-employ the guys who found Osama Bin Laden, to find the hackers? Give them the same instructions, and sit back and wait.
This word 'stability' that's being bandied around is a little overworked. The fact that an operating system is the vehicle fin which applications run should be a clue to the fact that it should not have a drastic change with each new release.
Stability is what we had with SunOS 4, when each new release only contained minor improvements, which needed no changes to administrative procedures, and no need to recompile applications.
Now, it seems that Linux has gone the way of Windows, where every version contains incompatibilities with other versions, and each new release contains crap that nobody needed, but that some developer decided was good for you.
Now that there are dozens of things claiming to be 'Linux', which one do you choose, in the fond hope that it'll still be around in a few years? If you compile your product on one incarnation, are you sure it'll run on all the others?
I stopped updating CentOS after 6.9, since it had all the features I needed, but it was becoming apparent that somebody had started to pretend it was an application, which needed more 'features'.
Take a lesson from Boeing: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Think positive, guys. Everyone is missing a golden opportunity at retribution.
It's a well-known fact that the Russian government only turns a blind eye to their hackers if they attack foreign targets.
How difficult can it be to use REvil's malware and delivery mechanism to execute a ransomware attack on Russia's state bank/power grid/hospital system etc?
Put the ransom money into REvil's bitcoin account, and let them enjoy it. Briefly.
Just for fun, it should be quite easy to spoof the originating address to be that of some random Russian server - perhaps in KGB headquarters.
Once they've traced it all back to REvil, there will be a few free Siberian holidays handed out.
A company for which I worked needed some ball bearings to fix a ballrace in a specialist camera. The purchasing department was given a requisition for "12 .3 inch ball bearings, surface accuracy 1/10th of a thou". The failure to write the decimal as '0.3' resulted in loss of the decimal point, which led to the delivery of a dozen 3 inch steel balls, with an amazing surface accuracy, and an astronomical cost.
The supplier wouldn't take them back, so they were raffled off as 'decorator items' to the staff.
I think the problem is, that nobody tells you where the electricity comes from. Usually, it's from a coal-burning power station or, worse, from a nuclear power station. How green is coal slag or radioactive waste? On a side thought: The world's supply of lithium is even lower than that of crude oil, so what happens when the lithium runs out?
If you buy a car, and the manufacturer decides it'll no longer supply spares for it, if you're happy with the performance of the drum brakes, then how would you feel if they decided to frig the radio, so it constantly poured out propaganda about how bad your car was?
When you've paid for your OS, it's your property, not Microsoft's, and any attempt to disable features (like the DVD drive, which was their parting shot) should be an offence.
At one point in my career, I was responsible for supporting the company's application development office in France. On arrival at Roissy, my luggage went into the X-ray scanner and, on its arrival at the other end, several gendarmes surrounded me, with exhortations to "Put up your 'ands", while pointing their mitraillettes at me. The customs guy rummaged through the case, and triumphantly produced several reels of half-inch computer tape, at which point the gendarmes lowered their weapons, and explained "Sorry, they looked like magazines for a Kalashnikov"....
That merely demonstrates the poor quality of modern electronics.
Many years ago, when I worked for Tektronix, I went into the service department for some reason, and saw a guy with a hose, with which he was enthusiastically hosing one of our 475 series oscilloscopes.
On inquiring what was going on, I was informed that the scope had been on a geophysical survey vessel, from which it had fallen into the sea and, if it hadn't been for the mains lead, it would have been lost forever.
Wishing him luck, I went back to my office, but curiosity forced me to return, just as he was putting away the insulation shrinker (it's like a hair dryer). He plugged in the scope, turned it on, then flicked a few switches to prove it still worked perfectly, and tied a "Repair Complete" tag to it..
Laptop makers could learn something here.
"Like many other businesses, Facebook relies on SCCs to transfer data to countries outside the EU, including to the United States..."
For 'EU' read 'United States' and for 'United States', read 'China'.
Am I missing something, or shouldn't Trump be calling this 'spying'?