* Posts by Snake

1712 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Oct 2012

IBM's vintage Db2 database jumps on AWS's cloud bandwagon

Snake Silver badge

Re: Db2 for z/OS is what we need on AWS!

"ibm cloud doesn't really count - as most of us leverage AWS and/or GCP!!"

So the fact that *you* leverage AWS means that IBM should just throw out hundreds of millions of dollars/pounds in potential sales by giving its cloud competitor (AWS) the service(s)?

That's mighty magnanimous of you.

Car dealers openly beg Biden to put brakes on electric vehicle drive

Snake Silver badge

Re: And then there is reality.

Based upon a friend's interest in EV's, and his experience in borrowing his brother's Tesla 3, one of the main reason that other manufacturer's EV models don't sell is support, not the car - read: Tesla has the best charging infrastructure whilst other manufacturers have gone with alternate charging ports (sometimes, even proprietary). He used his brother's Model 3 to come up to visit me recently and thoroughly enjoyed the trip; conversely, he said previous experiences in non-Tesla cars, depending upon the Electrify America network, would have him seriously double-think an EV purchase (because the EA network "sucked").

With everyone adopting the Tesla port from this point forward, and other EV users being allowed to use the Supercharger network, I think a major hurtle to adoption in many locations will be overcome.

No link between internet use and poor mental health, according to Oxford boffins

Snake Silver badge

Re: Moaners moan

Don't ever forget FOMO. OMG, FOMO. Every person I seen affected by social media has at least a modicum of FOMO PTSD inside them.

Snake Silver badge

Re: Effect, and cause

Maybe they should be looking at the psychological profile of those more likely to openly embrace high internet use, rather than looking at the internet on back to the user? In other words, the type of user who's mental health does indeed get influenced by high-level internet use might be more likely to show a high probability to addictive behaviours, a higher indices of loneliness, be more greatly influenced by social pressures, greater seeking of outside validation to dampen a personal feeling of insecurity, etc etc?

Plex gives fans a privacy complex after sharing viewing habits with friends by default

Snake Silver badge

Re: ads

An "ad"? What's that? Oh, I remember, that's the thing that suckers end up having to experience because they don't use NoScript, YT Vanced, NoRootFirewall and several other technologies.

I pity them.

Snake Silver badge

Re: the younger generation

What makes you think that it's just the younger generation, and you being old? I know a 58- year old just as addicted to the validation feedback of social media as the stereotypical 19-year old.

Believing that, because [we're] older makes us, somehow, better, and more immune to stupidity, is what got us to our planet's current mess in the first place.

Brits turn off Twitter, although teens and tweens keen on generative AI

Snake Silver badge
Thumb Up

Well played

X's legal eagles swoop on Media Matters over antisemitic content row

Snake Silver badge

Re: Dog, you are blinded by your biases

"...hackers..."

Trying to justify your own biases yet using a hack to try to prove a web user (MM) did something "bad". One was a HACK, this...isn't, correct?? Finding problems is what people like MM *do*. And you bother / have the nerve to mention Hunter's laptop, after 5 years of investigations and...a big, fat nothinghood. We've all been waiting to see if our government is truly corrupt and they've given us a circus act, prOn pictures and nothing but innuendos. We've been waiting, you know. Contrary to your, apparently, rampant conspiracy theories we want TRUTH, and dog-damn have you guys missed that target by a nuclear-warhead mile.

You just want to be proven as a victim of everyone that doesn't think like you. It's a modern poison to society, everyone not like me *must* be my enemy. Ghosts and enemy agents, behind every corner.

Snake Silver badge

Re: uninformed

And that's illegal?? They did the equivalent of fuzzing the system.

You've got an axe to grind - sorry, I don't. I don't know Musk beyond the limited amount of news I bother to read about him, don't own any of his products, don't use any of his services. I have no experience with him at all. Just another Rich Boi with toys, the world has plenty of them now. His drama is hot-swappable with any of the other Rich Bois who think their money buys them power and accommodations.

So, does Musk have a point to his complaint? Simply, not from where I'm standing. Again, if the algorithm didn't allow it, it wouldn't / shouldn't have been possible. Is Media Matters dirt-digging? Sounds like it, but also sounds like they were quite successful; X has been receiving multiple complaints for a long time about their [lack of] proper hate speech filtering, and maybe MM has caught them out, not unlikely as (remember) Musk did lay off thousands of workers when he took over, making these kind of things more likely.

What will happen from all this? MM's point is, hopefully, to simply make X be much better at their much-promised hate speech filtering. Maybe MM will be seen as guilty of something or not, I personally don't have enough detailed information (do you? The media hasn't given that level) to make a judgement. All I know is how computer systems respond, and a system won't respond unless it is either built to allow that response or caught inside a coding bug. But it seems YOU already have made a judgement, 'damn lefties' and all that...because, what, poor X is a target? Doesn't that identify X as a favorite of the *right*, maybe making MM's point for them? Reconsider your stance and question, are you seeking the truth or too placed within your own propaganda bubble to know the difference??

Snake Silver badge

Re: uninformed

Poor thing, breaking out the victimhood the moment it suits your agenda.

I notice you didn't respond to the basic premise of my post, because it is impossible to deny: Media Matters couldn't do anything on the system that the X system wouldn't allow in the first place.

Next whinger, please.

Snake Silver badge

Re: uninformed

Exactly.

Anonymous Coward quoted:

""Through intentionally evading X's multiple safeguards...

And exactly HOW did this simple user, that being Media Matters, evade "multiple safeguards" if those safeguards actually, you know, worked? "Computer, override safety protocols, authorization JanewayPiEpislon6973". Wow, sudo access activated!

AC is, I agree, openly swallowing the propaganda without stopping to *think*. A remote-access user, "evading multiple safeguards"? How does that work in any system that is correctly designed?? Only answer: it ISN'T correctly designed and that's what Media Matters is pointing out. No personal or corporate bias necessary: if the safeguards were there, it simply should be impossible to create the link feed. If the system allowed it, the algorithm can *also* create it by itself because the feeds are fundamentally algorithm based. No matter how much anyone tries you can't do what they system wasn't designed to do unless we're also talking about hacking the code of the system. I don't see any code hacking here, just a theoretical user using the system in a theoretical manner.

X has, apparently, been caught-out on the fact that yes, building the feed within your own algorithm is entirely possible. That's YOUR fault, not Media Matters - they just found the bug, they 'fuzzed' to search for pattern creation.

Snake Silver badge

Bullshaite

""Through intentionally evading X's multiple safeguards by curating the content on its feed and then repeatedly attempting to create pairings of advertisements for major brands "

What is so questionable about that?? YouTube does it all the time - you bother to stop on, or watch, ONE feed and it then automatically assumes you want a continuous feed of this garbage.

There is nothing about your "safeguards". "Curating contact to create pairings" is what your algorithms do, naturally, every time we look at that screen. There's nothing 'unnatural' about it. Somehow, YT believes I now want to watch anime because I stopped on a feed about Marvel. You do the same thing...but now want to claim that you don't, because it suits your purposes.

You're full of it.

Microsoft unleashes Copilot preview on Windows 10 insiders

Snake Silver badge

I'd like to know what kind of benefit Copilot endows

... that it justifies trying to embed itself in every Win10 computer.

I don't have enough use for the technology to want it as an intrinsic part of my OS. Optional, yes. A fundamental module, No.

"Hey Copilot, why am I such an idiot that I can't find the file in this subdirectory that I'm looking for? Can you find it for me?"

"No Dave, I'm sorry, I can't do that. I'm spacing your useless corpse now."

OpenAI meltdown: How could Microsoft have let this happen after betting so many billions?

Snake Silver badge

Re: Or...

But the El Reg article isn't complete in financial details, which here is a VERY important point.

MS might be OpenAI's largest investor, at 49%, but MS is *not* the largest power / voting bloc of the board. According to this breakdown story,

https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-investors-considering-suing-board-after-ceos-abrupt-firing-sources-2023-11-20/

Open AI was founded as a non-profit and then equity sold, as a for-profit, to raise capital. But the 2% retained by the non-profit business core was given the greatest board voting power, in a belief of keeping an 'altruistic' outlook on the business.

So the board that kicked Altman out was the non-MS, not-for-profit core board. MS doesn't actually have as much say in the operations as their 49% equity implies; MS was almost assuredly caught off-guard on all this drama as Altman, and the other investors, were.

Qualcomm promises 'premium performance' in Gen 3 Snapdragon 7 phone chips

Snake Silver badge

Re: Cue lukewarm applause

How about an actual "midrange" unit, one is the $/£600 price bracket, with useful features like good battery life, an SD card slot, actual "midrange" performance worthy of the name and a very good - but not 4-sensor-fantastic - camera?? Is that asking too much in today's world?!

Low-priced model selection: great! High-end model selection: great! Mid-range? Err, we'll get back to you on that, just pony up the £1000 and stop being 'cheap' damnit.

50 years ago, Skylab's accidental rebels put Mission Control on mute

Snake Silver badge

RE: limits

Exactly. The mid-level managers, not even there, were yelling to "Work harder!" and, when they couldn't, *they* are the ones made out to be guilty?!

NASA should have been called out for this, not the astronauts. The guys had their lives on the line, Mission Control sits there in comfort.

Royal Mail’s recovery from ransomware attack will cost business at least $12M

Snake Silver badge

Re: Is it still going on?

Ha-ha. A week for U.S. Customs? Is that all? I had to return items back to my U.K. vendor and it took UK Customs almost a full month to clear it, I thought it was lost along with the value therein.

Meta's fix for teen online mental health? Hold Apple and Google responsible

Snake Silver badge

Re: That's hardly a solution

It is hardly a solution because, now that I've been forced on to the social media networks, I see adults being addicted to the toxic narcissism and endorphin rush of Meta services. They just can't put the dog-damn thing down. Posting their tiniest little activities to get the reaction feedback. If you are beautiful enough - read, focus solely on how your body appears to the outside world - posting nothing but pictures of yourself in various poses to get those views. Asking for attention and recognition.

And worse, the Meta apps are intentionally designed, via oblique and malformed interfaces, to keep you on the app for as damn long as possible. Letting you know that 326 complete and utter strangers viewed your post, without comment, as if you could do anything about it at all. Clicking into Messenger...and having to, quite intentionally, scroll down to find the unanswered messages instead of doing the most obvious thing of automatically popping new messages to the top of the feed. Telling you that someone has a post that 'might be of interest', when there's nothing there reflecting you personally at all.

It's completely toxic and a very intentional waste of your time. But that's their entire plan: keep you there, wasting time, all the while feeding you ads or gathering yet more profile telemetry so that they can sell it to the next advertiser who bothers to ask.

Kill it. Kill it all. The world would be a better place without all this fake "social" media which only really allows everyone's worst personality traits to show up, unchecked.

FBI Director: FISA Section 702 warrant requirement a 'de facto ban'

Snake Silver badge

Re: Lies, and convenient lies

"We hold the 4th amendment in the same regard as the 2nd amendment."

Really??!! Then why can't you "Conservatives" EVER properly quote the full Second Amendment as actually written??!

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed

How come you conservatives NEVER, EVER want to talk about the clause of the "well regulated Militia" but ALWAYS and ONLY want to talk about "shall not be infringed"?? The *two* are written together, in stone. If you want your guns - and I have no problem with that! - then you should be in that 'well regulated Militia'. It's right there, in black & white.

Oh, but you never, EVER want to. You want your guns...without any catches.

Another month, another bunch of fixes for Microsoft security bugs exploited in the wild

Snake Silver badge

Re: Ah, Patch Tuesday...

And Mint has as much built-in functionality from the OS creator as Windows?? It's an apples and oranges comparison, and I wish more people would consider that before doing the judgement. MS's update channel is used by both Lenovo and nVidia to distribute updates for instance, leading to greater burdens on the update process.

UnitedHealthcare's broken AI denied seniors' medical claims, lawsuit alleges

Snake Silver badge

Re: UHC

Their profit, corruption and cronyism has not much to do with the US government: a good percentage of the population keeps voting for this, because after all anything else is "socialism!".

I mean, don't you WANT a profit-draining middleman in ALL your business / health transactions?? Certainly anything else, like gasp! single payer, is marching with Stalin!

Snake Silver badge

Re: You Don't Need AI to Defraud Your Customers

Is THAT where general corporatespeak got that formula from!? At least when [insert corporation here] uses it next time I know.

Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean AI's not after you

Snake Silver badge

Re: To the glue factory with you!

Then let's start with Mehta herself.

WHAT the hell is with Indian nationals and their attitudes on workers anyway??! This has to be the, ugh, zillion'th time a boss just dismisses worker concerns, worker health, or even worker lives, as "Oh well, I'll just pick up another slave replacement ASAP!" I wonder (both aloud, and non-PC) if it has anything to do with sect stratification and built-in attitudes on how you treat anyone you don't perceive as looking you level in the eye.

AI chemist creates catalysts to make oxygen using Martian meteorites

Snake Silver badge

Re: Oh?

Too true!

Still, shades of the final scene from Total Recall here: atmosphere made from rocks. Life imitates art, yet again.

Beijing reportedly asked Hikvision to identify fasting students in Muslim-majority province

Snake Silver badge

RE: Hikvision

I'm just loving the gaslighting, "We accepted the contract...but didn't fulfill the requirements! Promise!"

Inside Denmark’s hell week as critical infrastructure orgs faced cyberattacks

Snake Silver badge

Re: Zyxel firewalls

In all fairness, Cisco's "SoHo" router of a number of years ago (RV110) was an out-of-date piece of junk that was still being slogged well, well after it's sell-by date (and was foisted on me by the supplier by boss chose).

So just because it has a nice manufacturer's label doesn't mean much nowadays...

Snake Silver badge

Re: saving money

"Actually it's like buying *any vehicle*, but "saving money" by not changing the oil on the manufacturer's recommended schedule."

You shouldn't go on to Owner's forums on the internet, then. If I had a penny every time someone talks about saving money on their oil changes by using off-brand filters and extending oil service intervals, after spending big $$$/£££ on *buying* the vehicle in the first place, I'd be a wealthy, wealthy, wealthy man.

It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

Snake Silver badge

Re: Why not use a satnav app?

In a car a phone as a satnav is common and quite OK - the phone is protected from the elements, can be heard easily in the cabin, often can be connected to the infotainment in the dash, and cars usually stay on road with quality cellular connectivity.

Yes, I brought up the point of satnav on motorcycles because many of the things I mention are NOT that frequent when you're on a bike. Plus, you'll learn quickly how "waterproof" that claim on your cellphone is after it has to sustain 100kph-driven rain for 6 continuous hours.

Snake Silver badge

Re: Why not use a satnav app?

A phone can NOT function well as a satnav if you're actually exploring and traveling to new destinations, because it is very difficult to impossible to replan your route or stops using said phone while riding. In the unknown and want unplanned food or fuel? You'll need to stop to reroute. Want to see a sight, a road or highlight that just made itself look interesting? Stop and reroute.

You don't know what real riding autonomy is like until you get rid of your insistence that impressing a device not designed for purpose into use, rather than ask yourself why real distance travelers all use real, dedicated GPS units. Nobody treking on a R-GS, or traveling 2000+ miles, uses a cell phone for guidance - now why is that??

Snake Silver badge

Re: Why not use a satnav app?

Because it doesn't solve the two tremendous remaining issues on a motorcycle: water resistance and touchscreen UI. You can put your cellphone into a waterproof case but that only increases the touchscreen issue; trying to depend upon voice control is a fool's errand on a bike and you still won't get that voice control unless you also have internet connectivity.

Like I said, on a motorcycle at least: if you're using a cellphone and that's OK for you, you haven't traveled far enough.

Snake Silver badge

Re: gifts accepted

...as long as I don't have to declare them on my ethics or tax forms.

Snake Silver badge

Re: I can see two cases here

"Brilliant, if you don't use the phone's satnav to replace the useless one that's built in."

I have a real Garmin satnav, I don't pretend using my smartphone's Google Maps as a make-believe "satnav". On this side of the pond there are (and I live inside one) a vast number of locations without reliable cellular services, making smartphone-based "solutions" a joke worthy of the quotes I just attached to it.

I've always had the saying (as a motorcyclist), "If you are using your cellphone as a GPS and you're OK with that, you haven't traveled far enough". My current record for being outside cell service areas: 3 days. Friend went on his first long-distance, multi-state motorcycle trip and I kept telling him "cell phones are useless!" for use as a dependable GPS. After he came back (upper Pacific Northwest into lower Alberta and British Columbia) he was also a convert, "I need a real GPS!".

Snake Silver badge

Isn't it wonderful?

It's the Catch-22: you can't get laws to change until after you've been injured by them. Otherwise the courts declare "No standing" to the plaintiffs, as you haven't been injured by the mere existence of the law in question.

And then the world wonders why we can never get anything done...

Snake Silver badge

Re: You own the car, and it retaining your information is no different...

"With the "Remove Phone" and/or "Remove User/Profile" function."

And you're guaranteeing that how, exactly?? Did you use the Berla software to confirm that all the pertinent user data actually got deleted, or just assuming due to the deletion of the source (phone)?

CEOs of crashed tech upstart Bitwise accused of swindling $100M from investors

Snake Silver badge

Re: Florida Man

You mean Cheeto Jesus? They'll [still] be goose-stepping to his rallies no matter what his does.

Snake Silver badge

RE: catching up with them

They never, ever do, do they?? Every single one is 'special', they believe they get to do whatever they want to do and nobody will ever be the wiser, or care.

But keep an eye out on this case: it'll be a relative slap on the wrist. The fraud they are declaring is paperwork - falsifying documents.

"According to the financial watchdog, Olguin and Soberal have agreed to resolve the SEC's charges against them; that will likely involve them being fined and facing other forms of punishment, to be determined later by the courts.

And there you go: slap on the wrist already being planned. Never you mind the investors that lost $100 million, never you mind the $600K per year pocketed personally. The only complaint is that they filled out the SEC forms 'improperly', and grandma still loses her life savings.

"If convicted, the two face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine."

They'll never get even close to that. Maybe 2 years, several months of public service - it was all a misunderstanding! Our underlings did all the dirty! We didn't know nothin'!

Robot mistakes man for box of peppers, kills him

Snake Silver badge

Re: RE: dark humour

Thank you very much for your kindest in sending your condolences.

Still, remember that all aspects of British humour are not understood, or accepted, worldwide. I understand that the British, and some Americans, will go with dark humour (oh, Duckman, art thou!) but there is no guarantee that the traumatized family of a South Korean national would understand. Or, necessarily, appreciate it from complete strangers if they happen to come across the web discussions.

Best to stick to universally-accepted responses here, across nationalities - condolences.

Snake Silver badge

RE: dark humour

It doesn't work. It is only a short-term distraction, pushing the trauma and despair away from the forward cognitive centers for only so long. I just lost my partner of 19 years two months ago...no, it doesn't work, not at all.

Instead of leading off with dark humour, how about giving the widow the greatest of condolences? Dark humour is better saved for private scenes, when just a [touch] of levity is used to help cope with the incredible loss.

Apple exec defends 8GB $1,599 MacBook Pro, claims it's like 16GB in a PC

Snake Silver badge

Re: "fruit fan-boy"

"We said at the time "it's almost 2024, and Apple is still shipping PCs with 8GB of RAM," which got us some stick from readers who felt that capacity was more than enough."

Because corporate apologists. The gifts that never end.

Atlassian predicts its on-prem products will grow faster than cloud

Snake Silver badge

Re: Don't think Atlassian will be hiring for much longer

Wait for it: the EOY 'performance' bonuses for the C-suite, while the rest of their plan for world domination explodes around them...

UK data watchdog fines three text spammers for flouting electronic marketing rules

Snake Silver badge

Re: Yeah, that’ll learn ‘em.

Even better to show this, as well as many, many, many, many other events (today's FTX ruling) as a counterpoint to those naive enough to swallow anti-regulation 'libertarian' ideals. Somehow they believe that, after you remove all oversight / governmental rules & regulations, people will behave with nothing but gentle love and affection towards one another. They'd never cheat, would they??

We can't even get the scum of the world to do the right thing when we do have rules telling them how to behave. -_-

Microsoft calls time on Windows Insider MVP program

Snake Silver badge

Re: script responses

Or even worse, a "MVP" who gives a wrote and general-purpose response to a technical issue and then labels themselves as giving the "correct" answer, thereby getting (some type of) credit for supplying the 'solution' (see Zippy's similar response, below).

Privacy advocate challenges YouTube's ad blocking detection scripts under EU law

Snake Silver badge

Re: housemates the same sex

Certainly it would be. But it just makes it 2x creepier that the male of the house, who 'conveniently' sub-rents to [all] females...is the one who installed and monitors the inside cameras.

Deviant, anyone??

Snake Silver badge

Re: Why log in?

That's exactly what I told her to do. But she just wanted out, she felt threatened and saw no personal benefit from fighting both the male and female housemates for her legal rights when leaving just seemed simpler.

I told her to have the book thrown at him after she left. She just wants to wash her hands of the entire situation; if the the women of the house are that stupid, let them simmer in their own juices.

Snake Silver badge

Re: Why log in?

Because, sheeple! Don't you WANT to stay logged into the Dark Empire Google, just because??

BTW, I / we use the word "sheeple" but you really want to know exactly how sheeple these people have become?! A lady friend had to move out of her shared apartment one week after moving in. Why? Because, during that first week, she went to the bathroom a few times in the middle of the night and her roommates said that they noticed this on the cameras the next day.

The main roommate had installed interior cameras in the shared areas of the house. Without telling her before she moved in. The main roommate is a male, and ALL the sub-renters are females.

And the females didn't complain about it one little bit. It happens to be against the law. But the sheeple city females believe that 'it's in their best interest' to have the only male in the house have inside cameras that monitor their actions.

----------------------------

The friend felt threatened (as she should) and moved out immediately. The other [female] roommates...simply stay.

Sheeple.

Infosys co-founder calls for youth to work 70-hour weeks

Snake Silver badge

Re: Ok, let's abuse the children!

Exactly what I was thinking! Let's see: old as dirt, filthy fscking rich man states that [workers underneath his control] employees should believe in working 70-hour weeks, because working harder for him will simply increase his personal wealth "We need greater productivity!!".

"The former Infosys CEO also called for governments to “remove all restrictions to the entrepreneur, to create more and more jobs for the people to create some wealth for themselves and some wealth for investors.”

Hands-off governments, he said, will be able to raise more taxes.

We TRIED that before scumbag. It was called "free enterprise" from between 1860-1918 and it destroyed families, practically made indentured servants of huge groups of workers such as miners, and only succeeded in making the capital class wealthy and everyone else...not.

OH, I'm sorry, did I just identify your ulterior motives out loud??!! My bad.

It is 20 years since the last commercial flight of Concorde

Snake Silver badge

Re: the problem was political

No, it was much more than that. Concorde had a limited range and flights into JFK were given priority landing, which meant that other flights had to be arranged around Concorde's presence. "Yes, its noisy and inefficient by modern standards" - not even close. The Eastern seaboard, hell any populated area, couldn't deal with the sonic boom without damage to ground dwellings so all supersonic transport would therefore be limited to only overseas flights, and be limited to their far less-efficient subsonic flight speeds once around any populated land mass to boot. This, amongst many other complex reasons, is why Boeing withdrew from the supersonic commercial transport race - limited market, with a limited seating capacity on top of it due to the necessary fineness of the fuselage to make supersonic a commercially viable reality.

It's a shame really, that the promise of supersonic was never fully realized for general public consumption. I miss the days when we strived to reach for the limits; now, it's the cheapest option wins.

When is a privacy button not a privacy button? When Google runs it, claims lawsuit

Snake Silver badge

RE: Material Design

Samsung's UI experience is just as broken as Google's Material, at least based upon my experience in comparing it to a much more intuitive Android UI, LG's.

I have been forced to use someone else's Samsung for the past 2 months, alongside my LG. And whilst Samsung's UI is glossy it - like Apple's, Facebook's & Instagram's apps, and others - have no idea how to make the user's experience better, just...shinier. But you all have become so *used* to terrible UI design with the Facebook & Instagram apps that you've become accustomed to the abuse.

Why can't I adjust the Samsung's sound / volume directly from the drop-down panel and then a dedicated mini control panel, rather than being forced into accessing the full Sounds panel and *then* locating the volume subcontrol for all sounds?? Why does this Samsung not give me a emoji control on the keyboard, requiring me to first type in a emoji-associated word (like "heart") and then give me a *limited* choice of options that *it* decided that I should be happy with?? Why can't I drag & drop from the main apps menu to the Home screen? Why? Why?!

And those are just the ones that I can name off the top of my tiny, empty head. This Samsung just adds to my current level of despair and frustration, it feels like doesn't help in any way at all.

Indian authorities raid fake tech support rings after tipoff from Amazon and Microsoft

Snake Silver badge

Re: Cracking down on tech scum

"1) Since said operations had been functional for up to five years, which authorities in the region in which they were operating were receiving financial support to ensure that they were not investigated or shut down *prior* to this time?"

Oh yes, most likely, knowing the all too-typical actions of the subcontinent. If Bhopal didn't teach us a lesson about willful corruption then Rana Plaza should have been a blaring, blasting, ear-deafening roar.

Snake Silver badge

RE: scamming

Scamming itself may be nothing new but thanks to modern technology the scammers now have a worldwide supply of targets to go after. Previously, unless you had the audacity of Ponzi, your scams were pretty local in effect. Now, these scammers collect millions of rupees (in this case) thanks to targeting unknowing people throughout the world.

So the hand of justice must also go worldwide against these fraudsters. Especially since, most often, they target the most vulnerable of society, those with little knowledge and especially the elderly trying to keep up with a technology they do not fully grasp.

Don't throw the book at them, throw the whole damn court building on top of them. We, as techies, have all dealt with the fallout of their criminality, one way or another, picking up the pieces of their fraud or simply making sure to help out friends and family with their tech needs before the crooks could find the opportunity to get their claws into them. I'm tired of hundreds of spam calls, tired of thousands of spam emails, tired of hearing and dealing with the damage that these scammers, worldwide, do.