Posts by jobardu

Intel's mystery Linux muckabout is a dangerous ploy at a dangerous time

Linux is a community of people, not a corporation or group

It is more than a commercial endeavor and not a religion. There is a social contract that keeps the entire Linux community going. It is open source so that users can modify the source code. Open source should also provide a degree of security and privacy so that users can avoid having every word, program, model, comment logged and sold by enterprises and governments. Some of that is now inevitable. The implicit assumption is that such surveillance is limited to national security and is vetted, so out of control agencies and corporations can't monetize the user and turn them into products.

The Linux community and open source, in general, are being compromised and destroyed. There are two high costs society will pay for doing this:

1. The open-source community, which has contributed immeasurably to advances in all phases of computing, will dry up, and a fundamental technical advantage to the West and the US will be lost:

2. The West was founded on Enlightenment focus on individual rights. That is being lost, and we are now entering an era of group rights. Group rights societies are centralized, intellectually stagnant, poorer, and weaker. They are also more cynical and beat down because they have no rights they can rely on to protect themselves and theirs.

If one agrees with those trends, then sit back and enjoy it. If you prefer more control over your life and some privacy, you should oppose it. Welcome to the new world where the Wokestitution replaces the Constitution, and group rights supersede individual rights.

US Congress mulls first 'hack back' revenge law. And yup, you can guess what it'll let people do

Hacking Back is common sense and necessary

The government is doing a poor job of protecting the citizenry, the economy and the military against foreign hackers. ADM Mike Rogers, NSA Director, opposes hacking back by using scare terms about Pandora's Box and chaos. He wants his office to retain its monopoly on offensive cyber and hacking back. Yet the citizenry feels helpless and the people are still bleeding jobs and fortunes.

Another fear of Rogers and the bureaucracy is that allowing private industry to defend citizens and companies from hacking and pursuing offenders could show up politically constrained, conflicted- priority government efforts for their lack of accomplishments, focus and effectiveness.

I can remember not too long ago, the SOPA and PIPA bills which showed that the Government priorities were protecting music and movies over protecting Industry and personal information. It was a reenactment of the Dutch purchasing Manhattan Island for $25 worth of Trinkets. In this case, it was the Government, and the then head of the NSA, that was selling the country to the Chinese for a few DVDs. Few people, and fewer news media, called them out on it then and isn't doing so now, the sponsors of this legislation excepted.

Free enterprise and private industry can always do a better job if there is a free market. What we need is a few companies to serve as Cyber Pinkertons or similar organizations. Will it have some rough spots and will make it a little uncomfortable for government civil service cyber defense groups. Yes, it will, but it will also help make people feel less helpless and provide a layer of threat and uncertainty to private hackers. Hacking won't stop until the price of hacking exceeds the returns yielded by hacking. That isn't happening now, and it is time for a change.

How to save Wikipedia: Start paying editors ... or write for machines

Off the tracks

The author lost me when he started going off on gender, race and general political correctness. Political correctness is a pile of blame, guilt and shame. It adds nothing to life nor solves any problems.

If Wikipedia is of sub par quality then some analysis and metrics would make that clear. If the author, or the Register, wants a PC wiki then create one staffed by blacks, feminists and Muslims. That will be above criticism so it will automatically receive high grades. In fact, the Wikipedia Foundation could probably receive considerable Government funding for setting up a parallel race, gender and religion based online encyclopedia. It is more efficient for Wikipedia to do this than someone else without the experience.

For me, Wikipedia is a good entry point into subjects I am interested in but not working on for my livelihood. I accept the errors as long as they are errors of omission and not comission. The PC media, by way of contrast, see no difference between the two. .

Flak for Slack chaps in yak app hack flap: User database whacked

Worth a nobel prize

If there was a Nobel Prize for headline writers the author of this one would certainly deserve it. How could you not read this article after seeing the headline?

Vintage wine laid down in 1600 BC was 'psychotropic'

Re: I want a Technicolor dreamcoat for X-mas !

Not exactly. Palestine is a modern construct. They could have been Israelis, or Lebanese or whatever the area was called at the time.

Another DEVASTATING Chelyabinsk METEOR STRIKE: '7x as likely' as thought

I blame global warming

Global warming makes Earth seem more attractive to meteorites so they come here for vacation more often. We need to cool the place off and add some ugly looking pollution to the air so they will leave us alone

Windows 8.1: Read this BEFORE updating - especially you, IT admins

Death Wish with Apple as Charles Bronson

Microsoft must have a death wish. They already have a reputation of being hard for consumers to work with, and this unnecessarily complex upgrade procedure with the possibility of having to reinstall all your applications will turn off a number of people. I'm rooting for Microsoft and have been using Windows/Office for over twenty years, but they leave me shaking my head.