Posts by Grinning Bandicoot

Europe slams online tat bazaar AliExpress for dodging obligation to stop dodgy traders

But they get a Certificate of Authenticity

Boffins devise voice-altering tech to jam 'vishing' schemes

Re: Normal voices already baffle most speech recognition systems

Banks, insurance and the like have committees and regulators whereas the no-goodniks are free to practice good, old fashion entrepreneurship!

Re: Solution-maybe

I'm old enough to remember the IBM 360 as being in the concept state and COBAL being the new thing. However being held enthrall to spammers and their fellow low-lifes is NOT my thing. Each contact in my directory has been assigned an individual ring. If not a recognized tone, it is ignored for the nonce and looked up later. If it is someone or thing that II wish to communicate, I call.

While I'm here: two certs on email spam. If I see the source as a Gmail, straight to trash. Sorry about that Norton, PayPal or McAffee you're all very untrusted because you cannot control the use of your own name.

As a matter of fact my tired ol' eyes now require another level of magnification.-

Gang of monkeys escape South Carolina biomedical research facility

Re: this isn't the first time such an incident has happened at the Alpha Genesis monkey farm

ABS is a large firm servicing the dairy industry with AI!

Re: this isn't the first time such an incident has happened at the Alpha Genesis monkey farm

Think Alpha Omega would be better??

Why UK Online Safety Act may not be safe for bloggers

And people wonder why there are so few small start-ups in the world. Though the penalalty is severe, it opens a new market for insurance with premiums only a large established firm would be able to pay.. Then there is the question of harmfulness - Kittens picture distress me and I find them very harmful to my emotional health. And worst is all that trash at election time every time I see or hear _____, I get so sick why can't _____ just get the position .

Wonderful rule! Would have made King John proud if he thought of it.

Dems want answers on national security risks posed by hiring freeze, DOGE probes

The curious question that seemed to be overlooked assuming the inspectors (?) are honest is how the cutting would be done. By contract its 'last in first out' so the person that is up on the lastest M$ bull will go and the Fortran guy who tends the two machines out in nowheresville but is necessary for the processing of all the cost saving forms initiated by LBJ will stay or will it be the opposite. The Feds have such a range of systems to cover every Pols pipe dream the idea of efficient cutting implies brain surgery on oneself by watching Carry on Doctor.

At this point in time secure means we will worry about it later on the political front

White House attempts to 'explain' mystery drone sightings: The FAA authorized 'em

Whiskey on the rocks was a Yankee ops?

How to leave the submarine cable cutters all at sea – go Swedish

Re: Practice what you preach?

The Ukrainians have been managing the news by far better than the cypto-Soviets. As you have stated if done by the Ukrainans it was balsy but not not against a defined treaty whereas the pipelines have treaty rights attached. The Ukrainian can speak as guys in white hats and to Putin's merry bunch as the same guys that ran tanks through Budapest, Prague and almost Warsaw. Since the Baltic has as much radar coverage as the Channel it gets down to money - who has enough to operate an AIS submersible capable of sneaking by all the listens devices in that area.

HMD Fusion: A budget repairable smartphone with modular flair

Well media well done

I had been wondering if anyone else had noticed the disconnect between mandates from on high about repair and replacement parts and last weeks article about how few can clear the memory on their smart devices. Well done!

Interpol wants everyone to stop saying 'pig butchering'

old scams in new skins

Gullible the avoided word, This is just an electronic version of the old lonely hearts con What's hinted at is that no one wants to take center stage as being so gullible as to fall for one of the two oldest scams (if you don't count I;'m from the government). Now must dash off I to send some money to a Nigerian refugee.

How US Dept of Justice's cure for Google could inflict collateral damage

Justice Dept. dedicated to ??

The anti-trust division operates a manner as to hurt the people they claim that they're protecting.. ATT was broken up but it is still here but without Bell Labs and infused with the moral (?) code of the Enron hotshots. Alcoa was broke up after substitutes/competitors arose. The Hollywood vertical monopoly was broke after the substitute for the cinema was rapidly growing into entertainment dominance. If the author's hypothesis holds true, then too Google is going just as Yahoo fell by the roadside. But one must ask what will replace such things nominally free as Android, Chrome, Drive, Earth, or the their derivitives. These will have to be financed directly or pass from the scene. I've grown accustomed to to using Earth for a quick reminder of the physical layout and having no longer to pay for this service gladdens my pocket.

How much of the fees received from the ads can be guessed by by the charge that M$ asks for its OS vs Android. Can the Justice Department's action be done at the behest of Redmond? Probably not but protection of old money is a better fit. Technology is just as long as the RIGHT PEOPLE control it. With Justice's past effort against producers of new technology I can not help as to whose pockets are being replenished as a reward for keeping the peasants down.

Badass Russian techie outsmarts FSB, flees Putinland all while being tracked with spyware

Re: "Always keep a second passport"

If he had not blown that his fone was a walking wiretap, think of the fun that could be had.. Faked conversations implicating loyal Putinite in CAPITALIST, WARMONGING,PRO UKRAINE scheme or better yet one involving China's revanchist theories of the lands ceded by unjust treaties. Aigun and Beijing treaties will be covered under a map with 8.9 (marked down from 9 for special arms sale) dash line.

Of course for the naif that thinks a fone that having left your control is secure, this must be devastating news to the naif.

China's Volt Typhoon reportedly breached Singtel in 'test-run' for US telecom attacks

One comical short story many years back had the Pentagon disabled by soap in the coffee machines. Think how effective you would be with the runs and no place to run to. Peter Sellers in the party idea. A soft attack by any adversity (government or non) would be highly diversionary and to the ruling regime unstabilizing. Low level biological warfare with no creditable source of attack.

Sysadmin shock as Windows Server 2025 installs itself after update labeling error

Re: I don't see what all the fuss is about.

The USAian is the wrong case it should be WEan. It nominative as the part of participle's phrase.

IRONY is in the man claiming to want to make America Great Again but supporting every lawyer in sight. The contradiction is so flagrant.

Re: Wait...

O come now! We see M$ so often it isn't even funny.

The blackmail will soon start.

Robots crush career opportunities for low-skilled workers

Absolutely true. The trash truck that get my refuse does not have swampper but an arm that reaches out, grabs and lifts the container, dumps into the hopper, finally slams the container into the ground. That a lost position. Or how about all the clerk-typists positions that were gone after the advent of the dry copy process. Then the poor crofter making cloth on the loom by dim candle light those positions went to the big city where power looms produced cloth not by the yard buy by hundreds of yards enabling the ready made clothes industry. The ready made industry will be going automated soon also.

Having accepted the philosophy of Heraclitus about change I see the answer is to be quick about the feet and nimble about the mind. The other is to look toward a caste system. Employment is just like dad and his dad and his dad's dad and so on. But if you're one of nimble and quick you have dad's position someday. I have read little that looked at a society of plenty (Edward Bellamy and Dallas Mc Cord are at the top) but the subject is ripe for the politcos to use. Use but not plan. Maybe it will be if you don't want to learn and adapt, a room-sized TV and a never ending supply of Colombia's best organic or China's fine industrial relaxant is called to be in the works with the commune kitchen providing a scientifically balanced meal suitable for your caste.

Arecibo telescope might have failed because of weak sockets

Free Lunch and Manna

Well we can defer that check to next year. That isn't in the maintenance schedule and has never been in the schedule. We'll get back to you on it..

It was abandoned in all but truth!

Feds investigate China's Salt Typhoon amid campaign phone hacks

Remember if doing CPR and wish to check for responsiveness: I'm from the government and am here to help you.

I can't help it. Erich Frank Russel was my guru.

Hack Nintendo's alarm clock to show cat pics? Let's-a-go!

Re: A cat picture from wiki?

The cat is helping you. You get upset, move around in an awkward manner chasing problems; meanwhile, the heart rate rises as does the air exchange rate - all is called exercise. The cat can watch for hours.

Beijing claims it's found 'underwater lighthouses' that its foes use for espionage

USS Connecticut

Well that explains what was going on there. It was marking sea mounds in Filipino waters. One very famous US admirals son left a submarine upon one of the reefs and the sea mounds are harder to see consequently better aid to navigation are needed.

Russian court fines Google $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Re: Obligatory HHTG reference

Your comments have me now wondering if Bit coinage should ne denominated in HEX rath than DECIMAL.

Russian Railway Bonds

Maybe the bonds issued to pay for the Trans Siberian Railroad, either the old Czar or the new Czar, cab be sent to the court to partially mollify the just decree of the court. They are both worthless but the art work on the old bonds ir prettier.

Ransomware's ripple effect felt across ERs as patient care suffers

Is it manslaughter?

My limited understanding of law is that when a death occurs due the commission of the crime then murder in some degree can be charged. Some religions and cultures claim to take a dim view of murder so there might be an interesting approach to security.

Feature phones all the rage as parents try to shield kids from harm

Back in the days of PDAs and bag phones I broke three PDAs in one year but the phone was good - heavier then hell but good. I swore off the PDAs and shifted to a PAA which work in bright sunlight, had detachable pages to send data to those that needed it. The disadvantage was the pages sometimes turned to mush is exposed to water - but it worked. To this date I use a simple, almost impossible to break flip phone. The only change has been forced by TelCo and the generational cellular system changes. What is fun is get the "I'll show you how to use our app", then see that the person has no idea of private and simple communication.

That children need such remote connectivity and the avoidance of parental control or the lack of face-to-face contact makes me wonder if the polarization of society is related. That a person in Australia would place such a value on a THING and willing endanger oneself for that thing much less others say there is a problem with our value systems.

Floppy discs still run a U.S. metro? Japan steps in with 'project kill floppy'

MBA at work

Given the number of suggestions here plus a dim memory of the trolley system I wonder if an ambitious sort was behind the 'upgrade'. Just think how it would look on the CV as "directed the upgrade of the SF muni". Since a minimum of two repeaters with associated cabling if the cell system is used and a right-of-way exists the first question is why cell not glass if that much additional data is to be sent? The second question is the car locator system and this is where the cost over runs start to appear. Both systems must operate together during transition so which to trust question becomes foremost, then how to remove cars fro servie for the upgrade when usage is at 102 percent. Its subsistence economics and any diversion of cars will cause love and discontent. The hotshot who stated the mess will have moved on so it won't be a problem (yeah)!

Yes, your network is down – you annoyed us so much we crashed it

Lube cjob

What bearing lube does the bare bear use when so bearing?

Pentagon stumped by mystery drone swarm flying over Langley Air Force Base

Re: the most sophisticated agencies on earth could not track them once they left

When you have a right hand/ left hand problem it takes time for information to ooze through the classification barriers. WHO also is headquartered in the Langley area and is advertised to play with drones?

Smart homes may be a bright idea, just not for the dim bulbs who live in 'em

Just Wait

Think about your fitness app communicating with your scale and that handy smart (!) refeer program that lets you know whats in the box. You gain a few pounds and try to buy more ice cream and get annoying alerts from your refrigerator, scale, fitness device and probably the device that does the hoovering all make with nasty reminders., The worry about AI is late; the real worry should be be about HI and learning from mistakes. Well CP/M and MS/DOS taught some to think logically maybe getting the ubiquitous 'smart' stuff will teach also!

Cops love facial recognition, and withholding info on its use from the courts

Cameras

There are a lot of assumptions that are built into any camera derived machine generated IDs. 1) the camera lens is clean and does not have any flaws. 2) The algorithm used adjusts for non optimal view or distortions in its view. An excellent example is Google Earth handling of overpasses; you know those funny shaped dips where two highways cross. 3) Laziness on behalf of the low-bid agency doing the interpretation. Look at enough pictures long enough and they begin to lose their distinctiveness to coin a neologism. Start with one million suspects, winnow down to a dozen and the last half blend together.

The problem of lens distortion is such that license plates can be misread which are a lot more distinctive than a face. Personal experience here when Los Angeles City sent a Notice of Violation at a certain in location and time while I had a receipt in San Diego 10 minutes prior to noted time. Seems that there was something deposited on the lens that was 'read' as a character.

But any biologic is going to use the path of least resistance and the only way to correct errors is to raise the resistane such that other paths are more viable because they are easier!

National Public Data files for bankruptcy, admits 'hundreds of millions' potentially affected

Banhrupt ??

This filing may possibly be a ploy to force the insurance underwriters into court and have at the taxpayers' expense explain way they are not liable. The direct suit against the insurance company would end up at the heat death and everybody but the insurance being broke.

Kamala Harris campaign motorcade halted by confused robotaxis

Only if they are foreign animals

Re: Hows running

A couple of unnamed clerks in a small dingy windowless space that have rubber stamps . One Yes, the other No. Their choice is how blank xx is filled.

Lebanon now hit with deadly walkie-talkie blasts as Israel declares ‘new phase’ of war

Re: If I were a world leader or in the administration thereof. . .

With weapons transfer the Bills of Lading that start the journey do not finish the journey. One or two cut outs and your SAM or SSM arrives at its destination as Sno-cone supplies. The same network that moves Heroin can just as easily moved the electronics. The battery suggestions have merit; think the last time that you really examined a battery. After all the Houthis are getting not so small missile through a blockade.

Re: If an Icom IC-V82

2 Mtr being line of sight makes the triangulation process that much harder. Also directional antennas are not too unhandy so if you bury yourself with a lot of band activity and use the directional antenna a nice comms mesh could be established( the ol' purloined letter trick). As to the model my Yaesu FT2 is nice but if I were going to make "mods" my FT530 is easier to see the components. Ideally I use the old Heath kit handheld with discrete components.

Re: Long Game

The door has been opened so anything[sic] may avail itself to the use of such a great idea. The response of the logic of regulators will be to prohibit the possession of devices not verified as being both approved and safe. Now Icom makes and sells under its name radios in the marine, aircraft and ham(radio amateur) beside the business communication so as when the next group of zealots makes its claim to fame in the name of protection we have another wall built against learning that other guys views. Having once seen Wadja's 'Kanal' and viewed both BBC and Al Jazzeera accounts of the Middle East action I am beginning to wonder about ideology capture. But, no matter, the exploding personal electronics sets a new standard for terrorists.

Intel's processor failures: A cautionary tale of business vs engineering

The MBA

The MBA is about processes and the costs of these processes. As long as the Marginal costs is below the Average Revenue all is well. Research purchased can fit into this equation but the 9in-house research falls into where on the spread sheet. This was pointed out in the story about the peanuts and the saloon back last century. As noted here the this applies to share value which is the key metric used by my retirement fund in investing strategy. That the product has a flaw is not part of the equation and the liability suits that follow are not to be seen in this fiscal period. The flawed product may be improved at the expense of the MC vs AR ratio but the thought processes engendered by the MBA do not permit this to be easily entertained.

The process in ENGINEERING is that a partial failure is a failure. The product did not perform to all specification: Therefore the product is built with a safety factor (additional cost). This safety factor in theory protects all the foreseeable events but the MBA thought process asks do we need to guard against all events? Why not protect against the most likely and lower the Marginal Cost increasing revenue. A natural adversarial position.

One fly-in-the-ointment that prevents some sort of equilibrium - The Big Institutions. These institutions, mutual, retirement and insurance funds, are required to maximize their return on investment either by participants or government but none have devised a way other than quarterly statement. As a consequence the accounting in the short term beats out Good, New in-house research with its committed engineering.

Researchers warn robot cars can be crashed with tinfoil and paint daubed on cardboard

I thought about this through the week and with parti-colored metallic tape having a pattern of slits (half and quarter wave) one would create a totally misleading presence. The attack vehicle would in reality be the target withe object being of course the rear-ender

Tape is so dead, 152.9 EB of LTO media shipped last year

Re: So The Next Time Your Service Provider Assures You That...........

Is it in Baltimore?

IT worker sued over ‘vengeful’ cyber harassment of policeman who issued a jaywalking ticket

Re: Strange things

My years back now I was in a class on traffic control or maybe defensive driving and University Avenue was brought into the discussion. It appears after an overlay and stripping, an extended period without other markings, speed, pedestrian crossings, lane restrictions. When the accident data was analyzed, it was found that both the fatality and the hospitalized non-fatal rates went down. The effect was explained away by saying both opposing sides started taking things seriously.

Computer sprinkled with exotic chemicals produced super-problems, not super-powers

Boeing was lucky in timing but was not so innovative. The present miseries arose after it administrative center moved from its core production area and as a result gave power to the MBA. Good engineering goes against many principles taught in MBA programs. Innovative and good engineering are anathema to the MBA type or the accounting mindset that follows.

OpenAI slapped with GDPR complaint: How do you correct your work?

It is acknowledged that once something, an item of truth or untruth, is out wild on the internet it is there till the big heat death. The AI systems pry faster than an individual can and does it 24/7. If your personal stuff is personal keep it off the net. That which gets on obscure and obstruct any linkages. Do not volunteer anything unless its pure fiction and then make the fiction unusable. It is up to YOU to make your information worthless not some government clerk. This is not new the STASI used file cards just like the bunch before them in the great reich [sic]. Probably this problem dates back to Oog.

Re: "The technology has to follow the legal requirements, not the other way around."

The question becomes how can a person who avoided STEM and slid through schooling to become a lawyer make an informed and rational judgement about what is and what is not possible. This has been a recurring theme throughout these forums.

Senator Warren slams Intuit's 'junk fees' as America's Tax Day rolls around again

Reading the comments to date I am wondering if the names Thomas Malthus or David Ricardo are familiar much less John Ball's remarks with delving and spanning that might contain a hint or two about these things.

Sacramento airport goes no-fly after AT&T internet cable snipped

About 10 years ago in a tract not far from the airport thieves took not only the street lighting wires but the aluminum electroliers. It remains unpunished to date. Wire theft is considered by most PDs as victimless and fall far down the list of concerns. Guess their children have gone into the family business.

Google fires 28 staff after sit-in protest against Israeli cloud deal ends in arrests

An affirmative defense can be that of "hostile workplace". Some of the comments here suggest that the underlying cause is deeply polarizing and very susceptible to those biases we unknowingly operate under. Thereby the animosity here indicates it would allow someone working in the same building to express fear. Hostile Workplace

We never agreed to only buy HP ink, say printer owners

Re: never again

Just wait til you want an upgrade. You'll find that the BIOS has been rigged that you have to kiss that fundament where their brain is located. The commentator early that mentioned the Carly Gang did not go far enough.

US 'considering' end to Assange prosecution bid

1 second decision

The comments read including this one raised a question: How many have been in a military or police force where the time to make that critical decision of shoot/not shoot is equivalent to the blink of an eye. Training is available but it is still in a controlled environment. I listened to a LASO member relate his experience in a shooting incident where when asked why he shoot 10 times was that was all the clip held. In other words when the adrenaline level rises generations of natural selection short circuit the upper brain levels.

One advantage that we have is today's technology which means we get to see what was seen and what the reaction was all while sitting on a cushioned chair in a safe air conditioned office. Peckinpah fans can rejoice it is now possible to see the gore however it misses the fatigue, the odors, whole scenery that leads to bad 'after the fact' decisions. The difference between being there and being here is much greater than the letter T.

A challenge if you can go to a shooting course, try it. See what stressors exist in the controlled environment, how you performed.

Also I found a quick way of aligning my telescope when taking solar shoots; watch the shadow move from oval to circle. This means the solar view is normal to the line of sigh and a circle is the view.

Seven years confined in one location, then 5 more confined in another while "free" whereas a probable 20 year sentence with parole after maybe 5 years at something like Lompoc Correctional makes it seem the message has been made. Any time added would be beating a dead horse