Posts by bombastic bob

Pentagon's JEDI mind tricks at odds with our 'values' says Google: Ad giant evaporates from $10bn cloud contract bid

Re: Wait! What?

Unfortunately, I don't think 'profit' is Google's main motivation. It's in there too, but they have a strong left-of-center political bias as well.

if it were "pure profit" they'd be easier to deal with. they wouldn't be pulling profitable videos off of youtube [or doing a 'shadow ban', same idea] just because they DISAGREE WITH THE POLITICS.

If youtube were about profit alone they'd WANT more "controversial" stuff [even as defined by the left] because, let's face it, it can easily become CLICK BAIT for ad revenue.

And that's just ONE example. Other things exist as well like unfavorable search results stacked in front of more favorable, regarding specific politicians (like Donald Trump) and issues (like Conservatism vs Liberalism). These examples have been well documented. Yes, on Fox News.

So Google's principles don't include the military? Well, having BEEN IN THE MILITARY, I'd say that their right to act like *IDIOTS* is protected by THE MILITARY, because (regardless of how anyone "feels" about it) the world is governed by THE AGGRESSIVE USE OF FORCE and THE WILL TO WIELD IT.

Those who are strong have the ability [and the moral obligation, in many respects] to KEEP the peace, through MILITARY STRENGTH. Otherwise, evil tin-horn dictators like "Little Rocket Man" will just fire missiles and blow up mountains with 'nukular' bombs to scare and intimidate everyone else, until you pay him to shut up for a few years at a time. Have a weak military, and these guys will pop up EVERYWHERE around the world, where evil dictators can oppress their people and squander their nations' resources. So you need a STRONG MILITARY to keep these people 'in check'.

And Google has TOTALLY missed the boat on that. No surprise, really. They are, after all, political LIBERALS. And they haven't got a clue... or maybe it's the customer base they're trying to ATTRACT that hasn't got a clue???

/me considers re-writing this using 'hippy' lingo - maybe they'd understand? Naaah, probably not.

{oh, and thanks for the downvote!}

Super Micro China super spy chip super scandal: US Homeland Security, UK spies back Amazon, Apple denials

Re: Size matters

Hmm... SPI bus, given that it might be used to either program OR read the BIOS. makes sense.

So let's say the SOC uses SPI to read the flash [this makes some sense from the architectures I'm familiar with]. Then the "in between" chip, running at SPI bus speeds (Mhz not Ghz) could [in theory] return a flash image that's 'one of its own', which does some mysterious 'thing', followed by reading of the REAL flash image (by 'the thing'), once the appropriate modifications or hidden spyware or whatever already installed. This could be anything from microcode mods to a hypervisor. [whether this is practical to actually DO or not is completely different]

Knowing what CPU gets loaded onto the board COULD make this 'plausible'. Not necessarily practical.

At this point the Intel 'Management Engine' could be employed to do the dirty work. Communicate via ethernet to 'wherever' on bootup [or periodically]. Monitor traffic for an incoming command/control signals. And so forth. It's everything we fear that's associated with compromised ME usage, basically.

OK - so we have at least one plausible attack vector now. This should add some credibility to the claim.

Still, just because it COULD does not mean it DID, so I'll still be waiting for some hard evidence to refute or support the 'Made in China' 'chip gate' claims.

/me still rooting for Bloomberg being right, although the implications are FAR worse than if they're actualy wrong... [I just don't want them to have generated 'fake news' via sloppy reporting]

Re: I'm surprised that anyone is surprised that a Chinese owned or controlled company would do this.

"You cannot just solder a chip on a board to have it spy for you."

well the allegation is that they had modified the board's design. The manufacturer has the gerber files [or whatever has the design on it], and it wouldn't take a lot to edit those to include a "something" to which a new chip would be soldered [or embedded within the layers even].

I understand the tech to embed devices between layers has already been used by Apple, or so I've read. In some cases it might be highly useful to do that [example, power supply bypass capacitors or a resistor array]. Series resistors are often used to abate 'unintentional radiator' signal noise, and so a resistor array conveniently placed between IO pins and their destination INSIDE of the board would be convenient (assuming it could be done).

In any case the tech apparently DOES exist to insert components. So the allegation is PLAUSIBLE and that's fear-inducing enough. Whether or not a manufacturer can be bribed/strong-armed into actually DOING that is another story.

And if it's on an SPI bus between a BIOS ROM and an SoC, such that it could re-program the BIOS slightly during a flash update, or read 'special instructions' in place of the ACTUAL flash, it could be pretty bad.

/me considers Intel's ME being invoked, for example. It might not take a lot of 'extra instructions' to make that happen, nor to cover its own tracks afterwards, and to invoke the on-chip LAN to "phone home"... and listen for commands while running.

which means that a call for a hardware mod to SHUT OFF Intel's Management Engine [with a jumper, let's say] now makes even MORE sense.

Re: @bombastic bob

Re: manufacturing in China "there's little you can do about it"

well, I've had at least SOME influence on manufacturing choices (for customers) in the past. I assume the future isn't going to be much different [my line of work being related to that]. So if a customer says "make in China" I have one specific alternative U.S. based pic-n-place board builder to suggest instead, and possibly one in Mexico as well, and I might even reference the Bloomberg article when it comes to determining manufacturing 'outsource' choices.

I'm sure others might do this as well, too, and that's the point. Outsourcing your manufacturing to China is less attractive, now, for many reasons. And Mexico is looking a lot better.

/me sometimes gets bare boards done by a Canadian company. Fast turnaround, good quality, ok pricing for small quantities. More expensive but I want my Monday AM design back by Friday, and usually that happens.

Re: Size matters

20 vias along the edge - yeah, depending on bus width, that'd do it. But to have something operating at Ghz frequencies to be able to filter AND re-order information, it would take a very sophisticated device, sophisticated enough that the tech is being wasted on something devious instead of making new types of CPUs or GPUs [for example].

"if an USA owned or controlled company was doing the same."

I would be _extremely_ surprised if a USA company did something like this. After the lawsuits shut down their company and drove it into bankruptcy, the principal board members might actually face criminal charges. The legal bills would be enormous (breech of contract being #1 on that list).

We don't have a supply bottleneck here that involves the government (aka government 'owned' companies), nor a somewhat oppressive communist government that has the will [and ability] to demand/coerce that kind of cooperation from its citizens. The mistrust of government in THIS country is pretty overwhelming. Finding someone who'd put up with that would be difficult. People would quit their jobs first, before cooperating (not THAT hard to find another one, ya know?). And, some people live to be "whistleblowers" for things like that, with its instant fame, TV interviews, and book deals.

I doubt that anyone in the UK would try to get away with something like this either, for similar reasons. Nor the EU in general. Russia, on the other hand, might try something like that. But we don't buy "Made in Russia" stuff all that much, do we?

Re: "It is bonkers to think it would have screwed up a story this huge"

if the bloomberg reporter was passing along unconfirmed information, they should have been a bit more careful about how it was stated. As written, it seems to be an expose of a massive scandalous breech of contract by manufacturers in China, with crimes no doubt committed on both ends of the Pacific.

However, if it's all FUD and headline trolling, Bloomberg deserves shame and ridicule for it.

I'd say the same for ANY news source, regardless of their political slant. I've said things like this about [P]MSNBC as well as [F,C]NN and the 3-letter networks in the USA (ABS, CBS, NBS - ok not 'BS' but ABC,NBC - still it's a nicname they deserve].

So if Bloomberg is now engaging in the SAME kinds of "fake news", they deserve whatever happens to them as a result of it.

HOWEVER, if the facts show that Bloomberg is RIGHT, then we have a serious problem here. Not only because of the hardware-based spying [some of the allegations in the Bloomberg article suggest that chips were mounted BETWEEN LAYERS inside the circuit board], but also because of the DENIALS by those parties that were allegedly involved. AWS and Apple should NEVER deny an investigation, assuming that they're interested in customer and corporate security (unless they're under a gag order for national security or something similar).

In any case, I'm not 100% convinced to NOT purchase anything from SuperMicro, but I am concerned about 'things made in China' a bit more than I was before. China is going to have to come up with some kind of guarantee that the supply chain won't be manipulated like that - EVER. We've been suspecting them for too long, apparently with good reason, and past violations of our IP doesn't make them look like 'good guys', not at all.

Notwithstanding, some of the descriptions [chip the size of a grain of rice, or a sharpened pencil tip, between board layers even] is a little strange, to me. You'd need some pretty sophisticated stuff to interrupt a multi-Ghz signal and re-arrange the data like that. That kind of tech would be better served making a new CPU architecture or something like that. Rather than stealing tech, they could invent it instead. It's not profitable to them, in other words, to put that kind of tech expertise into spy chips that would THEN randomly target U.S. companies.

First it came for your desktop, now Windows 10 1809 is coming for your Things

pleased(?) to see Ethernet settings make an appearance in the Settings [CR]app

*cough* yeah THAT fixes it... [NOT]

So, NOW, I bet you can see multiple layers of 'bright blue on blinding white' "UWP" Settings screens instead. wheeee.

Multiple layers of UWP 'settings' screens WILL be needed, without crippling the ability to change your 'settings' that is, because the nature of UWP prevents you from putting more than 2 or 3 things on a single screen. Otherwise, it just won't have all of that wasted "fat finger friendly" (eye blinding) white space if you put too many things on it... or use a readable 'windows 7 looking' control panel tab dialog instead.

How come they can't just go back to control panel with a windows 7 appearance? It works FINE in windows 7 that way! Oh, I forgot - millenial "it's our turn now" children and/or their enablers running the show!

Re: Licensing v. Litigation

"And once the small company has collapsed they buy it's patent portfolio and do the same thing to another company."

Beware of 'The Blob',

It creeps, and leaps, and glides, and slides across the floor,

(etc. - Burt Bacharach from the late 1950's as I recall)

'The Blob' - patent troll companies in general

Re: Is anyone actually using this?

"the .Net Core is actually pretty good, open source and on point"

/me falls out of chair. What... the... *FEEL*????????

If your code actually includes ".Not core" you need to SERIOUSLY RE-THINK your engineering strategy...

Better idea: use an RTOS or Linux and _NO_ ".Not" CRAPware.

Intel's commitment to making its stuff secure is called into question

Intel started to use .NET Framework in many of its drivers' GUI applications

that's another problem - swallowing Micro-shaft's coolaid!

'dangerous at any speed' - more or less applies here, too.

/me points out that a SIMPLE interface using a dialog box and the Win32 API doesn't need a bunch of ".Nuttiness" and is FAR less likely to have security issues [unless written by an IDIOT]. Yes, you'll have to do parameter checking to implement it and that's the point, actually... [amazingly enough sscanf (and its slightly more secure incarnations) still works]

On the seventh anniversary of Steve Jobs' death, we give you 7 times he served humanity and acted as an example to others

Re: It's not April 1st, is it?

Satire vs sarcasm?

I was thinking 'snark'. Some of the best yet.

Re: It's not April 1st, is it?

"read the headline, got hit on the jaw by his knee flying upwards"

etc.

yeah I got hooked on that headline, after which I scanned the bullet points before starting to read, and THEN saw all of the snark I would've replied with in comments [and then some]. Everyone who knows anything about Steve Jobs knows he was NO saint, but hey, that's why the article [and it's baiting headline] was so much fun!

Microsoft yanks the document-destroying Windows 10 October 2018 Update

Re: "Their management needs Linus to give them a lecture about not breaking things."

yeah, Linus has GREAT passion for quality, and those snowflake feelies out there, who can't take anything even remotely resembling criticism and need 'safe spaces' to deal with even the most trivial of life's problems, ALWAYS mistake 'passion' for 'anger' because, to them, it looks the same.

Sometimes, it takes a DRILL SERGEANT to get things moving in the right direction, with a few swift ass-kicks and a lot of yelling, insults, and profanity. That goes DOUBLE when the development team CONSISTS OF A BUNCH OF OVERPAID, UNDER-CHALLENGED, SPOILED CHILDREN! [right Micro-shaft?]

Re: "were made available for other OS"

"Linux UIs really lag behind Windows and macOS"

WRONG. I'll accept your "development tools" argument, but the problem with development on Linux or BSD has nothing to do with the UI "lagging behind" Windows.

in fact, the 2D FLATSO on Win-10-nic *LAGS* behind things like Mate and Cinnamon, assuming you don't use a 2D Flat theme, but the fact that you CAN CHANGE THE THEME means that Micro-shaft LAGS BEHIND!!!

Mate, Cinnamon, Gnome, KDE, and even vtwm have multiple desktops and have had them since 2005 or earlier. Micro-shaft only JUST added that feature to Win-10-nic. I typically have 8 desktops filled with task-specific stuff so I can multi-task more easily. Micro-shaft's "solution" appears kludgy to me, whereas there's over a decade of perfecting the way it works with systems that use X11.

And now the REAL reason for it "being hard" to develop for POSIX systems: Microshaft has been pushing for nearly 2 decades with proprietary "solutions" for developers, beginning with ".Not", and before THAT, lots of shared runtime DLLs and 'extension' DLLs, and so forth, ALL with licenses that allow you to 'freely distribute' them so long as they are ONLY installed on systems running a Microsoft OS. Yeah, it's in there.

Basically, they encourage [read: 'strongarm'] developers into using their 'freely distributable' shared components, but then LOCK THEM OUT of using them anyplace that's "not windows".

They also have made great efforts in the past to get driver support for their platform [which was a good thing for customers at one time], bending over backwards to assist 3rd party driver developers into getting this done, until it became a "pay to play" scheme for Win-10-nic [via certs].

They have also offered their OEM OS licenses as cheap as they can, with 'sweet deals' with computer makers that LITERALLY make it 'more expensive' to produce ANY computers pre-installed with Linux. This is usually called 'predatory practices' but for some reason they were getting away with it for a LONG time. Once they cornered the market, more or less, they controlled the availability of ANY alternative to their "one OS to rule them all" by essentially killing them off. Now we're all STUCK with Win-10-nic as the ONLY OS available on new computers not made by Apple, with a few exceptions here and there...

And software developers look at this and say "80% of the market is Windows, that's what I'll develop for, doing Linux or BSD or even OSX is just too expensive".

Re: Move

I bet they moved them all into C:\NUL (that's a temporary directory tree, right?)

Re: Why even touch user folders?

Don't ask Micro-shaft 'why', you'll just get a ban from their forums for NOT bowing down and worshiping them, and 'enjoying' EVERYTHING they do [to you], like a good little fanboi.

From the article: A former 'MVP' "went public after being defrocked following criticism"

Micro-shaft does NOT like criticism. ANY criticism. Especially, when it's the _TRUTH_.

/me "been there done that" back during the 'insider program'. MANY of us were VERY vocal about the 'wrongness' and were inappropriately treated by moderators, etc.. They wanted the insider forums to consist of praise and worship and "all good, no problems". Instead they got FEEDBACK about the wrong things they were doing, especially the ads, the slurp and forced updates. I was particularly vocal about the 2D FLATSO and the obvious 'not listening' to the customers.

And that's because we're not CUSTOMERS to them. We're "masses" or "minions" or something worse...

Microsoft's elderly .NET Framework shakes stick at whippersnapper Core while Visual Studio drops another preview

VS/DS "Now it just gets in the way,"

Ack. 'Getting In the way' ever since the first release after VS '97

I liked VS '97, especially the dialog editor and class wizard integration. It was really easy to work with if you're a typist, ESPECIALLY if you want to leave BOTH hands on the keyboard, instead of having to lift one off of home row just to mousie-fiddle with some *STUPID* *[deadpool-worthy pejorativde]* *PROPERTY* 'SHIT'.

I *REALLY* *HATE* the VB-ness of DevStudio, nowadays... [worst of both worlds for a C/C++ developer]

"On a different note, .NET Framework should definitely die. Too old gone HORRIBLY wrong."

Fixed it for ya. [being 'old' is NOT a reason for it to die].

And 'die' could be better expressed as: KILLED to DEATH by BURNING with FIRE, then DISSOLVING with SOLVENT. [that should 'solve' it, heh]

'.Not' and C-pound are 2 of Micro-shafts WORST decision in the last 2 decades!!! They should've just made C++ and MFC easier and tighter, and friendlier for STATIC LINKING. Well, THAT didn't really happen EITHER...

Day two – and Windows 10 October 2018 Update trips over Intel audio

Re: rushed

" completely wrong"

your opinion has been noted, and rejected.

Re: Dirty tactics with the settings reminders

Question: doesn't the data mining VIOLATE GDPR ???

I think GWX is finally gone; however I'll keep a lookout anyway. Who knows it might be resurrected...

In windows 7 I can STILL say "pack sand, 'windows update'" and only manually install things I actually want to install.

that's why they shut that ability OFF in Win-10-nic - no more choice except THEIR choice.

what users and businesses want from an OS

actually, I think Micro-shaft stopped CARING what users and businesses want a LONG time ago... (around the time Windows 'Ape' released).

7 was the last version that was made with users and businesses in mind. Everything else SINCE then has been "what Micro-shaft wants to cram up our asses". 7 deliberately became the version that addressed our concerns [not theirs]. Not all things that ended up in 7 were better than XP. But mostly, it was an evolutionary change, and better than Vista. For the most part, the users were 'sated'.

I've heard that the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath is that a psychopath does not know what he is doing is wrong.

I think Micro-shaft knows DAMN WELL what they're doing, and they continue to do it, deliberately.

Embrace. Extend. Extinguish. EX-TER-MIN-ATE!

Their goal: When there is only ONE choice available, it will be Win-10-nic! And, _YOU_ will be the commodity!

('predatory practices' indeed...)

Re: rushed

"I've not seen your capital letters for a while"

why, are you one of my fans? Welcome aboard!

Funny, they do the same thing (capitalization and punctuation for emphasis) over at El Reg. I've seen it on occasion.

Re: Cancel? Yeah, sure thing, buddy.

s/Cancel/F*** YOU/ <-- what MS needs to do for their 'cancel' button

Re: Edge?

"What is Edge"

a) U2's guitar player?

b) The main character in 'Star Ocean: The Last Hope'?

c) something that "edgers" strive for?

(coat, please)

Re: rushed

Article: driver problems that "end up sending CPU usage skyrocketing and battery life plummeting."

I've seen SIMILAR problems within UWP [CR]apps in general, including some of the built-ins. I reported this problem during the insider program.

There's an internal architectural problem within UWP itself. Applications tend to "CPU spin" on conditions they are waiting for. It could be one of the 'WaitForXXXObject[Ex]' functions, it could be the use of 'Sleep' with a 0 value (for some reason quoting the function call tripped a security blockage) or even 'yield' doing it.

This problem also exists in POSIX systems when you return immediately from things like 'poll' and loop without using delays. In the POSIX world, though, your polling loop can use 'usleep()' which is in microseconds [no guarantee it'll be "that long", it's somewhat 'advisory'].

NOW - if _THIS_ is at the core of the problem, then it's a MAJOR ARCHITECTURAL SNAFU and Micro-shaft basically has NOT listened to *ME* on this. I know I'm right because it's measurable and I even posted the measurements, got hammered and discredited and ONE particular fanboi was even getting PERSONAL over it all. [This is how they react when faced with 'OBVIOUSLY WRONG'].

Hey Microshaft: SEE! I! TOLD! YOU! SO!!!

And so FINALLY someone wrote a driver with the SAME! KINDS! of assumptions as the main loops in UWP [CR]apps. Yeah, maybe it only showed up IN A VM when I was testing it, but it REALLY means they aren't TESTING AT ALL.

So yeah - 'rushed' aka "being cheap" and your QUALITY GOES DOWN.

icon because: to the REST of us (aka 'not Micro-shaft'), it's OBVIOUS.

California cracks down on Internet of Crap passwords with new law to stop the botnets

Re: Any device manufactured in California..

"no devices are actually manufactured in California"

OK technically you're right. but for a 'California corporation' that outsources the actual building of the thing, then does final assembly and test in California, it may still 'count' as 'made here'.

I guess I'd have to see the nuances of whatever was excreted from Sacramento's "law factory"...

[knowing them, they thought of this already]

Re: Any device manufactured in California..

"Well, thats going to help a lot."

Ack on the snark. (you WERE being facetious, right?)

The laws of 'unintended consequences' are the usual result from the "legislate yet another law" crowd, who claim good intentions. But coming from Jerry Brown and the Sacramento legislature [one of the most corrupt organizations on the planet, where paid lobbyists mull about on the legislature floor waiting to be 'consulted' on EVERY!THING! before it's voted on] I can expect an 'ulterior motive'.

Cali-fornicate-you gummint can only affect California corporations and residents. And they can NOT stop competing products coming in 'at the border'. So you'll probably see a couple of things:

a) a drop in the quantity of things being built within the California borders;

b) an increase in prices to the consumer;

c) overly-complicated setup processes if "just firmware" is involved in this regulation;

d) all of the above

Some of this was alluded to in the article, but I'll just say it straight out: the more governmentium and petty regulation, the LESS PRIVATE SECTOR ACTIVITY you will see. Because it costs the legislature NOTHING to "pass yet another law". It only costs those who are AFFECTED by it. That would be everybody else who is NOT THEM.

(My state needs an enema, starting with that crap-hole called "Sacramento")

I'd also like to point out, for the record, that all of the cheap IoT junk being sold on E-bay and Alibaba won't be affected by this. And I wouldn't be surprised if THAT stuff is MOST of the problem...

Linux, HCI and more, all from the new release of Windows Server 2019

Re: the arrival of Shielded VMs for Linux VMs

"Now fuck off and lie down before you give yourself an aneurysm"

no. [as if you cared at all about my health, but your comment is irrelevant anyway]

'Veeam'. wheeeeeee. (Yeah I'm not impressed)

FYI - if you've ever really used POSIX systems (like Linux, *BSD) you'd realize that even simple tarball backups are pretty easy to automate and manage - unlike windows, something that requires special file access modes and whatnot to do live system backups - and file systems like ZFS make disasters less likely.

FreeBSD also has a hypervisor built in: https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve

(I've heard really good things about it)

the arrival of Shielded VMs for Linux VMs

Ok, ok... lemme get this straight.

If the host system is 'taken over' or has malware mucking with it, this "shielded VM" thing is supposed to stop it from mucking with the VM's too, right? And previous incarnations from the earlier server release only did this for VM's running some version of windows, right?

And this "new, shiny" _also_ includes Linux. Wheee.

I say, why not host everything on a NON-micro-shaft OS instead? You know, like *REAL* Linux!

I'm certainly not against running windows in a VM hosted on Linux or FreeBSD when customers want a VM that runs windows. Just don't have a windows host when you do it. Many reasons exist, INCLUDING the need for "Shielded VMs" in the FIRST place! (think bandade on a compound fracture, bubble gum patching the radiator, finger in a dike, bailing wire and duck tape...) That being said, 'windows VM host' = security crater out of the box as far as I'm concerned. Recent vulnerabilities and zero-days are good supporting proof of that.

Seriously, WHAT advantages are there to running cloudy VMs on a Windows host, vs something LIKE CentOS or FreeBSD?

*crickets chirping*

As for "Microsoft Linux" - Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, *EX-TER-MIN-ATE*!!!

China's going to make a mobile OS and everyone will love it, predict ball-gazing analysts

Re: "Government approved" OSs ?

"So what you're proposing is that we let pedophiles, muslimic [sic] terrorists hide their stuff?"

Unfortunately, too many people DO think this way. 'Joke Alert' indeed. Point well made.

I have a good name for a 'Government Approved' OS: We'll call it 'Brownshirt'. It will include [for every entry in your 'friends' list, the new name for the phone number list] a 'report' button that you can easily use to turn your friends/neighbors/family in for non-approved actions/speech/thinking/whatever. Then the entries will automatically be deleted once the secret police haul them away...

Re: Russia already has an alternative phone OS

With respect to ReactOS [and other open source alternatives]: As long as the OS and core applications remain 100% open source, the Russians, Chinese, and even the N. Koreans and Iranians can go ahead and contribute whatever they want to it. I might even help them!

It wouldn't be anti-American to assist with the success of ReactOS and other open source alternatives to Windows and Android. It would be anti-MONOPOLY (and thereby, pro FREEDOM) to do so.

A 'No Slurp' 100% open source alternative. Looking forward to it! well, hoping...

Re: Facebook will position itself as a provider of government digital services

yeah, a phone OS that *ASSISTS* in managing that 'Social Credit' system - no surprise here!

Re: What could go wrong?

as I see it, if you don't trust Google with your privacy information, would you trust something invented in China?

AI trained to sniff out fake news online may itself be fake news: Bot has mixed results in classifying legit titles

Re: 60 to 70% accurate?

well, when Fox News, which has members of BOTH the left AND the right on panel discussions on various shows, is called "right wing" or "far right", instead of 'fair and balanced', you know that the bias is already built-in. They've got both Geraldo Rivera _AND_ Juan Williams, after all (both liberals), as well as Hannity and Laura Ingraham (both conservatives). Of course you need opposing opinions to have a discussion. And that's the point. And yet, I'm sure the "judgement" would be for Fox News being "far right" or "extreme right" by any bot, because THAT KIND OF BIAS WAS PROGRAMMED IN.

So the main point is: The BIAS of the programmers will be exposed by the bots. Any 'training' algorithm will be flawed because of THEIR BIAS. This easily explains the 60-70% accuracy. Half of the sites labeled "right" may actually be "center" !!! (that would make it about 2/3 correct, if my math is working properly).

On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me: A file-munching run of DELTREE

Re: Not a good look here.

I just hated having "My[whitespace]Documents" as a directory name, I always rebelled and used "C:\documents" (or similar), a _directory_ name of my own choice, to store things.

Besides, whatever dim-bulb "decided" to include white space in directory names deserves a CLUE-BAT.

[yes I operate in a command shell much of the time, especially in POSIX systems and Cygwin]

As for 'auto-delete your files' on up-grade... it's worse than RANSOMWARE!

[and WHY are they screwing around with your data directories ANYWAY?]

Apple forgot to lock Intel Management Engine in laptops, so get patching

Re: the security of our products is a top priority for Intel

back doors into every CPU. "nice job". Not.

I don't care how many passwords they have. they're all "knowable".

What do we REALLY need? How about a hardware 'off switch' for anything similar to 'Management Engine'?

If I have to unscrew a panel to change the CMOS battery and/or swap hard drives on a laptop, how about the same panel for a jumper to ENABLE management engine? 'Off by default'.

Desktop motherboards should be a no-brainer. A jumper if you WANT the ME, off by default.

'Desperate' North Korea turns to bank hacking sprees to rake in much-needed dosh

Re: Who?

economic sanctions are better than warfare. less damage all around

just sayin' [icon obvious]

Re: There's a stupid, fat, paranoid, evil dictator at work here.

Kim Jong Un as Cartman from South Park - RESPECT MY AUTHORITAH!

At least he's not launching rockets over Japan, or blowing up mountains.

"That's where the money is"

I believe it was Willie Sutton who was reported to have said something like what's in the title, in response to "why do you rob banks". [some research suggests that the news reporter might have imbellished a bit]

from the article: "Why the use of such sophisticated and intricate operations just to attack banks?"

(see title)

What do Zuck, Sergey, @Jack and Bezos have in common? They don't want encryption broken

Re: Hmm

@Dabbb

*NO*

If you 'stick with government on this one' with respect to encryption, you're missing the point. If the weakening of the encryption took the form of a 'back door', it would be more obvious.

Although the legislation itself seems to CLAIM that it does not involve 'back doors', it DOES seem to involve circumvention of encryption for law enforcement, etc.. so how are they going to accomplish this?

I suspect it will be some 'weakening' of encryption, such as 'man in the middle' SSL certs or disclosure of server private keys, so that traffic can be easily decrypted.

In any case, take a look at what's happening over here in the USA, involving certain 'rogue' factions wtihin the government and their uber-LOUD 'howler monkey' protesters/activists help to drive it in the public eye. Even when 'innocent until proven guilty' is CLEARLY written directly into the Constitution, you have "trial by emotion", in the public eye, where you're PRESUMED GUILTY until PROVEN innocent, based on 'political correctness' of the day, assisted by a willing press corps. Couple that with FBI interviews and "special investigations" that consist of 'perjury traps' for political enemies, in which you're JAILED for LYING [or potentially impeached, *cough* *cough*] because of the trap [and in many cases, some have spent YEARS in jail until the appellate court figures out they were SET UP and ACQUITS them, damage and 'mission of the moment' accomplished anyway].

A 'bad' example of a perjury trap:

Cops: do you sometimes pleasure yourself to on-line porn?

You: No way!

Cops: is that your statement under oath?

You: Of course it is! How dare you insinuate [etc.]

Cops: Well look what we have here, it's your BROWSER HISTORY and images taken through your web cam, which we compromised using a special added script we injected into the web pages... oh, my, you're such a NAUGHTY BOY! And what were you looking at? WEll I'd say 5 to 10 YEARS for LYING TO INVESTIGATORS!!!

And these dirty, politically-motivated 'investigations' are a way of COERCING "testimony" from political adversaries in order to take out OTHER adversaries, a filthy, sneaky, "tin horn dictatorship" way of operating. Might as well wear BROWN SHIRTS with red,white, and black armbands...

I don't think Australia is immune to this kind of corruption. The USA obviously isn't. And giving gummint MORE power to go on a "fishing expedition" into YOUR life, or anyone else's for THAT matter, is a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, BAD idea. History CLEARLY shows what happens when there's "too much spying going on out there" by gummints on their own citizens. "Does not end well" is an UNDERstatement.

Windows 10 1809: Now arriving on a desktop near you (if you want it)

"I only boot into Windows about once a week as it is."

looks like it's time to move your windows schtuff into a VM, hosted on Linux. Yeah, system backups will be easier (in virtualbox, "export appliance" - so simple!)

Python lovers, here's a library that will help you master AI as a newbie

Re: Question re:mixed precision traininf

hopefully the AI API has both GPU and non-GPU versions of the core functionality with a simple way to pick the right one based on your hardware. Otherwise why use Python? The kind of thinking that drives users to a specific hardware platform is WORSE than something that uses ".Not" or C-Pound (or requires you to log in as 'administrator').

Re: Maths

"explain why their super-duper AI doesn’t want to give mortgages or jobs or whatever to" [insert special interest group here]

well, if race/sex/whatever wasn't an input parameter to your algorithm, the answer to this should be obvious. The moment your algorithm includes something that *could* be a matter of discriminatory practice, an improperly trained AI *could* make use of it in a discriminatory manner.

Otherwise, FUD.

Besides, wouldn't having a "simplistic" library, something that n00bs and kids can easily make use of, help people to understand the basics of AI and thereby avoid the FUD-trap?

[I can't believe how my original positive non-snarky post about this got 8 downvotes - probably ALL from my 'fan club' - which means its personal and unrelated to content. howler monkeys. go fig. the up/downs are meaningless - well i wear the 'downs' as a badge of honor, heh!]

Icon, because "think of the children" which is why I also mentioned RPi - when kids get this kind of AI API working with an RPi (in Python) along with whatever science project they're interested in, things could get really interesting.

this has some potential

An open source AI lib (etc.) for Python. This DEFINITELY has some potential!

Additionally I'd like to see some API stuff for quantum computing included with it (if it hasn't been done already). All open source, of course!

/me sees possibility of AI stuff running on RPi

Haven't updated your Adobe PDF software lately? Here's 85 new reasons to do it now

Re: Stopped using acro%^$7 when I found...

"that it searched the whole bloody file-system"

I became 'slurp-aware' when pre-installed Adobe reader on a reconditioned windows 7 machine asked me for an e-mail address to register with their online services, EVERY! STINKING! TIME! I tried to use it.

The possibility that they're ALSO scanning your network is VERY, VERY, DISTURBING...

[what we need is actual confirmation of their data slurp so that no doubts will remain]

Re: For @#&% Sake,

there are at least 2 alternatives I'm aware of [atril and evince] and they run on Linux and FreeBSD [although evince may have mono dependencies now, DAMMIT - I use an older version of evince on windows machines, however, and so maybe it's there but I didn't notice]

in any case, PDF is well supported in the open source world. We don't need Adobe's "special sauce" nor their attempts at *SLURP* [why ask me to LOG IN using my E-MAIL ADDRESS just to view a PDF file????]

So yeah, toss Adobe's reader in to the trash and get something that actually WORKS! Atril is my current favorite. That may change if they do something stupid (like include mono dependencies).

Windows 10 transition props up business box revenues in Western Europe

What would a transition to Linux do?

I bet the overall cost savings alone would drive more expensive hardware purchases.

"Rockin on without Microsoft"

Brit startup plans fusion-powered missions to the stars

Re: Quite a bit of nuclear fallout

" Launched from a remote location, most of the pulse-bombs detonated at altitude, with careful pauses for different layers of the atmosphere, you could get a massive Orion into orbit with negligible environmental impact."

I dunno, having worked in the nuclear industry I have this nagging desire to keep the fission products out of the atmosphere... [they really ARE pretty nasty]. It's why we don't use A-bombs nowadays for any kind of major excavation project.

Sure, it'd be "convenient" to blast open a canal with 10K-ton atomic bombs, but I think I'd rather put a few industrial diggers in there instead, and do it the "somewhat old" fashioned way.

And there's no reason why Orion-style nuclear propulsion can't be done out in space. Just not inside of Earth's atmosphere. It's basically why we need efficient launch systems, to get that stuff into orbit where it can be assembled safely and operated without impacting anyone on Earth.