Posts by bombastic bob

Y'know what? VoIP can also be free from pesky regulation – US judges

"Shouldn't that mean that they're all free of regulations now "

I wouldn't mind THAT happening at ALL! With cell phone coverage nearly everwhere, there's sufficient competition for POTS to warrant more de-regulation. The only reason for regulating it before was that a single company typically served up an area, so it's a kind of monopoly in that sense. What you'd end up seeing is more cell phone carriers providing 'primary service' to residential and business customers, in lieu of physical phone lines, and the local phone companies busy trying to get their business back through more competitive options. Or I'd like to think so. [sometimes it's a crap shoot, but odds seem to be that you usually roll a 7 at the right time]

OK maybe SOME regulations need to remain, to keep land lines from being 'not fixed' for extended periods of time, like happened to me, 3 weeks without land-line nor intarwebs, due to a storm etc. (techs were just BUSY). THAT SUCKED. And it had happened a few times before, too. Turned out one of the splice boxes had a pinched wire in it, and it was MY wire, and it corroded to the point it just freaking broke. Naturally, it was the one my pathetic DSL is on. But I digress...

in any case if phone companies were required to hire consultants to get service calls completed with, let's say, 3 days, it might make things nicer, and possibly not cost more (since it is a rare occurrence). But a nice 'quid pro quo' would be the other de-regulation. So there ya go.

FYI - in the USA, doing 'anti-competitive' things like "hobbling access to save their phone service", would get you indicted/punished under various anti-Trust and similar laws.

given that, a lack of what you perceive "net neutrality" to be isn't going to make a difference. These things will STILL be illegal. we don't need overlapping laws that have unwanted consequences to fix an incorrectly perceived problem that's already covered by EXISTING law.

FBI fingers the Norks it wants to pinch for Sony hack, WannaCry attacks

Re: How long until a US Government hacker gets the same treatment?

if ANY of our intelligence and military hackers "get caught" like that, they DESERVE it. Just sayin'

Re: You'd be amazed at how many hackers ....

well, if our intelligence service is as good as I assume they are, it's theoretically possible to send a small team of people into N. Korea and just haul the guy outta there, and back to the USA. I'm thinking divers, submarine, Seal Team, etc.. That'd piss off Kimmy though, so the more likely path will be diplomatic, with that guy's face on the list of 'bad things you people in N. Korea are doing' for as long as necessary.

/me points out that my old boat had a 'diver chamber' on its back for YEARS throughout the 90's and 2000's, and there's really only one purpose for something like that: clandestine injection and retrieval of divers and/or Seal teams into a hostile area where you need to be stealthy getting in and getting out. So yeah.

A real shot in the Arm: 3% of global workforce surplus to requirements

Re: They should never have allowed ARM to be sold

oh come on AC it's not all doom and gloom. INVENT SOMETHING!

It's not a few hundred UK scientists and engineers now 'on the dole' because they were laid off from working on ARM stuff... it's now a few hundred UK scientists and engineers available to invent the next 'cool thing', invested in by some forward thinkers that realize what a bunch of UK scientists and engineers can accomplish!

(you guys are at least as smart as us left-pondians, and you have British accents. If nothing else, it'll sound smarter when you explain stuff)

Pluto is more alive than Mars, huff physicists who are still not over dwarf planet's demotion

Re: It's a big round ball wizzing round the sun innit?

The IAU needs to *FEEL* important, so they wielded power and demoted Pluto. I guess it was being a pain in 'Uranus' or something. So they're being like 'grammar nazis' (see icon) about it.

OBVIOUSLY way too much time on their hands... [are they being PAID for that?]

$200bn? Make that $467bn: Trump threatens to balloon proposed bonus China tech tariffs

Re: The cost of theft

Thanks, AC, for a fresh voice of sanity amongst the obvious Trump-hate. Facts are SO much better than feelings and Trump-hate-media-driven perceptions!

'understand' does NOT mean 'agree with socialists'

"a huge number of US citizens do not understand that"

a) socialism ultimately fails because it runs out of "other people's money"

b) high tax rates on "the rich" are actually on those trying to BECOME the rich [thus they keep middle class in their place, and lower class on the dole]

c) one-sided trade deals ultimately favor your competitors, especially if they engage in predatory economic practices such _AS_ government subsidized 'competitive' pricing and deliberate "dumping" to drive domestic industries out of business

d) Oba[k,m]acare is a COMPLETE fiasco, because it DOUBLED insurance costs and empowered government to "make choices for you", is anti-freedom, etc.

e) China is attempting to force U.S. businesses OUT of business so that it won't have any competition, and THIS is why they're behaving "that way". If they were so great, how come they pay their workers CRAP wages in order to corner the world market on everything? It's because they [their neo-communist government, anyway] think they CAN.

And I think the American people very MUCH understand the concept of an insurance pool. Many of us, however, don't want to participate in something that costs THAT MUCH, but has no real benefit. Example, you only care about emergency hospitalization, but are forced to pay for HMO-like coverage, except it has a deductible that is SO high, you never exceed that amount in a year. So what's the point of paying for "all of that" when you could get "just emergency care" coverage for WAY LESS??? And that's why Oba[k,m]a-"care" *FAILS*.

Or like me, say "F-that" to insurance, and just buy what you need, because THAT is what _I_ want to do. It's _MY_ life, not anyone else's, and the rest of the universe can PACK SAND if they *FEEL* I should do differently. They're not ME. _I_ run _MY_ life. *FREEDOM*

Microsoft tells volume customers they can stay on Windows 7... for a bit longer... for a fee

I would consider 'Windows 9'

if Micro-shaft would evar create it. It'd have to be 7-like in appearance and everything else (i.e. 3D Skeuomorphic, no spyware, no adware, no 'app store', no cloudy logon, NO FORCED UPDATES), with the updated kernel etc similar to 10.

But please no "you must have micro-shaft sign the kernel drivers" requirement. that's just wrong...

(yeah fat chance Micro-shaft would CARE ABOUT CUSTOMERS enough to DO that)

Brit teen pleads guilty to Minecraft-linked bomb and airline hoaxes

"The rational part of a teen's brain isn't fully developed and won't be until age 25"

Does that mean his juvenile actions get him tried as a juvenile? [I hope not]

Yeah, he's going to 'big boy' prison. Good riddance.

And that bit about "running around the internet with our 1337 bootnet!"... could that 'Apophis' group be any MORE lame?

/me facepalms at the lame - hence icon

Not so much changing their tune as enabling autotune: Facebook, Twitter bigwigs nod and smile to US senators

Re: "put a monetary value on the data that they hold on individuals."

subject to an inventory tax? ew... (yeah my love of freedom makes my anus pucker up over the thought of taxing it as if it were inventory, and I hate to see taxes used to stop bad behavior, but it'd probably work)

Re: Self-restraint or self-regulation is going nowhere

"When has self-regulation ever worked?"

I might suggest that it works at a level where your customers are treated like customers. When they become "the masses", it tends to be shoved aside in the name of profit, power, and exploitation, kinda like "arrogance of power" from career politicians, only from a private sector viewpoint.

Re: Why always the insistence on CEOs?

"they want the public to see them making the CEOs sweat"

Exactly, it's a dog and pony show, where politicians [some of whom are up for re-election in ~2 months] get to posture and make it look like they actually CARE about their constituents. They say the right key words and tricky phrases, get a photo opportunity, maybe a favorable writeup in some local newspapers, harumph harumph harumph etc.

If they'd only follow through with the GDPR-like protections, though, we'd be better off. And I'm not in favor of the ISP or content platform being responsible for how their customers use it. Liability protections for ISPs and content platforms need to remain intact. Otherwise, they'd have to police EVERYTHING that customers might do, to cover their own butts, and THAT could get *UGLY* really fast. It would effectively shut them down.

Sadly, no mention in the El Reg article of the practice of "shadow banning" - I heard a bit about that on Fox News last night, and also read an article on how conservatives are leaving Facebook (in large numbers) over this apparent practice, and other things like it. I don't know if any senators SPECIFICALLY asked the social media execs about it, though. I can't find any good quotes at the moment... but I recall hearing about something being brought up and the shadow banning was supposedly based on "who was following you" and not the content itself. [that's just what I remember, but can't seem to find the news reference]

Do you really think crims would do that? Just go on the 'net and exploit a Windows zero-day?

Re: So classic way to find an exploit.

"I wonder if the code to check was in a dev version but some PHB decreed 'Nah, that slugs performance, and it'll never be a problem IRL'"

more like "I don't want to do extra work to check for this" by some lazy overpaid millenial "child" since (it appears that) nearly all senior devs and QA people have left Micro-shaft over the last decade or so... maybe taking their stock options, or getting out while the getting's good, or being hit by a round of lay-offs that target the senior people because they earn more... [this has been somewhat confirmed by NYT and Forbes and other news sources, showing how average age at tech companies is much lower than you'd normally expect]

I surfed around a bit, which led me to the github site where the sample was posted, but it was deleted 3 days ago. Did a little commit history digging and managed to download the (otherwise deleted) RAR file containing source and binaries, a docx file [that I did not open], and an mp4 video. I just followed links from the article and applied some web-common-sense and voila!

a comment from the source says the following (for what it's worth):

"_SchRpcSetSecurity which is part of the task scheduler ALPC endpoint allows us to set an arbitrary DACL. It will Set the security of a file in c:\windows\tasks without impersonating, a non-admin (works from Guest too) user can write here. Before the task scheduler writes the DACL we can create a hard link to any file we have read access over. This will result in an arbitrary DACL write."

European nations told to sort out 'digital tax' on tech giants by end of year

Re: Tax the Turnover

"Don't tax the profits - the accountants are too sharp!"

Actually the I.T. department helps out a lot, in that regard. It was one of my tasks, back in the early 90's, working for a large non-U.S. company [as a contractor]. Their U.S. division (where I worked) _was_ a U.S. corporation, and they had this rebate thing and some rather interesting 'middleman' pricing. Part of what I did was to determine what the rebate amount should ideally be, so that the U.S. corporation makes "a little money" but not too much, to keep the taxation down. It's not illegal to do this, but it would make a lot of people unhappy to have it confirmed. I said something like "oh you want to..." to the executive, who then basically said "but we can't say it like that."

But yeah, tax minimization is a huge thing with corporations. can you BLAME them? I mean, would YOU deliberately NOT deduct things on your income taxes so you can go ahead and pay MORE taxes? In any case, I still call into question the whole idea of raising taxes anyway, because there's another factor that I haven't mentioned yet: if taxation reduces profits, even if its paid by foreign investors, it still affects hiring and wages in EU and UK. And 3% doesn't sound like much, until it's raised every year by a tiny amount until it becomes confiscatory, because "they can".

And you know if "they" taxed you at 100%, they'd beg for more, and want to go to 110%.

taxation vs economic activity

If you want an economic activity to be IMPAIRED, tax it.

If you want an economic activity to INCREASE, cut taxes on it (or make it 'tax free').

Since one of the things 'at issue' here is the economics of monetizing people's personal data, then (if you really want to) TAX IT INTO OBLIVION [especially if that's the only way it can be stopped]. I hate saying that, but it would WORK.

As for getting gummint revenue, "making corporations pay their fair share" is a stupid way of getting revenue, and succeeds in dividing the haves from the have-nots even MORE than before.

"Corporations" don't pay tax. It's the people who OWN the corporation [through stock, equity, etc.] that pay the tax. Many of these people are regular working stiffs with a retirement portfolio. Think about it. And if a tax increase on a corporation causes them NOT to hire [or to do layoffs], you get what you deserve, more people demanding unemployment compensation.

["the rich" already HAVE their wealth; taxing income won't transfer it to "the poor" - they'll alter whatever behavior or investment, as necessary, to avoid the 'new tax'. What it *WILL* do is put yet another roadblock in the path of someone working hard trying to BECOME "the rich", who can't afford to do tax evading things]

Also gummint needs to CUT BACK ON SPENDING at least in proportion to ANY tax increases. If you force the people to tighten THEIR belts, you gummint weenies BETTER be SETTING THE EXAMPLE by DOING IT YOURSELF. But like all arrogant (corrupt?) politicians and bureaucrats, they'll *EXEMPT* *THEMSELVES* from the negative effects.

And 'austerity' needs to go, too (it's just a means to promise the moon to people, so that they will vote for YOU to get it).

Microsoft sharpens its claws to cut Outlook UI excess, snip Ribbon

Re: UI revamp

ugh, the WORST fat-finger-burger menu EVAR! [I am nauseated just thinking about it]

Re: Cruft

I've heard that term for years, often used in engineering circles to avoid more profane terms that mean the same thing. It deserves an actual technical definition, like 'CRUD'.

In the nuclear industry, CRUD is officially "Corrosion and wear byproducts in a nuclear reactor system that have become radioactive and are deposited and accumulated in related equipment". 'CRUD traps' are places where it accumulates the most, and they often get signs posted on them indicating the last measured radiation dosage rate. Some are so bad they get lead shielding wrapped around them so that you can spend more than 5 minutes nearby when working on stuff, without exceeding your radiation limits at any rate. But yeah it's the side effect of neutron-irradiating Iron 59 which turns it into Cobalt 60. CRUD.

I suppose CRUFT could officially become "any bloatware or overly implemented feature that can easily be eliminated without adversely affecting the usability or functionality of a software application."

Re: Meet the Fockers

"There's someone in MS who knew very well what they were inflicting on the general public with the ribbon but they did it anyway."

That person no longer works at Micro-shaft. Maybe this is why it's starting to get a face lift? Same person responsible for ribbon AND "the metro" in case anyone wondered (see link), even though Sinofsky (allegedly) had taken the fall over 'the metro' and Windows 'Ape'.

Then again, "fixing" the ribbon (instead of completely obliterating it) is lipstick on a boar, but this time it IS on the oinky end.

Re: UI revamp

"Everyone must conform to the new UI standard."

How DARE they cram a new UI up our as down our throats like that!

[yeah maybe this time it'll actually be an IMPROVEMENT]

Mikrotik routers pwned en masse, send network data to mysterious box

Re: Vulnerability is overstated

yeah that's definitely different from the one I saw [I followed the rabbit trail to a github site with the python code demonstrating the PoC - it's that old yeah]

Re: Is that the one I noticed this morning?

unfortunately it seems nothing's been done about the 'izuku.sh' file, though my logs show different IP addresses hosting it now. Yeah, they ignored me. Well that server _IS_ in Poland... they probably can't read or understand the information properly and/or just ignore it because they regularly host criminal services or similar. [I've had 'confirmed kills' before, wtih responses, just not that often - usually it is silently fixed or seems so because the activity stops]. Another possibility is that they leave it on the server to see what IP addresses download it to track the thing. Well I won't interfere with law enforcement if that's the case.

( I also posted the actual URL on USENET, and described it even better there, so not like it's invisible any more, and anyone can see it in web server logs )

Back at the turn o' the century, Code Red lingered for several years after the initial infections started. Someone (allegedly me perhaps?) allegedly had an auto-responder that would allegedly shut down the Code Red infected web server remotely (since it was attempting to spread a virus) via the Code Red back door command/control channel and (allegedly) leave a file on the administrator desktop that said something like "you are an idiot" and explained why the web server was shut down remotely. Both of those factoids should frighten any clueless admin into patching the thing (as it was most likely some old unpatched "oh we have a web server running?" Win2k box in a closet that nobody thought about. But I digress...

Is that the one I noticed this morning?

Since June there have been a number of requests for '/login.cgi' in my web logs (several hundred) with an obvious code injection exploit in the URL, that wget's a file on a server with a specific IP address (several of these observed, looks like they change periodically) which then loads a binary image for MIPS or ARM processors [as appropriate] into /tmp or one of several other directories that it might be able to download something into...

in any case the script it first downloads is called 'izuku.sh' . I reported my logs and findings to several ISPs who either hosted the machines doing the request, or WERE the host for the downloading.

Not sure if this is the same one the article talks about, but the one I saw has been around since June (according to my logs) and always tries to download that script file which then attempts to download the binary into one of several directories, then load/run it. And I think if you disable remote management on your router, this (apparent) virus won't infect it. But it could be a different one, not the one the article is about. I don/t know. So I mention it anyway, just in case. Details are sometimes useful...

Anyway, if you have a web server, look for access attempts for /login.cgi and you'll probably see it (the one I'm talking about). Again, dunno if it's the same as the one in the article, but is similar, probably.

(the first log entry is 15-June at 14:36, in case anybody wonders)

Roskosmos admits that Soyuz 'meteorite' hole had more earthly origins

ok this is why you might drill a hole and seal it with goo

Let's say you do testing, and you discover a leak. you know it's "around here". The drawings say there shouldn't be a leak, but you have one anyway. So, to access the leaky zone, you drill a hole. THEN you inject some sealant goop into the hole, and the leak stops. YAY, you FIXED it! But it doesn't hold, and so now your hole is in a photograph blaming you.

less funny than the other explanations. I'll get my coat anyway for the buzz-kill effect.

Re: Not only Russians

A sub with a hole 'above the water line' so it's ok... uh, huh.

well I don't think sub builders [in this case, probably Electric Boat, or perhaps Mare Island] would be so brain-dead stupid as to actually do that. My guess is it's just a funny urban legend... or it may have been a hole that was drilled for some other reason (to attach sonar gear via a cable that penetrates the hull?), and someone was funnin' with the civilian. [yeah maybe the cable stuffing box hadn't been attached yet]

In reality sub hulls are thoroughly x-rayed and re-welded if any flaws are found. I was semi-involved in that process once, a long time ago. Standard practice for Navy ships at any rate.

Gitpod git-bolts git-IDE onto GitHub for in-browser code git-editing

is this going to perform like google docs?

Is this online direct editing (apparently) javascript eldritch abomination "editor" going to perform like GOOGLE DOCS and be SO SLOW as to become VIRTUALLY UNUSABLE? Because, I don't think you can get around the latency and network performance issues by WISHING for it.

And yeah, subscription pricing is next, right? (if I read the tail-end of the article correctly, it is)

Somehow I think a good old-fashioned "git pull", local edit, and "git push" would do better. There's already an editor of sorts for merging, and I'm not amused by it. It's kinda "piggy" and not impressive in the least.

But I suppose it *could* get worse.

/me thinks: just because you CAN does not mean you SHOULD.

Microsoft Azure: It's getting hot in here, so shut down all your cores

Re: How Does Cloud Work Again?

the cloud would work better if Micro-shaft could write EFFICIENT CODE like they USED to.

Compare ".Net" and "UWP" to how snappy Win '95 was, by comparison. In 16Mb of memory even!!!

And that pretty much explains it all. Micro-shaft, STOP it with the BLOATWARE! Abandon ".Not", "UWP", "The Metro", C-pound, and THE SPYWARE!!! [then you might find your servers won't overheat because they're no longer working against themselves, ya know???]

MS fanboi downvotes welcome. heh. But, you *KNOW* I'm *RIGHT* about this!!!

Excuse me, but your website's source code appears to be showing

Re: Always pick the right tool for the job

using a git repo for web-side code that [at one time] had keys or other information embedded in it [think something similar to DJango 'template' files, where server-side code could be embedded in the actual pages themselves, or more specifically what .git has in it] could, in a misconfigured system, reveal the '.git' directory and allow it to be downloaded. And if you don't have the keys embedded it it NOW, maybe they were there 'for testing' in any version of the code EVAR, and that's the security hole [in this case].

I am pretty sure DJango's default implementation doesn't allow access to '.git' directories. However, if you bring it up in 'debug' mode, or allow 'generic' file downloading on ANYTHING, it just might...

[there are many reasons I dislike DJango, easy to misconfigure due to its overall confusing nature being one of them]

Some additional experiments (by me) showed that default apache will serve up those '.git' directories unless you tell it NOT to. I created one for grins (as a symlink) and re-directed it to "the usual place" along with all of those other things that crackers and web viruses always want to test downloading. And after checking some web logs, I discovered that there's another bit of virus/malware out there looking for '/login.cgi' and apparently attempting to inject a wget command to download something from a rogue server at an IP address that I shouldn't mention here. If you want that IP address, check your web logs. It's probably there. It's also pretty recent.

Anon man suing Google wants crim conviction to be forgotten

Re: But even before the first transistor was invented ...

"Think if traffic violations data were freely available, and you can easily match people with plate numbers, for free."

oh you just gave me *SO* many *EVIL* ideas... !

Re: Let me get this straight...

"How can anyone think this is reasonable?"

you are confusing 'reason' with what happens in a court room. oops.

[supposedly this is why we have judges and juries]

Re: Right to be forgotten

'Shirley' these things will all be tested in court. Sadly that means common sense could be lost along the way...

(or did the people writing the laws want to enrich their la[w]yer buddies with the inevitable endless parade of litigation?)

Black holes can briefly bring dead white dwarf stars back to life

'source level' reactions and reactivity addition

Just to add a little physics here...

The problem I see with eddy currents 'kick starting' a reaction in the white dwarf is that the sudden addition of reactivity [i.e. the gravitational compression] is *ALSO* likely to cause an uncontrolled reaction and *EXPLOSION* rather than a 'kick start' of the star.

Here's why:

Fusion and fission share a few similar *kinds* of parameters, reactivity being one of them. In the case of fusion, a major part of the reactivity consists of heat and density. The fusion reaction in a star is stable because the expansion force from the fusion reaction is balanced by gravity. Too much of one, the star goes 'boom', or collapses onto itself and goes out.

I would expect that because one fusion leads to another, you'd have a lifecycle time, delaying effects, and 'reactivity' (related to the effective neutron multiplication factor for fission; for fusion, it would be related to the ability of the energy from one fusion reaction to trigger others). When you have a sudden increase in reactivity, it's likely in a fusion reaction (as it is in a fission reaction) that you get a sudden 'jump' in the reaction rate that's somewhat proportional to the reactivity addition rate (this would be due to various factors that would be common in the reactivity equations of both fusion and fission). When the power levels of a nuclear reactor are unstable [a lot of chaotic activity, like a shut down fission reactor or a 'brown dwarf' star] then sudden spikes in the reaction rate might trigger an unknowable "super power level surge", high enough to explode instead of 'just starting up'. Or not.

The SL-1 incident (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1 ) was a case where a shut down fission reactor went 'prompt critical' due to sudden reactivity addition, and experienced a 'prompt jump' in power levels (followed by 'prompt criticality' where power multiplied in microseconds instead of 100's of milliseconds) from a shut down condition to a 'thousands times maximum' power level (20GW according to the article, in a 3MW reactor) in a few milliseconds, burned nearly ALL of the nuclear fuel in that time period, and caused a 'water hammer' when all of the cooling water covering the core suddenly flashed to steam and pushed the remaining water up like a big piston, faster than you can blink, forcing the reactor vessel and attached components to jump 9 feet into the air, etc. etc. very very bad contamination, core meltdown, dead people, yotta yotta. Yuck. Photo of what was left of the the melted/sploded core on the web page.

Assuming that sudden dwarf star restarts might act *like* *that*, because of the addition of reactivity by tidal forces and other 'black hole' things, if it's too quick, dwarf star go *BOOM*. My opinion.

Microsoft gives Windows 10 a name, throws folks a bone

Re: May I humbly suggest...

but I like dragons... I don't like Win-10-nic.

How about 'icebergs ahead' ?

Re: Obviously...

"I making a point of immediately binning any CVs submitted as a .odt file"

That's why smart people submit PDFs instead, to get past the H.R. weenies and middle managers who think 'that way'.

Besides, who'd *WANT* to work for a snooty anal-retentive person that throws out a resumé simply because it's in an open source format? Or, worse, a company that HIRES such people in the H.R. department? [H.R. is the worst part of working on-site for any medium to large company - it's like they live to justify their own existence or something, nearly as bad as OUTSOURCED H.R.]

Fortunately, at this time, it's a "seller's market" (edit, I'd said 'buyer' but it's really 'seller') for employment opportunities, at least in the USA. It's pretty 'great'. [yeah I _did_ mean that, actually] So go ahead and toss my resumé so I don't hear back from ya!

use of 'goto'

FYI - 'goto' is a legitimate way to program although it should be used (mostly) for things *like* error cleanup [see lots of Linux kernel modules for examples - 'error_exit' and similar labels].

In the world of userland-only coding, you can afford to be snobby about 'never use goto'. In the kernel world, you use it because it works better. Just pointing that one out, for those who don't know.

Re: >> I do not need DropBox Plus, nor OneDrive.

"The problem are the people on the other side who cannot live with, work with, or correct the minor issues"

yeah, those other people need to get Libre Office and quit whining about it. Not like it would cost them anything...

Re: Crashy McCrashface?

I was thinking Flatty McFlatFace

Hello 'WOS': Windows on Arm now has a price

Re: Intel sueing in 3... 2... 1...

"After all few Windows-only Software actually uses anything that came out after 2000."

I wish this were true. Unfortunately, some *EXTREMELY* unwise software developers (for business applications) drank the Micro-shaft coolaid and either use C-pound, or (nearly as bad) ".Not" with C++.

If the application you use falls into this category, you're *B0NED*.

However, if the developers were SMART, they used Java [Oracle does this] or MFC/C++ *without* ".Not" and targeted XP or 7 [and not 10]. Yes, it's STILL possible to do that. And very, very wise.

/me points out that with a little effort, MFC applications can be modified to use wxWidgets to run on Mac or X11 systems. There's effort for sure, but it's not "that much" and worth doing. Then you can have a single code base for everything. Yes, _I_ do this.

Once business applications are commonly available for Linux and Mac, people will *STOP* "needing" Windows, and developers will have even MORE reason to make their applications run on non-windows OSs.

Re: I Wish You Luck

does it come with Linux instead?

Mate desktop, please, and *NO* 2D FLATSO themes!

Spies still super upset they can't get at your encrypted comms data

Re: Wack a Mole

thumbs up for the book cipher example. it just has to be a difficult lock to pick.

Re: Secure communications

don't forget "process crimes" and perjury traps set by the F.B.I. ... if they wanna 'get you', they'll 'get you', or bankrupt you with legal defense costs until you plead guilty or get financially ruined.

Re: "No homebrew" is NOT elitist

"and even though I have complete confidence in my own ability to get it right, I also know how much of my time it would take to be certain that I got it right"

blah blah blah - sorry, I don't accept the *kinds* of statements that I would consider *toxic*. They are similar to:

"other, smarter people" "it's too difficult" "other people have tried and failed" "it will never work" "you don't have the skill set" "re-inventing the wheel" "wasting your time" "use what already exists" "it's been done before" "it's never been done before" ... on, and on, and on, the negativity, so negative!

How about something encouraging like: "Well, when it comes time to check your algorithm, make sure that [short description of mathematical algorithm or procedural test] does [whatever result you should get for good encryption]

Otherwise, it sounds like the usual negativity ninnies. Just sayin.

[and I'd be interested in what tests you WOULD recommend]

icon, because, I hear from negativity ninnies all of the time. It's irritating at the least. Why discourage those with enthusiasm? Instead, point them in a direction that's actually HELPFUL.

Re: Wack a Mole

"good crypto is incredibly hard to do"

I wouldn't say 'incredibly hard', but the diligence of testing the algorithm for actual cryptographic strength would be a part of that, yeah.

I wrote an encryption algorithm a couple o' decades ago. It was in protest of the 128-bit vs 60-bit "exportable" encryption nonsense, which was finally overturned a year or so later.

I described it in prose on a web site (kinda like PGP) just to make a point. It used a 256-bit key and a CRC algorithm at its core with a moving window that involved the encrypted data, not the 'dry' data, and was hyper-efficient on encrypting very large data files. Downside, required building a 128kbyte translation table which took a second or two on those old machines. I also encrypted the source file and published the binary, DARING anyone to de-crypt it. I used to get a lot of hits on that page, too (a hundred or so a month) and no takers on decrypting the source file. I forget what key I used to encrypt it. heh.

What 'they' did to Turing

Turing is a VERY interesting example of what gummints could (and maybe WILL) do once the "need" for an individual has passed. Turing was needed to win the war. Turing was also on someone's "undesirable" list. He wasn't hurting anyone, but for some reason he NOW 'lost favor' and was quite effectively mistreated.

It is an example of "politics of the day" and those who do not conform to it, at the whim of those who wield power without accountability. Turing was a homosexual, and for some reason in the 1950's that suddenly became a problem (when it apparently wasn't in the 1940's because we needed him to decode Enigma and other coded messages). Turing should've gotten more respect. I have to wonder whose corn flakes he urinated in to suddenly cause "that" to happen...

The entire concept of free speech is really about POLITICAL speech, particularly speech that 'those in power' don't want to hear. "Political Correctness" fascists seek to SILENCE those they don't agree with, including corporations like Google and Facebook, as evidenced by how 'Diamond and Silk' have been treated (among other things).

And if you're law enforcement, and you look at someone's life for long enough, silently decrypting their files and data traffic and online history and so forth, until you find something 'questionable', you WILL find it eventually, ESPECIALLY when you have the unlimited resources of the U.S. Federal government and a _WILLING_ Department of "Justice" helping 'them' along and covering up the "2-tier'd justice system" abuses. You know, one justice for THEM, and another for YOU. That's a 2-tier'd justice system.

We do NOT need back doors to our encrypted data, giving unscrupulous power abusing law enforcement and government spies the keys to our lives. It's too easy to abuse in a digital world, which is why people use the encryption in the FIRST place. It's not so much what they WILL do, more like what they COULD do, or THREATEN to do to you, leaving you always looking over your shoulder, justifiably paranoid, of being somehow caught in a 'Perjury Trap' by the F.B.I. when you thought you were telling the TRUTH...

And WHO wants to live like _THAT_ ??? I'd rather be *FREE*.

Re: Tide, stop coming in!

A mandatory back door to encryption just opens wide for fishing expeditions and criminals who somehow get the key.

Yeah, THAT never happens [recent news stories regarding _serious_ FBI corruption at the highest levels and a 2-tier'd justice system notwithstanding, right?]

If "they" want to "find something" on you, and have a crypto back door AND unlimited funds and resources, they WILL find something. It can be ANYTHING, including a "process crime" for you "lying" to them. "I wasn't doing a self-pleasuring sex act to online pr0n!" "we have your webcam photographing you doing this with a time stamp and XXX minutes of video, courtesy of your encrypted file system with a back door". And so on. You lie to them about it, it violates the law 'making a false statement to a federal officer', and they JAIL YOU for it, or force you to plead "guilty" to some B.S. made-up "crime" instead...

because they CAN, and you happen to be on "their" radar. And they have the back door encryption keys, and they can fish for "illegal" activity whenever they please.

Yes. Reasons _NOT_ to allow this crap. Clear substantiated proven and undeniable evidence for this kind of abuse from top members of the DOJ in the U.S., and the methods they use to HARASS people into a conviction, is on the news, every night. No, not THAT news, the OTHER news...

Golden State passes gold-standard net neutrality bill by 58-17

no surprise

no surprise that the socialist liberals dominating the state gummint of Cali-Fornicate-You have ONCE AGAIN passed legislation to CRAM THEIR AGENDAS up our as down our throats, so typical of "the left" to FORCE EVERYONE ELSE like that...

Mozilla changes Firefox policy from ‘do not track’ to ‘will not track’

Re: It's about time

ack on noscript, and also plugins that make all un-white-listed cookies temporary.

But... when will they FIX THE AUSTRALIS NONSENSE and GO BACK TO THE WAY IT WAS? you know, a UI with a MENU (and not a fat-finger-burger-button) at least by default, 3D SKEUOMORPHIC [like it USED to be, not all "chrome clone" looking] and WITHOUT the skinny black font and bright blue 2D "buttons" on a blisteringly white backgroun 'options' screens...

'penny wise, pound foolish' I say.

Space station springs a leak while astronauts are asleep (but don't panic)

Re: Kaptans Log

some kid in amsterdam volunteered for that (thumb in the hole), except he was already busy with his finger in a dike...

(whoops I almost spelled that wrong)

coat, please...

Re: Duct tape

that 'kapton tape' stuff is used in electronic equipment a lot. One typical use, to tape the wires up on a LiPo battery to (help) keep it from bursting into flames.

Re: headline?

I thought the "don't panic" reference was pretty good.

And never go anywhere without your towel.