Posts by bombastic bob

Brit semiconductor tech ended up in Chinese naval railgun – report

Re: The *real* tough part is not nS (or even pS, with the right design) switching, it's the

"Actually if you want to do this is also the old school "Saturatable reactor" tech."

yeah, about mag-amps... they're notoriously inefficient, so they'll heat up really fast. Additionally, you COULD make a mag-amp rectifier, but regardless you still need to feed them with AC, and not DC, which means that charging a bank of super-capacitors and then RAPIDLY discharging them into the railgun system to fire it would be out...

nice try, though. Sorry to pee on your parade, to wet your blanket, to hose you down in your moment of passion, to poop your party, to ...

compare to much smaller (and lower dissipated power) IGBTs and/or MOSFETS. Hell, with optoisolators you could get away with using standard bipolar, or even (if you're really tricky) use SCRs. A few decades back I saw some static inverters that actually used a bank of SCRs in the output stage, big bolty-looking things, several inches in diameter. I think these inverters were designed in the 1970's, long before IGBTs and vertical MOSFETS came around. And they had massive cooling fans, too.

Anyway, there are LOTS of ways to skin cats, remove one's clothing, etc..

Re: China

"They own most of the US National Debt."

Maybe not MOST of it, but certainly a whole lot of it, and the previous U.S. president made SURE of that [having doubled the national debt in his 8 years in office]. [ok Congrab didn't help either, being all too willing to pass 'continuing resolutions' indefinitely, but still]

so yeah, now a foreign entity owns a big chunk of our national debt. But that COULD be weaponized: "We go bankrupt".

Not sure WHAT would happen, then...

agreed, IGBT's aren't that new. however the process and specs of VERY high current IGBT's may be the kind of intellectual property they have acquired...

just like integrated circuits have been around since the late 1950's or very early 1960's, but the ability to make the latest/greatest Intel CPU is the 'secret sauce' that only their chip foundries have. Similar for the RAM and SSD storage, yotta yotta yotta.

"IGBTs are used to power every modern electric train, from any number of different countries."

I doubt it's the concept of an IGBT that's of concern here. It would be the various processes and physical dimensions involved in making the wafers and getting a decent yield. That kind of 'secret sauce' means that this particular manufacturer can mass produce the necessary "stuff". It's also theoretically possible that China _COULD_ deny "that stuff" to everyone but themselves, now.

Keep in mind who the Chinese government people REALLY are...

a) they employ millions of people in what can only be described as "sweat shops" but with more modern tech.

b) they pollute the CRAP out of their own cities, because other nations basically pay THEM to do the "polluty" things.

c) a small number of people have the vast majority of the wealth. Most people earn only a fraction of a typical 'minimum wage' in any 1st world country. It is likely that most of the people making iPhone could not afford to buy one, EVAR.

d) they are WELL KNOWN to do "internal use only" knock-offs of western tech, because they have the schematics, board layouts, components, and willing 'minions' to make it happen. "4th shift" it's sometimes called, "off the books" manufacturing of copyright and patent violating stuff.

Given this, and a pile of cash they're _NOT_ sharing with "the people", what do you expect? It's like the royal coffers of the "communist" nation are full to the brim now, and they want to flex their muscles and ensure it *STAYS* that way, indefinitely.

Understanding them means understanding human nature. That government has too much wealth power in too few hands. _ONLY_ corruption can result from this.

And we, in the west, have ENABLED them.

Microsoft, IBM settle case over disputed diversity boss

Strategy vs "chief diversity officer"

I'd say that 'strategy' does not mean what they must think it means, if "strategy" means you hire a CHIEF! _DIVERSITY_! OFFICER! to mange your hiring policies and recruiting efforts.

Now, if they'd hired a "Chief Best Qualified Candidate Officer" or a "Chief Hire The Genius Officer" it would make a LOT more sense.

But that's _NOT_ what they did, now is it?

The purpopse of a corporation is to earn profit for its investors. "Diversity" is counterproductive to profit, because it focuses on "identity', and _NOT_ something that is "the best employee" nor "maximum value to the company". This means _LOWER_ profits, which is counterproductive and not in the company's best interest.

But hey, if a pair of BULLSHIT artists want to duke it out over BULLSHIT like "Chief Diversity Officer", let them. The rest of us can sit back and LAUGH! AT! THEIR! FOLLY!!!

World's biggest DDoS attack record broken after just five days

ISPs could mitigate this

ISPs could mitigate this, if they filtered all UDP traffic originating at their address space by filtering out anything that does not match the actual IP address of the source computer at the gateway

A simple filter rule on the gateway. There's nothing in the RFCs (that I'm aware of) where you need to allow the originating IP address of a UDP packet to differ from the computer that originated it. It's just that it CAN, that's all.

Miner vs miner: Attack script seeks out and destroys competing currency crafters

In the movie 'Hackers'

there was this one scene where 'Zero Cool' was having a turf war on a TV network control computer against "some other hacker". It turned out to be his future girlfriend. How cute, they met while duking it out on someone else's "puter". Heh.

The future realm of online dating - two potential lovers, trying to take over some innocent victim's computer for bitcoin mining. Awwww... [and they were all filled with 'awe'],

News lobsters demand to be let back into the Facebook boiling pot

Re: I like the lobster motif.

when you cook lobster, you first boil it alive until it turns a nice red color [as I understand it, anyway]. Not sure if you gut it first, though. But as it boils, I'm told it makes a squeeky whistling noise, sorta like a scream...

Gits club GitHub code tub with record-breaking 1.35Tbps DDoS drub

Re: If you were a chef...

they're people who don't understand firewalls and private/public address spaces

Re: Grey hat response...

creating a self-perpetuating loop would be even worse...

Mobile World Congress: 5 buzzwords, an homage to Windows XP and a smartphone snorefest

Re: Yesterdays world?

but yesterday's world was better - for desktop users, anyway.

I'd welcome an XP-like environment for Android, especially if it's 3D Skeuomorphic and *NOT* 2D FLATSO. so much of 'droid is already 2D FLATSO, but it doesn't HAVE to be... starting with non-flat icon design [which I see a lot of] but would need customized controls in lieu of 'flat-looking boxes' that pretend to be buttons [and so on]. but a reasonably clever programmer can make a 3D looking one, using a bitmap (as one example; other methods exist).

now, if native 'droid would just support that better...

Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired for opposing hiring caps on white, Asian male nerds

Re: The art of discrimination

"discriminated on merit. Whatever 'merit' is and how it is 'calculated' or judged"

usually by looking at your resume, in the sections covering experience and/or education.

Re: More PC BS

"Is HR allowed to select on personality type?"

Well, ENTPs probably make better engineers. I think they SHOULD! Pick a set of myers-briggs types that are ideal for the position, and use a standardized myers-briggs as part of the job application.

THIS would get INTERESTING, Muahahahahaha! And yes, _I_ am an ENTP! But you knew that already, right?

"I want the option to describe my race as “human”."

I do that. mark 'other'. write in 'human' where it asks you. or leave it blank.

"Start of the downward slide. Google and YouTube are poster identities for that sentiment."

You're forgetting MICRO-SHAFT - I bet they've got the proudest "diversity" claims of them all (and the crappy products to show for it)

Re: Reverse discrimination is now political correctness.

"I am genuinely concerned we now live in a society where having a minority opinion will lead to punishment."

thing is, HATING reverse discrimination and political correctness is NOT a 'minority opinion', in spite of what the lefties and howler monkeys want everyone to think.

But yeah, having an opinion shouldn't get you fired, "not hired", nor in ANY way discriminated against. And hiring people based on things that are not directly related to the job makes BAD ECONOMIC SENSE.

Only a mega-corp like Google [with apparent cash to burn] could even AFFORD to hire mediocre people based entirely on race/sex/whatever. Everyone else has to hire competent employees that earn the company more money than the wages+benefits cost.

OK, who is shooting at Apple staff buses in California? Knock it off

"The whole inhabitted world needs a system to track exactly where the idiots with guns are all the time."

and firecrackers. and cars that backfire really loud (like Uncle Buck's car in that movie from the 90's). And really loud farts.

Re: Use the Trump solution

" what a pellet gun's appeal is..."

target shooting is probably #1

Re: Use the Trump solution

The buses were being shot at by a *pellet gun*.

thanks for clarification. those are typically NOT considered "firearms".

Re: Use the Trump solution

"have someone ride shotgun"

a cop?

With IoT you too can turn your home into a giant flashing 'HORSE BIRTH NOW' klaxon

Re: As a horse breeder ...

"before I quit owing to a divorce which made horse keeping unaffordable."

"I passed on attending my daughter's birth, the thought made me queasy"

somehow I think these two may be connected, at least in the X's mind... [if you could BE THERE for the horse, how come you can't BE THERE for me???]

Not like you really would be doing anything. That 'lamaze class' stuff is HIGHLY overrated (I think it's more important for a husband to go to his JOB to earn money to pay for all that schtuff). That 'lamaze coach' garbage is just a way for women to "get their hubbies involved" when it's really just women's work [heh heh heh heh heh]. "call me when it's done"

As for me, I'd just stand there averting boredom by mental-calculating the total force of a birthing contraction, based on the fetal pressure meter and the estimated surface area of a 9 month pregnant uterus, and announce the results to the room when my mental-math was complete, something like "guess what, it looks like each contraction is the equivalent of bench pressing 500lb" and, of course, offering to stand in the right spot with a (baseball) catcher's mitt during the final phase of the birthing process...

[oh, wait, I *did* that!]

Hypersonic nukes! Nuclear-powered drone subs! Putin unwraps his new (propaganda) toys

Re: Little reactors?

"an uncrewed unshielded cruise missile is technologically possible, if marginally feasible."

keep in mind that it's supposed to be able to run 'indefinitely' which means it's an air-breather. If it carried propellant, it would run out, eventually. The only way to make a 'long time' sustainable nuclear engine is for it to breathe air [or water if it's submerged, which might be a bit more practical]. That also doesn't consider the overall size requirement for the power plant and supporting systems. An air-breathing engine needs a heat exchanger that's large enough to transfer it to the propellant [in this case, air], and not melt in the process [so it can sustain propulsion].

Project Pluto - that's an interesting one (maybe Putin read the wikipedia page, said "we can do this, too" etc. nevermind the 1960's date on when the project was canceled).

Back in the 1950's and 60's there were a LOT of those kinds of things being tested out, not the least of which were the nuclear artillery round [which works, but who'd want to shoot an artillery round that causes fallout to drop on your own head?] and the SL-1 reactor [a small reactor that was SO dangerous it exploded from an accident during routine maintenance].

There are often a lot more reasons why a project is abandoned other than the ones stated. Some of these reasons are actually classified, or were at one time (SL-1 may be an example, I won't say why - if it's publically disclosed I'll comment on it, but that's about it).

Re: Little reactors?

"Good to hear that you know more than all those Russian military scientists and engineers"

you haven't even SEEN my CV. And yes, I quite possibly DO know more than at least most of those Russian military scientists and engineers, particularly if they're proposing things that are impractical to implement.

I may ALSO know "things" about (most likely still classified) systems such *AS* the old nuclear aircraft design. What's publicly available on Wikipedia is probably enough, though. I wouldn't divulge anything else.

/me used to operate a nuclear reactor on a submarine. yes, I know how they work, quite well in fact. So I think I'm a pretty good judge of how a 'tiny' nuclear reactor might be designed and what a lot of the problems are in trying to get it to fly... or power a torpedo or unmanned submersible vehicle, for that matter.

Re: Possible scenario

fortunately, modern warfare isn't "a numbers game" any more. But the way that all of the aircraft of WW2 were supplied was basically a government 'takeover' of existing industry that was focused on producing things like cars. There were no new cars for a few years during WW2. They were building aircraft and tanks and jeeps instead.

Seriously, though, if you want mass production, don't you want a "common airframe" instead? That should make it cost less and have more interchangeable parts.

And - somewhat related to other comments - an advantage of an M16's small round COULD be the fact that you can carry more of them [because they'd weigh less]. Though I admit I never had the chance to actually fire one when I was in the military. But I know people who have.

Re: No real commonality in the F35

I think you may need to look at the kinds of stuff that typically gets repaired/replaced to understand what I mean here. But yeah there are 3 versions that I know about, and of course they have differences. The question is whether the things that are maintained all of the time are also "that different" between them, things like avionics, hydraulic systems, the engine, yotta yotta. Just sayin' that's the thinking behind the basic design. And the supply system has to stock spares for all of that...

Re: Mutually Assured Destruction - MAD

"we have an unstable lunatic with his finger on the button"

I nearly gave you an upvote until I read THAT part. Seriously? You actually BELIEVE that?

"Muhuhahahaha."

And demand - 100 BEEELION DOLLARS

Muhuhahahaha. Muhuhahahaha. Muhuhahahaha! [pinky on cheek]

"I call this plan, preparation H"

"I call it - the Alan Parsons Project"

and so on

Re: Re. MAD

"why don't countries simply put the money wasted on nuclear weapons into actual things that might benefit this planet such as asteroid detection and defence?"

sadly there is still evil in the world. You can't reason with evil. You can't make deals with it, either. Non-aggression pacts will be violated, agreements will be broken, and like Hitler during WW2, evil will secretly develop its aggressive ability until it's too late to stop. Unless there's a significant deterrent for any one rogue country to do what the German government did leading up to WW2, we're doomed to repeat that scenario.

Does that answer your question?

Re: Little reactors?

"There could be quite a good market for those."

Assuming they work. Tiny reactors would be more difficult to control, possibly using fast fission rather than thermal. Additionally, they'd be highly inefficient because you wouldn't have enough mass to properly utilize the thermal energy. The main reason that nuclear jet engines were abandoned is that they're just TOO HEAVY to be practical.

A tiny reactor must be created with extermely enriched fuel, 'weapons grade' or better, and it requires a pretty significant mass of external things to transfer the heat. To be controllable, you need even bigger mass/geometry and it very rapidly becomes impossible to put it into a missile. A "Big Fornicating Rocket" might be able to manage a nuclear engine (and that's been proposed) but they still need some kind of fuel/propellant to eject out the tail end and so the mass of the engine must be weight against the need for separate fuel/oxidizer and the limitations of chemical reactions.

Anyway, putting a nuclear engine on a missile that's capable of running for "unlimited" time is extremely impractical. The physics and thermodynamics just don't work very well, ya know?

[not saying IMPOSSIBLE just IMPRACTICAL]

Re: Possible scenario

"unnecessary/late/ineffectual weapons systems" "like the F35?"

well, people used to say bad things about the M-16, too, when it first came out. nowadays, after a few decades of serious use and tweeking, it's probably one of the best small arms any military might have in its arsenal. IMBO [In My Bombastic Opinion] it's better than an AK-47, though AKs are probably cheaper to make [it was a design feature of the AK to be cheap/easy to make].

Give the F35 some time, so the bugs can be worked out, and the benefits of having a common airframe for what is basically 3 different kinds of aircraft will make a lot more sense. Sometimes you have to look at "total cost of ownership", and how military supply systems work on ships and when deployed in the field. Keep in mind that you need SPARE PARTS for all of those planes, to deal with war damage and normal wear and tear. And so, the basic design feature of 'commonality' is a serious tactical advantage, from a supply/material standpoint.

[having been in the military, having been a 'repair parts petty officer' and had to deal with the navy supply system, it's important to consider THAT aspect, too, with respect to weapons systems and availability and so on].

In Sun Tzu's book, "The Art of Warfare", he talked about how important it was to make sure your troops were properly supplied for whatever campaign they were to be sent on. Supplies are extremely important.

Anyway, that's my $.10 worth on the F35. It's really still a "beta release". Then again, in a time of war, sometimes those 'beta release' weapons make all the difference. I mean, how many awesome planes in WW2 received the 'P' designation for PROTOTYPE? And I think it was the P51 Mustang with the Merlin engine that really did the trick to help end the war a bit faster...

Re: Mutually Assured Destruction - MAD

Vlad "Pootie" Putin needs to read 'Superiority' by Arthur C. Clarke

And I have to ask this one tiny little question: Why, of all times, is he so blatantly bragging about his nukular capabilities? This is especially important because MOST of what he's talking about is still on the drawing board [as I understand it]. You can't be "stealthy" with hypersonics, FAST underwater craft are also LOUD [and susceptible to tactical nukular missiles, like 'subroc'] and so on.

What he seems to be saying is "we're important, too, DAMMIT! Pay attention to us, we're tired of being FORGOTTEN!"

Being that China's economy and population are WAY bigger than Russia, I can see he's got 'China Envy'.

He's also not happy at renewed interest (over here in the USA) of upgrading our arsenal and undoing some of the technological stagnation and possible degradation that's happened over the last (nearly a) decade.

If he hadn't been such an ass over in Crimea and Ukraine, maybe he wouldn't have to stand there jumping up and down and demanding we PAY ATTENTION TO HIM.

In any case, the only thing he did NOT do is pound his shoe on the podium...

Fancy owning a two-seat Second World War Messerschmitt fighter?

Re: question

uh, just to point out, even joking about murdering a politician is probably a BAD idea these days...

As much as I disliked Obaka, I didn't want him killed. Just sayin'.

Twitter cries for help to solve existential crisis of whether it's Good

"Why not... hire random normies instead?"

They're an endangered species in San Francisco and Silly Valley, as hard to find as "biological females in the Chocolate Factory"...

Re: Are SJW do-gooders Good?

"banning of non-'right on' opinions."

I think _I_ am one example of why that's NOT happening...

"Seriously some of the abuse you see dished out online people would never dare to say face to face."

welcome to "teh intarwebs" - you see it EVERYWHERE. It's because there's no peripheral device capable of transmitting a proper punch in the nose...

(post-edit - I see someone else said something similar)

Re: Narcissistic cesspit

"I use it so I don't become a social pariah"

'social pariah' is HIGHLY underrated (especially when it's defined by NOT using tw[a,i]tter).

Re: Seeing as twitter "solves" a non-existant problem ...

Considering USENET, it's still around, and there are NO moderators. So-called "moderated" groups are easy to post to "irregardless" (heh) of the 'moderation', using a very very simple hack. In fact, the alt.hackers newsgroup is deliberately moderated for this reason, because you have to perform 'a hack' in order to post to it, though it's not very popular any more, unfortunately [blame successful tw[a,i]tter marketing].

Microsoft lobs Skylake Spectre microcode fixes out through its Windows

Re: Good work by MSFT

"I don't think you know what "shareware" means."

yeah, that post had more ignorance than a religious cult's congregation. And if I could upvote yours more than once, I'd do it.

Re: What a frigging mess !

maybe a better strategy would be to harden the defenses within browsers, like having NOSCRIPT-like capabilities ENABLED BY DEFAULT?

that way a rogue script can't run unless you give it explicit permission...

(so what if it breaks poorly designed web pages that are script-heavy - joke 'em if they can't take a FEEL)

Paul Allen's six-engined monster plane prepares for space deliveries

at some point it may need JATO bottles or some other kind of 'rocket booster' to assist taking that really freaking heavy rocket up to altitude...

but who knows, if it costs less than a "pure rocket" 1st stage...

the other alternative might be a hybrid air-breather for the 1st stage rocket.

Impulse is basically mass times delta-velocity of the stuff being ejected out of the tail end. If you double the delta velocity, it takes 4 times the energy to do it. OR, if you DOUBLE THE MASS, it only takes TWICE the energy. In both cases, you get twice the thrust.

So if you can breathe air {and use that as a significant part of the exhaust) the rocket itself becomes more efficient. It's only when you get to an altitude where air breathing isn't practical any more that you have to use 'fuel only' to propel you.

[it's the same basic reason why turbofan engines are so much more efficient than turbojet engines]

In any case, strap on hybrid rocket/air-breather engines could be a third option to increase payload capacity of the aircraft. Strap them on next to the rocket you're taking up to altitude, and land with them still attached (minus fuel weight). More hybrid hybrid solutions.

/me points out that extra booster rockets burning jet fuel + LOX could be fueled by extra 'drop tanks' carried by the aircraft. Hybrid hybrid hybrid hybrid I guess

23,000 HTTPS certs will be axed in next 24 hours after private keys leak

Re: Private keys are private

" why did they have the private key!?!?!?"

that bugs me too. I've done self-signed certs and the cert doesn't need the private key (specifically the web server's private key) in order to be created. As I recall, you (effectively) generate a public key from your own private key, and include THAT as part of the 'request' submission to the certificate authority for your SSL server cert.

On the other hand, the CA has its own private key for generating the cert. If THAT got out, it would be just as bad.

Spectre haunts Intel's SGX defense: CPU flaws can be exploited to snoop on enclaves

Re: Death of DRM on PC platforms??

from what I understand, the practicality of the attack vs possibility is a completely different thing.

As much as I'd like to see the Blu-Ray equivalent of 'libdecss' with all of the possible decryption keys built-in, and easily downloadable software to convert Blu-Ray contents into h.265 media files on a computer, phone, or slab [for personal use, of course, I'm not interested in pirating content, just convenience], I don't see this happening any time soon, even with the ability to do a side-channel attack on the DRM code.

It just seems that there's a lot of cost for such a tiny payoff that it probably won't happen outside of specific kinds of "spear" attacks [perhaps by the NSA?].

In the mean time, every time I read into the technical details of these things, my mind boggles. Spectre is such a confusing mess to try and wrap my mind around, I can't see how any *SANE* person could actually make this work without an extreme amount of time and effort...

And the 'ret-poline' seems to be an adequate defense against at least SOME of it, by not using the speculative execution thingy in the first place.

Now, here's a thought: what if we could just flip a bit to turn branch prediction OFF for code that needs extra security? Or, better still, make it an inherent part of the TASK STATE so other CPU tasks can't pollute the branch prediction cache like that.

yeah that means a complete re-design of the chip's internals. I'll have to wait for a new CPU architecture before upgrading hardware, then... hopefully withOUT a mandatory management engine, too!

NSA boss: Trump won't pull trigger for Russia election hack retaliation

Re: Acts of war

you know maybe everyone's been thinking about this 'retaliation' thing all wrong...

here are some creative suggestions:

a) Order takeout from every restaurant in Moscow, have it delivered to Putin's house/office, to be paid on delivery. Daily. Until they stop delivering. Then he won't be able to call for take-out, ever again!

b) Make some kind of fake reports to local Moscow police such that the 'swat' guys (Russian equivalent) show up looking for a dangerous man posing himself as Putin

c) Subscribe Putin's personal e-mail address to a whole bunch of mailing lists. Make sure you include his home and cell phone numbers, too. 'Available hours: midnight to 6 AM'

d) Subscribe Putin to Playgirl magazine. Have the first edition FedEx'd directly to him.

e) Have the paparazzi follow Putin around, everywhere. Pay a few of the photographers to fake up some nude photos of Putin and print 'em in the worldwide tabloid news.

f) make up some story about Putin hiring hookers at Mar El Lago to pee on Trump's bed, and have it printed in Russian newspapers as if it were "fact".

heh

Re: I see the apologists for --

"So, Tom, you'd be OK with the Mexican army shelling San Diego"

/me looks outside, doesn't see any shelling going on. must be fake news.

Re: What were they planning on doing?

"Interfering in Russia's free and fare electoral process?"

Shhh... you're not supposed to talk about "fight club"

On a related note...

Sometimes you engage in battle, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you use deception to draw your enemy into a place where YOU have the advantage. Sometimes you appear to offer up something that the enemy considers to be of high value, "the precious thing", while simultaneously feigning protection of what you WANT them to think is YOUR "precious thing", so that maybe your enemy goes after what they THINK is your "precious thing" in order to get what THEY want in exchange...

It's all described in Sun Tzu's book, 'The Art of Warfare", and believe me, everything Trump does [or does not appear to do] is for a reason, and the reasons are PROBABLY in that book. Don't doubt me on this. I've paid the penalties for NOT doing what's in that book because I hadn't read it yet. After reading it, my last successful 'campaign' worked SO well I cost my "enemy" $10,000 while getting everything I REALLY wanted. yeah.

Cryptocurrencies kill people and may kill again, says Bill Gates

Re: Suddenly, all is revealed!

yeah, but I don't need "big nanny micro-shaft" determining what's best for me. Their attitude with respect to Win-10-nic is bad enough...

Intel gives Broadwells and Haswells their Meltdown medicine

nothing listed for mine yet - a Q6600 (yeah a 10 year old core quad). Funny thing, it's doing just fine except for Meltdown/Spectre. Am I going to have to get new motherboard+CPU+RAM now?

Use of HTTPS among top sites is growing, but weirdly so is deprecated HTTP public key pinning

Re: I only just noticed...

I'd like https a lot more if there weren't a potential "tollbooth" designed into the protocol (i.e. having to periodically pay a 3rd party for a cert).

also I wouldn't expect a public key method to protect you from a man-in-the-middle attack. self-cert https sites don't either, in theory, though I suppose you could verify the DNS request by contacting multiple DNS servers directly. An MITM that could be so clever as to mask itself as a particular name server, including the root name servers, would be pretty amazing.

Just to re-iterate: the absolute LAST thing we want on the intarwebs is a TOLLBOOTH that prevents independent small-time web server operators from publishing content WITHOUT a google, github, amazon, faecebook, linkedin, or ANY other 'web site or cloud service provider' being involved.

BBC Telly Tax heavies got pat on the head from snoopers' overseers

Re: Why persist?

Well, rather than licensing every TV set (when pretty much everyone HAS a TV set), how about this?

a) make it an annual tax that everyone just pays;

- and -

b) have people who do NOT own TV sets (or do not use them in 'illegal' ways) apply for a refund [then it's on them to prove they don't own one]

The cost of enforcement and non-compliance would be WAY lower.

You could actually LOWER the tax rates by doing this

The BBC would probably have more money as a result

There would be no more invading people's privacy.

The current system is probably outdated. If you can make it work well for everyone, then nobody will really complain (too much). But with pretty much every household having a TV in it, you're better off just assuming that everyone has a TV, issue exemptions for those who can prove they do NOT have a TV, and be done with it.

[but that would make too much sense, wouldn't it? I think UKs gummint is as gummed up as USA's in the same kinds of ways, because THAT is the nature of a gummint]

4G found on Moon

Re: And if there are any problems just call our hotline

"8 seconds delay"

yeah the signal has a half-million mile (or so) trip each way, or something like it. Imagine two people trying to talk during the silences.

Well then...

No you...

OK, then...

Uh, you first...

Anyway ~1 million miles / 186,000 miles/sec -> ~6 seconds give or take some roundoff, and that assumes my half-million mile to the moon figgur is actually correct.