Posts by xyz123

EFF urges Chrome users to get out of the Privacy Sandbox

What we need is an extension that detects if an ad window is larger than X, Y or has the X in a weird place/hard to see color. then it creates a blacklist of those products for amazon, ebay. etsy and every other website. so you never buy from the shitty ad companies ever.

Personally I'm waiting for google to screw up and show hard core ass to mouth porn on the sesame street website. then I can sue for them "exposing my children to this filth"

Switch to hit the fan as BT begins prep ahead of analog phone sunset

Re: “Roads? Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Roads” (Doc Brown)

One day you'll need to phone 999 in an emergency and your rotary/digital crossbreed phone will take 25mins just to dial the thing!

Europe wants easy default browser selection screens. Mozilla is already sounding the alarm on dirty tricks

Windows 11 latest insider build now pops up adds INSIDE web pages trying to trick you into making edge the default browser.

Sometimes the options say stuff like "Make Edge the default browser yes/no" and sometimes the opposite "keep your current default browser? or change to Edge Yes/No"

the "ads" look like they're embedded into websites, but are actually OS overlays.

Unity apologizes, tweaks runtime install fees after gaming world outrage

They already TRIED to take money from devs, hoping Unity was too big to fail.

They need to be made a severe example of, by big games porting away to other engines.

You can 100% guarantee they are prepping other nickel and dime schemes to rip off devs, hoping they can sneak them through piecemeal.

this walk-back is too little too late and Unity needs to be allowed to fall as an example to others.

US govt IT help desk techie 'leaked top secrets' to foreign nation

If you gave the blueprints for a nuclear warhead to Ethiopia, along with a Youtube unboxing video and an ifixit URL, they STILL wouldn't have the tech to build one.

Bombshell biography: Fearing nuclear war, Musk blocked Starlink to stymie Ukraine attack on Russia

So basically whether Ukraine or the USA EU or UK, Your internet connection can be dropped without warning if Musk decides he doesn't like what you used it for.

i.e. If you're a journalist investigating Twitters refusal to pay BILLIONS in backdated salaries, building rent and purchased computers etc, and you use Starlink, Musk will cut you off.

No other ISP would be allowed to get away with such actions.

There also needs to be a full UN investigation into spying by Starlink and Musk. HOW did he access data that drones were being used to sink ships? data is supposed to be encrypted (especially in a war zone).

Does Musk have some sort of decryption ability and the power to have systems scan what your data is and report to him? Its unlikely anyone in Ukraine sent him a snapchat with "blowing up russian fleet. LOLz"

If Starlink DOES have some sort of data-analysis/hacking tools then this needs to go public urgently, because it means Starlink is capable of breaking bank encryption and seeeing/manipulating peoples financial transactions as well as communications about their family and medical issues.

Google Chrome pushes ahead with targeted ads based on your browser history

Someone needs to build a chrome extension or website that fills your history with utter randomized crap.

Render the advertising data useless when you apparently have a keen interest in everything from anally-inserted vegetables to the minutae of the works of shakespeare (translated to ancient sumerian)

Taking bets turning these options off does nothing for "some users". i.e. those chrome has determined aren't tech-savvy and won't be packet-sniffing and using other tools to check the system is actually disabled.

And google will claim its "a bug"

I'll see your data loss and raise you a security policy violation

Re: Outlook...

I worked for a large corporation required by law to keep physical paperwork of certain transactions.

Which one manager kept "safely" in the "secure disposal" boxes. i.e. those big wheelie bins that are emptied and the contents shredded/burned once a week.

We needed a document for a court case, and he wonderd why for the past 12months all his documents were gone......

Last rites for the UK's Online Safety Bill, an idea too stupid to notice it's dead

The new law is expressly designed with "tack ons" where MPs will be allowed to use any encryption they want to hide the fact they're stealing BILLIONS in goverment contracts.

ALL MPs are on the take and go from nothing to megamillionaires within a year or two of being elected. The entire UK political system is corrupt from the ground up. Labour, Tories, Lib Dems, and whatever other parties get a touch of power. All taking bribes, stealing government contract money etc.

After the "expenses" scandal, MPs have to write down their charges in a "special book" but they're allowed to put "national security" next to a claim for anything (even a packet of biscuits) and YOU the voter are now legally forbidden from even seeing that item exists. Basically the corruption is WORSE than it was before, with MPs not only claiming to clean moats, but many have become mass slum landlords, using government money to buy out entire swathes of houses to rent out.

Beijing's silent treatment topples Tower Semiconductor merger with Intel

Just dump China. they're internally in collapse so "high tech" isn't a priority. Not when you have over 500 MILLION unsold apartments so badly constructed they're already crumbling into dust.

Musk's X caught throttling outbound links to websites he doesn't like

So basically x.com is engaged in DNS fraud. opening a fake "before" website...pretending its the actual website and delaying you. Since once you're on a REAL website x.com can't control the speed of access.

So this was 100% malicious fuckery. No wonder 85-95% of twitter users quit.

Bank of Ireland outage sees customers queue for 'free' cash – or maybe any cash

It's a bank. they should just say people can keep the 1000 they withdrew, but they have to give up the souls of their delicious, tasty children to the bank's director board.

After all, eating children feet first (so they can see the look on the kids face) is what banks REALLY want out of this world.

Boffins reckon Mars colony could survive with fewer than two dozen people

To re-enact the most horrific "storm" on mars, get someone to stand about 20foot away from you. Now fart in their general direction and see how close you come to blowing them off their feet.

The Martian had Mars winds BILLIONS of times the strength they actually are. Mars atmosphere is so thin its strongest storms are what would pass for "windless becalmed weather" on earth.

The only issue with a "martian storm" is incredibly fine dust gets lifted into the air and wafts everywhere. Thats it.

No explosions/uber lightning strikes and buildings getting almost ripped off their foundations. A superstorm would Just a barely-felt faint gust of wind.

You're not seeing double – yet another UK copshop is confessing to a data leak

ALL of these police authorities are "pre-punishing" police to try to get them to not go on strike for fairer pay and conditions.

You'll notice not ONE single higher-ranking officers info was given away, as those were all removed "for reasons" shortly before the police authorities deliberately leaked the data.

Now they're basically saying "if the police go on strike, someone might get access to EVEN MORE data about you and your fellow officers...."

Maker of Chrome extension with 300,000+ users tells of constant pressure to sell out

Take the money to add malware to the extension. then simply don't.

What are they going to do? sue you because you refused to break the law?

Cumbrian Police accidentally publish all officers' details online

Deliberate leaks to "pre-punish" anyone looking for a decent payrise or threatening to strike.

If you're Russian to the Moon, expect traffic: Moscow's Putin a lander into orbit

We have put a faster-than-light spacebase the size of Moscow on the moon. Except its invisible and has forceshields to block all detection - Russia.

Cigna sued for using software to deny healthcare insurance claims

CIGNX denies claims based on if they think the patient is "too old to live" or has a likelihood of becoming MORE ill and thus making more claims. Deny claim, wait for grandma to snuff it and go quiet, hoping no-one realizes she was insured and the medication would have prolonged or saved her life.

Zoom's new London hub – where 'remote work' meets 'we need you back in the office'

Who the hell uses Zoom for businesses anyway?

We know its end-to-end encryption was just a bare faced lie, and that they stream and store every single zoom call to bejing.

Paying companies have been live-banned for discussing Tibet MID-CALL, which means either an AI or human is watching your calls and taking note of them.

Totally insecure and wouldn't put it past Zoom to 'slip-in' malware targetted at specific individuals and their jobs (which they can find out via scanning your calls).

Hell it's an instantly-fireable offence to install Zoom on UK Government PCs.

Zoom - software so piss poor that even Zoom won't use it.

Soon the most popular 'real' desktop will be the Linux desktop

Yes this is the year of the linux desktop..said every single damn year since 2000

LG to offer subscriptions for appliances and televisions

So basically LG are going to sell washing machines with missing programs for heavy loads/whites etc and expect people to pay a monthly £20 fee to have those programs put back.

TVs with unskippable 30second adverts no matter WHAT you're using the TV for,....multiplayer games? TV is useless because you'll simply die mid-game etc.

Whats next? a cooker that refuses to do lasagne unless you swipe a credit card? Lightbulbs that will only switch on after you listen to a 60second advert?

I need to replace 2 TVs that have a slight burn-in and LG just took themselves completely out of the running. Am also recommending against LG for workplace info-screens as can't have adverts appearing whilst important data is being viewed etc.

Let's have a chat about Java licensing, says unsolicited Oracle email

Can't say which place, but recently Oracle "demanded" £72,000,000/year to use Java, so company shut down ALL java projects, uninstalled java from every single machine and brought in dozens of programmers to recreate their systems in HTML etc.

Cops told: Er, no, you need a wiretap order if you want real-time Facebook snooping

Anyone using messenger to run a criminal enterprise....

You've seen people shilling SCAMway and "essential" oils (which are neither essential nor oils) etc?

Microsoft and GitHub are still trying to derail Copilot code copyright legal fight

So if MY Code says a==1+2, and the AI generates a==2+1 then I can sue?

In that case, Microsoft can sue for ANY maths these developers use, because its copying a result from Windows Calculator.....

Another redesign on the cards for iPhone as EU rules call for removable batteries

Apple's strategy is the battery IS replaceable already. they simply slow down/brick last years iPhone/iPad/Macbook so you buy a new one and hey presto! you've replaced the battery at the same time!

Boss put project on progress bar timeline: three months … four … actually NOW!

Re: Poor Project Planning

Yes they have ACCOUNT managers, but you need to remove the O from the job title.

Man sues OpenAI claiming ChatGPT 'hallucination' said he embezzled money

It's the journalist.

If I wrote a program to randomly put words like rapist, paedophile, cannibal, some place names and your name.....and just printed whatever combo came out...I'm the guilty party.

ChatGPT isn't AI in any sense of the word. Its a predictive text generator that solely and completely is based on the prompts entered. Same prompt = same result.

ChatGPT/Bard etc don't have personalities opinions or the ability to vary their output.

By your logic no-one would ever put out anything ever.

If I type into notepad that you're guilty of a crime, should Microsoft be liable for not filtering that out?

If ChatGPT is found "guilty" that means it has the rights of a human being as a text generator that operates based on a users inputted prompts cannot be held liable for correctness of output. Therefore using ChatGPT whilst paying it under minimum wage would ALSO be a crime. So Mr Walters could be on the hook for federal offences.

This should open a big can of worms. Worms everywhere!

Has Amazon found the ultimate lock-in? Cheap cellphone service for Prime

After they got caught using doorbells etc to spy on thousands of children getting undressed and employees could just access any and ALL footage (and even took copies home with them) , would YOU trust them to control a device you carry around with you that has a camera and microphone?

Ex-Twitter sextet sues Elon Musk for 'stiffing' them on severance

Flogging to the National Trust is also a massive scam.

Hidden 'agreements' where for selling a property to the government, they reach hidden 'sweetheart' deals where the person won't be investigated for ANY issue with paying tax for X amount of years/decades.

Seriously. There are very very rich people who 'signed over' historic properties, took for example a £100million loss, but then don't have to pay tax for the next 20 years.....and this is all covered over by "national security" letters. so the public isn't allowed access to documentation.

UK's GDPR replacement could wipe out oversight of live facial recognition

Just a matter of time before people (legally) start to don facemasks to look like wanted criminals.

Not illegal, but will constantly set off facial recog systems in dozens of towns and cities, wasting police time.

Could even use as a distraction. Four teenagers with "wanted criminal" masks on wander round the shopping center, distracting the police whilst an ACTUAL robbery is performed miles away....

Cheapest, oldest, slowest part fixed very modern Mac

Since windows XP, you've been able to "slow down" USB ports to run like previous versions. Mac still hasn't caught up with 2004's tech yet.

Phones' facial recog tech 'fooled' by low-res 2D photo

Who trusts Xiaomi anyway? Chinese government owned and controlled company with gigantic backdoors via malware masquerading as unremoveable bloatware apps

What? did you think all the crap thats on your Xiaomi phone were genuine versions?

First clue should have been how the CCP made party members executive directors, technical staff etc just to watch over product creation

Apple becomes the latest company to ban ChatGPT for internal use

Apple's "AI" will be very easy to make.

It just has to respond with "sorry we slowed down your iphone/ipad/mac, buy a new one" to every single question. Then it can replace their entire customer service department

Owner of 'magic spreadsheet' tried to stay in the Lotus position until forced to Excel

the entire US budget is just seven Excel lines of =rand()

NASA solar satellite burns up over the Sahara desert

Shame we couldn't somehow collect Rhessi for a museum.

Eventually we'll get the Mars Rovers back and they'll be a point of pride in a display somewhere.

European air traffic control confirms website 'under attack' by pro-Russia hackers

Re: But surely...

You are spot on.

Many government systems simply only accept connections from either IP ranges THEY own (supplying home broadband to their VIP users so they control the connection) or ranges of IP addresses contained inside their country by local ISPs.

Done right, the government system can have ACTUAL users connect via modern encrypted VPN, and the VPN software itself ONLY allows the user to use the software if they are on an IP address INSIDE that particular country.

All the government officials have to do then, is if they require to work abroad is obtain special PCs/laptops that have been heavily restricted in what they can access outside of the country.

If these are State sponsored attacks on a NATO countries infrastructure, thats technically an act of war against NATO and could trigger Article 5.

Basically Russia is trying to crash commercial jets and kill hundreds if not thousands of people.

What does an ex-Pharma Bro do next? If it's Shkreli, it's an AI Dr bot

Dear Dr Gupta, I have been depressed for a while. What can I do to cheer myself and my friends up?

DR: Punching Martin Shkreli repeatedly in his very-punchable face (with punches) would cheer up the most depressed Sloth in the world and bring a smile to the face of a Blobfish.

[I am not a doctor and therefore punching Martin Shkreli in the face 200 times may not cure your depression, but it sure would make other people laugh]

CEO sorry after telling staff to 'leave pity city' over bonuses

Don't you WANT your CEO to get her 2.7million bonus this year?

FFS slap your kids to get them to shut up and get back to slaving. Think of the new house she's after for gods sake.

ChatGPT creates mostly insecure code, but won't tell you unless you ask

ChatGPT creates completely unsecured code, that anyone that knows the difference between a keyboard and a mouse could crack.

-- Larry Ellison considers firing his entire workforce for it.

Beijing lists the stuff it wants generative AI to censor

Things China has censored:

The movie Time Cop starring Jean Claude Van Damme - it "may give citizens ideas of going back in time and destroying the CCP" --- seriously

The song Wrecking Ball - again apparently "I came in like a wrecking ball" will give people ideas to destroy China

Winnie the Pooh - Because Xi has an actual addiction to honey and resembles the big fat doofus bear

Saying Free Tibet - bit obvious

World of Warcraft - it gives people the idea to be "heroes" and attack China - Did they call themselves the bad guys here?

Censorship - Apparently there IS no censorship in China, and if you say there is, your website will be destroyed then you get imprisoned/killed/organ harvested

Prisons organ harvesting from live prisoners - CCP says this doesn't happen and anyone who complains can be tissue typed/die in prison and be cremated all within a handy 12hr period.

US, NATO military plans leak: Actual war strategy or pro-Kremlin shenanigans?

A genuine "NATO" plan would just be: Blow up the WW2 era weapons Russia claims are "state of the art". We'll all be in Moscow to share their Potato and poor-quality Vokdka by lunchtime.

Cardboard drones running open source flight software take off in Ukraine and beyond

Never, because they could be assembled in-store and used by unscrupulous customers to escape the IKEA maze. Very few customers ever make it to the treasure chest at the heart of every IKEA....

Add 3KG of explosives. Allow corvo to be "captured" and when the camera detects nearby Russian soldiers....the device detonates destroying its tech AND the nearby child-murdering genocidal monsters.

Smile! UK cops reckon they've ironed out gremlins with real-time facial recog

UK police face recognition is only 1.1% effective. the rest is false positives.

This means its MORE accurate to be picked out by a meth-addicted hamster running on a wheel covered in tiny mugshots.