Posts by keb

Swiss boffins admit to secretly posting AI-penned posts to Reddit in the name of science

Re: Hmmm

Exactly. Also marketing departments have been and will be doing these things already, for sinister and private benefit. Having a university do it with precise and rigorous parameters and with peer review would allow us to understand what is going on and the capabilities and risks to society of AIs.

Furthermore, as others keep reminding us, this is the internet, a virtual world or brain space. Only a very limited subset of speech should ever be restricted: repeated harassment of specific persons, revealing private info that causes actual risk or financial harms to individual people, etc. This trend to restrict more and more online content in the name of protecting people has to be curtailed. It is already backfiring - resulting in thought police arresting parents for innocuous comments on private chat group about school hiring, or people deported from careers and families merely for expressing dismay at a actual ongoing genocide. The solution is not restriction, it is better education and training of kids and ignorant adults, to prepare them for the 21st century.

Happy with your existing Windows 10 setup? Good, because Windows 11 could turn its nose up at your CPU

microsoft account required

on Windows 11, according to one report

https://www.pcmag.com/news/windows-11-home-edition-requires-a-microsoft-account-to-complete-setup

Another reason to avoid the mess and switch to open source free software ;)

Official: Office 365 Personal, Home axed next month... and replaced by Microsoft 365 cloud subscriptions

exacerbates the confusion

Users already dont understand that Windows and Office are two different products/licences. Indeed many say they have "Microsoft 10" when they have Windows 10, and then complain when they cannot edit documents. The name should have stayed Office 365.

Finally – news that something is guaranteed to be healthy and well looked-after for the next six months. That something is Windows 10 1709

Re: Death of WaaS

The 1909 release seems quite smooth and smaller than previous ones, if it works at all that is.

Apple bans COVID-19 games and restricts virus-related apps to authoritative souces

Re: Plague Inc. game banned in China

There are several COVID-19 scenarios in the Steam Workshop for Plague Inc. It is debatable how realistic the game's maps and pathogen models are however.

Windows 7 and Server 2008 end of support: What will change on 14 January?

Re: 365 E5

I wish the article had included a paragraph that cut through the sales channel BS and just told us whether regular users could get the updates and how much it would cost.

It sounds like those with an Office 365 subscription from Microsoft arent eligible while those who bought one from a reseller such as GoDaddy are eligible...? IOW wtf is a CSP and how to contact one?

Will the updates be available via 3rd party tools such as WSUS-Offline Update?

'No BS' web host Gandi lives up to half of its motto... Some customer data wiped out in storage server meltdown

Re: me too

Is there any reason to suspect a ZFS issue as the culprit?

I did see some discussion on Linux kernel-related boards that ZFS would never be officially supported due to its license.

If at first you don't succeed, pry, pry again: Feds once again demand Apple unlock encrypted iPhones in yet another terrorism case

Germany supports privacy?

Is this the same government that allows the NSA to intercept all of its communications from a base in Germany they arent allowed to access, including the Chancellor's phone?

Encryption is much less important when all the metadata is available to the eavesdropper.

Mozilla locks nosy Avast, AVG extensions out of Firefox store amid row over web privacy

Avast is Czech not Russian.

Internet Society CEO: Most people don't care about the .org sell-off – and nothing short of a court order will stop it

probe ISOC directors' assets

before and after the sale to check for bribery.

This should be done for all boards of public entities randomly and periodically.

Explain yourself, mister: Fresh efforts at Google to understand why an AI system says yes or no

Applying Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics to corporations

is one way to kickstart ethical or "responsible" AI development.

Corporations (and other legal entities) are self-perpetuating organizations that are structurally sociopathic and have consistently demonstrated such behaviour.

Second time lucky: Sweden drops Julian Assange rape investigation

Obviously not.

Skipping out on bail is normally punishable by a fine, but jail is understandable. However solitary confinement and isolation is not justified at all.

Pack your bags, you're going to America, Lord Chief Justice tells accused Brit hacker

" Officially the reason for this discounting is "good behaviour" while imprisoned, though it applies more or less automatically to almost all offenders."

Except for political prisoners such as Julian Assange who get a full year of solitary confinement 23/7 for a bail violation.

If it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is: Nobody can decrypt the Dharma ransomware

Has anyone with suitable resources (e.g. FBI) tried paying the bitcoin ransom and tracing the money?

Shock! US border cops need 'reasonable suspicion' of a crime before searching your phone, laptop

Re: Citizens vs visitors

Most people have neither resources nor will nor time to start a years long court battle. They can barely make ends meet, month to month. So to them it is irrelevant what would stand up in court - practically speaking they must submit to a search.

Re: 14th amendment

except convicted criminals

Bad news, developers: Apple Mac App Store tells cross-platform Electron apps to get lost

Re: I'd find that a good thing

aye. down with bloat!

Heads up from Internet of S*!# land: Best Buy's Insignia 'smart' home gear will become very dumb this Wednesday

Replacing the cloudy back-end

Did anyone ever check into the workings of its back-end cloud server, as to whether it was derived from some open-source system? Perhaps it could be replaced with a bit of patching at each client or a redirect at the router. Or, would be nice if someone were to leak the code and diy peeps could have a little fun.

Junior minister says gov.UK considering facial recognition to verify age of p0rn-watchers

one would want a Guy Fawkes mask for such a dastardly deed

Apple asks for a credit card for Store purchases but that isnt hard to grab from daddy's sporran when he isnt looking.

Europe publishes 5G risk assessment; America scrawls ‘Huawei’ on the side of a nuke and goes for a ride

Re: Don't Let 5G in the UK, it will fry you, or the chocolate in your pocket and honey bees too.

this is science based criticism and caution, not new age hype

Incoming... Trump! Notebook makers ramp production to avoid next tidal wave of US trade tariffs

Taiwan isnt China

so why worry?

Years late to the SMB1-killing party, Samba finally dumps the unsafe file-sharing protocol version by default

business copiers

Some of the large printers/copiers/scanners used by small offices (and commonly leased from 3rd parties with little or no config support) have SMB1 as a default scan to pc method. There are workarounds such as usb stick or email or ftp of course, but it takes a while to figure out why something that worked for 5 years suddenly doesnt. Users and techs like to blame it on Windows 10 updates, and they would be correct in this case.

Debian plugs Linux 'TCP snoop' bug

It would not have not affected Tor that way, as a developer explains:

https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/cve-2016-5696-and-its-effects-on-tor.html

Also the patch mentioned there fixes it.