Posts by MNGrrrl

Ubiquiti network gear can be 'hijacked by an evil URL' – thanks to its 20-year-old PHP build

> I'm vaguely disturbed by the concept of a 20 year-old PHP build...

You should be disturbed: It didn't exist then. It wasn't PHP as you'd recognize it until a year or two later -- when it became more language and less... snot and bailing wire holding together a bunch of CGI scripts. But that's not really the depressing part: It's that they were making wireless networking gear out of some dude's scraps of code, which he wrote principally to track people viewing his resume online, before he even banged a few rocks together to mangle it into some semblance of a generic platform.

This is rather like building an operating system using stuff you found in a nearby landfill. Oh, wait... That's already been done. Umm, insert another less conspicuous example here. *poofs*

The priest, the coder, the Bitcoin drug deals – and today's guilty verdicts

Insert Title Here

The goal of bitcoin is laudable: Provide a digital equivalent to cash. The problem is, nobody wants cash. Cash isn't traceable. It comes and goes without surveillance. It's a manageable problem in the physical world, but in the electronic one, an action that may take seconds, minutes, or days to happen can happen millions of times in less than a second. Needless to say, law enforcement doesn't like that idea, and neither does anyone who wants to know about who's getting paid, for what, and where.

We're now in an era where there is a digital 'land grab' -- but for our private data. Everyone is selling to everyone else, trading around your viewing habits, buying habits, political orientation, sexual orientation, and if there were a pig-related orientation they'd track that too. Corporate and government interests have aligned here because they both want mostly the same information and benefit from its lack of protection. Unfortunately, that lack of protection legally carries over electronically.

Bitcoin provides a partial solution to part of that problem: It tries to obfusciate who's paying for what, breaking that chain. Which is precisely why both corporations and governments have been keen to kill it off. It's also why criminals use it. Which is unfortunate, because there are very many good uses for a digital currency for the average, law abiding, citizen. It's the same with Tor: Both block the bulk collection of data -- and the IETF has gone on record as saying pervasive surveillance is, in itself, an attack, irrespective of motivation.

It's the sad truth that the people most motivated to use these technologies are the ones with the most to gain by breaking that chain, and thus there has been a heavy push to criminalize or legislate-away the solutions; Using Tor is now "probable cause" for any search warrant, anywhere, ever. "They aren't giving up their juicy personal data -- THEY MUST BE CRIMINALS." We needed more average people to get in, but average people don't recognize the risks of the system, and so they aren't apt to start using new technology that would mitigate them.

And so it goes... another high profile bitcoin-related crime that has as much to do with 'bitcoin' as Jack Daniels does with drunk driving... which is to say, that bottle wasn't at the wheel when the car plowed down a bunch of people. And El Reg, like all the other media outlets, will throw a little more gas on the fire with this story to give corporations and governments justification for killing off a necessary thing. Mind you, Bitcoin isn't the solution we needed... it's just the one we have right now. Rather like the world governments... mostly they aren't something we want, and broken in so many ways, but... there they are.

MAC randomization: A massive failure that leaves iPhones, Android mobes open to tracking

food for thought

Not only do criminals want to rip us off, but businesses too. And the government wants to steal all the data as well. And all three of them are at war, playing an endless game of exploit, counter, exploit. And yes, arresting someone is also an exploit -- it's a (puts on sunglasses) denial of existance attack. Am I the only one that's wondering who's on *my* side besides me?

There's almost nobody trying to stop privacy invasions and create technology that achieves this goal... the few that exist are laughably underfunded compared to... well, everyone. It's basically privacy advocates versus the world.

Oh my God, 911 is down. Quick, call… aaargh!

Free market fail.

> Surely this is a free market differentiation, if you aren't happy with your 911 service you can simply switch suppliers to one that offers a better service.

During a house break in..."Gosh, if only I'd upgraded to the Police Premium license..." Or the fire department shows up and then asks you to slide your card for a 'water' up-charge fee. If you want your cat saved that'll be extra. There's a 10% mandatory gratuity for households over 4 members as well. Does that seem stupid? Good. Because that's what 'free' market looks like. And let us now never speak of it again. Yes, I'm fairly sure you were joking, but please don't -- people in my country can't tell the difference anymore.

The FCC should walk into AT&T headquarters tomorrow and arrest every senior level manager, not fine them. 911 should always work. Always. Multiply redundant impossible to fail *always* because it's one of the areas in technology where failure is *not* an option. Failure = people die. Now, sometimes things happen. Maybe simultanious lightning strikes, tornadoes, floods, or apocalypse took out their three or more layers of redundancy. I think we can forgive that; Nobody could anticipate such a failure. But if they could, if a reasonable person would look at the system and say "This could fail" plausibly? Drag them out of their offices and put them in jail: It's what we do to threats to society, and screwing up emergency services *is* a threat. If this were some kid screwing around and cut some wires, you'd bet he'd be in jail for a long time. They deserve the same.

Royal Navy's newest ship formally named in Glasgow yard

Re: Just Like the Bridge

> One hopes she will not develop a structural crack in a rather inaccessible place.

Yeah, about that... inaccessible won't be your problem, maintenance will be.

-- A Minnesotan, home of the bridge that fell into the drink due to incompetence.

COP BLOCKED: Uber app thwarted arrests of its drivers by fooling police with 'ghost cars'

tbh, Uber has a point

There's no requirement that law enforcement be given carte blanche access to everything. They've fucked up. Kindof a lot. Kill the wrong people, kick in the wrong door... lots of innocents get hurt because they think they're right when they aren't.

And it's legal to track their whereabouts and activities with police scanner radios; Triangulating these isn't exactly hard. Same with received RF signals -- they say they can spy on our wifis, and so encryption happened. We can spy on their RF signals too... it's the same thing. Police can't do anything a citizen can't do without a warrant or legal justification -- that's how it is in the United States, at least. And there's no requirement we offer them service (or not) outside of a lawful request -- ie, a warrant.

So Uber's right -- they're dicks, but they're right!

UK govt's £17.3m AI-boffinry cash injection is just 'a token amount'

'Murica says 'o hai'

Guys, you're gonna wanna be careful there. We've been promising the public for decades that the research money is 'just a little bit'. We ignored that until we woke up one day with a $1.5 trillion dollar bill for a research proje--er, plane that can't fly. Well... maybe it can, but there's a reason we're investing heavily in drones right now... we can't find any volunteers to climb into the death traps.

OH! I understand your first shipment of fail is set to arrive in the next year or so. I'm sure it'll be everything you've come to expect from America -- as bloated as our waistlines, the promise of 'making it great' again, and will probably give you lead poisoning as it'll have "Made in China" stamped on its ass. But -- to be sure -- it'll all be worth it when you throw your own sausage party of dick-shaped explosives at some third world country who, thanks to a *real* education system, at least you'll be able to pronounce and locate on a map and name a natural resource it has besides sand and religious extremism.

Snark aside guys, do the smart thing -- invest in technology that either works, or can save lives. If you want to blow your wad on new antibiotics, I will cheer you on from across the pond. If you spend it all to build up a new cellular network, you go, miserable Britain! If you spend it on the BBC, I'll love you as long as you continue to report on what's going on in my country because sure as shit we don't know anymore. GET SOMETHING FOR YOUR MONEY. Don't be like us. Don't throw gobs of cash at empty promises about the 'cutting edge'. Let the kids living in mom's basement who don't know any better, or the mid-lifers with more cash than brains have a go at that sort of thing. Stick to getting your citizens stuff that has actual value *today*. Because while it might seem like a pittance now, research like this is like crack cocaine to politicians... eventually yours, too, will start to believe the hype. And then there goes your beer money.

SHA-1 crack just got real: System Center uses it to talk to Linux

Hi. non-armchair pro here.

> Why would any responsible Linux administrator entrust management rights of any kind to a Microsoft system?

Because the Linux administrator most usually doesn't run the department or signs the support and licensing contracts for Microsoft products that the other 99% of the company uses. Which means more than likely, the people sitting in network operations are sitting at windows workstations. And know windows servers -- because that's what all the departments use, because they know it and it's supported. No matter how munged it gets, Microsoft will fix it with a phone call. Companies like that sort of thing. So the Linux administrator gets told: We need you on our dashboard. Here's the package. Run along now. Don't give me that face.

This is how things work in the real world, not the imaginary one where most open source proponents live. Yes, it *would* be better not to do it. Yes, those solutions really are superior in most regards. I agree! But you will do it because management said so; And they have reason to sit in their chair and say "Make It So, Number One!" Business needs, internal politics, and cost management goals cause sub-optimal choices in this industry all the time. Everywhere. Forever.

"It's the solution Gotham deserves, but not the solution it needs right now."

Confirmed: Facebook shifts away from AI… and like a miracle, the bots start working

Facebook AI

Maybe there's hope they'll get rid of AI where it matters next: The news feed. No, not the one that's filled up with pictures of your aunt's ugly kids. I mean the one that screwed up the US election and continues to tell people Elvis isn't dead (he just went home), lizard people secretly run the government, and the economy is doing great. Or that our GDP is negative. I can't keep up...

AI is great for video games, research, analytics, manufacturing, and a host of other fields. It hasn't done so well when it's come to telling fact from fiction. Even something as simple as Amazon's algorithms to determine what you might like to buy frequently winds up telling me that people who bought the mary jane shoes* I was looking at also bought butt plugs and Matt Damon films. Which is silly, because we all know only lesbians buy comfortable shoes out of the women's clothing section. Drag queens only buy stilettos and knee-high boots. Comeon guys, get with the culture.

*) For the boys, mary jane's isn't a brand name, but a kind of shoe that doesn't have nine feet of heel and toe-crushing tips. They go great with just about any kind of casual outfit and won't make a girl feel like committing suicide after walking a mile in them. Which is why lesbians love them, obviously. Comfortable shoes: Outing us since 1967.

In a loving tribute to its fiery washing machines and Note 7... Samsung management explodes

Samsung:

So let's see... we had the Deathnote. It caught fire. Recalled. The recycling plant they had? It caught fire. Then the washing machines... which hold primarily water... they started catching fire. And now the management staff is exploding too.

Guys, I figured it out: Samsung is the Fire Nation.

US Supreme Court set to kill Twitter, Facebook ban for sex offenders

Re: So Facebook allows users to id suspected sex offenders to moderators?

> So it could impact someone's property right, as well as their ability to follow news and opinions.

I'll give you the first one, but if you only get your news and opinions from Facebook... or even give either of those any weight at all on it, well... enjoy being part of someone else's product lineup.

For, or Against... You're both wrong.

Consider this: One of the three branches of our government is run almost exclusively by people who are past retirement age. In some cases, well past their expected use-by date. It's a scientific and medical fact that when you get into that age bracket, your judgement skills are impaired. Stop and think about that for a moment: Their main job is to judge -- and there is a ton of scientific and medical literature saying they are substantially impaired. I'm not saying every old person is walking around with underwear on their head and yelling at the kids to get off their lawn... what I am saying is: Isn't it a little suspicious there's no medical exam required for the position? I mean, you can't even *drive* without passing an eye exam. Pilots have to go through extensive medical checkups. Even forklift operators are given some scrutiny. But the Supreme Court justices of the United States? Nah. Doesn't seem *important* enough. Whether you agree or disagree with their conclusions... stop and give a thought to just how screwed we are that there is no way -- thanks to our abundantly foresighted forefathers (hahaha) -- to remove them from office. They could literally go completely crazy and start barking at the moon... but until they excused themselves from the bench, we'd be stuck with them.

Does that, maybe, put some context behind the decisions that these people are making? Now expand on that: Look up the average age for people serving a term in Congress. And there you have it. Everything you need to know about why our country makes such incredibly boneheaded decisions. No politics. Just basic human biology. Those over the age of 45 may thumb me down... everyone else, yeah. You already know.

Uncle Sam needs you... to debug, improve Dept of Defense open-source software at code.mil

Ha Ha, no.

The government is the *reason* we have shitty code. I'm not going to waste my time auditing YOUR code until YOU give me regulations and transparency in everyone's code, and strip off this crap about "copyright". You don't "copyright" a building design for three billion years *plus* the life of the author... and that's why our buildings don't fall down.

When you're ready to act like mature adults, give us the same tools every other engineering discipline has. Until then... enjoy your planes falling out of the sky, exploding cell phones, malfunctioning warheads, and every other electronic "warfare" thing being dropped on your stupid asses.

Sincerely,

Every Engineer.

Everywhere.

Ever.

How to nuke websites you don't like: Slam Google with millions of bogus DMCA takedowns

Not accidental

This was always the plan.

Anyone who thinks differently hasn't been paying attention. The DMCA is not about copyright -- it's about corporations being able to lock out competitors. To some extent, private citizens have been caught in the crossfire, but "the pirate bay" or similar was never the target. It's always been about gaining monopoly power; When you control the treasury, you have the power. It doesn't matter whether you're a President or a CEO. And ultimately, that's what the DMCA gives: A means of power.

Facebook scales back AI flagship after chatbots hit 70% f-AI-lure rate

> "when Facebook tries to automate its systems, things always go wrong. The problem is not that Facebook does not have the right people but..."

You know, anywhere else, if the thing I was hired to work on kept bursting into flames people would quickly deduce that I'm not the right person for the job. And yet here we are with a Facebook apologist too enamored with the too-big-to-fail website that he can't bring himself to admit that the problem really is the people. The people who trusted algorithms to solve social problems. The people who turned a blind eye to its treatment of minorities and the vulnerable. Their push to monetize by forcing people to use "real" names, with an arbitrary definition of what "real" is -- inevitably leading to disaster when it bumped into another poorly-implimented technology: Their abuse system. And then the rise of fake news, after they got rid of the humans curating it and replaced it with algorithms that quickly went awry and blew up a major election.

And never, ever, not once, has Facebook or its apologists ever taken responsibility for this. And their reaction is downright childish: "The algorithm did it." This is like coming home to find the livingroom lamp smashed and all the kids saying "Somebody else did it." Right. It just fell over on its own. It wasn't at all that you were tossing a football around and it smacked into it. I mean, it wasn't your hands that pushed it over so it wasn't you, right? No, it was the ball. It had it in for that lamp.

'Hey, Homeland Security. Don't you dare demand Twitter, Facebook passwords at the border'

Won't come to anything

First, I wish there was a 'murica icon on El Reg... but this one is the closest fit (dramatic irony is fun).

Here's the thing: You could get signatures from every professor, every student, from every field, but they won't listen. Terrorism is the new communism... and before it was fascism. And before *that* it was europeans... and then native americans, all the way back to when we were hating on the British (by the by, I think you guys are great. Sorry about that whole Brexit thing, and how we were such dicks about your nuclear weapons program you risked a nuclear catastrophe to prove what valuable allies you were. Very much a dick move for us). In every generation there has been a scarecrow, a boogieman that hides under the bed.

Why? Because our executive branch heads the military, and nothing promotes a strong military like fear of "Them" does... whoever Them is. And so, we've always had a scarecrow, and the scarecrow has been the traditional way in every society of effacing individual freedoms in deference to the State. That's all there is to it. There's no complicated politics, no real danger... there's nothing here. But by making nothing into something, the power of the executive branch is expanded. And there has always been collateral damage... there's always been a dog we kicked. During WWII we had the Japanese internment camps. We did it again with Guantanamo Bay. We tortured people and defaced our core principles -- and we did it all so we could have a slightly more powerful President. And now we have Homeland Security, the bottomless wellspring that current and future Presidents can draw from whenever they want, trading freedom for power.

The average American doesn't want the TSA. They don't want Homeland Security. They have been convinced it is a "necessary evil", and believe that because every television, every radio, every Facebook and Twitter post, even our cameras and cell phones are watching us and whispering the same message constantly: "Fear! Fire! Foes!" And it has embedded itself into our culture and become pervasive to the point most people have stopped noticing... or caring.

It's hardly without precident... remember that when Germany tried to take over the world and hit you guys hard... when Winston Churchill said "Never give up, never surrender"... he wasn't up against the whole of the German people. Only a very few were actually Nazis. The rest simply didn't care. They provided a strong economy and sense of security and... satisfied with their improved quality of life they simply didn't care anymore. It was the path of least resistance -- and historically, that's always where the general public, in every country, has fallen. Whatever is cheapest. Whatever doesn't rock the boat. And so it is here -- a small minority are responsible for these injustices. The rest... simply don't care.

And no amount of petitioning or protesting is going to change it until it's their house that gets burned down, their children that get sent to the war, their wealth that's on the line. As it has always been... everywhere. Ever.

Zuckerberg thinks he's cyber-Jesus – and publishes a 6,000-word world-saving manifesto

Re: Bye Felicia

> One of the things as yet seemingly not noticed by FB is the number of fake ads that keep popping up.

They notice. They just don't care.

> How about cleaning up your own act before changing the world, FarceBook?

Why? About a billion people are addicted to it. It's more successful than cigarettes. They only wish they could get Congress to give them a standing ovation for saying they "innovated" a fresh new way for people to slowly kill themselves through social disconnect.

Bye Felicia

This is what happens to people that become wealthy later in life, as opposed to inheriting it. The critical difference in the two is when you're inheriting a large amount of wealth you're also inheriting the social connections that go with it, and this has a normalizing effect on your attitudes and beliefs. But when you are Zuckerberg, First Of His Name, you don't have that network... and you're not going to develop it for many years, assuming you even realize its importance.

Yes, I'm well aware that the man "invented" (gigglesnort) social networking, but as anyone can attest... Facebook is not real life. And if you don't get social development with real people, in the flesh, to help normalize your attitudes and behaviors, you're going to becoming increasingly disconnected and neurotic. This isn't even limited to humans: Separate any social animal from its pack or social grouping, and it'll quickly start exhibiting irrational, even self-destructive, behaviors. And while yes, humans do interact with each other nearly every day, it's the quality of that interaction that matters: Wading through a crowd of strangers or going to the bar isn't developing substantial relationships. If that sounds familiar, it should: It's become the norm for people to have hundreds, if not thousands, of Facebook "friends". Sociologists peg the number of substantial relationships a person can have as around 250. Facebook is the social equivalent of junk food... it's unhealthy in more than small doses. If you try to live on it for all your social interaction... I hope someone hands you a mirror so you can bend over and properly kiss your ass goodbye.

Zuckerberg has fallen into a very well-prepared trap of his own making, and this is the outcome of it. He'll continue to become more eccentric with increasingly warped ideas about how the world is, due to a lack of significant social interaction with his peers. It's happened many, many times to wealthy people. Look at people who win the lottery as just *one* example: Most of the time it ruins their life and within a few years they are *worse* off than before!

That said, I'm rather pleased with this outcome... the man was a Grade A USDA certified asshat before he started losing his marbles. His incompetence has led to LGBT, domestic violence victims, immigrants, and the list goes on, all getting booted off his site thanks to a broken "real name" policy enforced by an easily manipulated algorithm.... resulting in some people having to submit the same ID documents over and over again month over month. His incompetence led to the rise of "fake news" that spread virally and influenced many political campaigns. It's led to such things as advertisements for housing that can pre-select people based on race, gender, sexual orientation... basically anything that was illegal to do with a newspaper you can do on Facebook. Their "fix" for this problem was to add a dropdown on the form to categorize the advertisement. No human checks it. So it'll only block using those qualifiers if you specifically select the "housing" or "employment" options. Feel free to use miscellany instead.

Frankly, if the man fell into a volcano I would consider it his most significant contribution to society.

No crypto backdoors, more immigration ... says Republican head of House Committee on Homeland Security

Re: Dear Europeans and at least one American

Oh man, this is rationalization at its finest. Let us now begin the autopsy...

> By reasonable standards, the US has a quite decently representative government. Gerrymandering aside [...]

"By reasonable standards, Chernobyl was a decent nuclear reactor. The explosion part aside [...]" And something going on for "over 200" years is not an argument for its legitimacy or continuancy. We had slavery for about that long too.

> "And in presidential elections, the candidate with a plurality or majority of the vote usually is elected President"

Okay, imagine if 25% of football games declared the team with fewer points the winner, due to an odd quirk in how refereeing worked. Do you think anyone would just shrug that off?

> "The disagreements at the national level are real, not a matter of perversity, and will not be settled by being more democratic or otherwise fudging the electoral process."

The disagreements are of course real, we can watch them on TV. And I don't know what a "matter of perversity" would even be. Do they drag goats in late at night after the cameras are shut off and have some fun? And as a matter of fact, it *would* be settled by being more democratic, because maybe then the government wouldn't grind to a halt every couple of years due to those aforementioned disagreements, which again is thanks to an unnatural gulf between the political parties. In other countries with a first past the post voting system, the two major political parties are not as polarized, with more members on each side willing to "cross the aisle". Bipartisanship is common everywhere else. And "otherwise fudging the electoral process" is how we got here... replacing that broken system with a better one isn't fudging, it's unfudging.

> The national political parties are weak organizations that coalesce for presidential elections and revert to regional characteristics between.

Last year the *national* democratic party received $1.2 billion dollars in funding. The Republican party received about $980 million. This excludes other affiliated organizations such as the Democratic and Republican National Committies, which provide fundraising services to state-level candidates (each spending about $330 million, roughly, last year). And continuing that, a second tier of fundraising organizations provide funds to the house and senate races, weighing in at $179 and $138 million each, respectively. For "weak organizations", they sure do have a lot of money.

> It is significant that the Congress has a seriously unfavorable rating with most survey respondents, but most representatives and senators get a favorable rating from respondents in their state or district.

Yeah, just not for the reasons you expect: Most people have become disenfranchised. They know showing up to vote is pointless. We have senators that have been re-elected repeatedly for 30 years straight. That's a strong indicator of poor representation. And regardless, the spread between who votes democrat and who votes republican is in most places 10% or less. Which means anywhere from 40-50% of voters go without representation with each election cycle under this system of governance.

A winner-takes-all system is massively disenfranchising.

Re: Knock, Knock. American here.

> I'm just sitting back and eating the popcorn.

And this pretty much describes why American politics is like American culture: Everyone but us thinks it would be a good idea. We're deluded enough to think this *is* politics and culture. We're largely uneducated, have no grasp of history, an obsession with youth, suspicious of intelligence, value our own individuality but mistrust everyone who isn't like us, and think a document written over 200 years ago should be kept sitting right next to our Bibles. Despite this we've been pushing the state of the art; The cell phone, internet, car, plane... pretty much every major advance in the last 80 years has been by Americans. And yet, something like 7% of us think lizard people secretly run the government, the Apollo moon landings are a hoax, that one of our presidential nominees, while under constant guard by the Secret Service and hounded by hundreds of reporters, somehow managed to start a child sex ring in a non-existent basement of a pizzeria... and was later shot up by a guy searching for it. We practically hand out guns in specially-marked boxes of cereal, and as much as the rest of the world bitches about how many our military kills every year, it pales in comparison to the carnage in our streets and homes. Our international diplomat is a Predator drone, and yet we're afraid of Muslims and are about three steps away from creating another holocaust over it. And all of this has led to the highest rates of mental illness and incarceration anywhere on Earth.

I don't have to wonder why you voted Trump... we've not only demonstrated both technological and military superiority, but also a remarkable lack of morality, common sense, or even the slightest level of critical thinking, in using what we've built. But... don't worry... our infrastructure is crumbling to bits, the middle class is practically dead, and the planet is literally burning up while we continue to try to live beyond our means. The question America faces now isn't whether we can survive... but what kind of life is possible in an era where numbers increase and resources diminish.

And we're answering that question: We're killing ourselves, and cheering on our own demise.

Re: These aren't the Republicans you're looking for

> Yes, no one said all Republicans are spray-tanned, racist, misogynists without any idea on how to do anything other than "Make American Great Again For Me And My Billionaire Man-Buddies To Steal Anything And Everything That Is Not Nailed To The White House Floor!"

I'll buy that for a dollar. They aren't spray-tanned, but everything else is spot on. The Republicans are the outgrowth of the losing side of the civil war and you may remember what kicked that off: Racism. And the Republicans were there during the race riots of Omaha where they burned black people in the public square. They were against interracial marriage, women's sufferage, and categorically every civil rights advancement in this country has been over their objections. So maybe nobody said it here, but sure as hell it can be said!

> It's the fringe-idiot-muggles in charge that are a problem for the US and the world.

That's a comfortable lie we tell ourselves. Yes, it's the fringe. It's a crazy minority. That, my friend, is a lie. These people don't keep getting elected year over year because they are "fringe". This *is* the face of the Republican party and best you square with that. They're on the party ticket. Those endorsements didn't just land on them by accident anymore than a penis lands on a vagina by accident.

> Google would be a better caretaker of the US than any criminal politician,

A criminal one? Maybe. A regular one? No. Google is a business and you do not want a government that is only motivated by profit. We've had a few of those in human history. It ended badly.

> All politicians are criminals.

Another comfortable lie we tell ourselves. Politics is the same everywhere; There are three rules and they are invariate. They are not limited to government but apply to every hierarchical social organization, everywhere, ever. And those rules are:

1. No Man Rules Alone

You need people to work for you. Governments need bureaucrats, police, military, tax collectors... Rulers don't do that, but they need it. These are your keys to power. They can be generals, business owners, the influencers (social elite). Whoever they are, they exist, and you need them on your side. Aaaand you do that by giving them gold, money, resources. And if someone else is doing that... then you need to make a compelling case to sway enough of them to support you; Aaand you do that by promising them *more* gold, money, resources than the other guy is giving them. It's that simple.

2. Control the treasure

Remember those resources you need to feed your keys to power? You need control over it to do that. You need the key to the treasury. You need control of the taxes, the wealth, the resources. If you lose control of it, you will be replaced.

3. Minimize key supporters

The more keys to power you have... the less treasure there is to go around. Which in the ever-shifting web of alliances and people jockeying for position means it's easier for someone to sway them to their side. The fewer there are, the more you can give to them, and the stronger your position. If you are giving resources to someone who isn't going to keep you in power, you're throwing it away. It's the same thing as giving it away to the people -- and it makes it that much easier for someone else to come in promising NOT to do that... and replace you.

Everything else is irrelevant. Your job as a politician is about these three things, and only these three things. What we think of as "criminal" or "corrupt" is, in reality, politicians doing their job. They're recruiting new keys, redistributing the wealth they control, and are trying to kick out people that are a drain on those resources. People who call politicians criminal or corrupt are, bluntly, people too stupid to understand how the game is played, or refuse to. And of those who refuse... well, someone's going to do it and why shouldn't it be you? You're choosing not to play and in so doing are allowing the very thing you claim to despise continue to happen. The only way to change the system is to play it. And who knows... maybe you are The Chosen One who will bring balance to the Force or whatever, and change a pattern that has continued for the past twenty thousand years, and is seen even amongst non-primates in some form.

> Fucking muggles and their "two party system."

The two party system is an inescapable, statistically inevitable, consequence of how we vote: First past the post voting. It's too complicated to get into, and this post is already too long, but go lookup alternative voting systems. Until we change how we vote, it will always be a two party system. Even if by miracle a third party rises up and comes into power... it will only be to displace one of the other two and return to a two party system... and then *that* party will, because of statistical inevitability, shift politically to occupy the former's position. This *cannot* be changed. It is very nearly like gravity in that it will happen. It has always happened. And it will continue to happen. It's the only possible long-term outcome of a first past the post voting system.

Re: Dear Europeans and at least one American

> A tyranny of the majority was one of the things they worried about, hence the Electoral College.

Yes, but let's be honest with ourselves: No other country has a system like this. It was a totally new, and untested idea. The drafters knew this. The electoral college was supposed to prevent exactly what just happened: An unqualified man taking office. We had more unfaithful electors in this election than all previous elections in this country's history... and it didn't amount to anything. States can, and do, replace them when they actually *do* vote their conscience. And it's a system with a critical flaw in it anyway: *any* senator can contest *any* electoral vote and have it discarded from counting. Let me be clear: No other country, anywhere, ever, has a system remotely like this. And it is very, very clear it has failed by any sane metric. It has failed even in its own goals: It's not just vulnerable to a tyranny of the majority, but a tyranny of the minority as well. It's a system so thoroughly corruptible and plyable as to make voting itself superfluous to the process.

And yes, I'm abundantly aware of the difference between a republic and a democracy but it's a distinction only a pedant makes in good discourse. The plain truth is, we didn't just fail at being a democracy, we failed at being a republic too. We do not have representatives "by, for, and of" the people. Our fundamental promises to the public are hollow. And if we're talking about our founding fathers -- who by the by were bona fide terrorists of their era -- they pointedly told us what to do about it: Revolt and replace the Constitution with a new document, and start over. The Constitution *itself* was the result of that having happened!

That is, for reasons any rational person can deduce, a terrible idea -- and one you'd expect from a pile of terrori--er, I mean "revolutionaries" (that term we use when the former succeeds, as opposed to failing). But the citizens of the world should be concerned at this state of affairs -- the country with the largest military and enough firepower to wipe out all life on Earth -- has a safety valve for this problem labelled "Blow it up and start over." We talk about foreign influences like it's a bad thing? We *need* those influences -- but we need them putting a concerted effort into giving the people what they were promised over two hundred years ago: Representation that is by, for, and of the people.

What we have now, is nearly diametric to that.

Knock, Knock. American here.

Dear Europeans,

First, an apology: We didn't actually elect Trump. Thanks to a horribly broken system called the Electoral College our Founding Fathers created during a weekend bender before writing the Constitution, only 28% of voters decide who becomes President. Put another way: A candidate could have a 72% majority for the popular vote... and lose. In fact, about 1 in 4 Presidents we elect have lost the popular vote but got into office anyway. Trump was another such example. And, possibly because they just clicked okay and didn't read the terms and conditions, almost all of the other states modeled their system of government on the federal model as well. Now, add to that rampant gerrymandering and you begin to understand the scope of our problems in actually *being* a democracy. I know we'd like to think we're the beacon of western democracy but... we're actually the ugly step-sister of it. The *very* ugly one. We apologize: Over 20 states have tried to banish this blight called the electoral college, but for *some* reason, the so-called "red" states, which benefit heavily from this system, won't ratify it. These are all the most populous states, naturally.

So please understand that the Republican party is actually a minority voice amongst all Americans. They would categorically lose nearly every seat, in every election, in the entire country, state and federal level, if we were *actually* a democracy and the popular vote alone was the deciding factor -- and our voting districts were fair. The problem is, when this country was founded, most of it was rural farmland. We all lived on farms. Now, we all live in cities. This urbanization has meant that the people who live in the city, which represents over 70% of the population, are rational, sane people... and being that, they vote Democrat. Unfortunately, there's that remaining 30%... and because of the way our system is designed, those votes count for more. A lot more.

Yes, Trump is our President. But Trump is not the man we wanted for President. In fact, most of our political offices are held by people who lost the popular vote, and we do not want them. We're not stupid: We see the man for what he is: An egotistical dictator whose saving grace is that because he's on a power trip most of his Presidency is going to be spent making childish gestures, gloating over others, and (unfortunately) unzipping and dropping his dick-shaped missiles, bombs, and other weapons on countries that have no way to defend themselves because that's what bullies do, and a bully is most certainly what this man is. And if you don't like my characterization of the man well, you're entitled to your opinion and I don't blame you: Our media has fallen into a ruinous state and unless you're making a very active and determined effort to self-educate on the issues, you will be misled. You... have been misled, and I am sorry for you but I do not blame you.

All this said: Believe it or not, the Republicans are well aware of Trump's, achem, shortcomings. You will notice they are dragging their feet on repealing the Affordable Care Act. They've rounded the wagons and cancelled all the town hall meetings. They've barricaded their office doors. They *know* there's an angry mob out there, and they're not about to inflame them by actually trying to impliment a lot of Trump's very, very bad ideas. But, appreciate their position: Like Brexxit, they never thought it would happen. They were happy to ride the bull of a Trump campaign because it got them more power at the state and federal level. But the campaigns are over, and what you need to say and do to *get* into office is *not* the same as staying in office. They're all sitting in Congress right now. They can vote in any of the legislation Trump wants, and know he'll sign it.

The inbox is empty.

Mind you, they will kick some puppies. LGBT rights? Toast. Muslims? Easy scapegoats. Immigration? It's mostly lip-service -- they know full-well the corporations that fill their campaign coffers want those H1-B visas, and that's exactly what they're going to get. Because that's how politics is played: Your job as a politician is solely, and almost exclusively, to give resources to the people who will keep you in office. That slants heavily towards corporations, but there's also key voting blocks you'll be seeing get a windfall over the next couple of years: Farmers, for one. Many will number the farming subsidies coming, because they live in places where their votes really count (unlike the irrelevant masses living in the city, who can be screwed over with impunity). Stuff like that.

Do NOT listen to what's coming out of Trump's mouth. It's a torrent of lies, misdirection, and ill-informed half-baked ideas. And... it doesn't matter. He's just a smoke screen to tire out Republican detractors and the media, while the Republicans set to work on their agenda... which will proceed regardless of what the President says or does, because the real power of this country is in the legislative branch. What this man is saying matters, because he represents the will of the Republican party, not the President. What he's saying is what will actually be policy for the next four years. What Trump says... don't even bother quoting or listening to him. Just replace everything he says with static. It'll matter again in 4 years, but until then... ignore him.

Unless he decides to bomb your country, in which case, I am so, so sorry.

Inside Confide, the chat app 'secretly used by Trump aides': OpenPGP, OpenSSL, and more

Re: "Hate my life"

> I can see why any sane person would hate their life if they had to do that on a daily basis.

You're doing tech support. You're already both (a) not sane and (b) hating your life. This is like adding a bucket of water to the ocean. Who's going to notice?

Re: "Hate my life"

> In which case, the CIO has failed in the most important aspect of their job.

False. The CIO has discharged his responsibilities to the organization, which is to provide safe and reliable infrastructure. You handed him a secure phone, which I assume is functional. You are now done. You have produced the tools as requested, and given instruction on their proper use as well as an offer of support to ensure they continue to meet necessary specifications.

If you didn't receive the resources to discharge your responsibilities, or you are ignored, you are not responsible for any problems that arise. Either way, you've done your job. Sit back, make some popcorn, and enjoy the show. Oh, and make sure you keep an iron-clad paper trail describing in great detail exactly what you did and said, with many witnesses... and then store that evidence in about twenty different secured and triply-redundant systems, so that there is no way to erase ALL the copies.

"Hate my life"

I wouldn't hate my life as CIO of the current administration. Trump is every level one tech support employee's bread and butter. His cabinet is too. They're tech-illiterate, blame everyone but themselves when things break, and expect failure as the norm rather than the exception. The only way the job could get any more basic would be if we found a coffee cup sitting in the "cup holder" tray on the computer.

How, exactly, is that a challenge? This is IT at its most painfully basic level. Anyone could do the job. And think of how much you're getting paid. And face it, you work in IT. Everyone outside the field hates you anyway.

Magic Leap sued for sex discrimination … by woman it hired to stamp out sex discrimination

Re: Assumption Of Risk Doctrine?

> If you've been hired to fix a company's sexism problem, wouldn't that mean you go in knowing you'll be working for a sexist company?

Presumably you're expecting to go to work with a management staff that's backing a culture change and will support you. Is this any different than going into a police station with a training manual on restraint of force, and expecting the chief of police won't give you daily beatings? Solutions start from the top down, and getting hired to fix a culture problem isn't exactly a revolutionary idea. But if management won't listen to you, then yes, you have every right to sue the pants off of them... it's still doing your job, JUST NOT IN THE WAY THEY EXPECTED. :D

Re: "Wizards Wanted"

> Think what would have happened if they wrote "Witches wanted"....

About the only thing that's going to save the company is black magic, and whose best known for THAT?

Re: "Wizards Wanted"

> If so, then someone should let Hermione know before she wastes any more of her time...

She was a witch, unless she said "wingardium sexchangeiosa" when i wasn't looking.

Ex-FBI man spills on why hackers are winning the security game

> I don't think it's the IT people at the coal face.

Where do you see me laying the blame at the feet of the poor bastards left to work from an untenable position towards impossible goals? We inherited a problem and have been denied the tools to fix it. We are, bluntly, the fall guys when this whole shaking edifice goes over the lip of the volcano.

> Pretty sad situation overall that you can't call someone and say "hey, I see a problem in your code"... and they will spread the word.

You can. But as you said, they're just as likely to eat a sueball as a thank you note. Out of enlightened self-interest, there are few volunteers. Only the very brave or the very stupid come forward.

Typically wrong.

The problem is IT has terrible engineering practices, which is caused not by the IT workers but collusion between government and business to keep it that way. Look at buildings: Blueprints available for public inspection. 3rd-party Inspectors. Regulations and guidelines. A culture of safety. Buildings don't fall over anymore and even the smallest defect is thoroughly investigated and understood, so lessons from each failure can be passed on.

Then there's us: Everything is black boxed. Source code not available for inspection by anyone, even the government (before you say they can, *which* government?). Poorly documented APIs. There is no code reuse. We reinvent the wheel constantly because of patent and copyright law. And the end result is self-immolating phones, operating systems that routinely crash, a losing fight with hackers because we keep making the same mistakes -- and why is that? Because everyone works in isolation. We don't share knowledge, we don't have a single playbook to work off of. Everyone can only rise to their own ability, without the benefit of peer review or able to stand on the shoulders of those who came before.

And people wonder why everything is on fire. Guys, security is hopeless as long as we don't practice proper engineering. Proper engineering will lead to all the changes that we need and more. But you're content with a total lack of auditing, even in critical infrastructure systems, and a legal system actively hostile towards every best practice there is in engineering.

Google has a canary problem: One clocked off and crocked its cloud

That awkward moment when your sanity checks result in insanity....

Prepare your popcorn: Wikipedia deems the Daily Mail unreliable

> I expect that the Mail feels the same way about Wikipedia. Does anyone really trust either of them?

I'd trust the Mail more. Imagine what it would look like if their readers could edit articles after publication. Now imagine the amount of beer you'd need to consume to unsee that. I know how much the average Briton drinks, and I know you'd still be bone dry by friday...

Irony

At best this is the kettle calling the pot black. Nobody will accept a wikipedia citation as credible in any of the STEM fields or in college. So El Reg, if the trash pile that is Wikipedia says they consider you 'not credible', don't take it personally. This is a little like that perenially single aunt of yours giving you relationship advice... it's best just to nod your head and then excuse yourself before you start laughing.

Did you know? The FBI investigated Gamergate. Now you can read the agents' thrilling dossier

Re: Humanity fail.

Tl;dr - - this guy is rationalizing and making strawmen.

> This is misleading on a several points. First is the assumption that all rapes reported actually occured,

Strawman. What i said: the police don't investigate most reported rape. What he strawmanned: not all rapes are reported. He then goes on a tirade about the changing definition of rape. Er... Ok. Then some more about the problems of the legal system. Er..... . Okay.

> Your "1 in 100" prosecuted should actually be your "1 in 3,"

No. Every allegation should be taken seriously and investigated. The wall of text that follows is another strawman. People have lost faith in law enforcement which has led to fewer reports. They lost faith because most reports don't lead to an investigation. The 5 paragraph blob about the judiciary process is irrelevant.

> . Sexual assaults on men are ridiculed and joked about as "you can't rape the willing" implying that men are just walking erections looking for a hole.

HELP I'M ON FIRE!

-- so? We're on fire too, you don't see us complaining.

This is not a compelling counter point.

> Here we are given a false equivalency: the assumption that men are inherently indiscriminately violent and mysoginst,

My position is when one man sees another abusing a woman he should step up. Most don't. Is apathy misogynistic? No. But misogynistic behavior is prevalent because it is acceptable. Strawman.

> We police our community quite well, thank you

Yes... The epidemic of harassment and violent crime is a testament to the quality work being done.

Re: Humanity fail.

> Do you know what it takes for a man to walk out of the door in the morning? Have you even considered it?

Generally, the same thing a woman needs to do, only with a lot less work, prejudice, judging, and they get paid more doing it.

> Willing to run off and die for my country?

I didn't say it was a good idea. I'm saying a lot of men are willing to do that, or at least consider it an honorable choice. These same men don't consider standing up for abused women honorable, and purchase their abuse with silence.

> The grass is always greener, no?

Are you saying you'd like to be a woman instead? Obamacare covers that. I don't know of very many men who think they'd be better off as women. Not many at all.

> Is that not what exactly you are doing to me in that very post? You are asking me to police "my community". My community does not include people who abuse other people.

It does include those people; This is a problem in every community. Everywhere. Ever. You're trying to deny it because you don't want to take responsibility for your role in perpetuating it.

> What you are asking me to do is "police" people I do not know.

We do it all the time. When we see someone hitting their child, we call the police. When we see someone robbed, we call the police. When we see an accident, we call the police. When we see unethical or immoral behavior, we call others out on it.

> "Men" as a whole are not sexist.

Bullshit.

> So, this "Well men... what are you doing to police yours?" is a prejudiced and highly bigoted statement (a challenge not a question) by someone who has given issues no consideration at all.

I give it consideration every time I step outside the door. You, obviously, do not. This is just another case of blaming the victim. You try to turn it around, blame women. This is exactly what it looks like, people, so look closely. It's a charade of trying to look rational and logical. Well, here's the thing: We can and do rationalize our behavior all the time. And this is what it looks like.

Humanity fail.

It hasn't even been 5 minutes live on the website and already someone has posted to the forum calling her a liar. I shouldn't have to say this to anyone, but harassment of women is a real thing. It happens in real life, it happens online, it happens at work, it happens at home. It is pervasive, cross-cultural, multi-national, and occasionally deadly.

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I'm glad the FBI investigated, but hardly surprised at the results. Only about 1 in 3 rapes are ever investigated, and less than 1 in a hundred are prosecuted. Most jurisdictions in the United States report violent crime to the FBI's criminal statistics division. It is a voluntary program, and for obvious political reasons, most police departments want to downplay the instances of violent crime in their precincts. As a result, rape is severely under-reported. Most women don't even bother reporting it because they know -- from their friends and family -- that it is largely futile. If something as serious as that can be readily dismissed by authorities and the -- male -- public, it shouldn't be any surprise harassment gets almost no attention. The statistics are so depressing it makes me hate the very concept of numbers. Just look down and to the right of this post at the number of thumbs down, and you'll see another depressing example of how what you are matters a lot when it comes to criminal investigations, public sympathy, and credibility. Gamergate was an attempt to organize women into a cohesive political force, against a problem that is utterly intractable and simply accepted because fighting back just makes it that much worse.

To all the trolls here and elsewhere that don't want to here this, I have a simple message: Most women have bigger balls than you'll ever have. It takes guts to walk out the door, every day, and endure this with a smile, to never let it show that it bothers you. It takes courage that most men cannot comprehend, and it is shameful that men have allowed themselves to become this weak and pathetic that they won't stand up for others. You're willing to run off and die for your country for honor, but you can't bring yourselves to step up and tell other men when they're abusing women. Call it feminism if you want. Label it, dismiss it, ignore it, laugh at it -- but the truth is it's no different than being upset with muslims because some of them are terrorists. Why won't you do more, you ask. It's a muslim problem, so it's okay to discriminate because they haven't done a good enough job policing their community.

Well men... what are you doing to police yours?

Make America, wait, what again? US Army may need foreign weapons to keep up

Military-industrial 101

It never ceases to amaze me how Europeans denegrate the military-industrial complex, without really understanding why it exists or what fuels it. Who supplies most of the EU in weapons? We do. You're paying for our industry. Yes, we have the largest military in the world; Beating out the next ten combined. But we're the biggest because of economy of scale; We have surplus upon surplus because it's *inventory*.

And war makes for good business. It also has knock-on effects: The factories that build humvees also build automobiles. When we make advances in tank warfare because of metallurgy, we advance the state of the art in other areas like lighter-weight vehicles (the unibody design common to almost every car since the late 90s came from this) and lighter weight spacecraft. We have a budding private industry for launching satellites because of our military. We landed on the moon because the same technology that can launch ICBMs can launch people too. There is a multiplicative effect, a reciprocity, between military advances and private sector advances. The internet was created out of military need; It was not, contrary to popular opinion, slapped together by academics in a garage. Things like WiFi and spread-spectrum signalling came out of rapid-frequency shifting systems put on our stealth bombers that would resist jamming and tracking. The encryption that makes eCommerce possible was pioneered by us during WWII when we cracked the German enigma cipher.

So understand that when you complain about the military-industrial complex... your country helped make America what it is today.

Plump Trump dumps TPP trade pump

Re: executive order

> The USA is leading the way into a dark valley.

We never left. We've been supplying arms in basically every armed conflict in the past 40 years. Yeah, the Russians give a little, but we're the main supplier. And although we don't sell to Iran, or ISIS, or whatever, we sell to the people who do.

But before you bad-mouth my country, just remember: The first country we invaded was our own. We have the highest rates of gun-related death. We lead the world in incarceration per capita. We have no national health care. Life does not mean much in this country, and while we talk a lot about freedom, it is paradoxical that most of our elected leaders at every level of government and every branch, slant heavily towards a single dominant religion. Yes, what ISIS does is bad. Yes, terrorism is wrong. But when they say they are fighting a religious war, they aren't exactly wrong: We may have religious freedom and tolerance on paper, but by policy and action we most certainly are not.

And while we may occupy a morally and ethically questionable position, you have to remember that countries like the UK, Australia, most EU member countries, India, Israel, Turkey, etc., all remain silent to the crimes against humanity that this country regularly commits, both domestically and abroad.

Executive orders, a primer

Basically, anything the executive branch has the power to do, can be implimented with an executive order. Executive orders continue with new Presidents, but the new President can cancel them at will.

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TPP was never ratified by Congress, thus it is not a binding treaty. Obama's executive order basically pledged to impliment and follow TPP as policy. NAFTA, however, *was* ratified by Congress, and while Congress can back out of a treaty with a majority vote (and the President signing it into law), it should not usually be done lightly because it causes a loss of faith in other treaties that country signed. Basically, it is better to renegotiate.

Windows 10 Anniversary Update crushed exploits without need of patches

Google translate for Marketspeak says...

"Microsoft says its Windows 10 Anniversary Update squashes more exploit delivery chains than ever."

Translation: Windows 10 had more exploit delivery chains than ever.

Trump's cyber-guru Giuliani runs ancient 'easily hackable website'

Yeah, no surprise

This is a guy who called his 10 year old son a computer genius. So if this guy doesn't work out, maybe he'll hire his kid. Trump doesn't care about intelligence... he calls everyone who is loyal to him a genius, just, really, just the best, the very best. And of course, anyone who isn't... is stupid, an idiot, etc.

I'm pretty sure when it comes to this guy's intelligence... the wheel is turning but the hampster is dead.

Spotty battery life costs Apple's MacBook Pro its gold-star rating

Re: Fanboi review

> Also, it occasionally downloads child pornography, uploads credit card information to Russian hackers, and converts to pure antimatter, annihilating everything within several hundred kilometers.

And you only give this 4 stars? We just solved the energy crisis. Global warming: SOLVED. Just put them in a magnetic containment field and wait for them to turn into antimatter, then fill the chamber with hydrogen gas.

Customer: "Help! My battery life sucks."

Apple: Turn off the battery life indicator.

Up next, covering up the gas gauge in your car improves gas mileage... and towing fees.

Twas the week before Xmas ... not a creature was stirring – except Microsoft admitting its Windows 10 upgrade pop-up went 'too far'

M$ Long History

Microsoft has been getting it wrong with user interfaces since basically Windows 1.0. It copies other people's good ideas well. It doesn't do so well trying to "innovate" on its own, and Windows 10 is just another example of how their attempt to "freshen up" the brand led to catastrophic failure.

But why do they keep doing this to themselves? It's like they're punching themselves in the face while furiously stomping their own dick over and over again, year after year. Well, it starts to make some sense when you consider their corporate culture. Contrast with other tech companies, like Apple, which until recently was basically held captive by a tyrant in a black turtle neck sweater. Say what you will -- he was a cruel man that few who worked for him had praise for. But all of Apple was built around this one dude and getting things done wasn't a problem. Cohesiveness wasn't a problem. Every single thing Apple did was more or less the product of this one man's personal approval, and as a result, you got a product that looked like it was designed by a human being.

Microsoft... has never been like that. Microsoft is about the committee. The user interaction surveys. The borg collective. And that's what their software looks like too: A mishmash of parts stitched together, horrifying to look at and seemingly built with murderous intent. We even very nearly averted disaster with a wholesale revolt of *every* windows XP programer when Bill's wife tried to make wizards part of everything in the OS. And you can thank those brave, brave men, who were threatened with being fired and more, for holding their ground and giving us the first truly usable Windows release. But for every success story like that, there's 10 "Let's make the Operating System a service!" bonehead maneuvers.

Microsoft is a case study in how corporate culture can be more important than even brand identity and how deeply pervasive the impact of how we organize a large project can affect the final result. It's a shining lighthouse... warning ships away.

Virgin America mid-flight panic after moron sets phone Wi-Fi hotspot to 'Samsung Galaxy Note 7'

Achem, funny not funny

First, considering they basically anally probe and irradiate us before letting us near a plane, that a well-known and publicized (and banned) device making it onto the plane is disappointing to say the least. That said, I'd probably have done the same thing if I were the captain -- because although I work in IT and know how to look up things like the wifi mac address and manufacturer, I also know enough not to trust it. If I'm taking hundreds of people's lives into my hands, I'm not going to screw around.

On the flip of it, if I were a guy who decided to get a few chuckles or raised eyebrows, naming my wifi like that and then going about my business would legitimately be amusing. And if I suddenly remembered while on the plane that I'd done this, I'd probably be reluctant to come forward... because of the aforementioned anal probing irradiating lunacy that dominates the industry: And that's what they do to *innocent* people. It's like, 50 years in the electric chair if you bring a bottle of water on board or something. Faced with an obviously angry captain and the prospect of hours in a dark room naked while men with shotguns take turns "interrogating" me... I'd probably change the name and then turn my phone off and let them turn the place upside down and then land in bum fuck egypt at 3am.

Because unfortunately, we don't live in a society anymore where people have a sense of humor, common sense, or any kind of sense at all. And if you want to bad mouth me fine, but we don't live in a world where fessing up and apologizing is enough. Plenty of people on this very thread suggested opening the door and throwing the guy out, with the *nice* ones offering a parachute. When that sort of thing is culturally acceptable and nobody calls them out on it, yeah... just keep your mouth shut. By the by, it's incredibly common to see someone getting ready to jump off a bridge or pull the trigger that'll blow their head off to the cries of "Do it! Do it!"

So basically, shame on everyone.

Strong non-backdoored encryption is vital – but the Feds should totally be able to crack it, say House committees

Okay, let's just skip the whole trustworthy or not question. There are over 175 other governments on the planet. I have only one question: Why are they any less entitled to their own backdoors?

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Whether you agree with the government or not, the fact is, there are a couple hundred other governments out there too, what do we tell them?

Uber's self-driving cars can't handle bike lanes, forcing drivers to kill autonomous mode

The real problem isn't the cars, but the lawmakers. Thanks to our "marble cake" democracy, every dick, jane, and harry can pass laws about the roads. There are no standards, and unlike people, computers need standards. Even our own legislatures have lost count of the number of laws in the country -- we really don't know how many there are. Some of them conflict with other laws, or cannot be enforced (for example, it's illegal to wear the US flag -- federal law -- but cannot be enforced because the Supreme Court ruled it violates the first amendment), or are vague, and/or poorly worded.

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Drivers -- human drivers -- get screwed on this sort of thing all the time. Up here in Minnesota, we have such convoluted laws dealing with 'snow' that everytime it does, cars get towed by the thousands. Even the police can't keep it straight. And this applies to just where your car gets parked. God help you trying to figure out the byzantine rules downtown about yielding to bikes, buses, pedestrians, none of whom follow any rules governing their behavior -- An alien observing the movement of people and cars would probably conclude the entire process is just random brownian motion.

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In Nevada, jay-walkers can be *legally* hit by cars and the *pedestrian* is liable for any damages. jay walking is also known as not crossing in a designated crosswalk. Fun fact: There aren't very many in Los Vegas -- it's largest city, and not the place everyone thinks is Los Vegas either, but the unincorporated blob all those casinos are built on.

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Self-driving cars will never reach the standard people think they will, because they're trying to work in a hopelessly convoluted system that was designed by committee, implimented by morons, and policed by the incompetent. All we can do is try to design them not to mow people down in bulk... which is how most drivers you know, drive, anyway: It doesn't matter very much if it's legal or not if your car gets wrecked by a drunk, or you run over someone who was making an illegal crossing, on a highway, at 2am, in the fog, while wearing all black (something that very nearly happened to me -- they were muslims with their full-body coverings, and I didn't see them until they looked at my oncoming headlights and I saw the reflection from their eyes... at a distance of less than 30 feet, while at 50 MPH).

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All that said... I have no doubt whatsoever that with only a few basic rules coded in (try to avoid hitting anything, obey the traffic signals, drive on the correct side of the road, and don't go faster than conditions permit), they'll do better than any human ever could.

You can't trust news on Facebook – and (once again) you can't trust its web ad metrics

Algorithms

I don't get it. How many times does Facebook have to fail at this before people start to notice? Every time they've tried using algorithms to solve social problems, it's blown up on the launch pad. You know, just like the rocket they tried to launch in real life. Real name policy? Bans drag queens, LGBT people, domestic violence victims, and other marginalized groups. Insert obligatory hog wash about how it's a welcoming community (Honest!) from the Facebook mouth pieces here. Then we find out their marketing backend allows for blatant abuses of anti-discrimination laws in housing, employment, etc. And again out comes the algorithms and the inevitable failure, followed by boilerplate from the spokesperson. Then they have fouled up an election in a major world power because they threw out the curated news and replaced it with an algorithm, leading to another horrifying train wreck... and yet again, the public seemed satisfied with the same tired story.

And now here we are... Chapter 193 of the same. Damn. Story.... Facebook creates algorithm, exclusive footage of the flaming wreckage at 11 on ZNN News... Hell. We should just put a FDA "Black Box" label on it. WARNING: This product is known to have major health consequences and sociopolitical disasters. Please use responsibly. Age discrimination in this industry will be the death of us all... In every other engineering discipline, its the grey beards who develop critical civil infrastructure. But on the internet, it's 22 year olds. Yeah... we're pumping out about 5 titanics' worth of disaster a week now and still, nobody asks questions. Only the young and stupid could believe technology can solve social problems.

The rest of us know better: It takes people to solve people problems. You can't automate that.

Crim charges slapped on copyright trolls who filmed porn, torrented it then sued downloaders

Not News!

I don't get it: The RIAA and MPAA have been doing this for the better part of a decade. We've got major corporations suing each other over bevels on devices. We're flushing billions of dollars down the drain a year because we don't want IP and patent reform, and by we, I mean our infallable meat bags in office. And don't even get me started on 'pharma bro' and the nationwide shortages of critical medications because someone wanted a billion percent markup.

But we're going to go after a bunch of law students for doing the same thing all these other actors are doing in our legal system? What am I supposed to believe, that they weren't "too big to fail" so down comes the ban hammer? This isn't justice, it's a joke. It's selective enforcement. And if the law isn't applied equally to everyone, the law has no value. It's worse than vigilantism at that point, because we've thrown the rule of law to the wolves.