* Posts by Danny Boyd

245 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Feb 2017

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US nuclear weapon bunker security secrets spill from online flashcards since 2013

Danny Boyd

So now...

... what was known to Russian and Chinese intelligence services for quite a long time, has become a general knowledge. Good for Western powers. Keep up a good job stepping on your d*ck!

Ganja believe it? Police make hash of suspected weed farm raid, pot Bitcoin mine instead

Danny Boyd

So they haven't found the ganja plantation

But they have found something better instead. Kudos to the police. Hopefully, when they look for next ganja outfit, they'll find a huge coke traffic base. Or not.

Vietnam asks Samsung to find it some COVID-19 vaccines

Danny Boyd

What has Samsung to do with COVID vaccines?

And I thought Vietnam is getting enough of Sputnik-V from Russia. Isn't it?

Intel finds a couple more 11th-gen Core chips, one hits 5.0GHz in laptops

Danny Boyd

Anything below i7 is for chromebooks

And by the way, what about side-channel attacks on new Intel processors? Still there? Too bad.

US cities and towns purchase AI surveillance kit linked to China's Uyghur abuse

Danny Boyd

What goes around...

It's a good time for Biden administration to impose strict economic sanctions on US for violating the human rights Chinese-style. To be consistent, so to say.

What? No sanctions? You don't say!

Google to venture where Apple soared and Microsoft crashed – physical retail

Danny Boyd

Oh, but they surely do. If you pay with your credit card... You see?

Danny Boyd

What do they sell there? Except free copies of Google Chrome, of course.

It took 'over 80 different developers' to review and fix 'mess' made by students who sneaked bad code into Linux

Danny Boyd

There is a word for it:

"Clusterfuck".

Virgin Galactic declares May day for next test space flight

Danny Boyd

What times we live in! Looks like everybody and his uncle are eager to stick the stick of dynamite in their rear orifice and boldly go to [conveniently named] Uranus or even further.

Azure services fall over in Europe, Microsoft works on fix

Danny Boyd

Re: ...And they are thinking of using Azure in battlefield tech

Well, if there is ever such a thing as battlefield, it is. But then again, if there is such a thing as real battlefield (in present state of the armaments), the cloud technologies won't be the first concern.

Danny Boyd

What else did you expect...

... from a cloud? Cloud is a twin brother of outsourcing: you push your problem out to become SEP ("somebody else's problem"), and you feel happy and unburdened until you realise you've got no control over the situation anymore.

Us? Pwn SolarWinds? With our reputation? Russian spy chief makes laughable denial of supply chain attack

Danny Boyd

Re: Have you seen proof?

Slightly wrong interpretation: not "death to', just GTFO.

And I'd still prefer to see the evidence, not rants. "the Turla malware crew, which is thought to have links to SVR sister agency the FSB, might have been involved" is no evidence. "Thought to have links", "might have been involved" is speculation, not evidence.

Turn on your critical thinking, people!

What you need to know from today's Google IO: Chatty AI, collab tools, TPU v4 chips, quantum computing

Danny Boyd

Great, another tech thing that sounds like 'lambda'

I read it as 'lambada' and thought: "How true!"

Microsoft hits Alt-F4 on Windows 10X: OS designed for dual-screen PCs axed

Danny Boyd

Microsoft Courier, second take...

I'm perplexed: I have 4 monitors connected to a Win10 box, working flawlessly. Why would a two-screen configuration need special OS? I thought, multi-monitor functions were already mastered in all modern operating systems.

Russian cyber-spies changed tactics after the UK and US outed their techniques – so here's a list of those changes

Danny Boyd

I surely hope they didn't stop. Spies spy. It's in their job description. Every country worth mentioning has external intelligence service, and this country better make sure the service is functional.

By the same token, every country has counter-intelligence service, which better be functional as well (or else.)

This time Russian intelligence outplayed the US and UK counter-intelligence for a while, but then the counter-intelligence caught up. Good for them.

China cracks down on ‘excessive’ user data harvesting, gives 33 apps ten days to clean up their acts

Danny Boyd

Re: Getting weirder

Government slurping is always there, no matter where you live. All governments strive for better internal surveillance and better external intelligence. It's like second law of thermodynamics: just like the entropy ever grows, any given government tries to reach as much totalitarian mode of operation as possible.

Appeals court nixes online blueprint sharing ban on 3D-printed 'ghost guns'

Danny Boyd

Re: Why bother with 3D printing

Looks like Russians are new Brexit - one just HAS to bring them into discussion, never mind the topic.

Danny Boyd

Re: Why bother with 3D printing

Dear Adelio, you, like AC above, quote the "gun death" rates. What percentage of them are suicides? In US, I heard, it's pretty high. It is understandable: when a person decides to commit suicide, they look for the easiest way out, and if firearms are available, the choice is clear.

Note that I'm not debating your or CA's statements that there is much more gun violence in US (even removing the suicide part) than in UK or Australia. I'm debating the root cause: you and AC think it's stricter gun control laws, and I think it's difference in public attitude, "the level of general madness", if you will.

Danny Boyd

Re: Why bother with 3D printing

You are right, you are safer in Australia than I am in US, at least from gun violence. But not because the gun control laws are stricter in Australia. It's because there are more criminals and psychos in US. As I said, the people's attitude.

Criminals and psychos will find a weapon, gun control or not. If they can't find the gun, they'll find a knife and behead somebody. Look what's going on in France.

The point I'm trying to convey is, normal law-abiding citizens will not attack other citizens with guns (knives, machetes, ropes). Imposing strict gun laws disarms the law-abiding citizens, not criminals or psychos. And leaves the law-abiding citizens defenseless.

And don't kid yourself that "gun laws control what weapons criminals have access to". Criminals don't buy arms in a neighborhood gun shop. They have access to stolen or smuggled automatic arms. They are criminals.

Fortunately, Australians are pretty much laid back and are not inclined to resolve their problems with violence exceeding a good fist fight in a local pub. Thank God for this, not for strict gun control laws.

Danny Boyd

Re: Why bother with 3D printing

Guns are not the problem in US, people's attitude is. In Israel, for example, percentage of gun owners is higher than in US. How many mass shootings have been there in Israel in a month? I'm not even mentioning Switzerland, where all adult men have to have battle-grade (not castrated versions "for civilian market") firearms and load of ammo safely stored in their houses.

Guns don't kill, people do. Outlaw the guns, and only outlaws will have them.

You admit, in sunny Australia gun crimes still happen despite strict gun control. Gang on gang, eh? That's because gun control laws only concern law-abiding citizens, they are nothing to the gangs. You want to have gangs the only armed force in your country? I truly hope you never get in their way, because you'll have to defend yourself and your family with a broom or a soup ladle.

China hauls in 13 web giants for ‘supervision interviews’

Danny Boyd

Re: Ethereal AntICQs

Ah-ah, what a racist, white-supremacist statement! You should be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Anonymous Coward.

And you are wasting the roses of your heart: by general consensus, amanfrommars1 is a bot. You must be new here.

Danny Boyd

Re: Authoritarian = insecure

Putin and Xi are really weak men afraid of words? My dear, your naivete is charming. They rule their countries with iron hand, letting their subject oligarchs prosper and grow, but not at the expense of the state. And when their subject oligarchs get too cocky, they are reminded of certain facts of life.

You, of course, would prefer the corporations being given a free rein to run amok with their greed, right?

Korean app-maker Scatter Lab fined for using private data to create homophobic and lewd chatbot

Danny Boyd

It's not the first time an AI-powered chat-bot has been shut down because it deviated into not-so-politically-correct speech. Some time ago the same happened to Microsoft's chat bot. So-called "AI" systems have no intelligence despite the name (although they are artificial, no doubt about that), their "speech" comes from statistical analysis of the speech of human inter-actors. In a way, the poor tensor processors are good at reflecting the general mood of the crowd, nothing more.

So who is to blame? Where do you think a simple, stupid chat-bots learned the hate speech? Of course, you can break the mirror if you don't like what you see, but your face will still be the same.

FCC gives SpaceX the go-ahead to drop Starlink satellite orbits by 500 kilometres or so

Danny Boyd

It's going to rain Starlink satellites pretty soon, given their number and low orbits. Everybody duck!

A trip to the dole queue: CEO of $2bn Bay Area tech biz says he was fired for taking LSD before company meeting

Danny Boyd

"Startup" founded 8 years ago and still on backing from venture capital? No wonder, if its CEO flies with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

UK government resists pressure to hold statutory inquiry into Post Office Horizon scandal

Danny Boyd

Re: Statutory inquiry

The programmers were Flat Earth theory adherents?

State of Maine lays off 15 independent consultants on $13k a month amid efforts to implement troubled Workday system

Danny Boyd

I, to some extent, commiserate with the vendors in this case. Truly, "a giraffe is a white bunny built to the customer's requirements."

Beijing offers tax credits to patent-packing, R&Ding chip outfits great and very small

Danny Boyd

Re: Typical commie behaviour

I agree. They could have taken progressive and democratic US approach - increase chip development and production by issuing an executive order, and be done with it. But no-o!

Sucks to be you, any aliens living anywhere near Proxima Centauri's record-smashing solar flare

Danny Boyd

"UV radiation from flares like this could strip away the planet's atmosphere, and damage the DNA of lifeforms on the surface" - stripping away the atmosfere is quite enough, thank you. Damage to DNA of [dead by then] lifeforms on the surface is nice but not necessary.

Danny Boyd

Re: Proxima Centauri is a glimpse of our own future

At a public lecture on astronomy.

Lector: "In approximately six billion years our sun will transition to a red giant phase..."

A gentleman from the audience: "Excuse me, in how many years you said?"

Lector: "Approximately six billion years."

A gentleman from the audience (looking much relieved): "Uff, thank God! I thought you said in six million years."

MI5 wants to shed its cocktail-guzzling posho image – so it's opened an Instagram account

Danny Boyd
Thumb Up

"It has therefore opened an Instagram account." - God, I truly love British humour!

Ah, you know what? Keep your crappy space station, we're gonna try to make our own, Russia tells world

Danny Boyd

Re: The Space Race

And the first space-walk (Alexei Leonov).

Japan accuses Chinese military of cyber-attacks on its space agency

Danny Boyd

Your guess is wrong. Now go back to reeducation camp.

Danny Boyd

Of course, Japan is so much ahead of China in space exploration, the Chinese simply HAVE to learn their secrets. Japan must be proud. Didn't Russians spy on Japanese space program? That would make Japanese even prouder!

Microsoft revokes MVP status of developer who tweeted complaint about request to promote SQL-on-Azure

Danny Boyd

Re: Bloody Azure

Amazon is not annoying about AWS? Or Google about Google Cloud? Or Oracle about... er, ... forget it.

Danny Boyd
Trollface

Blood-chilling picture...

...for this article. Scissors applied to something marked "member" is not what you want to see.

China has a satellite with an arm – and America worries it could be used to snatch other spacecraft

Danny Boyd

Laughable

Why grapple satellites or take them out one-by-one with a laser? Three-five nuclear explosions in space, and whole constellations of satellites are dead.

Somebody in Pentagon must have stumbled on James Bond's "Dr. No" movie all of a sudden. Even there, the perpetrators were after manned space capsules, not satellites.

Microsoft realises constant meetings stress people out, adds Office 365 settings to cut them short or start them late

Danny Boyd

All that's thanks to COVID

I've noticed since we started working remotely, the meeting load intensified significantly. Fortunately, there are not too many meetings I really must attend, so I ignore the rest, which gives me a chance to get something done.

I think the reason for this meeting fever is the managers' inherent desire to micro-manage. When they see their subordinates every day, they are more or less relaxed. When they don't see the subordinates day after day, their managerial glands get excited, and they start inventing meetings just to check if the subordinates are still around, and to remind the subordinates the managers still exist and do something "proactively".

Then again, some of my colleagues definitely feel lonely working from home, so they jump to every opportunity to communicate, no matter what about, and attend all the meetings. So maybe it's not a bad thing after all.

Do you expect me to talk? Yes, Mr Bond, I expect you to reply: 10k Brits targeted on LinkedIn by Chinese, Russian spies

Danny Boyd

How stupid we are they think?

Intelligence service recruiters approaching you on LinkedIn, of all places? Yeah, pull another one.

It is 60 years since the first cosmonaut reached orbit and 40 years since the Shuttle first left the launchpad

Danny Boyd

Re: Ah when we took risks to achive great things.

Speaking of taking the risks: did you know that Yuri Gagarin's survival probability was estimated as less than 50% at the launch? It was.

FSF doubles down on Richard Stallman's return: Sure, he is 'troubling for some' but we need him, says org

Danny Boyd

Re: Offensive

Downvoted for not understanding the difference between what man says and what he really does. To talk about Stallman's paedophilia you need to catch him first with an underage person "in flagranti".

NHS COVID-19 app update blocked by Apple, Google over location privacy fears

Danny Boyd

Vaccination, vaccination, and, once more, vaccination!

This is what will help. These tracking gimmicks are just another kind of surveillance pushed under the pretense of "fighting the pandemics". Tracking won't protect you from COVID-19 (or anything else, as a matter of fact). Yes, you may learn postfactum you might have gotten infected when you visited that brothel (or an opera). Does this help much?

Red Hat pulls Free Software Foundation funding over Richard Stallman's return

Danny Boyd

Re: What's the deal?

Ah, but Stallman was definitely wrong about "harem". Harem is a stable of girls, willing or not, serving yourself. Stable of girls, willing or not, serving your pals or customers is called "brothel".

How can FSF have a man so inaccurate in terminology on their board?

Danny Boyd

Re: FALSE

That would be PCSF - Politically Correct Software Foundation.

Semi-autonomous cars sales move up a gear with 3.5 million units leaving forecourts

Danny Boyd

Tell you what...

If I ever wanted a car with a mind of its own, I'd buy a horse.

Salesforce to face trial after software used by Backpage 'to track sex traffickers, pimps, johns on social media'

Danny Boyd

There's something wrong with Texas

Eastern Texas is the haven for patent trolls, now southern Texas becomes the home to unbridled absurdity. What's that about Texan courts? Are they all malicious, or totally incompetent, or criminally insane?

My cousin went totally bonkers and hung himself. Let me sue the company that produced the rope! Right, I'm going to Texas.

Mr. Doe was caught (in Texas) while attempting the burglary. Said he: "Why accusing me? My lock-picks are made from steel made by company X, blame them!" So they did.

Oh Lord, I've never could imagine such an idiocy! I understand, of course, that not all the judges are Einsteins, but one would expect at least **some** sense in a judge.

Surely, the case will be thrown out on higher appeals, but still... What's that about Texan courts?

US military employs neural networks to figure out interference in photons for quantum communications

Danny Boyd

Re: Fudge

Well, if both aren't working, but in opposite directions, you might get something.

Microsoft 365 tries again at filtering swearing, bad behavior: Classifiers for seven languages offered

Danny Boyd

Re: minimize comm risks by helping you detect, capture, act on inappropriate messages

It's like spell-checker, you can turn it off or ignore its warnings.

UK prime minister Boris Johnson reluctant to reveal his involvement in the OneWeb deal

Danny Boyd

Re: Be kind to Boris

Jet propulsion.

So, where does Silicon Valley stand on S.230? Zuck wants 'industry best practices', Pichai demurs, Dorsey urges more Bluesky thinking

Danny Boyd

There's policing and there's policing

Section 230 says: “platforms should not be held liable if a particular piece of content evades its detection – that would be impractical for platforms with billions of posts per day – but they should be required to have adequate systems in place to address unlawful content.” Note: "unlawful content."

And what are they policing? Is alt-right content unlawful? No, it's just stupid. Is QAnon-related content unlawful? Ditto. Is COVIG-19 BS unlawful? Ditto. Are Trump's posts illegal? Ditto.

Why did Russia throttle (not very successfully) Twitter and threatened to ban it altogether? Because Twitter didn't respond to their demands to remove teen suicide propaganda. Is teen suicide propaganda illegal? Yes, in most countries. And Twitter responded with "We stand for free societal dialog and discussion." Aha, in the form of teen suicide propaganda.

To keep enjoying S.230 protection, social networks should "have adequate systems in place to address unlawful content", if their policies deviate from it, they are not protected and may face lawsuits and penalties.

Disclaimer: I'm not an employee, a shareholder, or a user of the "social" networks, and thus have no interest in their well-being or existence.

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