Posts by Dimmer 266 publicly visible posts • joined 23 May 2017
On a less trustworthy site I read the IDF is using AI for target acquisition. Anyone know if this is true?
Please don’t use this comment to bring the conflict here.
Just wanting to know if we are at that stage of AI use.
The next stage is allowing AI to do both, acquire and kill targets.
This is very concerning.
We learn as much from mistakes and successes.
In my previous life, I worked in a fab. Awestruck by the smart people and wiz bang equipment, I was blown away by the simple process to make chips.
You start with a wafer. Overlay it with multiple layers of stuff, shoot it a few times light, plasma and chemicals and you have a chip. Test it. If it works then make it smaller with more chips on the wafer.
Test it.
If a percentage fails, change the process until it gets better and make it smaller.
Test it.
If a percentage fails, change the process until it gets better and make it smaller.
Test it.
If a percentage fails, change the process until it gets better and make it smaller.
And so on till it is as small as you want.
The key was shorten the time between build and test.
Is this not what the AI is doing, but virtually?
After an update my computer was infected with the bing AI. Being a virus, deleting the files and removing reg entries is useless as it just comes back.
So, zero the exe and DLL data and read only rights for everything took it out. That stopped the exfill of data it was doing.
Now I might consider it useful it it could tell me something like “what are all the licenses that I need to use an RDP server?”
To protect a telcos product, you can’t even get out of them where it is in the ground and who’s fiber they are using.
It is so bad, when they have turnover, nobody even knows what they have. Unplugging becomes a common method to determine what fiber goes where. It is usually called a “planned outage” so it does not go against their SLA.
We took over a carrier hotel. Not a damm thing was labeled. The reason we took it over? They went under due to bad service, too many outages.
Had a carrier offer services with 6 9s uptime, but the fine print said they have a maintenance window between 2 and 6 am. EVERY DAY!
“Question is why is no one doing things in ways that disruption is minutes not months?”
Yes, the technology exist but you have to find out how they got in first or bringing up the backup infrastructure will cause it to be compromised in short order.
Any DR plan needs to include the time for locking down before recovery.
I am basing this on experience of systems that were hardened running the latest patches. Do not underestimate your adversary.
The last one I worked, the morons that bought the access burned everything they could. Total bare metal restore, pc, servers, and data.
When there is nothing to restore to, they ain’t going to get s$:;(.
If the price for decrypt was less that recovery, it might have been paid.
They thought they were going to be cute and hold the data for ransom. Ha, ha - it was public data.
Not only are they are color coded, they have breaker # and ups ID on the cover and on the pdu in the cabinet.
When you are the design guy and the owner, it gets built in a manner that makes sense, easily repaired and you can sleep at night. Not like some that don’t mind their guys quality of life because they are never affected.
I have an old Cisco router that is going on 10 years uptime. The old guy is still servicing a /24. I am going to see which one of us last longer on the job.
We actually have power indicators on the socket covers for the twist locks. We had to build them ourselves.
PDUs have indicators but by the time the power cord makes to the mains, you have no idea which one it is. A/B power is useless if you accidentally unplug B when A is tripped.
We also color code the covers, pdu in the cabinet and the conduit going to the colored central pdu/ups.
You have no doubt what circuits you are working on.
Learned that on the hard way.
Rural broadband -
Massive money has been allocated to deal with this so why has it not been done?
Even when Starlink is excluded as a provider, the way the government classifies unserved rural areas it is almost impossible to get funding for the homes that truthfully can’t get it.
Providers that are trying to get funding have to contest every single address and prove the home can’t get it. There is very little activity unserved rural areas left.
https://lightbox-tx.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=37cb56b9f648449191c2a37e3eb2fb1a
Take a look. The areas supposedly served is bs.
Where did they get the info? Millions were spent to compile it and was paid for by broadband grants. Those millions spent for incorrect info is now blocking funding going to people that need it.
Be careful as they will lock you in as well.
As these questions:
Do I have full admin or root level access to my stuff?
Who is holder of the domain account?
On my firewalls that I paid for, who is it licensed to?
Who is the owner of the 365 instance?
Is my Microsoft licenses in your name? Are they month to month or perpetual?
I know I will get down voted here but when your managed provider decides to stop answering the phone or tired of dealing with it, things don’t go well.
We have been on the end of trying to help a company regain control of their identity and data.
So yes, companies have a responsibility not to take it for granted.
ACH, wire transfer, online bill pay, card purchases as a credit transaction or transfer are treated as a check. You have as much as 45 days to deny you did the transfer and it is on the bank to prove otherwise and then they have to put the money back in your account.
They write it off if they can’t collect from where it went. All this so they don’t have to verify your signature.
Now, a check card pin transaction falls under an ATM transaction. When you signed up for your card, the fine print you did not see says it is on you if you give out your pin. Just like when you buy something, if you use your pin, you gave up your pin and the store does not have to pay the 3% chard card fee but you take the risk. There is no recovery.
There was recent legislation to change this sponsored by retailers. Forcing the banks to eat the 3% which will in turn be passed on to us.
Actually, in the states, you are good to only $250k. Anything above that you are on your own.
Banks more secure, yes but your money is not totally secure in it. As anyone that have been suspected of behavior not to liking of the current gov, poof it is gone. No trial, no charges needed. You are required to prove you are innocent to get it back.
"At present, the losses are within manageable limits, and Poloniex's operating revenue can cover these losses”
FTX speak, we have plenty of other people’s money so don’t worry we got this.
Never ever use MS Active Directory for your firewall :/ vpn logins
It is so easy, so convenient, etc. - for the hackers. I have seen this so many times in compromised networks.
In one fail swoop they have the email address and passwords for all in your org.
Don’t allow management to short you on PFYs to properly maintain your border.
Local authorities decided the old landfill that had been covered for years would be the perfect place to build the multimillion dollar police station.
5 years after it was built, it was abandoned and condemned because the structure and grounds were unstable and the buried decomposing trash was leaking methane into the building.
Another few years go by and the building was sold to a group that turned it into a dancing establishment that catered to men. I was told that it was quite effective in removing dollar bills from their persons but they strangely don’t remember the experience
Tech on the phone with CFO
We need a firewall.
Isn’t that expensive?
Yes
Then no. We don’t need a firewall.
Can you open a command prompt an type ipconfig
Ok
What is the ip address?
18.160.181.34
One ping bomb later,
Uh, I think we need a firewall
Yes sir, we will get it ordered and installed immediately.
Unfortunately this is an actual conversation and those old enough will be able to date it by the ping bomb reference.
We recently had a vote on new constitution amendments. If you read it, it will not raise taxes and it will make the world a better place.
One of the amendments was about water for a specific county. After it passed, they then told everyone that they voted to create a new tax entity called a water board, and it was for 6 counties and they will be soon footing the bill so real estate developers would not have to.
I studied this before voting and totally missed it because there was no fine print.
There should be a law that requires them to put in plain words what the amendment is for or it is void.
Battery life is 1/2 what is expected and 1/4 what is rated.
If the power blinks 3 times, the 4th it is down for good long time.
Redundancy sometimes causes the problems.
Alway run your backup site as a hot site.
Primary and secondary systems should be rotated and never use the same control system for both.
You are screwed without the right people.
Management and bean counters are the primary cause of failed redundancy. See previous statement
An outage because of a blown generator engine will be understood by a customer when an outage because of a bad sensor will not.
I would appreciate you guys telling about any hard won lessons you have had.
Re: snake,
I guess I might be considered one of those anti-regulatory guys.
They texted over a mil of people and they are only fined a small amount? And who did the fine money go to if they even collected it?
My anti-regulation stance is ; make a law that is well defined of the violation and the punishment. Not a single penny goes to any agency but to the persons affected. And - it requires equal enforcement for all.
So yes I am for government but completely against bureaucracy and because of that I am told I am anti-regulatory.
$500 for stellar net out years later was $300k for me and $125k for the government in the way of taxes.
The governments are the ones making a killing on this.
I have seen guys trade up till the last day of Dec and the value dropped the next month. In 3 months it was so low that they lost their home because they could not pay the UNREALIZED gains from the previous year. They tax you on unrealized gains but will not allow you to take unrealized losses. Look it up, it will really piss you off.
Re: mars,
So it comes down to stored value:
Paper currency, its value controlled by a government as it is backed by the faith in that government. Devalued whenever that want.
Gold-silver, was valued by what it cost to mine. Now valued by what a bank says it is worth and controlled by issuing paper saying they will give you that value in the future.
Stocks, value is controlled by market that has nothing to do with what the co makes or does.
Property or asset you control, its value is largely valued on what you value it as but is costly to own as it is taxable by every bureaucrat that can.
Crypto, supposedly valued by the cost of creating it, but in reality it appears to be valued like property.
That is my take on stored value methods. If you desire to be wealthy beyond your dreams, come up with a way to store value of your life-time that can’t be taken or devalued. We all need a way that we can work all our lives and have something we can exchange when we no longer can work. Having to invest (gamble) your life-time value just so you can offset the attrition rate is just another scam.
Our time is better spent fixing what is wrong with why we can’t have a true stored value than point the finger at each attempt and call each other names.
That said, I think SBF should now be the stored value of others till he refunds the life-time value he stole of others. Hard labor for the rest of his life might be a good start.
In my experience as a small isp, serving and using other small isps, we have not see a penny of the UCC funds.
The only time I have seen it used is when schools need connectivity. They call it E-rate. The isp is strictly forbidden to carry other traffic via the same build funded by E-rate to anyone else in that rural area.
Rual hospitals have done more to speed the builds to the rual areas. They have spent millions to get bandwidth to clinics. From there guys like the Reg readers grab some Wi-Fi gear and a few antenna poles and create their own WISPS tying off of the fiber going to the clinics. Just so they can have internet. No funding from the gov, only promises.
A simple but unattainable request for our gov.
As a tax paying victim of rural broadband initiatives, the money never goes to the last mile.
Obama threw money at it and all they did in Texas was pay for connections between cities that already existed and told everyone how they provided for hundreds of thousands rural internet. B.S. they provided nothing as it still has not made it to the home.
Other state and fed money was provided and it all went to studies to determine who, what and where needed internet. Really? It was obvious who needed internet. Not a penny went to build, only studies.
Seen your phone bill for the past several years? The additional tax that said it was for rural, where the hell did all that money go?
Texas in November is again trying to get the public to agree to more money for broadband. I have not seen any plans on how it will be spent so I expect it to be the same as the lottery funds that we were told that would go straight to the schools. Spoiler- it never did
There is a small gilmer of hope tho. In a meeting with a fed commerce dept rep. It was stated that no money will be allocated from the infrastructure bill to carriers until the home get broadband. That meeting was months ago, they probably were fired for such a ridiculous idea. (Sarcasm)
Yep, I have gotten one or two of those takedown request.
One of your customers is downloading movie …. Or some such.
The system they are using must be automated. We get the request as it is happening.
Lots of fun to be had. All you have to do is trace the bandwidth to a Mac (if you are supplying public Wi-Fi). Find the manufacturer Mac info for the device type and look on the dhcp for a name.
So I walk up to this guy, Fred. I know it is Fred because it was “Fred’s phone”. An android phone.
I Let him know that the FBI want to talk to him about the movie he is downloading and watch him run. :)
Now in the takedown notice there wasn’t anything about reporting anything to anyone.
Some days can be so rewarding when you can teach somebody that they don’t really have any privacy on a public wireless.
In my previous life as a pc tech, I worked for this multinational corp in their main headquarters. (25 years ago)
The mail room had these motorized carts to deliver the mail. On day working on a pc for the av guy in the cube farm, one of these things came trolling by. It would occasionally stop at a cube and bleat like a wounded sheep till someone to grab the package off it’s back.
In my chair, I roll back in the cube and ask the guy how does this thing know where the path is. He explains that it has a wire under the carpet it follows. What about where there are no wires, like an elevator? Oh, it communicates using infrared, he said.
By this time it was happily grunting, squeaking to its self as it made it up the isle. Seeing a tv remote on his desk and wanting to test a theory, I rolled out, pressed the volume button and - it abruptly did a 90deg and crashed into the wall at full speed. I quickly rolled back into the cube, Replaced the remote and said “ oh look your pc has finished rebooting, I think you are good to go.”
On the way out, I noticed the cart had attracted a crowd as it continued to wail, backup and bang itself into the wall at full speed.
They had a security version of this as well but I regretfully missed the chance to test that theory.
In the states it is called contract labor.
The state wants you classified as contract labor so they can grab the fines they impose when you did not do some paperwork correctly.
The feds, want you classified as an employee so they can get all the taxes from you and the business.
And about %50 of the time they over lap and they both come after you or the person you are doing the job for.
Work for a corp, lots of chairs can fire you. Work for yourself, less chance of getting fired by ALL. My opinion it is more security working for myself.
I ask a prospective hire 3 questions.
If they own a vehicle or home, do you do any of the repairs?
What type of computer do you have at home?
Do you know how to use Wireshark?
Last guy:
No I don’t, I don’t like repairs.
I have a laptop. (No interest in kind or power)
What is Wireshark?
But I do have a degree in network security!
The one I hired:
I do as much as I can.
Dual boot OS, and proceeded to tell me all about how he built it.
Yes!
But I don’t have any certifications.
HR would have hired the first one, not the one that can do the job.
On the one I hired, after answering the 3 questions, I then turned over to the tech team to vet him. After all they would have to clean up any mess he made.
Think long term. Employees are a part of your business not consumables.
If it is a gig, hire that way.
Anytime you are considering full time, review the business first.
Are they growing?
Do they have a marketable product that makes a profit?
What is their turnover rate?
Is the management full of condescending asses?
If the pay is good enough, consider it a gig.
I tell my guys, “ I won’t fire you, only the customer will”. No customers, no income to pay your paycheck.
I recently was asked to speak to a high school class about careers.
I told them that they will never know privacy and I apologize to them.
Seeing the perplexing look, I explained.
Holding up my phone, I told them that my generation created the technology used by their parents generation to create it. We are the reason that you will never know what privacy is.
My parents gen sent someone to the moon. My generation went from tubes to phones the size of watches.
Now, What the hell is your generation going build?
If you look at it from what I pay my guys employer’s share of taxes I pay more taxes than I get paid.
I put extra effort into the corp not making money. At the end of the year I look at the supposed profit and split it amongst the guys based on the hours they put in as a bonus check. Without the work getting done, there is no income. Few owners put the money to where it should go.
Sounds like a socialist? Nope, I am a conservative and believe in the individual. As a conservative I control waste as much as possible and when you underpay an individual, it is a waste of their time.
I agree, punish the criminals.
It becomes time to punish the enablers too when it is no longer a feature. A feature is something you can turn off. A bug is an unwanted feature you can’t turn off.
Take a gun for instance. It is produced to make holes in something, namely a living something. By itself, it is harmless. In the hands of idiots and those that don’t have boundaries, it is deadly.
Are you talking about school choice in Texas? I know of no attempt to get rid of public schools, only to make them accountable.
When you have a school district spend $1mil on a football locker room after another $2 mil on football and no computers are allowed in elementary classes there needs to be competition. Their IT department works out of a condemned school with plywood on the windows.
Schools choice is also about allowing the poor access to good education, not just the kids in rich neighborhoods where the schools are upgraded every 4 years.
Every time you hear that a new tax is for schools and roads it is BS. Still waiting on the funds from the lottery to go to the schools as promised.
Totally impressed. It actually says what it is billed as.
If you are an authorized repair center, documentation is free (unless it is printed )
If you are not an authorized repair center, you must tell the customer.
And the parts must be priced within reason.
I expect it has holes, but it is a damm good start.
Thanks for the link.
John Deere, heads up - your next.
For me the smart meter, or my utils version of has been beneficial. For the most part.
Good:
They give me detailed charts incremented by the hour for the last 2 years of my usage.
They know when power is out and for who.
Bad:
They know when the power is out so they only allow u to talk to an automated system that informs you it is out. There is no emergency number.
We had to call the emergency services when a tree downed a hot line on a major highway and there was no way to communicate to them the urgency of the situation.
Oh, and watch out for the pleading and bribes the smart thermostat vendors throw at you. If you fall for it you will be locked out of your thermostat when it gets really cold or hot. You only own what you control.
“Power equipment, including pumps”
In Texas they are about 27% renewables. The last major freeze took out the wind and put the grid in a bad situation. When they went to shed industrial load ( level 2) it shut down the natural gas pump stations that supplied gas to the power plants.
The way they got in this situation was because they were not allowed to use the natural gas going thur the pipelines to power the pumps any more. By demand of the greenies and bureaucrats they had to go to electric driven pumps. Homes froze, water plants destroyed and people died. This information was not published.
As a Datacenter owner this is what I fear. People making decisions that have no freaking clue of what they are doing and forcing the ones that do to submit to it.
When was the last time you were forced to build / change something that you know would lead to a disaster? And when you did, who took the blame?
“Net neutrality is about fairness and treating all packets the same”
Could not agree more. The copy of the regulation I read said the same for the first page or two. When it went to detail, the content provider protection was specifically removed. They went as far as to name providers. The stated reason was it was evolving and they did not know the best way to fix it. It was all b.s. . We all can agree the solution is easy, if you are Comcast, don’t freaking throttle Netflix.
The only thing the regulation called “ net neutrality “ did was to add more taxes to your internet bill. Just like your phone.
If anyone is able to find a copy of the regulation that would go into effect, please post the link. If I am wrong, I will support it completely.
I am a small isp, the last thing I want is being told who gets priority by the government . On my net, I don’t throttle shit and I always provide more bandwidth than I charge for. I have happy customers and they pay their bill. Maybe if the big guys did the same, net neutrality would not be needed.
When it is converted from water to moisture, at some point it will become rain again.
If you had systems that could use water from the ocean, you would be able to make rain at some point and you might even get a bit of lithium.
Here is an article about mining lithium from seawater by evaporation.
https://www.science.org/content/article/seawater-could-provide-nearly-unlimited-amounts-critical-battery-material
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