Posts by doublelayer

FBI: Cyber-scams cost victims $6.9b-plus worldwide in 2021

Re: 6.9bn

There was an "at least" in there. The real number is probably higher. Some cybercrime won't have been accounted by the FBI, which mostly starts caring when a U.S. entity is involved as scammer or scammee. Some won't have been reported to any law enforcement. Some won't have been counted as cybercrime and counts as a different kind of fraud.

But even if it's the right number, that's a big number. Individuals can face losses in the thousands and companies in the millions. That's enough to cause lots of problems. If we decided that Amazon could pay for all the losses due to crime, we'd be fine, but since we can't, individuals have to deal with the cost. Consider how a $10k (or local equivalent) loss would affect you. If you have savings for that now, consider how it would have affected you when you didn't. It's a problem for those people.

Google cancels bi-annual performance reviews, shifts to GRAD system

Is that the only context that rings a bell? I first think of graduation or graduate. Then of gradians. Then grades. Then of gradation. Then of Russian city names (other countries also use it, but the Russian ones are the ones that I think of). Only then do I not really know what comes next meaning we can be charitable and call the rocket the sixth thing that comes to mind. Somehow I don't think Google was picking an unusually insensitive acronym.

Samsung unveils hardened SD card that can last 16 years if you treat it right

Re: 16 years ago

"When was the last time that you saw either a floppy or an optical drive on a new laptop?"

Floppy: it's been a long time. Optical: last year. A few large laptops still include them. I avoided those models as it's a lot of weight for a feature I'll use once a year. I understand that there are people who use them more often, but for the rate I use them, a USB one is fine. I'd prefer another drive bay, larger battery, or just a smaller laptop.

Re: capable of surviving a five-meter fall

For a good manufacturer, this would mean that it survives the thing it's in falling five meters, where it doesn't get to have any air resistance and has a lot more momentum conserved through it. I'm guessing that's not what they meant, especially as calculating exactly how much stress the card took is tricky because every device will have a different impact.

John Deere tractors 'bricked' after Russia steals machinery from Ukraine

Re: If I owned a piece of equipment?

No, I'm afraid it is you who is not listening. I have specifically acknowledged that JD have not implemented the feature in the way I recommended and I have also specifically said I don't like it that way. The post to which I responded spoke of remote bricking features in general being antithetical to the right to repair or the right to real ownership. I disagreed and provided methods. I've stated in my original comment that it was a possibility, not already granted. I stated in my previous reply to you that it was general. I stated in this one a method by which it could be accomplished, using words like "could" to indicate that it wasn't present.

Re: If I owned a piece of equipment?

It could, but there's another option. Run a service on the local computer that does what the current bricking one does. Only allow a user to interfere with this service if they can authenticate themselves. Provide the user an authentication method when they buy it. A user who wants the bricking option completely disabled logs in as admin and disables the service. I don't expect a full admin interface on the device, but that method can be used for a remote brick option with complete user choice, just as it does with my laptop which won't let you do much unless you happen to know the encryption key it asks for when you turn it on.

Re: If I owned a piece of equipment?

I didn't say they had. I said you could. Or more explicitly, that the existence of a remote brick feature is compatible with the right to repair, which I support in all cases including with this equipment, having argued for it elsewhere.

Re: If I owned a piece of equipment?

Simple solution: make it optional and then they can't. If the owner, in this case the dealership, has it enabled and wants the option, then it can be remotely bricked. They are clearly on board with this. If you buy it and don't want that, you can obtain access and disable the feature, but then you can't use it yourself. Problem solved without limiting any user rights.

Spanish PM, defense minister latest Pegasus spyware victims

Re: Defence

Here are instructions for using the tool developed by Amnesty International's forensic people. I cannot promise that it produces perfect results or that you can't do something wrong and create a problem, but it looks straightforward enough for the technical user.

https://docs.mvt.re/en/latest/index.html

Re: Does Pegasus need a phone number to infect a device?

I think they can also use iMessage on IOS devices, which can use an Apple ID instead of a phone number. You can of course simply refrain from turning on iMessage as you could choose not to use WhatsApp. The question is how many features you want to turn off to increase your chances of not getting infected but not guarantee anything.

Re: more questions than answers

A few places have built diagnostics for it. Amnesty International did some of the initial investigations and has a tool for scanning device backups for infection. Apple has identified some of the things that indicate an attack, patched some of them, and informed targets. They have only given us details on a few of these.

There may be other companies who also create methods to detect infections. It wouldn't surprise me that such things are in demand now that NSO's malware is as pervasive as it's turned out to be. There are probably more diagnostic methods that haven't been released as NSO can't be expected to go into hiding or get shut down by law enforcement, so it has to be treated as an active and adaptable threat.

Apple to bin apps that go three years without updates

Re: So you wrote it, and it works

Yes, recompile the code, reconstruct the package, presumably change at least a couple pieces of metadata so it's not byte-for-byte identical to the last package, and republish. This has done nothing for your users. It may have taken you some time to do. Now it has to go through Apple's verification system and all your users will have to download this app that's no different than the last one. If you fail to do it, new users won't be able to use your thing anymore. Why is this needed, again?

Re: Monopoly

"So if you could side load apps, these apps would be magically updated?"

That's not what they meant or said and you know it perfectly well. What they meant was that, if you could sideload apps, they would object less to Apple's choices. Strawmen aren't helpful.

Re: So you wrote it, and it works

And those security updates would be? Yes, your app might use dependencies that have fixed security vulnerabilities, but it also might not. If you wrote all your functionality yourself, then there might not be any vulnerabilities you know about. In addition, Apple didn't say they were scanning for library usage and removing apps based on that, so it looks like you could change the version number in your about screen, make a new package, and publish that update to meet this time requirement.

Don’t expect to get your data back from the Onyx ransomware group

Re: There is an argument

The UK military has hired people for computer-related jobs, including offensive operations. They're predictably not keen on telling us how many people are working on offense rather than defense and exactly what they're doing, but they exist. Other parts of the UK government have had offensive uses for computers for quite a while. If a country used cyberattacks to cause significant damage, they also have conventional weapons available to them. The UK and many other countries already have what you're asking for and have announced plans to expand.

Your software doesn't work when my PC is in 'O' mode

Re: How friggin' tough could it be to just print the words?

I don't think this is a country thing. If it is, my country's system is to do it at random. Admittedly more often with up being on, but I can find examples of both in a lot of houses, and of course any circuit that has two or more switches will do both. I've seen a few left/right switches, but they're less common and usually control something other than lights. For example, I've worked in a lab where the safety circuits had left/right switches, probably so they'd look different from the lights and hopefully have fewer accidental flips.

That does seem to be the question that resolved it eventually, but not the way I would have asked it. I would have started with "What is 'O' mode?" and, depending on the answer they came up with, I could have been thrown off course. Alternatively, another initial question I am likely to use when getting a report like this is to ask "What does it do when it doesn't work properly?", which could equally have given me a red herring.

Re: How friggin' tough could it be to just print the words?

You have three options:

1. Print the words in every language your users will need.

2. Make different cases for each market, each with only a few languages printed on it.

3. Use a universal symbol.

Is 3 really so hard? You also have the option of ignoring the symbol and simply understanding that, if the device is not in the on/off state you want, flipping the switch should put it in the other one. If it doesn't, your issue is something other than the switch setting.

Maybe the people being called weren't in the same place and couldn't do a desk visit. As someone who has done that, getting the user to answer questions just by sending emails or even talking on the phone involves a lot of explanations and walking them through steps. That's when you know what they need to do. When you're still trying to work out what the modes they're talking about really are, that requires more debugging work.

An alternative suggestion is that some users really don't like being told to do something to prove a problem exists. I've had people refuse angrily when I say that I can't reproduce their stated behavior on my system, so could they run it again on theirs with the debug logging on and send me the log.

Worried about being replaced by a robot? Become a physicist

Re: Doing my bit for the little guy(gal)

This is exactly what I was saying. The benefits to society of the new tech are usually greater than the costs to the person who was automated, so even if society has to fully pay for one of them, it's better to help the workers than artificially keep automatable jobs around. In addition, the automated worker can decide to do something they like to do more, which means even more reason to go with that option.

Re: Doing my bit for the little guy(gal)

What I propose is that they switch to a different job that fits their skills or consider getting new skills, both approaches having worked well before. For the intervening time, we have systems to make it easier for them to do those things so they don't suffer while making the change. We already have some methods to encourage people to gain some in-demand skills and for protecting people whose jobs have just been lost, so in most cases, we can rely on those. Depending on the specific situation, we may need to expand one of these.

If you're referring to my last statement, that was only what would happen if we eliminated all unskilled work. I'm not sure that's feasible, but if we somehow managed it, our society would be very different. If we can eliminate the need for all unskilled work, we will also have eliminated a lot of skilled work and a lot of necessities would have decreased in cost. A basic income would, at those costs, be significantly easier to pay. Please don't misunderstand this statement; I am not proposing this for our current world. Only under a relatively utopian circumstance which I've already stated I don't think will happen do I think this solution would be needed.

Re: Doing my bit for the little guy(gal)

"If we automate unskilled jobs out of existence, what will unskillable people do?"

That's always been and will always be a problem, but lots of jobs have been automated without causing massive problems and providing benefits to society, including those who had to switch jobs. We should definitely do what we can to ease the process, but it shouldn't stop us from improving our tech. If we truly eliminate all the things that unskilled people can do, we'll have created a drastically different world. In that case, it should be pretty easy to let those people do what they want instead of artificially keeping around jobs for wasting their time.

Re: Changing jobs?

I thought exactly this when I read the article. Their ranking of how automatable a job could be could well be accurate, and at least a few of their rankings I think are correct, but their suggestion system for changing jobs is completely useless. Not only do they not factor in the economics of whether the not-automated jobs want to hire someone, they put very little effort checking what skills are needed for them.

Re: A load of bollocks

It is not 57%. It's a scale with the value 0.57 on it. The numbers can be used to compare how automatable the job is, but not to set odds on when, how, or whether the job will be automated. If this makes it easier, I've rescaled their numbers from 1 (unlikely to be automated) to 36 (likely but not guaranteed to be automated). On this basis, system administrators are estimated at 15.

This doesn't mean their calculations are correct, and we can argue about each one if you want, but at least let's argue about the numbers as they were intended.

Apple must fix its self-service repair program, say critics

Re: We live in a free market economy

"Instead, companies rely on the government, via mechanisms such as patent and copyright, to prohibit people from doing what they want with their private property."

In this case, that's not what's happening. If we eliminated every copyright and patent that Apple owns today, the problem of repair is exactly the same tomorrow. Apple's serial locking code and whatever keys they use to make it work aren't out there, so it doesn't much matter that it would be illegal to copy them. Eliminating protections on IP doesn't help you when they can get what they want by not releasing information. The only ways you could prevent them from doing it are forbidding it outright, increasing the cost to them so they choose not to do it anymore, or forcibly breaking into their systems, finding the internal code, leaking it, and continuing to do that every time they update it.

Ex-Googlers take a stab at building 'general intelligence' that makes software do what you tell it

Re: Pizza

"All of what you wrote indicates a distinct lack of planning."

No, it really doesn't. Take a situation where I am working late at an office on some important project for my employer. The office may not have an available oven, and I'm unlikely to carry a toaster oven with me on the odd chance I choose to use it. The office kitchen won't happen to include all the ingredients for pizza. If I tried to bring all those ingredients with me, some of them would be damaged or spoil. And, if I'm working late at an office, I likely don't have the time to fully make a pizza. Even if I knew all this would happen, there's not a lot I could have done. Most often, when something like this happens, I didn't know I'd have to do that until I was already there, preventing me from planning anything before coming into the office. I could of course run down to a grocer, buy the ingredients, and make a sort of pizza with the office microwave, but it will take longer and produce an inferior result than going to a restaurant and bringing one back.

Your argument works great if you're in your own house or the house of someone who doesn't mind you using their stuff. I'm guessing that, like me, you're in that situation a lot these days. Now that I'm working from home most of the time, I get the chance to cook many of my meals using my own equipment and ingredients, and I enjoy doing so. There are times where you're not at home, and things are different then. On occasion, some of those situations also apply at home. This office example is not the only one where that applies, but as you appear to have an investment in not accepting this, I'm not sure listing others would help.

Re: Pizza

Laziness, really? Have you never been busy and eaten food cooked by someone else? Never used a restaurant?

Also, have you never used an ingredient and run out of it so you had to buy some more and couldn't make anything requiring it until you did? I tend to buy perishable things in quantities I expect will be fully used to avoid wasting it, which means that there are times where I used more than I predicted and have none left until I go to buy more.

And finally, have you ever been somewhere without a kitchen? Sometimes, when I'm not at home, I failed to take a toaster oven with me. I'm always forgetting it along with my laptop power cable.

Re: Pizza

Yes, but if you don't have the ingredients you want, access to a very hot oven, or the desire to do the assembly, there's no harm in having someone else do it. You just don't need to do very much to convey the message of what you want given the small number of options.

Have you seen GPT3 in action

"To us, it sounds like the computers in Star Trek, in which you describe an action to take, and the system figures out how to carry it out. It doesn't sound like too much of a stretch."

It does to me, because I've seen what GPT3, supposedly the better of the two and the ultimate in NLP text generators, prints when it doesn't have an answer to copy-paste. If whoever wrote that sentence doesn't know what I'm talking about, they should read the GPT articles in this very journal, because it's been covered a lot of times. GPT3 prints confusing, useless, and contradictory information all the time, and if we anthropomorphize it too much, it makes up junk whenever it doesn't know the answer. Now we expect something built the same way to understand how to interact with software that's designed for human users and probably has no programmatic interface. The best thing we can hope for is that it will at least figure out which keyboard shortcuts Microsoft has changed in Office, which would make it smarter than me, but actually carrying out instructions without flailing around is expecting too much.

Re: Pizza

I have a better idea: the pizza restaurants can have a web ordering tool that works. When they make it easy to order things quickly, they'll get customers. They don't need to use a massive language processing neural network in order to understand that they should make a pizza that's already on a menu and send it to an address. An address lookup field and optional cache of previously-used addresses and a menu that is easy to navigate costs a lot less. You can also easily modify that to support pick up or order ahead options as supported by the restaurant without having to re-teach the AI that they're available. There does not need to be any guesswork about whether your order worked.

US appeals court ruling could 'eliminate internet privacy'

Re: Very interesting...

"On the other hand i never understood why undisputed evidence can't be used when it was not obtained strictly following all rules."

It is an attempt to deter people from doing more illegal things. Your suggestion to lock up those who illegally obtained evidence is great, but law enforcement never does that to other members of law enforcement. They especially don't do that to someone who just successfully locked up what law enforcement sees as a "real criminal". Disallowing the evidence is a more successful way to prevent illegal collection under those conditions. Instead of having to wait for the police to arrest themselves, a lawyer can make the case and the judge enact a penalty that, while weaker than what would be optimal, actually has a chance of happening.

There is another reason it's done that way. If the precedent is that violations of the law means your evidence gets thrown out, then many similar things also get covered. Coercive confessions, slightly modified evidence, entrapment, and the like can lead to similar cases, whereas if the judges aren't strict about what you can do, someone will do more and more egregious stuff. This isn't to say that the rulings on unlawfully-obtained evidence have eliminated coerced confessions, but they do, along with rulings where those have happened, provide a stronger framework against them.

Almost two-thirds of SMIC's Shanghai employees are living at work

Closed loop, very practical

If you put thousands of people together in one factory, you aren't going to achieve a viable quarantine. I don't think they're going to get that by making people stay at home either, but at least in that case, the virus has only a few people to infect before it runs out of targets. A factory where people are constantly interacting allows spread with some ease and it will need to frequently exchange people and items with the outside, so there's also plenty of ways for the virus to get into that system. The at-home quarantines are at least plausible, though impractical and unethical. The factory ones are just stupid.

Re: WTF???

I believe the delivery drivers they're using, as well as many of the people enforcing the restrictions and administering tests, were brought in from other cities. This makes it easier for the government to monitor those people authorized to move in districts that have the strictest lockdowns and to test those people more often. It does not prevent them from adding to the problem, but as Shanghai is larger than a lot of countries, the problem already is in an untenable state and none of the patches the government is going to use will do much.

60 countries sign declaration to keep future internet open

Re: Banning access

I'm not in the UK, but since it was in your comment, I tunneled to an IP address in the UK through a UK ISP and loaded again. It loaded immediately with no problems. I checked the routings. They worked as expected.

Re: Banning access

This is not the first time you've said that, and like that time (and any others I haven't noticed), you're wrong. It loads from my connection, through my VPN, and through a couple endpoints I've tried. Some of the endpoints I've tried are in other countries. Just like last time, people in countries I didn't tried verified that it works for them too. If you're intent on lying, you can lie better. Or you could stop, because it's annoying.

Crooks steal NFTs worth '$3m' in Bored Ape Yacht Club heist

Re: Bits

It works like this. I'm going to grant you the right to own a URL on my server. You give me a public key and I'll sign a document in a prearranged form indicating that you own it. If you want to sell it later, you can sign a similar document. Nobody without your private key can sign that, so you're the only person who can sell it unless, as in this case, someone steals a copy of your private key and uses it to sign away your receipts. Meanwhile, anyone can load the URL, anyone can download the file at the other end, and I can shut down the server without you. I might also have signed some chunk of data that I can't take down as easily, but even then, everyone who wants a copy of the data you "own" can get that copy for free. That's how an NFT works.

How much for this bitstream? You will be the official owner of such a nice big number. You can sell it again at any time, assuming you can find someone else stupid enough to think it means something.

Re: 3 million?

It is illegal to steal them*, so whether owning them is illegal or not, the people who have them can be targeted by law enforcement, assuming that law enforcement has run out of important things they're planning to do first. I'm with the original poster: stealing art doesn't make much sense to me, but at least the thief can put it on the wall and look at it or sell it to someone who wants to do that and never tell anyone. You can already do that with the images in these NFTs legally and easily, so stealing is only useful for reselling on the open market, which isn't very easy.

* There are two crimes with which the thieves can be charged. By attacking the users directly, they can be charged with computer intrusion. By taking something, which they have clearly done as the original "owners" can no longer transact with it, ordinary theft charges would also stick.

People have always valued useless things and convinced others to do so as well. It's just that this time, the things have a technical-sounding system. Before, people still valued many things that either didn't exist or held little value. People have repeatedly valued stock in companies because they didn't check what the company was doing or whether it did anything, and while they keep switching which kind of companies they're doing it with, it's been happening since stock markets were a thing. It also has been done with lots of ordinary goods during that time and probably happened before there were stock markets. NFTs don't indicate a loss of intelligence. We've been here before and we will see it again after this wave breaks and leaves a lot of people with useless bits.

Re: Said this before, I'll say it again.

I'm not the right person to clear up your confusion, because I not only agree about the complete uselessness of NFTs, but also of most physical collectable things. If you have a baseball card, it's a piece of cardboard with writing on it that I could duplicate with some ease. Somehow the scarcity of cardboard printed by whoever manufactures such things makes them valuable, but I don't get why. At least with art there's a chance that you like how it looks and can't find a reproduction that is as faithful (though that won't last), and the art market doesn't appear to work on the appreciation of the aesthetics for establishing value. I was already confused by people who collected things like that, and when people started collecting things that didn't exist, it did not clear it up.

Your AI can't tell you it's lying if it thinks it's telling the truth. That's a problem

Re: As somebody who is likely also on the so-called spectrum (cerulean! I wanna be cerulean!)

I don't think it's intelligence, as you don't have to know anything to tell someone what you think with no diplomacy. In fact, intelligence probably makes it easier to determine when diplomacy is most needed and how to encode what you need to say in a diplomatic manner. Honesty is closer, but I think there's another element, namely risk tolerance. I feel more comfortable telling a friend that their idea sounds unworkable because I trust they'll listen and not be offended, whereas if it's a stranger, especially a stranger I need something from, it's harder to be honest when there's a reasonable chance they will react badly to hearing it. This probably also relates to experience--I've said things people didn't like to hear when I was younger, felt the consequences, and became more cautious when thinking such things. I still have such thoughts regularly, but now I don't say them very often.

Elon Musk set to buy Twitter in $44b deal, promises stuff

Re: Does anyone recall the downfall of Digg?

"The only thing that seems likely to change is that fewer people will be prevented from participating in online discourse because of so-called wrongthink,"

Others can and have argued the accuracy of that statement. There's only one thing I want to say about it. Nobody says "wrongthink". Really nobody. It can't be so-called if nobody calls it so.

The 1984-ishness of it means that, even if someone thinks it exists and wants to talk about it, they'd never use that term. The people who think others are accusing them of it don't use the word; they've made up other words. It's not even the word used for that in 1984 itself. That is thoughtcrime, later updated to crimethink.

Insteon's vanishing act explained: Smart home biz insolvent, sells off assets

Re: Insteon wasn't always cloudy

"Why would common Wifi/Zigbee/RF devices require gobs of wiring everywhere?"

They won't, but they might also not work. Depending on the area the devices are in, RF communication isn't always a feasible option. This can be the case for many types of environment.

Perhaps the device and the central controller are spaced widely apart if you have a large house. In order for a signal to make it across, you may need to create a mesh network out of the stuff in between. Since that's not going to happen unless you already have the skill to DIY a lot of this, it becomes a problem. Maybe you've got a house that doesn't allow signals to penetrate the walls. Some kinds of buildings really attenuate signals such that even using WiFi through a wall doesn't work consistently.

If you live in a more densely-inhabited area, you may also have interference problems. Every area where people live closely together has a ton of 2.4 GHz networks that are clashing to the extent that 5 GHz or the new band on WiFi 6 that not many people have yet are the only feasible options. IoT gear using WiFi tends to only support 2.4 GHz frequencies using low-powered WiFi chips that already don't have great range. Put them in a place where your neighbor's network is stronger than yours and they're likely to have spotty connection.

There's a reason that a wired connection can often be more reliable. Adding more frequency area can help, but not in all situations.

SpaceX's Starlink service lands first aviation customer

Re: Put that laptop away

Some planes have had WiFi for some time. This just switches which satellites eventually connect the service. This has been approved for quite a while. There's also no problem using phones on planes (to the plane, actually getting the phone to do something you want is harder). The only part of their recommendation that makes any sense is asking people to put laptops away on takeoff, as it's more likely you'll drop it or get into a situation where the table causes a problem. When you're in stable flight, it's fine.

Although it's a comedy series, I must repeat this joke from Cabin Pressure that explains the situation:

Carolyn: Finally, please keep your mobile phone switched off for the duration of the flight. Obviously they have no effect whatsoever on our navigational equipment, or we wouldn't let you have them, but they drive me up the wall. Thank you and enjoy your flight.

Google bans third-party call-recording apps from Play Store

Re: Interesting

An app that sneakily records your calls is one problem, but if any app asks you to enable an accessibility service, a four-step process with security warnings, and you don't know why, you should already be worried about it. An app that has that as its purpose is a tool that people understand and may want to use.

YouTube terminates account for Hong Kong's presumed next head of government

Re: No Real Solution

I don't follow. France is democratic, yes. How does that argue against democracy being accepted elsewhere as well? How does that argue against Europe having a history of dictatorships, including in France, in the long-term? I don't see how this contradicts my argument.

Re: No Real Solution

I don't see why you don't count Germany; they chose Nazism and were, in many cases, willing to fight for it even after seeing what that party was willing to do to Germany and its neighbors. The Nazis didn't have a 100% approval rating, and that dramatically dropped when citizens realized that war isn't fun, but the regime change had to be imposed by force. Japan was the same. Italy might have an argument for doing it themselves as they eventually deposed Mussolini, but even there it's not clear.

I don't usually support regime change. I don't support it here. Many attempts have been unjust and unsuccessful. However, in many cases, the U.S. is given a lot more credit for changing the regime than they deserve and blamed for problems of that country they had nothing to do with. Your list of a dozen attempted regime changes probably includes ones with less involvement. I can only think of a few active military engagements you could argue had that goal. Many did fail, but the problems that happened there aren't always the fault of the Americans' actions.

Re: No Real Solution

I agree that most regime change has been ineffective. However, I must disagree with a lot of what you've said.

"we in the West tend to think of our culture as civilization and imposed it on others where we could but many of those others objected to this. We then reacted by a program of open hostility and subversion with ongoing economic warfare which often broke out as open warfare."

No, that's not what happened. Democracy is not a uniquely western thing. Democracy has been done in various forms in a lot of places, including eastern Asia. I'm not just talking about modern democracies there; I'm talking about areas that have been ruled with the consent of their populations. Of course, if you include most of history, this has been rare compared with the number of military dictators, but this is equally true with Europe. Similarly, the local populations tend not to object to the "imposition" of democracy. The imposition of military control, yes, but not democracy. When the local population has had the power to set their own governments, the dictators have been replaced by democracy. For example, when South Korea's dictator (supported by the U.S.) was removed from office due to public protests and a strong democracy replaced him, the people chose that model and the U.S. continued to support the country. They don't deserve any credit for creating it as they were willing to support a dictator, but neither did they impede it or act to control the resultant democracy, even as it took actions of which the U.S. disapproved.

Re: No Real Solution

"People seem to forget that, in 1945, the Red Army reached Berlin before we did."

You say this as if it means the Soviet military was stronger than the others'. Berlin is in the eastern part of Germany. By the time the Soviet troops had entered or taken Berlin, a lot of similarly important cities in western Germany had been taken by British, American, and aligned forces. I don't know what would have happened had an invasion of the USSR been attempted. I do know it would have been very unpleasant for everybody involved. It was a possibility, however.

Microsoft plans to drop SMB1 binaries from Windows 11

And as one of those security folks, this is the problem with non-security folks. They assume they're safe because this box they're looking at isn't very important. They don't think about all the methods an attacker would use, including getting a beachhead in something unimportant and infrequently managed so they can attack the network from within. Since you're posting here, I think it's more likely that you really know what you mean when you say the box is on a network that never will be available to the internet, but many people also say that and find that someone did connect a cable, long ago, forgot about it, and someone has found it and used it to install malware or extract data.

I've worked with those people before. One colleague I've had was of the opinion that no security mattered because, as long as it could defeat the average five-year-old (basically as long as there was a password on any administrative or root accounts), we would be fine. His frequent explanation of this was that, as hard as we worked, we would never get a system the Russian government (for some reason, it was always them in the example) couldn't break into. This despite having several networks compromised with malware, including ransomware, during his tenure. When malware is involved, it doesn't matter that your system is more secure than someone's. It doesn't matter that it doesn't contain particularly interesting data compared to others. While being interesting can make you a bigger target, there are enough attackers attacking indiscriminately that you will always be targetable. If you set up a server with SSH access, even if the disks are otherwise blank and the machine has never sent out a packet, bots will find it and attempt to gain access within hours. Lots of other protocols are also attacked in that manner.

Apple geniuses in Atlanta beat New York to the punch, file petition to unionize

At will just means the people can be fired more easily, but it doesn't particularly restrict union activities. Firing people because they've conducted a union-related activity is still not allowed, and they can still be sued for it. The union members still have the power to use the value of their experience and rarity to their advantage, so unless there's a large supply of people willing and able to do the work needed in an Apple store in this area, they have the ability to cause Apple pain. If there are a lot of people who want to work there and don't want to join a union, then they could have more trouble with it as their members are replaced, but that's when a union can attempt to convince non-members that they can benefit by joining. If they can't do that, then they're probably not doing enough for the workers and need to change the plan.