Posts by doublelayer

This is the military – you can't just delete your history like you're 15

Re: I don't believe it!

It depends what the system was intended to do, but I mostly disagree. My work machine permits me to send out emails and upload files to external services. Yet, if I use those mechanisms to steal data, it's still my fault and I still go to jail for it. Locking things down to the extent that I'd be unable to steal corporate files would likely cause many problems with my actual work, and they trust me with the data and the machine, so it's not unreasonable for them to trust me to follow the policy as well.

If a system is airgapped or subject to similarly secure procedures, then it's done for a reason. The issue wasn't what they were copying onto it (probably), but rather that they did so at all. Failing to protect a sensitive system is a problem, and when that's your job, giving you a new job has to be considered. Had they been doing something similarly risky with a more obviously dangerous machine, I'm guessing you would agree that it was important.

US floats framework for international crypto regulations that cement its power

Re: Another Angle

No, it's really not like stock. Someone controls a company which moves around the value of stock. There is a person or group of people to be regulated, and you can find them, take their company off them, fine them, etc as needed to enforce regulations. Many successful cryptocurrencies don't work like that. They are a lot like commodities: something you can have that might be of value to someone, but maybe not. Whether they're valuable as gold or cheap as sand, they have similar levels of ability to regulate. You can easily regulate those places that buy, sell, or hold gold, but you can't pass a law instructing that gold file papers like you can with a company issuing stock.

Re: OK but...

The early ones did have the decentralized and uncontrollable aspects as goals, but newer ones, including anything a government comes up with, have dropped it. It's likely that governments wishing to maintain control over their monetary system will attempt to regulate or prohibit those cryptocurrencies that don't continue to have them at the helm. I don't know how successful that will end up being, but I'm in the position of disliking every side of it. I don't much like the cryptocurrencies, but I also oppose governments thinking that they should have a monopoly on exchanging value.

It's unclear writing, but here's what it means:

1. People who write regulations for financial things are usually prohibited from investing in the things they're regulating to avoid conflicts of interest.

2. Some securities that people invest in are so common that many will invest in them routinely. These are specifically excluded from the previous requirement, meaning that people working on regulations for them can still invest in them.

3. Cryptocurrencies are not in that list, so point 1 applies to people regulating them.

4. They're allowed to invest up to $50k in them, but only indirectly through a fund they don't control. Owning them directly would disqualify them. Owning more of a fund would also disqualify them.

5. People who don't regulate cryptocurrencies don't have to care about these restrictions unless they're trying to transfer into that role.

Microsoft delays controversial ban on paid-for open source, WebKit in app store

Re: The guy apologises and in marches the drama brigade

I agree with this, especially because I could see similarly strident complaints if the Microsoft store became well-known for people taking someone else's code, compiling it without modification, and charging money for it. People would be all over it saying "Microsoft's charging a commission and profiting from open source software the authors didn't choose to put in the store". Given that, I can see exactly why they acted to prevent it.

Elon Musk considering 'drastic action' as Twitter takeover in 'jeopardy'

Re: Burn

While I don't have a Twitter account and don't follow any of those bots, there are bots that provide a useful service. I've created several of my own to automatically retrieve information and present it in a useful way. I know some using Twitter can do the same.

COO of failed bio-biz Theranos found guilty on all twelve fraud counts

"I can't help but think that the pair of them fell perhaps knowingly into a honey trap baited by the financiers,"

You have it wrong. They were the honey trap for the financiers. There's a reason they didn't get any investors who knew anything about the field. They couldn't get anyone who knew about their product to accept it, from the first professors who told Holmes her idea was infeasible to the FDA investigators who kept saying the product would need to demonstrate efficacy before they'd give licenses. They targeted people who had a lot of money and no knowledge of the field, often those who didn't have much investing background, because they thought it would be easier to lie to them. When people who knew enough about investing started looking at reports, they created false reports and put other companies' names on them to get them out of the way. The financiers have not gotten anything out of this; yes the fraudsters are being punished and there's some chance of taking some money back, but they're still taking a loss from this.

Apple's latest security feature could literally save lives

Re: State Surveillance. The weakness here is in swapping out for a compromised device.

"Given this is attempting to prevent State surveillance. Worth stating that deliveries can be intercepted and addresses flagged for purchases of electronic equipment due to be delivered and examined/opened before delivery."

NSO malware is frequently used by states surveilling people in other states. Saudi Arabia couldn't have intercepted a phone being delivered in the US to compromise it, at least not as cheaply as doing it locally. They may also lack a convenient exploit kit to install on a phone that remains resident, given that the initial setup process only happens normally when there is no user data.

"If you're going to this much trouble, you also need to go to the trouble of obtaining a device through someone else, who isn't being targeted"

Or get lucky. The last laptop I bought for someone was by walking into a shop, paying for it, and carrying it out. You can buy phones like that too. Try intercepting that delivery. Unless they've got a spy in every computer store or opportunistic malware on all of them (and I'm sure they'd like to), you can't guarantee it. They can do a number of things, but they aren't certain and they're expensive and difficult.

"Apple is likely to have a list of devices with this feature enabled,"

Why? They don't need that in a database. As you correctly point out, doing that could cause problems. There's no reason for them to want that list or to put in code to collect it, which could not help them but would certainly anger users.

"Surely better to sit below the radar with an unassuming run-of-the-mill device within the masses, switch off every privacy compromising feature you can, so that it looks like every other regular Apple device. The idea is not to stand out from the crowd."

Again, this is on-device config. It's not a spotlight attracting attention to you. Likely, if you're turning this on, they already know who you are and can find your device without needing this, and the feature just protects you from their attempts to penetrate your defenses.

"This doesn't fit the zero-trust model."

Actually, it entirely does. The zero trust model isn't about trying to hide. It's about having protections on everything. A zero trust configuration is very different from a default config that has several trust-based attack surfaces. I should point out, however, that zero trust configurations don't announce themselves routinely. You only find out whether it is one when you intercept its traffic or attempt an attack.

Re: WebKit, anyone?

I can answer that one for you: they wouldn't install it. Since this is a user-decidable switch, Apple could even add that to the features: turn on the lockdown mode and non-WebKit engines get blocked. This wouldn't be a problem because a user who wanted a different engine could disable it. The issue about engines is with choice. If you don't want any engine other than WebKit, then don't install one and you'll be just fine. You'll probably be in the same group as many others, including me, as I don't have a need for a different one given the tiny amount of browsing I do on the device. Others choosing to do so won't force us to.

Re: Nokia 3310

The article listed the restrictions. That list didn't include turning off all applications. They would still end up being very different products.

UK tribunal: App Store class action seeking up to $1.8b can continue

Re: Stop us if you've heard this before

In most cases where a monopolist has been broken up by legal action, the resultant pieces have remained private. They continue to operate without government control, just without being able to work in concert. The person you replied to did not suggest nationalization, so suggesting that they desire it is putting words into their mouth.

Re: Commission isn't even the biggest issue

The point is that, to get the XCode needed to build for the latest IOS, you need the latest Mac OS which means quite recent Mac hardware. To get the tools needed for the latest Android, you click a link which runs on basically everything, even equipment a decade old. The big GUI stuff might grow in system requirements, but you don't have to run it, so your app can still be built on lots of computers.

Re: How did they come up with that value

"And if 15% is fair, we need the same everywhere. Microsoft store, Epic store, Playstation Store etc."

No, we don't. What we need is choice, and limits only if there isn't choice. If the Microsoft store charged 99.5% (and they don't, it's 12%), that would be fine. Why? Because you don't need to get apps from that store and most commercial ones aren't there at all. If they wanted to charge that much, all commercial apps would leave and they'd have to decrease it to compete. Apple's is different because they've denied other choices. I agree that, if their commission is too high, anyone else with such a monopoly on distribution should have the same action brought and their commissions reduced as well. It would probably be better for everyone, including Apple's profits, if they allowed different installation mechanisms instead.

Re: Commission isn't even the biggest issue

"how are you going to test/maintain the app if you dont keep up to date to a reasonable level?"

By testing on the latest version of IOS, the platform they appear to be compiling for. Running a very new version of Mac OS will do nothing for you if you're testing on old versions of IOS, and staying on an old Mac OS will not harm you if you're testing properly. For developing Mac OS applications, your statement applies better, but they're developing mobile apps.

They have some writers in the U.S., with their U.S. office in San Francisco. One of them can call Apple any time they want. I'm guessing it's been tried and didn't work any better. They probably got a response this time because it's a boiler plate and some PR employee was told to send that to anyone who asks about this case.

People who regularly talk to AI chatbots often start to believe they're sentient, says CEO

"one times in three, the correct answer comes out - do you get that this would be impossible if the model didn't have understanding?"

It wouldn't be impossible. It has the answer, written by someone else who has understanding. It correctly found the right snippet. It's like a person who doesn't know how to write code but finds a Stack Overflow post that actually wrote what they want. They don't understand the code, or they could have written it themselves, but when they paste it in, it works. When the model gets the wrong snippet, it has no clue that it's messed up.

You're ascribing something that is the entire point of the model to understanding, but no understanding is needed to produce that result.

These bots are not understanding the world any more than I would demonstrate understanding of something by rephrasing a Wikipedia article. I could take that text, written by someone who understands it, and use my knowledge of language to move the words around in a way that seems natural. Hopefully, I'd do it without making the facts incorrect, though AIs fail to meet that requirement all the time and somehow you don't appear to think that counts. In any case, any correctness seen in the result was generated by someone else. The chatbots we've seen the workings of don't read text to understand its meaning, but instead read it to copy chunks that are hopefully relevant.

British Army Twitter and YouTube feeds hijacked by crypto-promos

Re: The standard

How they got into those accounts might be a problem. As the article said, either they had a password leaked or the attacker has access to one of their contact methods to perform a reset. Either of those could be concerning for additional actions, although given what this attacker chose to do, probably not that bad.

The App Gap and supply chains: Purism CEO on what's ahead for the Librem 5 USA

Re: A chain is only as strong as its weakest link

So Librem are responsible for fixing the internet now? Yes, there's leakage when you use systems. You don't want the leakage, can't use the systems. ESNI will eventually deal with the URL leakage problem. Nothing short of improving the mobile operators will fix their leakage problems. In neither case will the device at the endpoint be able to make massive networks stop using protocols with privacy risks on its own.

Re: The sales patter is good - just wondering where the holes are.

I think the encrypted phones you're talking about were either things like An0m which were created by law enforcement, or Encrochat which was compromised by them. In both cases, those were mostly comms services, not hardware manufacturers. There is always a chance that someone set up Librem as a front, but if they did, they'd have made better hardware that didn't take five years to get to this buggy state. You can also review the code and designs that go into the device. Nothing can give you perfect guarantees, but those make it unlikely to be compromised.

Because it's running a mobile Linux distribution, it can be compatible with apps being written for others. The standard distro problem exists where an app may be written for a different mobile Linux in an incompatible way, but many will work. There are devices like the PinePhone that can be used by developers to port their app to a cheaper device. That doesn't give you U.S. assembly, so if you care about that you're stuck with the higher bill to buy this one, but if a developer writes for one of those, it can probably be used on this too.

Re: Asterisk @sergio

Well, sort of, but it depends why you value the USA-based assembly. If you think that it helps you with the security of the components, then having important components made elsewhere (the CPU probably being the most obvious) isn't great for that use case. If a Korean-made CPU is satisfactory, maybe they should try making the whole thing there. This all depends on whether you consider a US-assembled device to have advantages, because if you don't, it doesn't matter much.

Re: 3GB a day huh?

If my IOS devices sent 90 GB per month, I'd see that in my WiFi stats. They don't. They track, and it's really important, and it's an issue that needs solving. Had they just stated the fact of tracking, they'd have been fine. When they decided to state a number, they did something wrong, because it led to this discussion about whether they're accurate while leaving it out would have prevented it.

Open source body quits GitHub, urges you to do the same

Re: Somebody is going to have to create some case law on this

"does the DoT own the copyright on the shape of the STOP sign?"

No. For one thing, such things are frequently standardized, so it wouldn't necessarily be them. Many governments, including the American government, can't copyright things, so things they have designed and published are automatically in the public domain.

"Do the people whose faces were used for your iPhone camera's face detection have a copyright on the algorithm?"

I'm guessing the photos used were collected by the algorithm writers to avoid this. Unlike, for example, facial recognition where it needs the details of many peoples' faces, face detection just requires a lot of pictures of faces on different backgrounds. They can be from a small subset of people, so it's easier to get consent.

"Can criminals register a trademark on their face and stop police using it in mugshots?"

No. Getting a trademark or copyright doesn't prevent people from using the work, but from conducting business with it or distributing it respectively. A criminal could copyright a photo, but the police will be taking a new one not copyrighted by them. They could trademark their face, but the use of the image would be allowed because the police weren't using it to sell products or imply endorsement.

In this circumstance, however, the code is copyrighted and not licensed such that Microsoft's use is acceptable. Microsoft could probably argue successfully that they were permitted to read it and use it in derivative works, and thus the creation of their tool is fine. However, the tool is going to output things which potentially fall under licenses with other terms, and Microsoft doesn't appear to have a plan for how they'll deal with those. In short, they would have no legal problem if they created this thing, including reading all the code they did, but never used it. As soon as they want to distribute the result, they have an issue.

Probably more that the developers of this tool were at GitHub, not the main Microsoft organization, so didn't have access. While I entirely understand the SFC's complaint and think that Microsoft/GitHub's excuses are stupid, I'm having trouble caring because the tool they've built seems so useless to me. There's no way that Copilot can understand what I want the code to do, so no matter how much good code they've ingested, they'll not have anything to fill in. At least when an IDE suggests parameters or the like, they have a reason for doing that, but I also turn that off too.

Re: 7 Zip

Microsoft didn't say that, and the complainer in that case didn't list GitHub as the only "acceptable" location. In any case, it's the raving of someone who doesn't understand a lot of things, from open source to security to Russia's war in Ukraine. I wouldn't take that complaint as representative of anything in this debate.

Arrogant, subtle, entitled: 'Toxic' open source GitHub discussions examined

Re: Eh?

"there may have already been a lot of behavior that annoys the first person who simply does not like to be coerced, just because others feel entitled to restrict him from acting anywhere outside of their scope of imagination."

I'll say it again. Not implementing the feature you want is not coercion. It's not restricting the user from getting what they want. It doesn't force the user to use something specific. A user who doesn't like a decision may well be annoyed that the developer won't do it for them, and they're allowed to express that annoyance if they want, but they shouldn't be defended as if the developer's decision is in any way coercing them into never seeing the idea come to fruition. They have lots of options left, even when the developers they're asking aren't going to do it for them.

Re: Great responses tho

There's a balance between "we designed it this way and it's not changing without good reason" and "we designed it this way and it's not changing".

That's very true, but that balance is often more obvious to the developer who read all the requests rather than the kind of user who doesn't understand that "good reason" doesn't automatically include "I want it". I've had to deal with users who figured that demonstrating that they would benefit automatically meant the request was high priority to change right now. For that matter, I've dealt with users who figured just stating the request meant that, not even bothering to work with me on explaining why this was a good thing for them.

Re: Eh?

We have no guarantee that the person saying this was one, and even if they were, it doesn't change the situation. If I sell products, I may be open to user requests, probably more than when it's open source, but it doesn't mean I automatically take any request a customer has. I evaluate each request for the benefits I expect the users to receive, the effort required to develop and maintain it, and many other issues. If I get a suggestion that I decide won't be beneficial or won't be worth doing given the cost, then I'm afraid the customer will be disappointed. If the product is worthless to them without it, they can try either encouraging me more to change my mind or find a product that better suits their needs.

I've refrained from buying many products on the basis that it doesn't do what I wanted. I don't expect the manufacturer to receive my suggestion email for changing their product and hop to the task of making something for my specific use case. They might read it and take my suggestion if enough other people have also suggested it, but usually they will not. If you do, please send me your email because I have about twenty ideas for products I want but don't have enough time to make myself, so I'd be happy to take advantage of very cheap design and engineering work. I'm guessing everyone who values their time isn't much interested in that proposal.

Re: Eh?

We interpret their comment very differently. You took this from it:

"Sounds to me like somebody knows a better way to do something, and yet is being forced into doing it in a way that drastically slows down the entire process."

I doubt it on both points. First, if they know a better way, they could implement the better way. Proving something better often gives clearer results if you have working code to demonstrate the advantages. This sounds to me like they have a preference and they're unhappy that the authors didn't go make it. It could be better, but just because I think it's a good idea doesn't make it the best course of action for all users and doesn't guarantee the developers will do it.

As for being forced to do anything, no, they're not. You are not forced to use a project, to refrain from forking it for your purposes, or to care what the developers think. If they disagree with your idea, they are not forcing you to abandon your idea. You can try selling it more, usually by taking more initiative because they have already said no to the level you had. You can fork their project to take it in your direction, optionally bringing it back if you turn out to be right and they want to merge. You can make your own alternative. You may be able to make a plugin or overlay adding your feature. That they didn't take your suggestion immediately without reservation does not constitute forcing you not to use it. It just means there's a bit more work involved, and it's your idea, so it's not surprising that implementing your idea may take work.

Moscow court fines Pinterest, Airbnb, Twitch, UPS for not storing data locally

Re: Terrorist state

"I am sorry, but I can't see many Russians against the war, in fact it is quite the opposite."

Have you been running surveys? I'll say up front that I hate what the Russian government is doing, and I don't want any country to let up on them until all the people who aided this invasion are testing their defense tactics in war crime trials. However, I know many Russian people who agree with me on that. Most of the ones I know aren't located in Russia anymore, because I'm not from there and don't know many people living there, but I also know some who are still located in Russia because it's not easy to leave for another country if you don't have a lot of money.

Just because there are Russians who don't agree doesn't mean we refrain from actions that harm Russia as a country, but it's still useful to understand that they exist. These are possible allies, so it's helpful to ensure they keep receiving correct information and that, when we can, we target those doing the actions and not those opposing them.

Re: "legalized the import of products without the authorization of the trademark holder"

"is this an open invitation to steal stuff and bring it to Moscow ?"

Yes. They are getting tired of companies no longer selling to them, so they've given up on trying to convince them to change their minds. It won't help much; they already had piracy, and all the problems it had remain.

The Raspberry Pi Pico goes wireless with the $6 W

Re: 2.4 band only :-(

I agree. What's worse, there are still larger devices that ship with 2.4-only WiFi. It's not true in every product type, but a lot of things at the cheaper end leave out that comparatively simple feature. There are a lot of places where the performance on 2.4 is not good at all.

Re: "the 50 per cent premium"

"Nice but more limited in terms of IO, memory and processing power"

With I/O, you're right, or at least the I/O is different with each having some features not supported by the other. You're not about the others; the ESP32 has at least 320k of RAM, and often more depending on which module is used. 520k is common. The Pico only has 264, which may not sound a lot less, but when you're doing things like using TLS encryption and caching web requests, it can be. The processor runs a different ISA, but it can be clocked at 240 MHz, providing more power than the Pico's. You may not need either of these, but characterizing them as more limited is incorrect.

California's attempt to protect kids online could end adults' internet anonymity

Re: anonimity ? Internet ?

My ISP knows who I am, but if you come to my place and use my connection, it won't automatically know that. There are also methods to hide information about the destination, by using VPN providers that don't log, for example. Even if the VPN provider knows who I am through my payment method, they could still refrain from tracking my activities (and if they don't, that's not a VPN I want to use). If you want, there are more extreme ways to hide network activity. Just because some information is available to ISPs doesn't mean it always is or that it's reasonable to have other places collect even more.

Protect everyone and you won't need to verify

There are two types of protections that children are supposedly getting with this system. The first I can't really do much about: to give children a seemingly safer system with dangerous features disabled which doesn't actually happen. However, the second one is protecting children from tracking, and that one I can do something about. If they passed a rigorous privacy protection law instead, they wouldn't have to identify who is and isn't a child. If tracking was illegal no matter how old the user was, then the same goal could be achieved without destroying anonymity. I'm an adult who wouldn't mind a privacy law that prevents tracking and gets enforced, so would someone please think of the adults who want it too?

Re: I can't see this working

"While I think there should be range of trusted identity providers, I expect my own government should be one of them."

Don't give them ideas. Do you think the legislators will understand the requirements to identify without recording details or knowing the service requesting the identity? Let them start down that path, and they'll create a government account that you have to link with every site you use.

FBI warning: Crooks are using deepfake videos in interviews for remote gigs

Re: How to stop it in it's tracks.

I'm guessing they're not trying something that extreme. It just prevents them from having to find someone that looks very much like them to steal their identity. Certain other characteristics are harder to fake, so I'd guess the age, gender, and some other physical characteristics will get matched reasonably closely before a victim is selected.

Running DOS on 64-bit Windows and Linux: Just because you can

I'm having trouble figuring out why that work needs to be destroyed? There are three alternatives I can see for getting around the plagiarism situation:

1. Go on the offensive and accuse the person with evidence.

2. Release it publicly before anyone could plagiarize so the person who did the work gets the credit. This could be a commercial publishing if you can convince a publisher, but it could be as simple as uploading it to a website. If you don't want to maintain a website, there are library/archive sites willing to do the hosting and presentation.

3. Wait to release it until it doesn't matter anymore.

None of those options requires hiding or destroying historical information, and I'm sure there are people who would like to know it and would greatly appreciate the effort he has put in.

Misguided call for a 7-Zip boycott brings attention to FOSS archiving tools

Er, yeah, it is. A CLI option is great for many cases, and whatever you use will provide one, so you're not losing that option. A GUI can be useful, not only for users that don't like the CLI, but also for users who are entirely comfortable but understand that GUIs can offer useful features. For example, if you have an archive that contains, let's say, twenty thousand files, and you want to understand its structure and contents, which option do you want:

1. A CLI command that prints all of the filenames to a console, you pipe it through a sorter, then you have to read it page by page to find what's in the archive.

2. A CLI command that prints one directory, and in order to explore the contents of that directory or to move up, you run the command over and over, each time specifying a full path.

3. A GUI that can print part of a directory structure in a visually-understandable method, permit you to move around in the structure without reissuing commands, and also has all the functions you might want to perform exposed as controls.

I doubt you're using Lynx to read this article, so I'm guessing you also understand that not everything is best done on the command line.

Re: Not my problem

I would if I wanted the functionality. I wouldn't if using it funded murder, but it's open source, so I'm not paying anyone. The current developers of it (there appear to be some occasionally pushing changes) probably aren't murderers, so as long as donations went to them, that would also be acceptable.

"95% of the time, deb or rpm can be used and it will run on virtually all flavours of linux which use the appropriate packagers."

Not always. Dependency management on Linux can often require distro-specific packages for some things, mainly depending on how many shared objects they're going to use. Yes, some people statically link everything to get around this, and small programs probably don't need that many dependencies and will be more portable, but making one .deb is usually not enough. Having said that, Flatpack is often a very poor solution to this problem.

You need to RTFM, but feel free to use your brain too

Re: Check you can complete before you start

The test instructions come in various forms. Some do specify to read all text on the exam before starting, but quite frequently, I've seen the test with that removed. The instruction says to follow all instructions, and the person being examined has to go find it. Every real exam puts some instructions at the beginning and then a bunch of questions. It's not unreasonable for people to assume the normal format, as they would with single instruction lists on the front of a machine.

Re: first: "Reset CPU."

I disagree for two reasons. The first reason is the wording. If the instructions say "first", they mean there is no step before it. He shouldn't go looking for one, and had he performed a shutdown when the instructions didn't call for one (and didn't need one), there's no doubt he'd have been blamed by everyone, including the posters here.

The second reason is that, especially when the procedures are thoroughly documented, it's reasonable to think that the process might have been automated. I'm not sure what "reset the CPU" entailed in this situation, but if it was a command, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that running that command would perform operations like shutting down. The format of the instructions would imply that was likely. If I'm told to run this command to perform a reset, I'm more likely to trust the people who have done this several times and could have made the command perform an orderly shutdown of all services rather than assume that I should perform my own basic shutdown instead, because there's always a chance that the scripted shutdown does more than just telling the OS to halt.

If the policy is that I always follow the procedures to the letter and it's plausible that the procedure I'm reading is exactly what needs to be done, I don't think there is any blame due to him.

Re: Check you can complete before you start

I see you appear to be a person unable to understand that XKCD is intended as humor. If you're going to take advice on how to handle a situation from one of the characters, picking the exclusively evil guy is probably not the best choice. The point of the strip is still valid in this situation.

Re: Check you can complete before you start

However, it structures it with an unclear warning and puts the safety instruction in the wrong place. This is along the lines of having a label on the front of the machine reading as follows:

Follow all safety instructions at all times.

Do not disconnect any panels unless the machine is shut down and disconnected from power.

and another one on the back, hidden by cables, reading as follows:

Before shutting down, open panel 5 and disable switch 2.

Then getting annoyed at the user who performed the normal shutdown procedure without seeing the note in a place where no operating procedures should be written. Other people here have already explained how the instructions are designed in a misleading way. Basically, it's not a great test of this, as instead of checking common sense, it's checking whether they've seen this test before (I have had someone try it on me, so when it was mentioned here, I already knew the twist).

Tropical island paradise ponders tax-free 'Digital Nomad Visa'

How many could work there

I can't imagine that many companies being happy to hire someone who lives there when they ordinarily would be hiring them locally. In addition to the time zone issue, there's the international tax and labor laws issues as well. If they were willing to deal with all of that, they could and probably would have outsourced the job a while ago, rather than employing someone at local rates who will live where their outsourced one would. I've seen a lot of remote working positions, but they nearly all say that the employee can live wherever they want in the country of employment at most, not that the employee can go to any country.

We're now truly in the era of ransomware as pure extortion without the encryption

Yes, as in transferring data from an environment that does not want data transferred except through known channels. If people called it stealing, someone would be in there to say that the organization still has it and the attacker only has a copy, thus it's not theft. So what word do you want for "transfer out, circumventing protections intended to prevent that"? It doesn't have to be exfiltrate, but it's a concept people want to talk about, so a word is going to be chosen.

US senators seek input on their cryptocurrency law via GitHub – and get some

"Well, there is one point that makes it ressemble a Ponzi scheme : those who get in first are the most likely to make big wins when the hoi-polloi come rushing in."

That is, however, true of lots of legal things, including every bubble in history and many successful investments. "Ponzi scheme" is a very specific kind of thing, and a lot of people who don't like cryptocurrency haven't bothered to figure out what it is. Just as a lot of enthusiasts of cryptocurrency also haven't bothered to figure out how their thing works, leading them to similar levels of foolishness. Definitions matter, and cryptocurrencies, even the mindnumbingly stupid ones, tend not to be Ponzi schemes. What makes this worse is that there are a small number of things that claim to be cryptocurrencies and are actually Ponzi schemes, and constant misuse of the term can confuse people into thinking that someone is merely a detractor rather than making an important and provable claim.