Posts by JustAnotherDistro

Elon Musk’s xAI to pull about half of its smog-belching turbines powering Colossus

Meanwhile

My Xbox is urging me to save energy and help the world. Maybe I'll unplug it over the summer while I take a private jet to one of my vacation homes.

Mozilla flamed by Firefox fans after promises to not sell their data go up in smoke

The language they use is terrible

Mozilla's language here is deliberately obfuscatory; the denials are condescending rationalizations. Ultimately, one is left to suspect that far worse things are afoot than is even likely the case. That said, the light has been going out for a long time now at Mozilla, and the opt-out "privacy preserving" surveillance was the second to last straw for me. This was the last straw.

Inconvenient as it is (in that it does not use a password manager), I have gone on to Mullvad, and am mulling Librewolf, if I can get over installing it with --no-quarantine. I know, I know, that shouldn't bother me--I'd happily draw it from a Linux repo without a second thought--but I'm just balking at it for my Mac.

Intel sinks $19B into the red, kills Falcon Shores GPUs, delays Clearwater Forest Xeons

"Based on industry feedback, we plan to leverage Falcon shores as an internal test chip only, without bringing it to market."

It seems to be an industry requirement never to leverage the word "use."

Anduril picks Ohio for 5 million square foot autonomous weapon factory

I wish these...people...would leave Tolkien alone.

Palantir, Anduril. At least Palantir is symbolically accurate--a scrying technology easily misused by a dark lord. Anduril? Please, give it a rest.

Judges not impressed by Amazon, SpaceX's attempt to have NLRB declared unconstitutional

Re: Oh, our favorite free speech proponent with so many fans and followers is again ...

Why this is confined to "America" in your comment is a mystery. Freud, in The Future of an Illusion, pointed out that the psychological transition of worship from a human to a metaphysical creation is simply and plainly the result of early object relations and the loss of childhood innocence and trust in parental omnipotence (the Fall). It is built into humanity and individual parenting, in other words. These things are obviously not unique to America.

That position you just applied for might be a 'ghost job' that'll never be filled

"According to those two reports, the reasons companies post ghost jobs are, frankly, insidious." not insidious. invidious

Sketchy financials send Supermicro auditors running for the hills

Re: It's how many or who...

It's who. How many doesn't matter. Whom did Martha Stewart piss off? I wonder to this day. Her case was an outstanding spotlight on the triple standard.

Most class warfare is within, not between, the classes, after all.

more likely

It's what happens when you are used to Chinese phonics.

Musk, Bezos need just 90 minutes to match your lifetime carbon footprint, says Oxfam

Re: It's the other eight billion you need to worry about...

Thanks for writing this out. It reinforces the idea of the possibility of real representation--the idea that it is possible to find someone who well represents one's own position, a person who could be voted into government to push policy in the right direction.

Reddit CEO thanks AI for helping the site finally turn a profit

Tower of Babel

What a triumph of diversity it will be to have anyone around the world comment on the Skyrim mods subreddit. Or help with /r/politics, whatever language they speak.

It will certainly be a triumph for the ad firms pushing influence and ads into those channels. No longer will any thread have an audience of 300 million; they will all be universal, global.

It's a staggering thought, actually, globalizing the Skyrim subreddits. I hope they make billions on it, serving people who need to know who Ilas-Tei was.

Alphabet posts big revenue and profit growth, just 1,100 job losses

Re: Cui bono

Thanks. It's responses like yours that keep me going, because they take an actual effort to make.

There are few of us, and we should reinforce each other as much as possible with real words, not with a graphical thumb.

Sadly, these days, most of my comments are resigned, bitter, nasty, and puerile, and don't really even deserve any kind of thumb.

"Do more and move faster"

How is it that the CEOs of the largest companies in the world often use language more suited to eight-year-olds? "Do more and move faster"? Seems he slipped up, "faster" boasts two syllables.

What a bunch of hypocritical, condescending parasites.

Cui bono

Informative and provocative article; thanks, Reg.

After reading it, I'm baffled, kind of.

I'm living in a world without Waymobiles. I use Youtube no more than previously; maybe less. I don't see ads, except when traveling and using my phone, if my VPN is off, and I don't buy ads. I have learned not to trust the Google AI summaries, as the contain a lot of misinformation scraped from web pages that have not been updated, in the fields of medicine and desktop Linux functionality; I use Google search less and less as a result, because it actually now stands in the way of getting reliable responses. If it told me the sources it used, I'd be fine with its answers, as I could check them. That is how Feynman would do it, and that is how I learned to learn, when I got the PhD: go to the sources.

Sadly, then, I am missing out on the benefits that this company is offering the world now, which are quantifiably more beneficial with each passing day. Would those benefits be for the companies whose phone trees are getting longer and longer? Or those with chatbots or AI assistants that never--and I mean, never, 0-%-success rate, handle my customer service problem, without my eventually consulting an actual human being, who does it immediately? If only creeping monopolisation had not locked down every single segment of American commerce, I would be glad of them reducing costs, but as it is, I know that I will never see the cost savings, in the absence of competition.

I just can't celebrate Alphabet's success.

Cast a hex on ChatGPT to trick the AI into writing exploit code

Grey on black

Block is in gray on black with bright red screen elements. Maybe I should have chat-gpt paraphrase it for me in some readable format. Or, oh wait, I can just use reader mode.

JPMorgan Chase sues scammers following viral 'infinite money glitch'

Re: How did they think--or know--this could work?

Internet strangers who say "think about what you have written."

Times don't change: forty years ago, my father used to say how insulting to the intelligence to have someone say, "Think about it!" Like a waiter telling you your choice of wines as "A fine choice, sir." Of course it's a fine choice; I made it. Hat tip to the Holy Grail: "Good idea, oh Lord!" "Course it's a good idea!"

The deliberate arrogance

Was this written by someone who hasn't lived long enough to make a serious mistake? Maybe a six-year-old? Or is it, once again, yet another example of the hyperactive nastiness farm at work right now, based on GoDaddy and NameCheap? And yet, it has worked, achieving my engagement.

Well, off to do something that is not a soul-sucking-black-hole-of-negativity comment section. How it is that HN has not fallen into this widening abyss remains a mystery to me.

How did they think--or know--this could work?

As usual, there is more to this story than we are reading here. Most likely, this was an inside job. Someone at Chase had to know that the ATM system had this oversight; perhaps someone even placed it there intentionally. I hope they trace this back to the real villains using the fraud charges as leverage.

As a long-time Chase customer, I resent their relentless marketing, which is utterly out of place on a user account home page, such that it has actually finally required uBlock. I am irritated by the security theater pop-ups around Zelle and wire transactions (although it could save the newbs' money--maybe), but those were probably a response to the CFPB inquiry in that area.

I have grown to appreciate their online and fraud-detection systems, as well as their indispensable real-time transaction alert notifications, which are the sole advantage of the otherwise morally unacceptable transaction surveillance they do. For me it's a worthwhile trade: they are welcome to surveil me if the data let them auto-flag and prevent unusual transactions that could cost me tens of thousands of dollars. The mere acknowledgment of that just goes to show how hot the water has gotten for this frog, who was so previously uncompromising about surveillance.

GDPR, please. And not just for show--if they actually enforced that regulation, how the world would improve!

Delta officially launches lawyers at $500M CrowdStrike problem

Re: Move fast and break things inevitable leads to the inability to move at all

Regret that I have but one upvote to give

Merde! Macron's bodyguards reveal his location by sharing Strava data

How's that Praetorian Guard working out for you, Mr Emperor?

Bodyguards are a two-edged sword, for sure. Why would anyone trust the United States SS (Secret Service, that is), either, after they purged their phones and logs post January 6th, and never faced a sanction, or even a real investigation? Are you pleased with your Schutzstaffel, Mr Rohm?

I mean, that's kind of harsh, and sounds like a Russian troll, but the kernel of the critique is, I hope, sound: quis custodiet custodes ipsos?

Ford CEO admits he drives a Chinese electric vehicle and doesn't want to give it up

For years I've wanted this

"it has a small internal combustion engine that powers the batteries. One tank of gas gives a range of up to 1,000 to 1,200 kilometers."

It's a re-balanced hybrid. I've wondered for years why they don't do this. I would buy one today.

US lawmakers seek answers on alleged Salt Typhoon breach of telecom giants

Governments

All governments, not just some, secure their power at home, first and foremost. After that they can worry about foreign threats.

Tesla's big reveal: Steering-wheel-free Robotaxi will charge wirelessly

Suitable for driving only on a billiard table

The tires are--well--there aren't any tires. The rims are a few centimeters from the wheel wells. There is not a city in the world where this vehicle could travel more than a block.

Gadget designers get chunky option as USB 20 Gbps controller arrives

Infomercial

See title.

Apple ropes off at least 4 GB of iPhone storage to house AI

4 GB is not much

These days. Why, it's nearly as much as the free iCloud allowance that Apple offers.

Microsoft's Copilot 'Wave 2' is a tsunami of unanswered questions

Re: AI - just say "no"

How true. Choices now are always "Yes, try now!" and "Maybe later" or "Ask me again later"

"No" or "No, with prejudice" are irritatingly absent.

AT&T intends to quit VMware, Broadcom claims in legal broadside

We're losing

So the judge is the nanny to settle a fight between these two spoiled rich boys. Then we'll have to pay the housekeeper to clean their clothes and send them back to camp, where we will pay the chef to make them foie gras, about which they will complain.

Because, after all, we are the "customers" of these two accomplished monopolists and their prison-guard "service" contracts.

Torvalds weighs in on 'nasty' Rust vs C for Linux debate

Call me a fanboy if you will,

but Linus Torvalds has been rather more than a "figurehead" for thirty-three years.

Your mileage will vary, but to me, he really is one of the "unacknowledged legislators of the universe," at least more than any poet is these days.

Meta to cough up $1.4B to end fight over 'unlawful' facial recognition of friends

Meta does not admit wrongdoing.

Will one of the other forty-nine states get Meta to admit wrongdoing?

Oops. Apple relied on bad code while flaming Google Chrome's Topics ad tech

Deck chairs on the Titanic

Arguing about percentage margins offered by "privacy preserving" behavior tracking in a browser...see title.

The privacy ship has sailed, has hit the iceberg, and has sunk. Those of us with PiHoles must ever enhance our roster of blocklists; uBlock also adds a layer of obfuscation; and how much is that all worth, when fingerprinting can be combined with our credit card histories, debit card records, Amazon order history, Venmo surveillance and so on--all of which are for sale to any bidder? The Venmo terms alone are discouraging.

Privacy expert put away for 9 years after 'grotesque' cyberstalking campaign

Re: A Simple Matter

People who don't understand how people can behave this way are sheltered from the realities of mental illness. And yes, Axis II diagnoses--personality disorders--are indeed mental illness. As you quite rightly say, they are highly resistant to treatment. Sociopaths, especially, find blaming others an invincible armor against the assaults of normality.

What is truly terrifying is the prevalence of Conduct Disorder among children, which becomes APD in adulthood. God help us all when we are filling the prisons with prostitutes and pot smokers, because they were built for the antisocials.

Windows 11 24H2 might call time on that old NAS under the stairs

Thank goodness there are people who figure out the workarounds for all this and take the time to answer people like me when we go looking for solutions. Otherwise it would be walled gardens and premature obsolescence all around.

EU tells Meta it can't paywall privacy

Unalienable Rights

The right to shelter from the corporate Eye of Sauron has rightly (and explicitly, now) been added to the list of unalienable rights. Rights that can't be sold for money--like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Facebook's management will not acknowledge that such rights exist, because they know that everything has its price, and it's usually cheaper than you'd think when it comes to self-respect.

Ransomware feared as IT 'issues' force Octapharma Plasma to close 150+ centers

Pretty clever

Growing evidence that after the US authorities declared that healthcare was an especially important and vulnerable sector on which cyberwarfare would not be tolerated, the attackers understood exactly how valuable and vulnerable the sector was, and focused their efforts on it.

I'm curious at what rate Russian, Chinese, and North Korean organizations, business and government entities included, are victimized by ransomware. Does anyone have any idea? What, pray tell, are we in the west to do about this--accept the ongoing losses as the price of open IT borders?

185K people's sensitive data in the pits after ransomware raid on Cherry Health

Not as important to you as it is to us

These many firms--and the tempo is accelerando--are not so much unwilling, as they are unable, to secure this intensely personal, legally highly restricted, information. After watching the latest supply chain attack fail by a hair, the good guys seem very near to losing the contest decisively.

The last people so far able to protect their IT assets, namely the banks, surely are next, no? Maybe then we'll see a bit of action taken on this front.

Was it Coleridge who declared poets "the unacknowledged legislators of the universe"? Turns out it's actually insurance companies.

Change Healthcare’s ransomware attack costs edge toward $1B so far

And so the internet, designed to be a distributed communications system for resilience, has fostered the concentration of services into utility-scale companies that are massive single points of failure, only completely unregulated.

Capital work, there.

World's second-largest eyeglass lens-maker blinded by infosec incident

Every day another incident

From my casual following of the infosec news, I am sensing a disturbance in the force. I don't have statistics, and I don't know who does, but every few days there is a major incident, versus every few weeks.

Maybe I'm just hyperalert because of the liblzma attack, which has made me think of the numerous vulnerabilities that could have already have been injected. There's never just one roach, and whatever started with Jia Tan in 2021 was not a one-off.

"Best practices" like "keep your computer up to date" now seem less reassuring. The old Linux principle of "do one thing and do it well" (and keep it simple) seems more imperative than ever.

US to probe Change Healthcare's data protection standards as lawsuits mount

Transparency will come in pre-trial discovery

There are times when class action lawsuits do God's work, and watching this horking blood-sucking parasite get burnt to ashes is worth seeing the legal teams rake in any amount of money.

Too bad they'll just raise our prices again to cover their next insurance policies. Privatize the gains, capitalize the losses.

Possible China link to Change Healthcare ransomware attack

They had it coming

The ransomware payment is a pittance compared to the civil cases that should arise from this. I hope they bankrupt UHG. Oh, what am I saying--they would just get bailed out, like all the other profiteers who fought tooth and nail against a real national health plan in 2010, and instead saddled us with private-equity-owned Dickensian caricatures. "The Sun Makers" (Dr Who) was never more relevant.

Boeing paper trail goes cold over door plug blowout

"...all passengers and crew were unharmed"

Rather say, "No injuries were immediately reported to passengers and crew."

Everybody involved was definitely harmed, as a jury will likely ascertain, in the fullness of time.

American Express admits card data exposed and blames third party

Or just ask for a new card

Given the vagueness of the released information on whose data was taken, and how much of it, I feel it's best to request a replacement card. Costs them money, which is too bad--salt to the wound, and all that--but safer.

FTC asks normal folks if they'd like AI impersonation scam protection, too

Imagine having to ask whether equal protection should be a feature of the law.

Microsoft prices new Copilots for individuals and small biz vastly higher than M365 alone

$99.99, seriously?

"M365 Personal costs $69.99 a year or $6.99 a month, and M365 costs $99.99 a year or $9.99 a month for six users."

I would pay AI just to tell me what things cost in significant digits without all the nines.

Google to lay Asia-Pacific to South America undersea cable

Unbelievably cheap

$40,000 a mile for intercontinental-capacity undersea fiber optic cable. Comcast quoted me $40,000 for one mile of coax to get internet to my house. Huh.

Digital memories are disappearing and not even AI or Google can help

What an unexpected satisfaction it was to read this article, so beautifully written. Thank you, Mr Pesce and The Register, both.

It captured, for me at least, how the creative minds that have given us an "Information Age" is coming to experience the universal generational griefs of aging and obsolescence. The imagery equating a lifetime of memories to an archive of mostly inaccessible or corrupted digital storage media--right on.

Birmingham set to miss deadline to make Oracle disaster 'safe and compliant'

If I were those councilors, I'd just resign, en masse, and leave the problem to be dealt with by real experts: the kind who could readily be drafted from the commentariat, in a sortition-based system. Unpaid, of course. Yes indeed, city governments used to run like that. It worked for Renaissance Florence for three hundred years.

Europe wants easy default browser selection screens. Mozilla is already sounding the alarm on dirty tricks

Re: Probably an unpopular view here

Can you install uBlock Origin on Safari?

Silicon Valley billionaires secretly buy up land for new California city

Ozymandias

See title.