* Posts by parlei

239 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Aug 2020

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Some signs of AI model collapse begin to reveal themselves

parlei

Re: Whacked Out

Back in the 90's there was a totally insane "plot summary" iof the LotR books, intended to be both (a) entertaining for those in the know and (b) perhaps luring lazy kids into copying it into their book report. Now we have invented an automated systerm that could end up doing that for all books, even all knowledge.

Microsoft rated this bug as low exploitability. Miscreants weaponized it in just 8 days

parlei

Yes. Is anyone here even the slightest surprised?

Back when "all" of them was reading random love letters or running the AnnaKournikova-worm[1] in hopes of god-knows-what anyone who thought there was any limit to the "will someone fall forn this?" should have handed in their BOFH-card.

[1] For a short while i had a screen grab of the vbs-code on the screensaver image rotation...

Trump thinks we can make iPhones in the US just like China. Yeah, right

parlei

Re: Skills

Rounded iCorners[TM]

parlei

Re: I don't see the issue.

I'm waiting for the first Amazon Correctional Facility, convenienty located adjacent next to an Amazon warehouse. They would love being allowed to tase underperforming workers.

One stupid keystroke exposed sysadmin to inappropriate information he could not unsee

parlei

Re: Quite the opposite experience

I work in a hospital: I'm not allowed to use myself as a test query, another real person even less so. There are specially designated test patients, that are guaranteed not to have national ID number that will ever be used for a real person.

And yes, technically I could get fired for checkoing my own records. Even if I in the role of a patient have the right to see those same records.

parlei

Re: Deeply nested folders led to a surprise

No, the depicted assets are still the assets of the person depicted

The software UK techies need to protect themselves now Apple's ADP won’t

parlei

Re: Security Theatre at best

Apart from disagreeing with your notion I wonder how you/they will prove in court that the fact that the 17th letter in this post is or isn't a wovel is a signaificant message. And the fact that the next to last word in the first sentence was misspelled? Steganography done right is hard to prove, in particular for short messages.

Want to play billionaire for a day? This app lets you rent your own armed goon squad

parlei

Re: Why?

Who would win: a Kzin vs a Protector? The risk of the former is that everyone will helpfully try to guide it to the nearby furries convention...

Techie pointed out meetings are pointless, and was punished for it

parlei

Re: Scrum

That is easy: just leave a 10m loop of "spare" in on the cable ladder. Or "for building structural reasons the cable had to go up to floor 4 before going back down to floor 2". Stupid: yes. But all metrics will be gamed by someone. Who will then look sucessfull.

DOGE geek with Treasury payment system access now quits amid racist tweet claims

parlei

Re: nullllptr has been core dumped

The interesting thing is: with a tech infrastructure CEOs jumping on the DOGE train, how will that affecct who wants to purchase their products?

White House asks millions of govt workers if they would be so kind as to fork right off

parlei

Re: The deferred resignation offer does not apply to postal service?

Sweden went that path. Split off services as wholly state owned companies -- which had to show a profit, and did not have the pesky rules governing public services -- and then a few years later sell them off their pal the asset stripper VC.

Google takes action after coder reports 'most sophisticated attack I've ever seen'

parlei

Re: Scammers with American accents

Duolingo had Navajo...

(No, I don't think it goes all the way to fluency)

Sweden seizes cargo ship after another undersea cable hit in suspected sabotage

parlei

Re: You know, bad weather can sink bad ships

The problem is that even a non-tanker ship carries quite a bit of fuel oil, all of which will then necessitate an cleanup to limit the environmenta effects. Is there had been a plan for this kind of events there would have been "cable corridors" where one could limit and monitor shipping, but that ship sailed a log time ago. And the Baltic is a busy shipping region[1]

[1] https://www.marinevesseltraffic.com/cargo-ships/BALTIC%20SEA%20AIS/ship-traffic-tracker#gotomap

BOFH: How to innosplain your way through an audit

parlei

Re: I'm confused!

As part of an, perhaps misguided and overzealous, fire safety initative the elevators was fitted with a Halon release system. Being an uncommon system it has been a bit temperemental...

Musk torches $500B Stargate AI plan, Altman strikes back

parlei

No, that's him indicating how deep into nazi crap he is: way over his head

Even modest makeup can thwart facial recognition

parlei

Re: "However, gait recognition is becoming quite powerful..."

I wonder how changing between stiffer boots, trainers, "barefoot shoes" (fivefingers?) affects this?

Altman to Musk: Don't go full supervillain – that's so un-American

parlei

Re: "I don't think people would tolerate that. I don't think Elon would do it"

Nah, it is just the expected response. You know "Surely you, great, wise and powerfull Lord, would never stoop so low as to act like those vile scum that we both despise, and which act would, in the practially inconcievable event that You would chose such a path, seriously inceonvenience and undermine me, your loyal and ever faitheful servant and worskipper". The only difference is tbat he is not exepect to do a full prostration and kiss Musks feet, and that we try to avoid the more flowery language: the expectation is still there.

Letting chatbots run robots ends as badly as you'd expect

parlei

Re: Sex

Just don't say "harder!" repeatedly or you may end up the victim of a penectomy or penetration trauma (etc), depending on your equipment and what you are having it do.

BOFH: Don't threaten us with a good time – ensure it

parlei

Insurance is like an airbag or seat belt in a car: I can honestly say that I have never had any use of either. But if I get into a situation where they will be usefull (i.e. accident) I will be very happy have them.

UK sleep experts say it's time to kill daylight saving for good

parlei

Re: Leave the clocks alone

It is stockpiled by the EU, to use in an emergency. Or rather it was, until the NPM-fanatics sold the whole stockpile to their mates.

The most common use is to improve high speed trading, bu having an extra second or two to complete the trade.

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

parlei

Re: :)

Plenty of EVs in Norway and northern Sweden. Not yet ideal for long range driving -- infrastructure -- but it is getting there. And for the large number of cars that pretty much never leaves a town: EV is the ideal choice.

Linus Torvalds affirms expulsion of Russian maintainers

parlei

You mean the wars where Finland pretty much had to side with however could help them prevent the USSR from conquesring them?

Internet Archive user info stolen in cyberattack, succumbs to DDoS

parlei

Re: haveibeenpwned

About the same here: mine is now a different, and slightly longer, character sallad than it was yesterday. But for alla the "it is just a website, I'll use the same one" people out there...

Incumbent congressman not turning up to debates? Train an AI on his press releases

parlei

"But can they make an AI that can babble disconnected mumblings like Trump?"

Isn't that the default mode for "AI"?

Microsoft security tools questioned for treating employees as threats

parlei

Re: Limited scope...

Waiting for the version that detects wage theft...

UK tech pioneer Mike Lynch dead at 59

parlei

One possible explanation is that she had a lifting (ballasted) keel and a very tall mast. If they had lifted the keel when at anchor -- not unreasonable -- she would have been very succeptible to capsize. According to the news the nearby yatch had to use their motor to stay correcly aligned to the wind.

And once a yatch is filling with water she would go down very fast: a boat with a ballasted keel is only boyant if the water is on the outside.

Liferafts deploy automatically when sufficiently submerged.

Missing scissors cause 36 flight cancellations in Japan

parlei

Re: Meanwhile in Zürich...

I am certain I could make a had wood insert that would mimic the function of a liner lock. It would look very innocent with the misc pens and pencils in my pen case...

parlei

Re: Meanwhile in Zürich...

Back in the 90's I mentioned to a US friend that no, once could not buy those in Sweden. So she helpfully mailed me a couple... Customs naturally caught them and I had to explain/excuse "certain kinds of americans..." to the nice customs agent on the phone.

parlei

Re: Meanwhile in Zürich...

Heathrow security in the 90's: "As long as it is Swiss Army it is ok". Times have changed.

OTOH, La Guardia in the 80's: they took a Swiss army knife from me (got it back when we landed!), but missed the 6" bowie knife in my carry on luggage (I was young and had only a small carry on duffel bag).

OTTH: do not ask someone with a chemistry degree what they could arrange...

US regulators crack down on AI playing doctor in healthcare

parlei

Re: All insurance is a bet?

Actually I would say it is not a bet, but more of a lottery. Kind of. A lot of people pay the premiums (lottery tickets). Then a maller portion of them recieves paid medical care, exceeding the cost of the premiums they paid (a win). Of course the analogy quickly breaks down, for various reasons. And that society as whole looses out by it not being universally available, regardless of the ability to pay the premiums.

Ransomware can mean life or death at hospitals. DEF CON hackers to the rescue?

parlei

Re: YAWN !

Your home, presumably, is not a medium sized hopsital or critical infrastructure facility.

Lights, camera, AI! Real-time deepfakes coming to DEF CON

parlei

Re: A change of sayings

Good point. More business travel again, or good ways to confim an identity remotely.

Founder of Indian ride-share biz Ola calls for 70-hour work week

parlei

So, does he intend to raise all salaries by 75%? Or is the peons supposed to work the extra 30h for free? Though so.

Thanks for coming to help. No, we can't say why we called – it's classified

parlei

Cybercriminals threaten to leak all 5 million records from stolen database of high-risk individuals

parlei

Re: Are lists of dodgy criminals secret ?

Back when a certain Supreme was in the news for not seeing all expense luxury vacations as a problem a lot of normal government employees described the rules they operated under. As in if they inspected a facility they had to pay for their own coffee. Supposedly some companies kept a separate coffee machine where you could pay for it just for this purpose, even if everyone else got theirs for free.

So I suspect that the risk category is rather "politically appointed government official".

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

parlei

Re: don't want to pay for, the resources to protect themselves

If it was just the vulture capitalists that got hit many would be tempted to cheer the crooks on. But what is at stake is patient data and medical organisations ability to function.

Senator Warren slams Intuit's 'junk fees' as America's Tax Day rolls around again

parlei

Re: A solution?

I cant find the exact proportion here in Sweden, but it might very well be about 90%. Including various home owners. The process this year for me (owns a condo apartment, so not totally simple).

1. Tax office send me a copy of their pre-filled simple form to my secure digital mailbox

2. I look at it: can't think of anything to add or adjust: amending the form is dead simple in most cases. If I was a financially complex person (owning a business, etc) I might need to do the full form instead.

3. A week or so later I can digitally file my taxes, accepting all their calculations: salaries, interest, etc are all reported to them, so they know better than I what the numbers are. This takes about 1-2 minutes, and I naturally get a digital receipt.

4. A few week later I get the money they owe me* directly into my bank account

* I have my employer deduct a bit more then the tables suggest, such that something exceptional would have to happen for me to need to pay extra tax. Keeps my life simple, and I can afford to push a little bit of salary in front of me.

Ex-Microsoft engineer gets seven years after trying to hire hitman for double murder

parlei

Re: Crappy plan

I gather some mystery writers have a horror of the FBI (etc) pulling their internet (search) history and jumping to conclusions.

Labor watchdog wants SpaceX's gag clauses to disintegrate like its exploding rockets

parlei

Re: "Those would be big no-nos under US law"

Why should *any* job be less than a decent living wage?

GPT-4 won't run Doom but will play the game poorly

parlei

Give it the ultimate challenge: getting off Earth before the Vogon constructor fleet wrecks it.

Ethics question: could one make it produce Vogon poetry?

Palantir boss says outfit's software the only reason the 'goose step' has not returned to Europe

parlei

Re: Stone the flamin’ crows!

Simple: they read the first couple of words in the Cliff notes summary of the LotR and figured that was good enough.

I have a short list of grossly inappropriate name choices that I'm keeping an eye out for.

Google Maps leads German tourists to week-long survival saga in Australian swamp

parlei

Re: If only there were some sort of handy backup.

The moon can give you an approximate idea of N-S: I have done so a number of times when driving at night.

Staff say Dell's return to office mandate is a stealth layoff, especially for women

parlei

They just want to see a paddock full of prime cattle, I mean productive workers

parlei

2 am would have been problematic considering I wake up no later than 4 am. Not to say it never happened.

parlei

This could e.g. be small children. My (insane) hybrid schedule was for about one year this:

0400-0430: breakfast., shower

0430-0600: work at home

0600-0700: get two children out of bed and prepped for daycare, deliver said offspring to daycare

0700-0830: commute

0830-1690: work (on prem)

1600-1700: commute, pick up children

1700-1900: feed and "entertain" children

1900-1930 (ha): bedtime

1930-2200: work (remote)

(the other parent did a weekly commute, so I was a "semi-single" parent during this period)

For some inexplicable reason I once woke up just as my car was starting to leave the road during this period.

From my employers standpoint there was no problem, I most certainly did what was needed.

Macy's and Sunglass Hut sued for $10M over face-recog arrest and 'sexual assault'

parlei

Re: Behind bars for a few hours

Intentionally horrible ones. With added slavery for those convicted. For profit.

Users now keep cellphones for 40+ months and it's hurting the secondhand market

parlei

Re: No real surprise

I held out for years with my old Samsung rugged non-smart phone (B100?), mostly due to (a) just working and (b) loooong battery life.

Formal ban on ransomware payments? Asking orgs nicely to not cough up ain't working

parlei

Re: Absolutely should be banned

True. But even the most ardent ransomware haters would think even "tactical" nuclear weapons against ransomware gangs is overkill. I fervently hope.

Brain boffins think they've found the data format we use to store images as memories

parlei

Yes. A lot of science is asking questions like

* "How do we know this?"

* "We think this is (or may be) true, but actually there is no hard evidence backing it up. Could we test our assumptions?"

* "We are pretty certain this is true, but we have no idea of the details: how does this actually work?" and

* "There are several ideas about this with no clear data as to which one is actually true, can we test them to gain a better understanding?"

And hidden in this is everything from new drug targets to better ways to recycle plastics, by way of more efficient hard drives and understanding why Iceland has so many volcanoes.

And fairly basic research gives the background for thew people one day developing the end product (and these days making someone rich, but that is incidental-to-annoying to most scientists). In 10-15 years this may be the origin for a better Alzheimer treatment. Or not: this is one study, and we have no idea if this is even correct, or will lead somewhere "useful".

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