Posts by R.O.

TSMC founder says 'globalization is almost dead' as Asian foundry giant expands in US

Humpty Dumpty sat on the Wall...

Too many businesses put their manufacturing eggs in the China basket, blinded by exceedingly low but unnatural labor costs. Now, their eggs are getting scrambled by unstable politics.

TSA to expand facial recognition across America

Your FACE is the Universal Identifier, ...eventually

Big Brothers everywhere want to use facial ID as the universal world wide identification media. No ID card necessary, no language barrier, no touching. You can't lose your face, and can't change it (normally), etc. Luckily, or regrettably, the technology doesn't fulfill the fondest hopes, happy ending dreams dreams and deepest wishes of despots and thuggish autocracies everywhere just yet. Indeed, face ID can be beat in a matter of seconds by those in the know. Various disguises, like a pair of glasses, work well sometimes.

Looks like TSA will be using ID mainly to build up the data base and a test bed for USA police, government agents and big brother. Just because they can. And, they will. They might even thwart a terrorist attack some day. Despite their current record.

It's for you own good you know.

Elon Musk to abused Twitter users: Your tormentors are coming back

Will this be Elon's Waterloo?

Musk is brilliant and super rich. Normally, it would be unwise to bet against him. But, nobody is perfect. His confused and contradictory leadership might not be the right mojo for Twitter. Not that I care.

Dropbox admits 130 of its private GitHub repos were copied after phishing attack

The Biggest Cookie Jar Ever!

The "Cloud" is neither secure nor private no matter what "they" say. It's more like a great big cookie jar in the sky with everybody and his brother dipping in a hand for free data cookies. Meanwhile, stupid corps and gov agencies fill the jar with our deepest secrets and personal data making them extra special tasty. If you want secure and private storage run your own server and have a guy who really knows security keep it going.

California to phase out internal combustion vehicles by 2035

When you assume ...

Infrastructure will sprout like mushrooms overnight, batteries will not catch afire and last a long time, there will be enough lithium, costs will be contained, required technology will jump the shark....

EVs are an entirely new technology that is a niche market for early adapters. I suppose it will go mainstream some day, but there are a lot of very expensive hurdles to jump before then. Can we afford it?

Amazon has repackaged surveillance capitalism as reality TV

Finders Keeper, Losers Weepers

Again, it comes down to who owns the data: personal, private or not.

Regardless of the law the practical operational worldwide principle is, once the data, no matter what it is, or what the corporation/government says, gets into their servers they may and do treat it as their own property. They may say they are concerned about privacy and security, but that just bullshit. They got it, they own it, too bad for you.

Occasionally, a standard cliche is appropriate. This is one of those times: There oughta' be a law against it!

It being virtually every government and corporation in the world with a computer collecting, keeping and doing with whatever they please with our data.

It's not right and never will be.

Is Microsoft going back to the future on release cadences?

Former long, long, time BIG Windows fan says...

YAY!

The MacBook Air M2 will be here in a few days.

Windows has become squirrelly as hell in the few years besides morphing into an intense and dedicated mass surveillance app (THOUSANDS of connections, every day).

I am sure MacOs has it's problems, but I tend to trust Apple somewhat more than MS anymore and besides, I kind of like the whole "Apple Family" thing. I mean, who doesn't have at least one iPhone anymore?

Google location tracking to forget you were ever at that medical clinic

Thousands I tell you!

Check out USA police using general "reverse location search warrants" which demand and get google location data on thousands of people in one fell swoop. It's one of the issues America fought the revolution about, general search warrants, issued by the king. Now the king is your local beat cop using a fill in the blank computer generated warrant rubber stamped by an anonymous judge. The difference is, no one (with any influence) cares anymore. It's for your own good comrade.

Behold this drone-dropping rifle with two-mile range

The arms race is on...

Seems drones and missile/rockets are the future of war. But, as this article suggests, so the future will also include drone/missile counter measures. This one is kind of innovative. Sounds like it will work.

Windows 11 22H2 is almost here. Is it ready for the enterprise?

Re: I'm committed either way

Committed?

Me, not so much. I have literally been with Windows since 3.1, but no more. As soon as allowed I am off to a MacBook Air.

The final straw was I couldn't use my microphone or camera unless I signed in with a Windows 11 MS account. F*** That! It's simply too much. (I did find a work around, later.)

Why have menus become multi tiered train wrecks?

But, there have been many more straws over the years. Why is simply looking at the firewall log a multi-step process every time you want to see it? What about these updates that break things instead of fix things?

Why did MS decide it was for my own good to erase my HTACCESS file every time I updated? (Apparently that doesn't happen anymore btw. ) On and on and on.

Meanwhile, MS marches ever onward towards a rentier capitalist predator economic model with subscription fees.

Anyway, I am done.

Maybe macOS is as dreadful as Windows, but at least I will have a fresh start and will the benefit of blissful ignorance for a year or two.

Oracle plans US database for electronic health records

Re: Three words

Fuck. Off. Yup.

The whole purpose as always is to make mass surveillance and marketing of our personal, private medical records easier and more profitable. Look up Google's "Project Nightingale" for guidance.

IBM's self-sailing Mayflower suffers another fault in Atlantic crossing bid

"I think it's the battery"

"Now, there's something wrong with the generator's starter battery charging circuit."

Doesn't it eventually, always, come down to...the battery is dead?

It's time to kick China off social media, says tech governance expert

Yes, BAN China Social Media attacks

China's interference in world affairs using the internet and as noted here within social media is notorious and rampant.

Yes! Cut them off. It's the only smart and practical thing to do. This is no time to go wishy washy high road philosophical. China chooses to wage cyber war on the world So be it. 99.9% of internet users do not NEED internet contact with China for their every day computing. Even if there are some communications needed for legitimate retail sales, those could be extremely restricted and prescribed.

Appeasing Cyber Tyrants never works. China has chosen to be a Cyber Tyrant, by official policy.

Windows 11 usage stats within touching distance of... XP

'Vee Haf Vways to make you oopdate'

Windows is the default OS for most businesses and extremely lucrative on for MS. They will all get in line soon enough, on bended knee money in hand. OTOH, personal users are too much trouble, why bother with them?

For those with zero trust in zero-trust networks, this industry alliance may help

ZERO TRUST is a two way street

I have no trust in these multinational corporations shoving ever more hoops in to jump simply to read a story or see my checking account balance. And why are they allowed the power to badger me night and day with their idiotic important messages like, "online bill pay now available"? And, don't get me going about ads and..."telemetry".

The zero-password future can't come soon enough

Passwords are only part of the problem

Why do I need 2FA, a biometric ID or a machine generated random password to read an article on the internet?

So many sites want you to have an account, not for security reasons, but to target and track you for ads and data mining.

Any reform of the password paradigm needs and must have parallel reform of corporate and government hyper-manic tracking and surveillance of us targets.

Internet connection now required for Windows 11 Pro Insider setup

W10 will be phased out just like all the rest. Made un-usable and un-safe.

"They said..."

They said telemetry and surveillance in developer versions for W8 and W10 were temporary. They were flat wrong.

MS gets multi-billions of dollars in revenue from corporate and government accounts all over the world. They don't need personal home users for revenue at all, except as ad data collection targets and to satisfy fee based government surveillance mandates.

Sure, MS will lose a handful of users to Apple, Linux and what not, but....the barrel or corporate and agency users will stay full to the top.

CIA illegally harvested US citizens' data, senators assert

Re: The sewer

I don't know the exact quote but it goes something like, "The weapons of war are always used on the people eventually".

Some may remember the US Govt policy of data gathering in Afghanistan and other places was to "collect it all". Certainly that's what's going on in the USA, and many other places right now, the govt. and in particular the military is collecting it all for whatever use it pleases.

One of the major causes on the American Revolution was General Warrants issued by the King to search for whatever the British soldiers felt like to enforce tax and other laws. We now have the same thing going with computer data. They are collecting it to use as evidence, if they feel like it.

The problem, sort of, it's being done in secret so it's hard to use it in court. So, the next step is to admit it, codify it and then gain the ability to use it for police and proprietorial action.

This is really awful but the vast majority of people don't see it and don't care. They will when it's too late.

You're fabbing it wrong: Chip shortages due to lack of investment in the right factories, says IDC

Re: Trade war/supplies disruption/covid?

China has waged a trade war for decades and is winning quite nicely because fearful little kittens won't fight back.

Re: Oppuortunity knocks

USA is #2, Australia #4, all legally and right there in your face.

Re: Oppuortunity knocks

China is #1 in rare earths, much of it illegally. However, USA is #2 and Australia is #4. South America and other places have large quantities waiting to be mined.

Oppuortunity knocks

This is an extremely good opportunity for the USA, Europe, Canada, even Japan to start building high tech node manufacturing plants.

There will plenty of buyers waiting in line now due to shortages and then later plenty more with electric vehicles coming on board. Screw the cheap labor BS. First off so much of it can be done with robots now. And, high paid employees in a country with highly trained and educated employees and a favorable business and political climate are big pluses.

If I was smart and had a few hundred million bucks laying around I'd build a chip factory right now. And, I bet I would be able to sell every chip that comes off the line for a good profit.

Silk could tie up all-but-unbreakable encryption, say South Korean boffins

Smooth as silk

Rather than a patch of silk, seems to me one strand about 2-4mm long would do.Put that in an hardened plastic or metal case with a viewing port for the light. Or, find some other material that is more durable but has similar qualities. How about a very small diamond or crystal? I do wonder how this is different in the end than an old fashioned skeleton key.

Farm machinery giant John Deere plows into two right-to-repair lawsuits

Deere in the headlights? Good!

They have a well earned reputation for outrageously prized parts and service. I think a couple law suits won't change that at all. Likely they will raise prices to pay the lawyers.

Popular password manager LastPass to be spun out from LogMeIn

Cloud secure and private?

I use a piece of paper taped to the bottom of my keyboard for the most important passwords. They are are doing just fine. Free. No one has access except me.

Huawei reports severe revenue drop as US sanctions bite consumer business

Hoo-ray! Hoo-ray!

Good news for a change.

Please sir, I want some more!

Apple is about to start scanning iPhone users' devices for banned content, professor warns

Today and tomorrow and later

When they say it's about the pedophiles you know right away they are lying and it's really about expanding police state mass surveillance. I guess we should have known Apple's apparent commitment to privacy was just another PR and marketing scam.

Today it's about pedophiles, tomorrow parking and traffic law enforcement then how much you love big brother.

It's a continuum.

Three things that have vanished: $3.6bn in Bitcoin, a crypto investment biz, and the two brothers who ran it

Ha ! Ha! Now there's something to brighten the day.

Stupid, greedy rich people swindled out of $BEEL-YONS$!

Sweet.

School teacher accused of pocketing $1m+ in insider trading using tips from Silicon Valley pal

Minnows netted...

...while the big ones always get away.

Something went wrong but we won't tell you what it is. Now, would you like to take out a premium subscription?

Awesome post

We've all been there. About half way through the article I began reflexively cursing. Mostly to myself.

How do we combat mass global misinformation? How about making the internet a little harder to use

Australia should pull the Plug on Google...

El Reg got it wrong...Australia should pull the plug.

Google is too big, too powerful, too eccentric, too evil to be allowed to run roughshod over any country. Google and others have set themselves up as autocratic governing entities over the entire world. They compete with representative governments for power and money.

Frankly, they are not smart enough, competent enough, moral enough to do that.

Google does not deserve the power to dictate to the entire world. Or my laptop. Or yours.

The Huawei Mate 40 Pro would be the best Android flagship on the market – were it not for the US-China trade war

£1,000+ listening device?

The CPC cannot separate business and politics so you get a beautiful piece of machinery that's basically tuned as a spy machine for the Chinese government.

A nice camera and screen doesn't make up for that. True enough other government and corporations certainly dabble in devices as spyware, but the CPC wants it all, just like we were all residents of China. That's not acceptable, or right.

Alibaba wants to get you off the PC upgrade treadmill and into its cloud

No thanks

The Cloud is creepy enough without letting China have a peek at everything.

Amazon spies on staff, fires them by text for not hitting secretive targets, workers 'feel forced to work through pain, injuries' – report

Can U spell U N I O N ?

This sounds like the old days at auto plants and industrial factories where employees were constantly tracked, even on bathroom breaks, fired at whim and endured summary layoffs for months on end. Then: THE UNION. Even then many organizers were beaten by company goons, even killed.

Amazon is way overdue. Time to lighten Bezos wallet and give back to the employees that made him SO rich.

Worker dudes: Shake off the brainwashing by the radical capitalists: There is true strength in numbers. You need:

THE UNION.