Posts by Gene Jones

Is it Iran or Russia's hackers we need to worry about? The Russians, definitely the Russians, says US intelligence

How many governments has the US overthrown since WW2?

An honest question.

Facebook tells academics to stop monitoring its political ads for any rule-breaking.... on privacy grounds

Zuck Abhors Oversight

The last thing Zuck needs is someone blowing the whistle on the way Facebook stifles GOP ads in favor of Dem ads.

Today's tech giants won't be as naive as I was in DoJ dealings, says former Microsoft chief Bill Gates

Naive?

Gates got away scot-free with his monopolistic practices, at least here in the US.

Thought the FBI were the only ones able to unlock encrypted phones? Pretty much every US cop can get the job done

Barr wants backdoor to boot

On top of the already dangerous precedents being set nationwide, AG Barr wants backdoor access put into encryption. Talk about "not if but when" abuse will occur... Protect the children? Uh huh. Ocean front real estate in Kansas for sale.

US-China trade war worse for tech business than COVID-19, says VMware's Asia boss

Not to worry. A Biden win...

...would have Hunter fixing things up, with a nice side profit for himself naturally.

Your web browser running remotely in Cloudflare's cloud. That's it. That's the story

Fixed opening sentence

Network services giant Cloudflare wants to host your web browser in the cloud so it can send you only safe content...and own all your browsing data and history.

They're trying to out-Google Google in the data mining biz.

If you can see this headline, you're certainly not reading it on Twitter: All tweets, notifications vanish

I had so much to say

Now all those who would potentially block me can't do so.

Nokia snuggles up with Google Cloud as it aims to switch off on-prem servers within next two years

Because the cloud can never go down, right?

Microsoft 359 and other outages have proven otherwise.

US Supreme Court Justice flames lower courts for giving 'sweeping immunity' to Facebook, YouTube, etc when it comes to harmful content

Fingers crossed

They all censor content which should put them under the publisher umbrella. All along they've claimed they only provide the platform for publishers.

Traditionally it has been publishers who censor content providers.

Pump up the volume: Online sales help Samsung's phone division weather a brutal year

Just say no

Samsung is banned from my household. No appliances, no iOT and no phones. Trillions in revenue and still only offer 2-3 years support for their phones ... pathetic.

Comcast’s president of tech falls offline while boasting about how great cable is for connectivity

Re: Comcast user here

Believe it or not, local and state politicians are responsible in large part for lack of competition in most areas of the country. They give companies exclusive access rights agreements for X years which is a de facto monopoly. The cities often get a kickback from the companies in exchange for that exclusivity. Then when it comes time to renew, guess who gets money from these same companies for their re-election bids and higher office aspirations?

Infosec researchers pwned Comcast's voice-activated remote control so it could snoop on household chit-chat

Been telling people for years any microphone or camera in their home is ripe for hacking by both government and drive-by snoops, and it's harvest season 365 days a year.

Yes, it's down again: Microsoft's Office 365 takes yet another mid-week tumble, Azure also unwell

You can bet the sales shtick was "100% uptime."

Here's US Homeland Security collaring a suspected arsonist after asking Google for the IP addresses of folks who made a specific search

"Don't worry, says the internet giant, this doesn't happen too often" ...until big government decides to use it for other purposes, that is.

Fixed.

Excel is for amateurs. To properly screw things up, those same amateurs need a copy of Access

The people I worked for 15 years ago banned Access databases. The problems cropped up when creators of the dbs decided to leave for greener pastures.

Five Eyes nations plus Japan, India call for Big Tech to bake backdoors into everything

Re: Hmm

You're right, of course. But that only means Congress will pass backdoor legislation. They do not have the public's safety or privacy in mind - ever. It's all about the power.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. They always throw the protection of grannies, mothers and children arguments when they know their real intentions are nothing of the sort.

The seven deadly sins letting hackers hijack America's govt networks: These unpatched bugs leave systems open

Microsoft is not completely at fault. There is no single entity overseeing the administration of government computers. Thousands of systems, thousands of administrators who protect their turf rather than protect the data. What I mean here is there are thousands of holes because every agency runs their own show. They hire their own administrators, nepotism and cronyism rule the day, rather than the very best administrators available. The VA appointed a CIO a few years back who didn't last more than a few months. He tossed up his hands and resigned because he couldn't fix the fractured nature of the installed systems. Why? Because every regional and local administrator viewed him as a threat to their fiefdom. One example out of thousands, I'm sure.

Hypersonic nukes! Nuclear-powered drone subs! Putin unwraps his new (propaganda) toys

Re: How many countries (or parts of countries) has the US annexed recently?

Zero to do with the original article but... More prolific? Africa was almost wholly colonized by the European powers of Netherlands, Belgium, Britain, France, and Italy, Most of the places annexed by the US, except Hawaii, were colonies --- yes, COLONIES, of European powers. And here's where people love to tout the African slave trade. Please tell me the US somehow invented the slave trade out of Africa. {BUZZER} Wrong.

Hawaii was leaning toward Britain, thus the current state flag design, when a corporate boardroom decided they didn't want their pineapple and sugar plantations under British rule. I'll give you Hawaii was most definitely stolen from the natives who would have chosen to align with Britain.

The Philippines were taken from another European power - Spain. Who did Spain take it from? Indigenous people. And let's not forget the colonization by European powers of much of the South Pacific. France and Britain still hold property there (in a roundabout way). Britain "claimed" Australia and New Zealand.

The entirety of South and Central America was colonized by Spain and Portugal. I'm quite certain the native tongue of the people in both areas was not Spanish and Portuguese. The word "conquistador" mean anything to anyone? Perhaps people recall the Spanish armadas that plagued the Atlantic.

And those parts of the current US people love to claim belong to Mexico... Who did the Spanish steal (annex?) it from? So-called indigenous peoples.

Alaska? Russia sold it to the US. Puerto Rico? They can leave anytime with a simple vote. The Philippines kicked us out after Pinatubo.

The US will never get sainthood for many of their actions throughout the world. But the rest of the world does not get a pass either.

Don't kid yourself, Europe is in no rush to have the US abandon bases there. Not only is it free security (that's debatable) for Europeans, they get to charge rent for the US bases. They're not stupid. If the US leaves, the Europeans will have to spend billions upon billions for their own military security from the perceived threat posed by (???).

Did the US take all of the current 48 contiguous states from indigenous people? Nope. They seceded from the colonial power of Britain, took parts from colonial Spain and purchased a big chunk from colonial France, then set about displacing (read: relocating and killing) most of the indigenous people.

But I digress. The founders of this nation warned us about standing armies. Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex. We didn't heed the warnings.