Posts by NapTime ForTruth

Elon Musk merges xAI into SpaceX to spread universal consciousness via a sentient sun

... Any chance we can pull that implied inevitability forward into, say, the current quarter? Purely for convenience in balancing the books, of course. The good of humanity as a whole is merely a coincidentally positive side effect.

AI security startup CEO posts a job. Deepfake candidate applies, inner turmoil ensues.

Re: Test

Came here to quote this, pleased to see you got there first. Your next pint's on me.

My takeaway here was that the interviewer was more concerned about rushing to fill an open position while being kind and generous to the ostensible candidate than they were about extracting meaningful information from that while not getting scammed.

"He has researched deepfakes for years, and even used them in his presentations - so he's not an easy target for this type of scam."

He wasn't even *trying* to be thoughtful about the interview or the candidate, and performed no kind of risk profiling *at all*. He was, *by definition*, "an easy target for this type of scam".

How is the interviewer qualified to even participate in interviews, much less be the leader of anything?

"I did not think it was going to happen to me, but here we are." Yes, because you literally - and by your own admission - weren't thinking. At all. And it didn't "happen to you", you all but begged to make it happen.

Look, the bottom line is that interviewing candidates is - and must be - an adversarial process, *especially for security*. The conversation should be courtroom tough, the questions should be genuinely and uncomfortably challenging, and - by all the gods and other imaginary things - the goal should be to find out who the candidate is, what they have done that matches your needs, and whether they are competent, honest, and also not an enemy attacker. Especially not a synthetic simulacrum of an enemy attacker.

Paranoid WhatsApp users rejoice: Encrypted app gets one-click privacy toggle

"Paranoid WhatsApp users rejoice: Encrypted app gets one-click privacy toggle"

I'm pretty sure "privacy" was meant to be in quotes, possibly with laughing emoji.

Meta retreats from metaverse after virtual reality check

We can misread it for you wholesale...

...which I suddenly realize is the basis for current AI.

Stop dragging feet on AI nudification ban, UK government told

Re: Knickers in a twist?

Much like:

Automatic weapons are just a tool.

It doesn't do anything you couldn't do before, just makes it a whole lot easier. (I believe the current version of the US in particular has form here, as do as several South American nations).

Similarly:

Nuclear weapons are just a tool.

It doesn't do anything you couldn't do before, just makes it a whole lot easier.

The "making it easier" part is really the main part. The difference between local individual action and action at worldwide scale is the difference between argument and total war.

Headset hype meets harsh reality as Apple and Meta VR shipments fizzle in 2025

Re: The Next Big Thing

How dare you, sir! How very dare you insult the good name of goldfish!

I will have you know that I have seen those fools and ruffians of the TikTok mindset and attention span, and they, sir, - en masse and in toto - could not compete for attention span with even a single goldfish of no particularly exceptional mind.

And on that note, sir, I shall collect my coat and hat and take my leave of you. Harrumph!

Diversion to power datacenters earns Boom Supersonic a ticket to revive fast air transport

Am I the only one disappointed that the title "CEO" has become largely indistinguishable from "memelord"?

Notā bene:

May also apply to leaders of entire countries, for some values of "leaders" and "countries".

Block all AI browsers for the foreseeable future: Gartner

Re: Well I'm shocked...

Open question as to whether they used AI to arrive at this conclusion.

Hegseth needs to go to secure messaging school, report says

There was a time, not so long ago, when leaking government secrets, whether intentionally or unintentionally, resulted in a prison sentence or similar punishment - not merely to make clear the illegality of the act and the risks and consequences stemming therefrom, but also to deter others from committing such acts.¹

That the U.S. no longer sees the need to hold its government leaders and employees liable for their breaches, errors, or crimes is remarkable in the worst sense and further underscores the continuing collapse of that once great nation.

We live in interesting times.

-----

1. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R41404#

(Icon representative of the current establishment, perhaps.)

Cloudflare coughs, half the internet catches a cold

...and so begins the era of vibe networking.

Microsoft is building datacenter superclusters that span continents

All of this energy and destruction and investment for what? Slightly improved synthesized cat pictures, high-availability lies at hyper scale, and studies regarding how many artificially unintelligent angels can dance on the head of a pin - for some notional values of angels, dances, and pins.

Such a waste.

Thoreau was right, we have become the tools of our tools.

Who's watching the watchers? This Mozilla fellow, and her Surveillance Watch map

Re: In the 90ies I still had hope the internet might be a blessing for the development of humanity

You ask "Why don't other nations take a look at our history and learn to better behave but instead try to repeat our mistakes again and again?"

Too many leaders of other nations do look at your history and the history of others...and belive that those histories offer useful opportunities for power. This isn't a nation problem, this is a malicious human problem.

My question is: why don't we humans choose better leaders, and choose to be better people?

(Also, I have an original "Strange Days" DVD. I watch it occasionally, but more frequently of late.)

To quote the ancient texts:

The only way to win is not to play.

You'll never guess what the most common passwords are. Oh, wait, yes you will

Easy, tiger! Let's not go turning work into work.

Re: leave their door key "hidden"

By some standards those two are the same thing, effectively using the username as both the username and the password.

For convenience, obviously.

Re: Not bothered

And if they do guess it, you'll know they're from some terribly backward country.

Smile! Uncle Sam wants to scan your face on the way in – and out

Re: Face for Radio

It's also a way to keep the population afraid. Frightened people make poor and self-serving (or advantageous, depending on your authority, position, and access) decisions, mostly focusing on appearing docile and cooperative. That becomes a habit. Docile, cooperative people are easily controlled and manipulated by authority.

They vote for strongmen. They serve the state. They vote away their own power. They turn in their neighbors. They turn in their spouses. They turn in their children.

"...then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me..."

This security hole can crash billions of Chromium browsers, and Google hasn't patched it yet

Saving this so I can get back to it never...

Why are people using the presentation layer (browser) to store infinite numbers of active web pages/sites/data? That's like filling your home with infinite newspapers just in case you ever get back to those articles you started to read thirteen years ago.

Howard Hughes was a warning, not a goal.

Everybody's warning about critical Windows Server WSUS bug exploits ... but Microsoft's mum

Critical 9.8-rated vulnerability in a Microsoft product or service, you say? Microsoft silent on the topic, you say? How very...rare. And unusual, too. Most shocking, to be sure.

It's almost like they don't care, or maybe they don't understand what's happening.

Maybe they'll consult with a technology company for more information, or check in with their completely reliable and totally trustworthy AI to solve this dilemma. Or is it a conundrum? Maybe the AI will cover that, too.

Regardless, best of luck to them in their future endeavors.

How do you solve a problem like Discovery?

Re: box / quantum teleportation...

You are Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger, and I claim my five pound!

The TARDIS is bigger on the inside. We need only to turn it inside out, place the shuttle in the resulting external multidimensional involute space, and turn the TARDIS right side out again.

Reverse the process at destination and Bob's your father's brother.

Job done.

Re: Ducks do not require sealing.

Seals are naturally self-ducking.

The Trump administration is naturally self...(rhymes with "ducking")

Locked out of your Gmail account? Google says phone a friend

Google:

"This time our recovery method is bulletproof!"

Also Google:

"Make sure you - not we - totally trust the person you ask to help recover your account, but it's fine because no one you trust will ever turn against you or die or not respond within <whimsically arbitrary timeframe>."

Should be fine, a veritable tour de force of technological protection and problem solving.

Space Shuttle war of words takes off as senator blasts 'woke Smithsonian'

Re: a lot to move 78 tonnes

Maybe Elon can help with the dredging component by crashing a series of reliably exploding rockets along the intended route?

Seems logical, for some values of "logic", plus it makes exploding rocket crashes look useful. It's a non-woke win-win, or something!

"Just so you're aware, a space shuttle isn't 78 tonnes of crushed gravel."

...yet.

At the rate the salivating mob are accelerating, they'll move any available Shuttle by any means necessary, even if that includes grinding it down into 78 tonnes of gravel equivalent.

That'll show the "woke Smithsonian"!

Re: Take an angle grinder to it...

...or maybe just a bit more to the south? Say, into the Gulf of Mexico, er, ...Gulf of America, er, ...Gulf of Trumpistan.

Preferably whilst fully equipped with staff and "leadership".

Bank of England smells hint of dotcom bubble 2.0 in AI froth

Re: Ya think?

The banks knew, as did a number of savvy investors. The game is to get in early, pump the hype, ride the rise, and cash out before the bubble bursts.

It was never about the technology, it was a grift. It was always about selling volumetric tulip futures to rubes.

Pentagon decrees warfighters don't need 'frequent' cybersecurity training

Re: Department of War

#NotJustChina Comrade!

Weird...

It's almost like they're standing down the guards, leaving the gates unlocked, and inviting potential attackers in, like a... I don't know...maybe a "coup", I think they call it, but externally driven.

(But not a Coupe DeVille, that's obviously a Cadillac from hell, presumably driven by a BO also therefrom.)

Eh, at least they won't have to go to all the trouble of dragging a completely safe and definitely not dangerous giant wooden horse statue through the gates themselves. That's a check in the wins column...right, comrades?

Ex-US cyber boss slams politics getting in the way of preparedness

"The bodies responsible for securing America from cyberattacks are currently too fragmented to be successful..."

I cannot believe that this is unknown and unintentional in the current U.S. regime.

OpenAI ropes in Korean giants Samsung and SK Hynix to feed its AI megaproject

Tulip Futures

We all know AI in it's current form is tulip mania, part deux, right? How many AI tulip futures do we need? And how many can dance on the head of a pin?

Nevermind. Cry havoc and let slip the exploitive profiteers.

Engineer turned a vape into a web server

Re: Surely the bigger question...

"... probably the cheapest way to do it..."

I mean... I'm pretty sure a paper sleeve filled with tobacco or other toxin of choice is the cheapest way to do it, but, yeah, sure, why not sellotape the entire Internet on top.

Use it or lose it: AI may cause you to forget some skills

Misunderstanding the intent...

Nobody wants "coders" (or programmers or mathematicians, etc.), they want the output that those roles - formerly filled by people - deliver.

Once AI works sufficiently well, people in many - if not most - roles become redundant. See prior art regarding: boat builders, brick casters, telegraph operators, etc.

On one hand, it was ever thus. On the other hand, it still really sucks to be discarded.

The key here is that the very technologies we all built or contributed to are also the systems that make us redundant.

Reg hack attends job interview hosted by AI avatar, struggles to exit uncanny valley

Re: If an employer asks you do to this ...

Probably 10...

9...

8...

7...

etc.

Follow-on question: how long until it hires someone canny enough to convince the AI to make them CEO?

AI robs jobs from recent college grads, but isn't hurting wages, Stanford study says

Not to worry, friends!

Surely after a period of adjustment new categories of jobs will be created in the AI-powered hiring vacuum!

Saboteur, for instance, or guillotine operator. Strong-man Dictator is currently very popular but availability is quite limited. Ratcatcher certainly brings some historical clout, and has the bonus of producing sustenance (for some limited values of "sustenance"). The role of "Tank Man" might make a popular, if brief, comeback in the public square, but probably not in Tiananmen Square - that one's been done to death. The field for Rich Man is pretty much saturated, but Poor Man, Beggar Man, and Thief are primed to see a renewed rise in popularity.

Arbitrary positivity is the key! Not to meaningful future work, of course, but definitely to positivity itself - and when you've said that, you've said words!

For more information, see historical references "Soylent Green", "Logan's Run", "1984", et al.

(Icon symbolic of another future work option: "history resetter". Note: expensive to start, poor return on investment, generally reserved for nation-states.)

AI skeptics zone out when chatbots get preachy

Dammit...

...deus ex machina was supposed to be a theatrical stunt, not a literal action.

NASA changes the rules of the game for commercial space stations

We used to do incredible things, pursue difficult goals, set great examples, achieve what was thought impossible. Now we seek to do as little as possible while enriching the already rich.

We've gone from pursuing exploration to investing in exploitation.

How the mighty have fallen.

Brit watchdog says public service TV must 'urgently' join Team YouTube

Re: the BBC – affectionately known by Brits as "Auntie"

I was hoping you were referring to the band, but I guess that's actually T. Rex. Regardless, thanks for the memory cue!

(Icon for dinosaur fuel.)

Let's Encrypt rolls out free security certs for IP addresses

Re: "the dents i've made in the office wall when trying to explain to developers" ...

In fairness, phone books are appreciably rare of late, a bit thin on the ground. I do miss their manifold utility.

Australian airline Qantas reveals data theft impacting six million customers

You know...

... I'm not sure this ranks as "news" anymore. It seems like anyone who holds our data has, is, or inevitably will utterly lose control of it or otherwise squander that data with no meaningful repercussions.

It's like people getting shot during a war, there's no way to avoid it and nattering on about it is just depressing.

Water is wet. War is terrible. The vaunted "tech industry" is a chaotic scam to turn personal and business data into gifts for criminals.

If we're not willing or able to change that, can we at least stop taking about it?

(Icon for this being enough to drive a person to drink...more, a lot more.)

UK students flock to AI to help them cheat

I can't help but wonder...

... how many professors use AI to find cheaters, grade student papers, or devise test questions.

(...something, something, goose v. gander.)

RIP: Bill Atkinson, co-creator of Apple Lisa and Mac

Watching the Old Guard fade...

...is painful. I miss the literal genius and intellectual enthusiasm they brought to the fore, their unfiltered curiosity, desire, and dedication not merely to the business but to the craft.

Where are their equally creative intellectual successors? Surely not the crypto-crackpots, the Musks, the "it's sorta a flying car if you squint", the merely extractive capitalists.

I don't want flying cars, I want more Douglas Engelbarts, Bill Atkinsons, Steve Wozniacs, Dan Bricklins even. I want a new Old Guard with the same ferocious, infectious curiosity and simultaneous sense of wonder and whimsy.

Eh, maybe I just want the old guard back. Here's a pint raised to the forerunners, adventurers, and inventors who got us here. I hope I meet them when my later becomes "the late...".

Canva to job candidates: Thou shalt use AI during interviews

If I use AI in the interview...

...to successfully loot the company's coffers, do I get the job or just the loot? Or maybe I then own the company, both literally and figuratively?

Asking for a friend, obviously. Or a fiend, I'm not too choosey.

Japan's latest Moon landing written off as a failure after ispace probe goes dark

Neither. It's a flex. It's the new 1,000 push-ups per day.

Also, possibly an obscure TikTok challenge.

Once they succeed they will presumably move on to competing for the most grotesque facial plastic surgery on the moon, weeping video about how they failed to correctly install the oh-my-god-SO-CUTE helmet on their exotic dog's ev suit replete with hi-def images of it's desicated body, and how to make grilled cheese sandwiches with a 960 megawatt mining laser and/or an escape thruster.

For the clicks (though "clicks" will be mispronounced as "science").

(Mine's the one stuck in the airlock door.)

KDE targets Windows 10 'exiles' claiming 'your computer is toast'

I founded and run a small group of technology companies. We do some Linux and some Windows because our clients do. I don't tell them what tools or versions or OSs to use, I meet them where they are. Many of them use relatively ancient or highly customized versions because the machines and the computers that run them were built to run those versions and only those versions - full stop.

I'm not an evangelist, I'm not the all-singing, all-dancing, do-it-my-way pitchman. I'm here to help folks do the work they need to do with the tools that work for them. They appreciate it, and they show their appreciation both financially and personally - they keep inviting us back.

Separately, somewhere along the line my father and his wife got old. They both have some cancer scars, and a high probability of more to come. They aren't in a position to relearn Windows in its latest, distractingly awful version, and learning Linux is right out, too. They just want to pay their bills, chat with friends and family, share photos of the grandkids, and keep up with their medical appointments.

Operating system providers routinely fail them and always will because unnecessary novelty and exploitive manipulation only solve problems for the exploitive manipulators.

Why is China deep in US networks? 'They're preparing for war,' HR McMaster tells lawmakers

Re: Crazy numbers

Maybe they're confusing cyber attacks with spam.

Alternatively, perhaps this is a new version of numerology.

Sergey Brin promises next generation of Glassholes will be much less conspicuous

Re: The problem isn't that they are conspicuous

As luck would have it, I'm visiting a beach community trying to get some vacation in before peak-season crowds.

The Faceplant-Meta-Zuck Ray-Bans are everywhere. The video lenses are relatively subtle, they appear to be on the outboard edges of the frames, just forward of the temples. They mostly look like ordinary Ray-Ban Warfarers.

And, yes, people actually wear them into restrooms and restaurants. Also, the glasses apparently link to your phone and respond to voice commands, which totally doesn't look like you're talking to your invisible friend...while recording everything and everyone around you.

This we got instead of flying cars. I want my Jetsons youth back.