Posts by Charles 9

Then what about the Nintendo Switch, which...switches between the two? Does it count as home or mobile for the purposes of trademark rights?

Re: Shitty inkjet printers

Um, there IS one reason I keep a color inkjet on hand (and a portable one at that): photos.

FTR, Dell laser printers were just rebadged Lexmarks, so you now know where to look for your replacements.

Re: HP printers

What happened when not if the printer's broken again and you find you vaunted paper lock had been forced off or even picked. Put a camera in the printer room and hope someone doesn't bring a can of spray paint?

Probably because they added a stick to the carrot: if the case went through, HP likely threatened to make it a total war: to take it all the way to the SCOTUS if necessary, and recall what happened at the time: Big-Business-Friendly Republicans took over the whole works in Washington. EFF was looking at a HUGE risk: that SCOTUS could rule in HP's favor, set a new precedent, and make it open season throughout the US such that anyone who didn't play HP's game would get bought out or swamped out of existence.

As the late Kenny Rogers once sang, "You have to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em."

Re: But where do the certificates come from?

Ever thought the certificates can be made, on-site? That way no one else can possible know about them (unless you live in a Panopticon world).

"The honest truth is that normal people just don't give a shit about security, and in a lot of ways they really don't need to."

Identity theft tells me more people should be caring than they should; otherwise, society as we know it won't work (as it depends a lot on identities).

Re: Let me see

A password manager still relies on memory (for the master key), and I deal with people who have trouble remembering how to spell their own names. The three tenets have been, "something you are, something you have, and something you know." But how do you deal with people who are nothing, have nothing, and know nothing?

And if they CAN'T be organized due to having terrible memories and such?

Re: Let me see

Even if it's YOURS? I'm wondering if that is the push: your own personal certificate store, only for personal identity credentials. As for the phone getting stolen, these can be held behind the phone's current locks and keys, protected by remote wipe and the passkey entry limit, while you keep a backup squirreled away in your safe or whatever.

Taken this way, I think it's something that has some legs, especially for those with terrible memories for passwords ("Now was it correcthorsebatterystaple or donkeyenginepaperclipwrong?")

"(hint, the water table is just below street level. Washington DC is built on a swamp.)"

Hint #2: Just because a city has a high water table doesn't mean you can't build a basement. Washington, for example, has a subway system (as does New York, another city right on the water).

Re: I think we need some vendor-agnostic hardware abstraction...

Plus there's the matter of firms like Rockchip and Mediatek, both of which are in cutthroat competition in the SoC market so keep the internals of their chips secret to keep from Giving Information to The Enemy.

All they'll say is that those who haven't been breached simply haven't been hit as hard or didn't have inside help. In a world like this, it's hard to pick out the complicit from the simply incompetent, and experience isn't a good guide here.

Re: International crime

Unless they have protection from a hostile power...preferably one with nukes...

Ever heard of click fatigue? IOW, never blame the user (who to Microsoft is the customer).

If attempting to update their systems stops them stone cold dead, they're just as screwed. Moreso because this WILL kill you, whereas a security breach only MAY kill you. Against those two choices, guess what happens?

PS. And no, changing the software may not be an option as the designer of the software likely no longer exists, and trying to start from scratch again leaves you stone cold dead.

"Sensible security practices..."

...is an oxymoron in most places. And most times, the problem comes from up top, where saying no isn't an option.

Re: Quantum vs COBOL

Point is, they would still have a day job in a related but mainstream field. They wouldn't vanish. And I don't see much difference between a quantum computer and a stealth fighter; it's the design that's the hard part.

Cashiers must be a whole other breed where you live because in most places the line is at the self-checkout because the cashier is slower than doing it your own damn self. Plus, with the whole Coronavirus business, less human contact is better, and self-checkout provides ways to minimize physical contact.

Re: what is problem with COBOL ?

I don't care. I defined (by the definition of definition) the word you described within the specified limits.

You see, I tend to treat the English language like a computer language: with some degree of literal-mindedness. I tend to seek and (when I can) speak precisely. If someone wants a pack of cigarettes in a box, then that is what they get (a soft pack of cigarettes in a separate box). IOW, be careful what you ask for. What you really meant to say was that you didn't really want a definition but a thorough explanation. A thorough explanation in two sentences or less would be far-fetched, as would trying to explain a concept to someone who's never experienced it before (part of the plot of The Gods Must Be Crazy was how Bushmen dealt with something totally alien--a soda bottle--literally falling into their lives).

Re: Quantum vs COBOL

Usually doesn't work that way. People in black projects tend to have cover jobs to explain their absences. At least, that's how I read things worked during the work on the likes of the F-117 (which was a black project as well, not to mention more conspicuous given they were working on something comparably large in physical size).

Re: Quantum vs COBOL

Either orphaned or a black sheep. The former has no family to threaten and the latter could care less...or even provide their address. There IS such a thing as Too Kinky to Torture...

Re: Fusion...

Nah, it'll either stop on edge so that neither side is up, spin so much it flings the butter off and finally lands, or just lands anyway and tears a hole in reality.

Re: 15 years away

And gravity AIUI will only work over a certain critical mass. Basically, size is the main thing why something as big as Sol kicked off and something as big as Jupiter (which if you think about it is basically the same composition) didn't.

I may be wrong, but it seems the fault tolerance can be adjusted by the provider. More mainstream sites that use them (like Patreon) seem to commonly let you through after one screen where more spammy sites (like less-reputed download providers) will force you through several of them. Whether it's due to honest false negatives or the system forcing you through it twice by wrongly saying you're wrong, I can't say. All I know is that they demand a lot more from you.

Re: what is problem with COBOL ?

"Try defining "electricity" in a single sentence"

Electricity (noun): A form of energy resulting from the existence of charged particles (such as electrons or protons), either statically as an accumulation of charge or dynamically as a current. (Source: Lexico (OED))

There, now where's my five pounds?

Re: Quantum vs COBOL

Really? What about black projects where the mere existence would be denied? Suppose the Utah data center is just a front for a black quantum computer project?

Re: Quantum vs COBOL

But what happens when you're up against a masochist or a wimp? A masochist would ask for harder and a wimp would faint before you even got started.

I find that hard to believe. Most applications I see are still pen-on-paper. I still receive paper bills and send payments by check or money order (to keep a paper trail). The census was mailed to me, I mailed in my tax return form, and so on. Almost every firm out there must keep a non-electronic form of communication on hand: if anything to remain compliant with disability acts to accommodate the blind (who can't read), deaf (who can't use a telephone), and physically disables (who may not be able to walk).

Re: term linits

Um...how did they do donations BEFORE the Internet?

Re: People don't buy encryption

"People knew that when they voted for them."

DID they? That's a VERY iffy assumption. Worse, if the assumption actually holds, then we've basically proven ourselves unfit for any kind of grand civilization.

Re: I don't use common definitions either

Too bad there was never a story of a mime wizard able to climb himself out of the scorpion pit using a mimed invisible rope. That would've been a trip.

"There are a few realities that need to be absorbed:-"

Let me counter your realities with the realities of a lot of other people.

"You do not have a right to drive."

We DO have the right to travel freely within the borders, especially in pursuit of our livelihoods. Otherwise, it's back to the "No Travel Without a Permit" thing again, in which case we do not have the inaliable right of liberty, in which case what good is this country?

"You do not have a right to live in the middle of nowhere, and work in the middle of somewhere."

We DO have the right to live, period. It's the inaliable right to life, and if it means living one place and working in another if that's the only option open to us, then no authority possesses the power to force us away from our only option; that would essentially mean writing us off as expendable.

"You do not have a right to live in territories which are only livable with huge energy expenditures (or by stealing someone else's water)."

You do not have the right to say where I get to live if options are short. If it requires huge energy expenditure, either provide the means or write us off, in which case the social contract is null and void, and we'll got it alone. And if I have to steal someone else's water just to live, it's a fight: twelve men stuck in the Sahara with only one bottle of water. Sorry, but at that point it's Cold Equations time.

As John Locke put it, all men are entitled to life, liberty, and property under the social contract (which the Founding Fathers altered to "the pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence). To deny any fundamental inaliable right is to deny basic humanity, in which case all bets are off. The Coronavirus crisis is accelerating the timetable of reckoning, I figure.

Re: No Silver Bullet option

"The second is people such as you will believe that any food grown using that heat will glow in the dark and cause children to lose IQ points and grow extra limbs."

Then just ask them to explain Cornwall and other communities near granite quarries...

Re: Valid policy

Plus there's the fact we now know the virus can be transmitted asymptomatically (a la Typhoid Mary), so as mentioned, there's no way to know just who's got it if they're not showing (or they're showing so mildly they're being mistaken for the common cold coronavirus).

So the problem with the scenario is that the unknown vulnerable are (1) much more numerous, and (2) impossible to actually determine due to the specter of asymptomatic transmission; it's a lot simpler (and not too far off) to just assume everyone is potentially vulnerable.

Re: And if it turns out to be the C-Suite, the CEO, or the shareholders?

How? The ones up top are the most able to resist and dictate terms. And it's not like everyone can just up and walk away. After all, what good is jumping ship if the water is full of sharks?