Posts by John Brown (no body) 25401 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2010
"This isnt a normal company though. You pay this company to shore up your cyber defences."
So, the real lesson to be learned here is not just that you need to keep on top of security at all times, but you most certainly don't get complacent even if you have just had your defences shored up by one of the leading players.
Clearly a ransom demand by a blackmailer is NOT encrypted as the target has to be able to read it or at the very least, the victim wouold be sent a key for that specific email. But that ransom demand doesn't identify the blackmailer and likely doesn't lead to any genuine contact details at the email provider either though it does lead to the account. To identify the blackmailer, the cops need to attempt to get more in information. Tracking the IP address(es) accessing the account will probably lead anonymous VPN, possibly multiple layers of VPN and likely a dead end. That leaves trying to find some legal way to access the data in the mailbox or in transit to/from the mailbox.
The argument really is about whether it can be done at all in this specific instance and if so, what other fallout or collateral damage might occur.
How long ago was that? Back when I was at school, calculators were only just becoming affordable for some kids, they weren't generally allowed in class and certainly not for exams, but we always used 3.142 for Pi in both maths and physics. We were still using log table books.
Noise cancelling, "Theatre experience", self-sealing memory foam ear pads? I wonder how many of these rich kids will self-Darwin crossing busy streets? It's been an issue since portable music players were invented of course, but at least with most earbuds you can still hear some of the outside world.
"because all the tech companies change dollar prices to pounds directly instead of applying exchange rates."
Primarily because UK prices include VAT while US prices don't usually include the many and varied sales taxes implemented in different states and cities. Likewise, they need to add in the cost of the warranty period, which is generally much longer in the UK and EU than in the USA. With the recent fall in the value of the £ against the $ over the last few years, I'm surprised the actual number isn't now higher in £ than in $ given the above.
On the other hand, I use those sort of shops on rare occasions for accessories, and that's generally why others are there too. There's usually at least a couple of phones on the work bench, but I wonder how much of the "repair shops" business is repairs and not sales of cases, chargers, screen prtectors and batteries?
The only hard figures I have are 1770 deaths for 2018 and 1752 for 2019. For 2020, I'm remembering Grant Shapps (in a Parliamentary Committee hearing IIRC) stating road deaths were down "70%", pro rata during at least the first part of the lockdown starting in march.
That is a very small number in the overall death rate, but there have been news reports claiming some decrease in non-COVID death rates, but it's likely we won't have any real hard and fast numbers until next year when the ONS does it's reports.
Having said that, the "excess deaths" number is calculated by looking at death rates higher than expected for the time of year based on the averages of previous years. So, again, we don't really know for sure what the actual excess death rates are yet because we don't know yet if this years "expected" deaths rates have changed.
Anyway, all that said, I accept your point that the figures/estimates/guess may well b e wrong, I Donald Trump your claim with "well, I said THOSE deaths dropped significantly, not necessarily that the number is significant in the grand picture :-p
"1. DoH took an insanely heavy-handed approach to deal with this alleged infringement. "
This! From what I've seen, heard and read so far, the only "crime" she's accused of is unauthorised use of some sort of "emergency" messaging system which seems to be something akin to a mailing list for "important" messages to State staff and officials rather than something like an emergency broadcast system used in times of life threatening crisis.
"the ONS figure of deaths in excess of the average for time of year. ""
Even that figure is suspect, since deaths from some other causes, eg road traffic accidents, murders, dipped significantly over the 1st lockdown period. The additional hygiene and mask wearing will also be having an effect of other contact or airborne transmissible diseases. Of course, this probably means the numbers of COVID deaths is higher than the ONS figures.
"You need to calm down now"
* proceeds to scream up stairs and point weapons in the direction of her family *
Coincidently, I was watching that story on CNN while reading your comment. There is a noticeable edit and therefore indeterminate time between the actions you stated above. I've no idea if that edit is what we are all seeing or if CNN made that edit to shorten the overall video length (or to spin it more onto their own "message")
"Florida was one of those states that didn't do the testing just before the election to make the numbers look they were falling. Now they're doing testing, that fake trough is clear on all datasets:"
FWIW, looking at the provided link, the trough for both cases and deaths looks to be late Sept., not early November. It looks like it was climbing for at least a month leading to election day, and carried on rising at a similar rate after election day. While I agree with your general thrust, I think it's quite clear the "trough" is not useful evidence to bolster your case. Unless the claim is that the Republicans just got the timing wrong.
"Had GMail created different domains at national level, for example,"
I have a .net domain. It confuses people when I give than a <some name>@domain.net. Many will ask if that's .com. Few of the confused wonder why it's not .co.uk. I suspect most people when given an email address will unthinkingly auto-instert .com at the end. In particular, people in the US who seem to think .com is the US TLD.
After all, The register was generally UK oriented originally so used .co.uk but is now far more global and has gone .com to reflect that.
"Even if we just had "sliproad to sliproad" autonomy that would effectively given everyone a better drive on motorways, and have less tired people when they get to the little roads."
This is why so many of us here have been saying self-driving trucks on the motorways travelling depot to depot only are what should be the first target of public road autonomous vehicles, as the article intimated. And that's going to be a tough hurdle to jump as it is.
"(*) If you don't know what an assigned GOTO is, think yourself very lucky. Do not look it up, it will blast your mind with eldritch horror."
ISTR some versions of BASIC on 8-bit micros had a GOTO <variable>, which could get a bit hairy if you weren't careful. Is that anything like an assigned GOTO?
"If they travel abroad for a deal, the work is done abroad, so coming back into the UK they can self isolate as required by every other person."
And for that matter, why special rules for certain people "if they pay for a test" to reduce self-isolation to 5 day? Why can't that apply to everyone?
It;s about data. You forgot the data. No one cares about the device or what it does. Data is supposedly valuable. The more the better. What these small companies eventually realise is that the data actually is NOT valuable in way at all unless you have massive amounts of it and can afford to sit on it until either a) it becomes valuable or b) the data fetish bubble bursts.
"Eh? You just go to the local supermarket and leave the whole shooting-match in the small appliances bin. "
Eh? The what? Where?
I use three different major supermarkets on a semi-regular basis and I've not seen a "small appliances bin" although all of them have used battery bins. Maybe this is unique to the chain you use or, unique to your local authority area.
"Many of these types have left Twitter for other sites that are more open to their madness. There's a rumor that the biggest one is actually an FBI site to track them, but who knows."
We should start rumours about these so-called "anonymous" twitter-a-like" social media whenever a nutjob is arrested claiming they were tracked and identified through their posts. They're already paranoid, so it can only help :-)
...and the clever bit, in my opinion, is knowing whether to go up or down, and by how much, to move in the right x/y direction. No, I've never flown/piloted anything, least of all a balloon so hats off to anyone, whether in person or by an AI/algorithmic proxy who can navigate one.
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