Posts by Voland's right hand

Like that jet fighter that shot down MH17 was?

FFS, they even have form,

You mean like going back in time to 1996, killing a banker and his secretary, putting in jail the director of the lab (one of the 3 which are usually referred to when Novichok is mentioned) and opening a criminal investigation in 1996 for grand treason, sale of categorized toxic substances to the mob, Chechen Islamic militants and a representative of a foreign state?

I knew the Russians a awesome technologically, but I did not know they invented time travel. The scoop is ALL FROM ARCHIVES and all uncovered by their OPPOSITION PRESS. It was NOT taken over by their mainline press for an obvious reason. The several opened files with criminal charges were closed down between 1998 and 2002 and you know who is the only person who could cancel a grand treason investigation in that period. Let he be unnamed. By the way - pressing this would be significantly more damaging to him than anything we are trying to. Chechen Islamic Militant == Devil over there till this day.

Additionally, the scoop clears cross references and provides what we call in IT "referential integrity" to a number of facts which did not make sense. Namely:

1. The claims of the scientist which got to the USA on the novichok story ticket that it was worked in Moscow. Shit like that was worked in around Nizhni Novgorod. Never in the capital. The scoop provides the only meaningful explanation so far - the Moscow lab was given access to the project files when the project was closed in 1988. It was never invented there and the whole story about invention there and tests in Uzbekistan is a fluke.

2. The "hero scientist" which got severely damaged by the substance during a hood malfunction and passed out mid-Moscow. I have worked with shit only a fraction that dangerous and the protocol was specialized hood, gloved access and personal protection. What f*cking hood malfunction if you are working via gloved box access and wearing extra protection? Again - the files explain both. A) the lab to which the project was transferred was actually analysis, purification and separation - chromatorgaphy lab. It never had any proper kit as it did not need to - it was not its job. B) The boss ordered synthesis (according to the file) of a batch to one of his subordinates and left the building (just in case - what a c*nt). Looks like in one of the cases the subordinate suffered from doing it without the right equipment.

There are some seriously scary corollaries from the files which are all 20 years old and some of them have been in the hands of the press for a while so it would have taken time machine to go back falsify them. The synthesis of the batch which was used in the 1996 killing was done in a relatively basic lab not specialized in synthesis of toxic compounds by a LAB TECHNICIAN. Yep, a middle-aged Russian mamulia with a technical college degree can synthesize this sh*t if given the precursors and procedures. Nation state my arse. 20 Nation states doubly my arse. One being claimed by a humanitarian with an oxford red brick in his rectum, the other one by a similar one with Ленинградский Институт Международных Отношений up his rectum. Both do not know what they are talking about.

In this case the truth is likely to be more than either case as both of them are doing a damage limitation exercise. An educated guess would be up to 90% of the electorate using Facebook which translates to > 80% of electorate in total. If they had less, that means that the slurp bot developers would need to be sacked.

So for USA you are looking at >200M and for UK Leave referendum you are looking at >30M.

ZuckerBorg confession that 2Bn out of its 2.2Bn users have had their profiles swiped by bot at least once is a good starting point here. If it was swiped by bot, that means it entered the pool of data to be sold and reused. If we apply that ratio to the user numbers and correct for users outside voting age we will reach more or less the same result.

Re: It definitely takes

My apologies to those of gentle minds but messing with these machines could cause the death of people

So, what do we do with those who hack SCADA? An explosion at a power station can do damage on an order of magnitude higher than hacking a single medical device (or even class of). The Philip IV the fair treatment for state treason? For those of us who do not read history that is: "quarter, skin, castrate, gut, and hang the remains".

So what about those who hack cars, aircraft, traffic control systems, satellite communications?

This is is a slippery slope and what makes it doubly slippery is the fact that medical equipment manufacturers are pathological in making their equipment insecure and impossible to secure. One of the reasons for the severity of the NHS Wannacry outbreak was the tens of thousands (if not more) radiography, CAT scan, etc machines which were all running Windoze and were OFF LIMITS to patching. You could not patch them period - only the stock OS as shipped was allowed to be used and the manufacturers never ever verified a single MS hotfix. Sure, in that case NHS IT itself was at fault for putting them on a flat network and not firewalling them. However, in real life you simply cannot firewall everything. That approach does not work (especially for things like monitors, sensors and smart pump/drug delivery systems).

So someone HAS TO HACK them and take to task the idiots who have shipped defective and substandard equipment out there. As long as there is no damage to the individuals using the equipment and the only ones "suffering" are the idiots who write software for it, I am all for hacking medical kit. We need more of it - so that regulators finally start paying attention.

Common issue with pathological liars is that they continue to pile lies on top of lies on top of lies. 300£ million for NHS, Eu invaded by Turks, Novichok definitely produced by Russian state(*) and ordered by Vladimir Vladimirovich himself, you name it.

It is usually followed by attempts to "edit" evidence. That usually fails - the liars fail to remove all of it. So the first proper forensic scientist/engineering expert to look of it rips it to shreds. Just like in this case.

By the way, any likeness with current events is supposedly just a coincidence.

Every country can assume its laws to apply globally. Or even make a new law to that effect

Not every country has nuclear aircraft carriers. Ever heard of gunboat diplomacy?

Re: Of all places

To fix this of course more guns are needed asap! Bazookas and Howitzers need to be sold in Walmart

Trump new tariffs are aimed exactly at this. Damn Walmart cheapskates selling cheap Chinese howitzers and bazookas.

Re: Should have happened decades ago

Decades ago it would have been productive - there were factories making it elsewhere

Now - not so much. The two decades of currency manipulation, direct and indirect subsidies have killed near all of the non-Chinese electronics manufacturing. All of the manufacturing is in China. Taxing it will not help as everybody sees this as a short term thing and would rather grin and bear it instead of investing the billions you need for a proper high volume lithography rig and supporting infra to print chips.

Just for comparison purposes - Chinese stopped the sponsorship of textile manufacturing as too low tech/low margin more than 5 years ago and it is now evenly spread throughout the third (and not so third like Eastern Europe) world. They have no intention of doing this to electronics though - they know that it is their biggest long term leverage on the rest of the world and they are not letting go off it.

Re: There is an easier and cheaper way of getting a usable sample.

Of bull semen? In zero G?

Rumor is that it is produced by the same object which produces Bullshit, so in theory it is possible, but that is a subject of a separate investigation.

Re: Um, shouldn't that be filed under 'collusion' as well ?

Theoretically it should. Practically it will not.

USA sanctions are purely a policy tool and have nothing to do with retaliation for real or perceived harm to USA.

There are foreign states which openly interfere in USA elections. That's however is OK. They are not Russian (or so the USA thinks - I always use Russian there).

Smeagol Gove

Come on, Smeagol told the truth at least sometimes. Do not promote GoveNoccio please.

There is a major issue of trust with the current lot. If the UK public does not see it, the rest of the world does. We should never be in a position where the question of "is the UK government saying the truth" vs "is it lying" results in 13:87 opinion poll split in an allied country (I am not going to say which one - this is from this week).

We keep forgetting that the biggest and best weapon against the Eastern Block propaganda machine was the truth.

Where the f*** is it? Dead. Buried. 6 feet under with a stake through its heart and a band of pathological liars doing a Morris dance on the grave.

Re: Really?

a) The UK isn't in the Schengen area today anyway, so nothing changes there.

Not quite.

You quite clearly have not had to stand for two hours in a busy European airport in the same queue with Chinese tourists. I have (once upon a time when I did not have a selection of Eu passports). If you want the full taste of the experience, I suggest you peruse the "others" queue at Heathrow next time. You will enjoy it - it is a highly educational experience.

The future of the Shengen visa will not alter the situation with there being a Eu queue (or nearly no queue) and a 2h queue for 3rd world tourists and (after 19th of March) Brits. Eu citizens from outside the Shengen area will never need a Shengen visa. It is fundamental to the Eu charter. So the Eu dedicated queue will disappear only once the entire Eu+EEA+Swiss is Shengen (if that ever happens). One country less to go through it will only make it faster (very nice).

Personally, I will simply take one of my "spare" passports out and sail through the Eu queue. Bon Voyageeee... and enjoy the 2 mile long 3rd world line while proudly holding a Blue Passport printed in France (Sorry cannot convey the Bugs Bunny accent in an el reg post).

Re: Guardian has more details.

but then, you would need to get biometrics on the exit too.

That does not help. It is absolutely pointless to collect anything at the border unless you can ask for it any point at a later date. In the UK you cannot - there is no legal requirement to identify yourself on the spot to police or other authorities which exists in nearly all (if not all) other countries in the world.

So how much you have collected at the border is irrelevant. Those who want to disappear in one of the many "indigenous communities" around Britain will do so. This is in addition to those who are fluent in English to a point where they can "go native" in the middle of any suburbian street.

Re: Oracle has probably managed to kill Java also

Why? Simple. Nobody likes Java.

No, because it cannot be forked courtesy of the various non-free licensing in it. That is what this lawsuit intended to prove and it proved it - Java is NOT Free software. End of story.

Now, let's see if Google will finally grow a set of balls and throw out java completely as Android runtime in let's say Android-NG. There is a multitude of choices out there which will provide similar functionality when backed by their existing bytecode interpreter and low level runtimes. In fact ANY interpreted language will do - even Python or Perl. Though my bets will be on Go.

Considering this madness, Apple's decision to force-feed developers some Objective C no longer looks insane. Just the opposite.

Re: Driver in charge?

It would be interesting to know what action the human driver took to avoid hitting the cyclist.

None. Which is normal. If you have any degree of assist beyond basic lane following you start getting bored off your tits and doing other stuff. As recent crashes with Tesla demonstrate as well.

Needs something like this (UK):

The picture does not describe the full story. The paint is actually specially designed to produce noise in most Eu countries. So in addition to visible you will hear it if you step onto the hatch at >30mph.

Probably something too obvious for the great Californicating highways I guess. Let's use some AI instead (not).

Hmm, WinSSD sounds absolutely terrifying if history is anything to go by at this point.

Yeah. How is that going to work for a boot disk in the first place? It will not. So we are looking at 2 disks in each machine (at least). I do not see how this can reduce costs.

It's right that she should need a warrant to enter premises but why should that require a 5 hour delayed High Court hearing?

Come on, it takes time to remove all the files related to the fact that SCL/CA was founded as a NATO "screw other countries democracies" division and their work on this since 1993. Especially when the press is taking pictures of the beautiful red-lidded crates they are taken out in.

Do you really expect any of them to be in the building by the time ICO enters?

If so, I am Prince Mbaka-Mbaka from the Federal Trusty Mutual Bank of Nigeria and I have an offer for you related to you assisting with the retrieval of 85 MILLION DOLLARS of International Monetary Fund Donation.

Re: ' Current industrial production of hydrogen gas'

Not just the thermodynamics.

There are two more major issues:

1. Safety. If you feel comfortable having a 700bar pressurised tank in your car - please be my guest. I would love to see how this fares in an accident or a fire which is a result of an accident.

2. Loss. Hydrogen will diffuse through anything at a very substantial rate.

Re: Holy **** you can't make this stuff up.

2. Find out who was in charge of the Vodafone contract here, sack them

When was the last time you watched Yes Minister? I think you need a refresher on the subject of "sack civil servant".

Mobile phones

Actually, looking at what has been pulled out from Amazon onto his Kindle junior clocks about the same on his mobile phone as on his tablet and proper Kindle combined. So mobile phone I can sort-a accept it - for example he was doing his GCSE Macbeth revision on it in the car yesterday.

Ditto for wikipedia as a starting point (but not a definitive reference).

Now games console... Gootube... Forget it.

Re: Actually useful

Useful you say? And generally fit for purpose?

Do not worry, not for long. It will be contracted out to Crapita in due course. So they check themselves.

Re: the post-Brexit relationship

That is until some rich creep offers enough money to go home with them - just this once!

That rich creep has already done it, he is speaking "Великий и Могучий" and has a fabulous mansion in Kensington and Chelsea and a yacht parked off the Cyprus coast.

Re: Time to install a decent VPN

Any recommendations? I'm considering Perfect Privacy.

All VPN sites will be given the highest possible rating shortly after this goes into force.

It is the standard practice on all existing systems. Just open any existing "porn list" by a commercial supplier like f.e. websense. Anything providing circumvention or advice on circumvention (hello Register) is rated at the maximum possible rating.

Re: So why does the Daily Mail run a Facebook script?

This is what noscript is for.

The entire integration of sites like facebook, linkedin, etc and their leaching methodology relies on javascript + cookies fetched and set by these scriptlets. DISABLING their scripts while NOT on their websites is the most effective form of anti-tracking you can get out of the box. It is a bit more difficult with google, but possible as well (if you cannot disable it completely, you can at least shoot it in one of the kneecaps).

This alone justifies the use of NoScript across the board in my book. You want to track me? Sure. Have a go. Oh, your tracking scripts do not work. Pure thing, I will commiserate with you and shed a few crocodile tears...