Posts by diodesign

So grumpy!

1. As someone who has been working on tech products since the late 1980s, Mark is a columnist for us, not a news reporter. We wanted his thoughts on CES, and he shared them. CES is so huge that it's impossible to report it all - instead, I appreciate his highlights.

2. Personal tech (as opposed to enterprise tech and software dev) isn't a core subject for us, though we cover it as much as we can because our readers use the stuff. So we're not going to have extensive CES coverage - mainly what caught our eye, and why, and those stories are on the site this week.

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Fine mess

That is our understanding, yes. It's a penalty resolved with the DoJ. The Steiners are seeking damages in a separate civil case.

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Air head

As others have aired above, it's not airily ambiguous. The only one I see being lazy is you, throwing around insults with airs and graces.

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Re: Cryptocurrency????

Yeah, someone sent some Bitcoin and Dogecoin to the Moon in one of the private payloads.

Edit: Almost.

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I think we're in agreement

And don't even realize it. You're talking about AI companies being able to rip off people at a fantastic scale. And they're able to do that with: machines.

If this was about some office somewhere with 500 people churning out counterfeit work, that's people v people. This latest copyright stuff is people versus machines, in my view.

Or I guess, if you like: people versus the makers of machines.

As I've said, don't over-think our analysis. We're just pointing out that these aren't just a set of copyright infringement claims. There's an underlying concern among artists over the ability for machines to flood the market with knock-offs, and no one gets a penny from it or can opt out, and that's coming through in these court cases, in our view.

If you're an artist, and there's like 5 or 6 people copying you, that's one thing. Now imagine a million people able to copy you, with the help of AI. That's the machine element.

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Re: Step back a minute

Yeah, the article does say that the efficiency is about 1%. OTOH the first fission piles/reactors weren't that spectacular, so I see this as more baby steps to production.

BTW imploding hydrogen isotope fuel capsules with x-rays (and ablation) has been around since the 1940s/50s, though not with practical power generation in mind...

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Sure, Windows kernel, Linux, etc... but:

We were talking about Docker. By 2019, the biz was not in a good place so I'm not surprised Microsoft was shifting its position.

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Speculation

Yeah, we've not been told at this stage what the changes are. They could be mitigations to prevent blockages, or adding redundant (or extra) venting, or making alterations so that the equipment doesn't burst apart.

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It can, if both sides pay attention

The KEX protocol will be on automatically, as I understand it, and thus thwart an MITM attacker when both client and server are using it. See the OpenSSH release notes linked to and also the PROTOCOL file.

I guess it will be up to the client and server to complain to the user that one end isn't using KEX when it's expected or desired.

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Pretty much

Yup, you get a digitally signed executable that the staffer is tricked into running, clicking through any of those pesky prompts. Then the malware is running at the same level as the logged-in user at least. Priv-esc holes are a dime a dozen in Windows - if needed.

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It's our gift to you this Xmas

Yeah, there's x86-64 so x86-32 worked in our minds. It's not that much of a leap. Merry Christmas.

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It is British

We're right and you're wrong, as pointed out above. BAE Systems Inc is the US arm of the very British BAE Systems PLC.

Source: https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/our-company

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Warp core

This has little - some but little - to do with JEDI so I guess it should be associated with Dr Who?

What the frell...

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Simpsons v Mad magazine

Ah yup, you're probably right - slip of the tongue. I had Ralph Wiggum in my mind saying it.

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A380 was an example for other airlines

Yeah, we meant non-Russian airlines, regarding A380s. The first sentence in that paragraph read:

"...aircraft being pulled apart to repair others, a not-uncommon practice in the aviation industry."

And then the next sentence was: "Some used Airbus A380s, which commenced commercial operations in just 2007, have already been sold for parts."

As in, some other airlines in the aviation industry have sold A380s purely for parts, as an example of this practice in the industry, not specific to Russia. I've removed that sentence to avoid confusion.

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Not that simple

You don't have to reboot the machine into another OS - that's just one way to do it.

You can hotplug a MITM device while the laptop is still on to add a fingerprint and log in as the user. If you can keep the stolen PC powered up, you can log in using this method. That defeats any full disk encryption, including Bitlocker, we're told.

We're checking to what happens if you have Bitlocker and the machine is power cycled. Edit: comments from the researchers added.

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Oops

Yeah, it's fixed. Don't forget to email corrections@theregister.com if you spot something wrong.

We should run articles through spellcheck, but sometimes we forget.

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Deliberate

No, no, we really meant upstart. We use that term a lot. No need for a rewrite.

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Hamas

I highly doubt anyone involved with producing this article is of the opinion that Hamas, a blood-thirsty hive of terror bastards, is in any way good.

Also: as I've said before, we're not particularly left or right, this way or that on Trump or Musk, etc. We're just anti-dumb. If you're in a position of power or responsibility, and you're an idiot, we'll call you a moron.

Case in point: for all the criticism made by the left over Brett Kavanaugh's appointment, he's actually made some sound decisions on technology as a US Supreme Court justice. On a personal level, you could find him repulsive, but he ain't a moron and that's how we cover his decisions. We've also been sarcastic about the Biden White House.

And I don't think the article is disingenuous: we've not asserted Musk turned Twitter into a cesspool. We've reported that advertisers, funnily enough, are sensitive about the content around their ads. Happens here as well: people withdrawing ads from stories about hacking, crime, coronavirus, etc.

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Re: Neil Breen

First rule of Neil Breen club is, don't talk about Neil Breen.

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Technically you're reading technically too much into it, technically speaking.

Technically, see the title. Technically, yours.

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PS: The real answer is that sometimes words are used for emphasis. This is technically one of those times.

Sheesh

There you go, there's your ROTM. And I'm not even American, but I been reading the site since 2000. Sometimes the jokes of old don't spring to mind gone 5pm.

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Moderation

You're in the moderation queue because you appeared (in a few comments) to encourage support for a proscribed terror organization, which makes our UK staff at least uneasy given the legal regime in that country.

Stay on the lawful side, and your comments will make it through. Like your Hamlet.

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Rugar handgun

The prosecution paperwork says 308 but the Feds probably mean 380, yeah.

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Re: GPT-4 is a thing

GPT-3 was a handy reference that we had data on - but yea we'll check against GPT-4 when we can

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Corrupt cop

We're going purely for the alliteration. It sounds nice. Relax a little.

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Re: Freudian typo?

Sigh, yes. Brains were very tired on Friday evening. It's fixed.

Don't forget to email corrections@theregister.com if you spot something wrong.

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What's a specter?

It's a potato-less spectator

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Re: And I need this why?

Ah, well, they're starting with phones and apps but it looks like eventually they want to get into industry - with their SDK in equipment out in the field that doesn't have great GPS accuracy individually but in a network will be better.

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Largest

Yeah, by richest we mean largest - that's been tweaked now. Don't forget to drop corrections@theregister.com a note if you spot something odd, please.

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Hellorld

Damn, someone else who watches that channel. It's good stuff

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Self-driving in real life

It is creepy seeing completely empty self driving cars weaving around SF's streets, automated. I saw one following an Uber driver, who quickly pulled to a stop to let someone out. The Waymo SDC in an instant flicked to the right to go around the Uber and continued on. It was very human-like and very slick.

I was impressed. But that was just one instance on a road it must have been trained on countless times. I can see it all working, if conditions are as they were during training. Which isn't a given. There seems to be little initiative in them.

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History

OK, fine: back in the day, as you say, it issued PC GPUs annually. We're writing in the context of today, and specifically Nvidia's response to AI GPU demand. Lately Nvidia has been on a two-year cadence, as I'm sure you know.

I've tweaked that sentence. If you spot something wrong, do let us know via corrections@theregister.com, please.

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Letter to Zuck

The letter to Meta is now in the article, with a link. And note: X faces punishment for Hamas-Israel disinfo while Meta could be punished for election-interfering deepfakes.

Meta was also urged to crack down on Hamas-Israel disinformation, but that warning wasn't to the same level as that to X on that front. Subtle difference.

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Re: Comment problem?

Must just be some internal lag: your comments were automatically processed by our system and weren't manually moderated.

Unless there's an error or a message saying a post is awaiting moderation, you can safely assume it'll go through.

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Speed

Well, it's novel in that it uses HTTP/2 stream resets and jams as many requests as it can down each TCP connection. Really is limited by the attacker's sending rate. Seems to be enough to overwhelm server-side software.

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Re: Help me not worry

So far the bug(s) are being used in very targeted attacks by commercial spyware. You're likely not a target.

But you want to apply updates as reasonably soon as you can, as the patches are out there, more details will come out, and others may start using the flaws in a wider fashion.

Right now, no, you're unlikely to be hit.

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Australis

It's already fixed - don't forget to drop corrections@theregister.com a line if you spot anything odd, please.

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Re: Re: "Comprised of"

Nah, it's all good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprised_of

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Re: What ?

Late to this party but generally the USA says: if you help someone evade our export controls, we'll blacklist or sanction you next. Or mess with your US operations. Or cut you off from the dollar, the world's de facto currency.

So that's why places like ASML play ball. It's not worth the war with Uncle Sam.

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1991

Yup, Linus announced it in August 1991 and version 0.01 came out the following month.

The guy quoted might have meant earlier in the year, or might be misremembering.

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SUSE LE v ChromeOS

I suspect the "regular automatic updates" is doing some sneaky heavy lifting in Google's assertion, but you might well be right. Google may argue its ChromeOS updates over those 10 years exceed what SUSE LE gives you.

Also, "commits to today" -- in the link you provided, SUSE committed to 13 years in 2009, 2014, and 2018.

Not excusing anyone, just commenting. We'll bear it in mind.

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libwebp

We've revised the piece with more details: the flaw is within libwebp, a Google-managed library that processes WebP images.

That same library is present in Firefox, Thunderbird, and other programs. So it's not just Chrome: it's anything using libwebp. Look out for patches and apply them.

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