Posts by Kiwi

Re: Usual Story

Suicide's a tough one to pin down because those bent on doing it resort to what's available. The US is middle of the pack whereas two of the worst (Japan and especially South Korea) have very tight gun controls.

I've heard it said that those who jump off a bridge to kill themselves yet survive realise on the way down how they can fix their problems and how they've made a very bad mistake.

As the AC below mentioned, with guns it's much easier to kill yourself. I myself have been that low and have quite literally been standing on a cliff edge trying to determine if it was high enough or would I have a painful wait till the rising tide took me. If I'd had easy access to a gun I am quite certain that moment would've ended my life - a very bad argument 15 years ago with a very close friend that left me so upset I wanted to end it all.

As was said, other methods have a higher 'bar for entry' and a lower success rate, and suicide probably very often is a heat-of-the-moment thing where, given the chance to think things over, the victim realises there's alternatives. I've known many who've tried and thankfully failed. In the cases I've known (including myself), 'sleeping on it' or delaying things has often lead to easy solutions (or realising the problem wasn't bad and perhaps could even be ignored) - given the chance to think things over we realise just how stupid/selfish we were. Guns don't give you that option :(

Re: Governments don't like to think of themselves as repressive

So it's actually quite difficult for a democratic government to be truly repressive.

Actually it's trivial for a government to be repressive. I grew up under the anti-gay laws in the 70's and 80's, but for a much better example of 'repression' - just look at the sheer amount of anti 'freedom of speech' stuff that's coming in now. Not just in law, but also in social media - Have a very popular YT video and say you felt uncomfortable seeing a whole lot of guys prancing around nearly naked in public? Sorry, no more YT for you. Want to speak out against the terror that's being promoted with 'Climate Change' (and I mean 'terror' as in "we have to urgently do something very drastic right now without stopping to think about it, regardless of the cost or harm"[1]), or even promote different ways to combat climate issues? Sorry, not allowed.

I want to be able to speak my mind, pro-gay pro-life young-earth Creationist pro-carbon anti-pollution pro-clean energy. That means if you're anti-Christian, pro-babymurder, pro-climate change, viciously anti-gay then I have to let you have a platform as well. But today - well look at what we have going on. It is socially unacceptable to speak out against or for certain things, and we have a large portion of the public screaming for law changes to make expressing the opposing side's view illegal.

The government merely has to give society what society is screaming for, and very soon they'll be cheered for executing people who're standing up for the views our fathers and grandfathers went to war to support only a couple of generations ago :(

[1] Wise up - "Carbon Zero" = "Life Zero" - get rid of plastics and other pollutants sure, but we depend on carbon nearly as much as we depend on clean water - take either one out of the environment and all life on earth dies

I’m sure most of the boys and girls at GCHQ think they’re good guys and gals but I see them with at best grey hats.

Actually TBH I think almost all of them are white hats.

Unfortunately, they work in a dark environment with dark stuff and shady characters, and that darkness stains their hats to the point they wouldn't even recognise themselves if they looked in the mirror - in fact many probably think there's a portrait in their bathrooms of their darkest enemy, not ever even contemplating it's a mirror :)

Re: Or...

What you do is get a warrant and attack one endpoint or the other. But that involves real police work, and these jokers are allergic.

Yup.

How many crime 'rings' have been undone because one person came to the attention of the police, and that same one person , despite having the best tools and training etc, kept easily locatable contact lists and other stuff in convenient locations on their computer or around their home?[1]

I can't recall a single actual case where listening to every conversation and breaking crypto would've prevented a crime, but I can think of many where 'stupid is as stupid does' ended a "vast criminal empire".

[1] This is why I'd never be a criminal mastermind, I draw way too much attention publicly and probably exist one every watch list ever conceived. Probably makes me a good waste of resources as well, as while they again pore over[2] all of my El Reg posts in case there really is something of interest after all, someone else is being ignored who perhaps warrants a bit of extra attention.

[2] I see I'm far from the only one to have pondered if it's 'pore' or 'pour', and duckduck'ed to confirm.

Re: Goodies and Baddies

scaling them to deal with the Internet is the unsolved problem.

Actually I think the solution has been dealt with and has been obvious for a very long time.

Deal only with real information, treat the rest as noise. 'Terrywrists' have all sorts of ways of hiding their true intentions - look at what we had here in Christchurch just a few months back. The entire "5 Eyes" system could not pick him up (assuming of course he really was as claimed) despite any chatter there may have been (including his travel history, 'social media postings' etc etc).

A single person can do a lot of damage without raising alarms (he says, as watchers start to turn their eyes towards him wondering how much he knows and what he is capable of). I have a background in chemistry and electronics, making a bomb with a timer isn't beyond me - in fact in the last few days I've read an article on the Wellington Trades Hall bombing and where it's claimed the bomb used a lot of skill to make to me it's trivial - a battery, an old oven timer (used to arm the bomb after a certain amount of time had passed) and a mercury switch to trigger it when someone picked up the briefcase it was in. An unidentified explosive (probably household kitchen chemicals I expect) and common soft-drink bottles filled with petrol for an incendiary effect. Most people here could build this in an afternoon without much thought. I don't know/don't recall what the detonator was, but my experience with electrical accidents (and seeing ceramic capacitors go up in showers of sparks, signal diodes glowing hot enough to scorch the underlying circuit board, Philips K9 tv's with flame-burnt boards where a dry joint on a power transformer drew an arc that caused enough heat for the board to ignite (and knowing of at least 2 house fires to have been caused by the same fault) - I know lots of ways electronics turn flammable.

I could also find people with similar interests and never actually discuss plans or meetings online (sorry Charles, I grew up gay when it was illegal (and I could've been committed to a psych institute just for having the feelings) and I grew up gay in a very small conservative town - yet I did alright for "fun" - I know full well how to get around the 'first contact problem'). The local library likely still has many books on chemistry where I could learn to make explosives but if not, you know the "Material Safety Data Sheets" that come with certain chemical products? Well, if you ever want to get some ideas for 'interesting accidents in your kitchen', just start looking up some of those. A big part of the "safety" is warning you what NOT to mix with certain chemicals, or how NOT to store them - and why (at least when I last read any).

TL;DR Trying to track what everyone is saying is bad, tracking only those who pose a real interest is what gets you important knowledge. Most people's browsing history - even those interested in 'fun pyrotechnics you can make in your kitchen' is just going to be noise that detracts from searching for the real threats, so the simple solution is not to even collect that data. The internet is just a smoke-screen that should always have been ignored, traditional intel methods are the only things that work.

Re: Sigh

Now if "they" encryption, will all government officials elected and otherwise follow suit? They damn well should, actually they should be the first.

My feelings on the politicians who are supporting NZ's current 'euthanasia' bill - the politicians who support it should lead by example.

My reason for being against this bill is simply due to the number of "utterly useless" people who "should be put out of our their misery" who have much to offer. The law may initially be set for only those in the last stages of a terminal illness, but give it a week and there'll be people clamouring all over ways to get the law altered to let in a different class of people.

[Ok, so do I get a prize or a boot for drifting so far off topic? :( ]

Re: It's all obvious when you know them

or even "I was passing and I had some tarmac left on the wagon, do you want to do your drive while I'm here?" Same thing.

Twice fallen for that - and very gladly.

The first, got a driveway re-done at a rental I was at. Cost me less than a weeks rent but the owner was very pleased so gave me a few weeks off - literally was a messy driveway in severe need of attention and a load of asphalt that was surplus to requirements.

Second was a carpet installer doing a shop fit-out where the previous tenant had re-done the carpets and not lasted long. This week one of my charges gets a new carpet (2nd hand but great condition and a few days use) throughout her home for next to nothing, just in time for winter. Probably the savings in heating costs alone will pay for it in a couple of weeks.

The big trick is spotting the "too good to be true" and the "incredibly lucky to be in the right place at the right time" deals, and not losing out either way [wanders off grumbling about missed opportunities ]

So some consumers may approve of scarcity signalling on sites they afford some trust, particularly if they feel confident in their ability to weigh a scarcity signal rationally.

I am one such person.

I maintain some ancient vehicles (ie >20yrs old). Where I can I buy new[1] parts. Knowing a particular critical part is about to become unavailable may mean I buy some spares this week instead of next month.

Where possible I also do a simple test on the scarcity/time limits. If I see the numbers falling on my normal browser, I'll use a different browser (VM, mate's computer etc) to visit the site. If the numbers are matching the original (Like NordVPN's everlasting 3-day sale) then I know it's a false rush. If the numbers match the last I saw (or are lower) - eg "Only 15 remaining" whereas yesterday on the other browser it was 16 remaining, then I know there's a greater chance it's real. Of course, that too can be faked so we move to how much I need/want it and how much I trust the vendor.

[1] "New Old Stock" as in 'Been sitting in a warehouse for the last 20 years unopened'

Re: It's a book

You read it, you put it down, you make notes in the margin, you stick labels on the important pages. You shouldn't need to charge it, or have it vanish from your bookshelf when someone's server gets turned off.

IN recent times I had well over 2,000 computer (inc laptops and tablets) service manuals, around 150 car service manuals, 100 motor mower service manuals (I inherited that lot ok?) and over 500 motorbike service manuals. I also have 3 or 4 Bible's and a couple of hundred related books. Can you even begin to imagine how much shelf space that would take in print? Also it's a lot quicker to search an electronic book than it is a print one.

I have a couple of dozen printed manuals that take up a large amount of shelf space. Some computer manuals seem to require an entire room just for the bloody index!

Re: 10 minutes, not a second more...

Basically, the idea was if the installer / maintenance person couldn't see that no one had turned the power back on, he (or she) needed assurance that it wouldn't be. And that's with little ol' 110V US circuits. With higher voltages I'd want lock-out regardless.

A cheap hasp and lock on your fuse box door? Easy to break in an emergency, but family should know not to damage it unless it's a life/death emergency.

Re: I call bullshit

My what a narrow world you live in my friend.

Before suggesting I'm narrow minded have you ever considered why:

1. Any time these stories occur people write into The Reg - such that every single week - they can produce a story?

I believe El Reg has at least a couple of dozen readers. Some of us have been in or around IT or engineering or other stuff for decades. Some of us have made or seen mistakes made more than once.

It could be said El Reg is the best IT news site in the business (well, even if just by me :) ) - there is just a slim chance that a few people will congregate here who know of such mistakes being made. And we do have a tendency to blow our own trumpets. Those "atmospheric noise" videos on YT? Just the physical manifestation of an El Reg comments thread.

2. People are so willing to discuss them with the World + Dog, even though the stories are always anonymised and about something that the organisation in question would absolutely not want anyone involved talking about?

I took you up on your challenge and tried to hunt for the case referenced in the article. I quickly gave up because, well, this is NOT a rare thing. This is just one of thousands of results, and I was several pages in before I gave up here.

These sort of errors happen a lot (not just this one but those in other stories). People are right to say you've had a narrow experience of life. A few changes of details to keep things anonymous, but even without that how is a company going to know they're the ones being talked about? These things happen a lot

Just look at the article on BGP taking out Farcebork, clodfool and scamathon. Think that wasn't a bit of 'human error' - or maybe it just didn't happen after all?

3. How an organisation has become the "biggest" in their sector, whilst also seemingly having bugger all in place to stop a trivial error? See also: employing people at multiple levels who lack absolute basic understanding of the difference between testing in a dev/production environment.

Again, these people have been doing this for decades. Some of the people who read here played a big role in developing the internet we know today, and the OS's we use. The idea of separating dev/production - do you have even the slighest inkling of how it came about as a standard?

It's obvious now - and of course now we all have oodles of cash to throw at doubling up on IT and massive numbers of VM's and huge raid arrays.. But way back when, testing had to be done on the same hardware during downtime, and hope like hell backups were there.. Or just be sure you did a good job. I've taken overseas trips on the overtime pay from individual series of tests because they had to be done out of hours, and we only had one plant to test on so that mean working through the night to get things ready, tested, and the results cleaned up and the line back to being ready for the next day's production run. Duplicate kit can be prohibitively expensive (as can mistakes on the only production line in the factory :( )

How do you think locking off and tagging off switch gear came about? IIRC the last straw was when an engineer had her had crushed (fatally) by some robotics, because she was working out of site of anyone else and it was thought she'd left the area (I am happy to be corrected on any of these details), possibly even at a Ford plant or some other US-based car manufacturing plant. A solution that wasn't obvious until enough people died. Other solutions were tried after other incidents, but individual locks for each engineer? This poor lady was the catalyst for something that keeps the rest of us safer.

Some of us have been working far longer than the current standards have been around.

4. Why you can never find independent and publicly verifiable stories to back any of it up, even when The Reg claims it's a story reported by mainstream media?

Take a look at MSM over the last few decades. For this story alone you have thousands of candidates (and I even wrote one very sweary post as, well, if this happened in NZ then I was a victim of the screw up and it actually made quite a mess of my finances that took a long time to clear - yes I was a customer of our largest bank, yes it made front page (and TV) news, and yes it was some filthy scoundrel at a bank double-dipping "accidentally" - but the post was too much even by El Reg standards so I deleted it. And yes, nearly 30 years on I am still very pissed at that person!)

These are just a small section of the issues. I don't think it's worth going further if you're too narrow minded to accept some of these stories might just be made up.

Maybe. Probably. Probably if not 'made up' then at least some alteration of some key facts to keep it anonymous.

I've worked in Banks

Hopefully not in any position of responsibility...

Actually, I kinda hope with your limited RW experience that you are not in places of any real responsibility. "You're not a real engineer until you've made at least one $50k mistake". With time, you'll make the sort of screwups that teach you how to manage serious problems - maybe a new 'never again' standard will be developed because of you. God willing, you'll survive the experience and in 20 years some 20something will be telling you it was made up, 'how can someone have made such a mistake when we have the Andy103 Law to prevent people doing such things?'

Re: Half the population—

And what did they tell the grieving parents of those who DIDN'T make it home by dark...nor at all?

This was a time way before you were born. Kids could be out till all hours of the night. The most dangerous person in town would probably talk with you about a religious views your parents didn't approve of, things like that. The most dangerous child molester would make sure you were home safe, walk you home if he felt you were out too late, and talk with your parents before leaving you on your own (that or the people who tell me I was such a cute lad have been lying to me)

For the most part, most of the time, we got home fine. In May of 1991 two of my closest school friends lost their lives to an errant driver while walking home during the day near Patea. Yes, I get it Charles, bad stuff happens, but in the 70's and 80's (and even earlier) you could go anywhere, do anything you felt like, and get home safe (or with minor cuts and bruises - normally). It was very rare around these parts for people not to make it home, or to get hurt.

We were outside, free, active, healthy, exploring, experimenting, learning, growing, being creative, and enjoying life. There were risks, but at least our parents didn't have their kids who were too fearful to step outside the door, or who were suffering from serious weight-related diseases at a young age. I could tell you what was said to the parents when Craig Woodhead died while 'car-surfing', but you'd just turn it into some stupid "but WHAT if THEY were PROFESSIONAL GAMERZ!!!!q1!!1 or some garbage like that.

We got out, got hurt, learned from our mistakes (most of us), spent our time wanting to be out of hospital and out of the cast so we could do it a different way that hopefully worked better. Some of us got broken, and yes we did lose a couple of good people in stupid ways, but we kept trying and learning, getting back on the horse and going again.

This is why the younger generation tend to be a bunch of worthless self-obsessed (and phone-obsessed) snowflakes with a sense of entitlement beyond their experience or earnings, while those of us gone before knew that a university degree meant you still first picked up the broom and learned to sweep the floors. Given the chance, most of my generation would ride a horse bareback and unbridled if that was the only way we could ride. Or we'd spend a day helping rebuilt a friend's bike engine to spend 5 minutes on it next month sometime. Today's generation? You wouldn't even get them away from their screens long enough to even see a real blade of grass let alone a horse.

And that's the point of my earlier post. These kids see nothing of the outside world, have no concept of learning the limits by pushing their bodies to (and sometimes beyond) breaking point (or seeing someone else snap an arm or lose a finger (thankfully teachers were quick and surgeons were good back then!) - and the lack of getting out perhaps is a big contributor to the the lack of intelligence amongst today's youth. You don't try to think through solving a problem with limited tools and limited experience. I can be dropped in bush with no food, no tools, and a broken leg and find my way out or survive till I'm rescued, because I learned how to make tools and shelter from having to as a kid. You'd be dropped in the same area with a month's food, the best gear money can buy, no injuries, every tool every imagined, and be dead within an hour because no electricity for your phone - how could you live? Kid's today haven't had to learn how to do things for themselves, thus their brains are largely mush (much like mine is right now - sorry folks).

Re: backups

backups

have you heard of them?

Why yes!

Years back I found a special backup device thanks to a fellow countryman named Simon.

It holds massive amounts of capacity - I've been backing systems up to it for years and not yet run out of space. And it is extremely fast as well, always has been! As fast as you can throw data at it!

Yes. If you want a fast way to back up your data, simply point your backups to /dev/null.

And the biggest benefits - it's free, yet the restores are just as reliable as any of the larger 3rd-party systems where you might pay $hundreds of thousands!