Posts by Wzrd1

Re: Well played Apple

"or order the treasury to freeze all apple bank accounts, etc.. under the nation security act....."

What is rm -rf / again?

How difficult is it to make thermite and set it on the SAN units?

That's a whole lot faster than a warrant can be served.

Re: Well played Apple

".. and the authority to ex-judicially execute US citizens anywhere in the world by drone strike"

Which is why a certain group of "militia" were all killed in a forestry center not too long ago, right?

Oh wait, they were stopped by a roadblock and arrested.

Don't be a tosser and ignore what a war is. Citizens were also targeted during WWII, when they were working with the enemy.

Or are wars different now and they're really pillow fights? It sure didn't look that way to me, or to our allied forces when we were fighting them.

Still trying to figure out the Iraq thing, as the US gained no oil, that's largely going to Europe. Maybe it was what I first theorized, "He tried to kill my dad".

Re: Well played Apple

As usual, the press gets it wrong.

Apple unlocked his phone - gladly, once a court order was obtained and presented.

Apple refuses to write a new OS that disposes of the cryptography, thus undoing all encrypted Apple telephones.

Let's review now, the FBI asked Apple to write an entire new operating system, to unlock, allegedly one telephone that was already unlocked.

How much do we have to pay for a new commercial operating system, but the department of justice wants one for free?!

In short, enslave corporation, acquire a free product and allegedly use it once. Just like GCHQ and the NSA only slurped once.

Frankly, I'd make rapid plans to move the entire company offshore.

Re: AC's don't surf! Naturally, we would no notice

"Hint. Find a pond / pool and toss a massive rock in to it. It goes splash now doesn't it?"

Not really, gravity waves that would be that disruptive would have to originate from two black holes or a black hole and a neutron star, Sol couldn't produce such gravity waves when interacting with a black hole.

Indeed, it's likely that the entire solar system could enter a galactic core sized black hole intact-ish.

Re: Naturally, we would no notice

Not necessarily, a supermassive black hole, such as a galactic core singularity could actually bring a planet in intact.

To be blasted by the incoming radiation below the event horizon.

Re: Missing the point?

Not really, all research thus far has found that dispersion of nuclear isotopes are limited to essentially being a mere inconvenience. You'd need metric tons of radioisotopes to significantly contaminate an area beyond a city block - especially if it's from breakup or high altitude dispersal.

Hell, I was born in the early 1960's and am mildly radioactive, courtesy of all of the nuclear armed nations surface nuclear warhead testing. Everyone is.

Juarez, Mexico had a Cobalt-60 spill, one of the worst ever, negligible harm to the populace. Today, it's in steel rebar and table legs all over North America, no harm observed to any of the populace.

At least, not so far. Some people received 150 - 200 rads of radiation and are being observed to see if they suffer any lingering effects.

Re: Yes -

"There is a need to renew them, every year I think."

In the US, there are handicapped placards and permanent handicapped license plates.

Typically, a plate holder will also get a placard, for use in other vehicles. The plates are renewed as part of a registration renewal.

Re: Not a good example @2460

"If she had a badge and it was on display do you think she'd have returned to that message?"

Probably, I have returned to such a message tucked under my windshield wiper.

It's a shame I didn't know who placed it there, I could've been in need of a new cane after I broke it over their heads.

Re: Nothing like this will happen

"Now, instead of having to justify their requests for private and sensitive information they'll be able to look it up at will."

Bloody hell, they already can look up your vehicle registration, address, name and in some cases, your photograph.

So, now they can look up a handicapped placard. It isn't your medical history, it's a name and number.

Any law enforcement officer who sells information should be held accountable to the very laws that they are supposed to enforce.

Re: Nothing like this will happen

"I imagine it's more likely they will identify those who have no right to be using the parking space and leave a deserving, but not nasty, ticket on the offender's windscreens."

I forgot my placard and parked in a handicapped parking spot, was limping badly with a cane and received a citation for parking in the handicapped spot. My youngest daughter was present and explained that to the office, his reply was, "I don't care".

I moved away from that asshole state.

Re: Why badges?

"...go be a social justice warrior somewhere else."

Indeed, the few times I've challenged a non-placarded vehicle owner, it was when I couldn't find an open handicapped parking spot.

But, with my placard, if someone tries to give me a hard time, I fully reserve the right to wrap my fine wooden cane around their head.

Re: Why badges?

"If they are having a 'good day' then they have NO NEED of the space and should leave it for someone who does NEED it."

And how about when a good day turns to shit?

Oh well, crawl to your distant car, right?

I've had many a day where I was having a great day, walking nearly normally, only to suddenly be incapable of holding myself up without support.

Hence, I use the handicapped parking, lest I hold up traffic in the lot while limping to my car.

Re: Why badges?

"Correct again. And the handful of people I know in that situation would choose to not use a blue-badge space unless they really need it on the day."

I use it constantly. I never know when a good day will turn into a bad day and I have trouble getting back to my car.

Re: Why badges?

"Of course, you realise not everyone who is disabled and has a badge is in a wheelchair? They might even have a "good" period where they can walk almost normally. They are really happy to get back to their car and find out some tw*t like you has damaged it."

Indeed, that's a swift way to find a brick through a shop window.

Especially, as I am one of those who can walk about nearly normally, then have spectacularly bad days where I can barely walk at all.

I've even been known to limp past an able bodied person who took the handicapped parking spot and ask, "Are you disabled or handicapped?", when the answer was no, "Would you like a disability?". They move their car rather quickly.

Just as well, I don't want to damage my cane.

Re: Not like it worked even before that

I've found that sendmail works quite well. Even after patching, it still works.

Re: Voicemail

We're slowly migrating to O365 from Bloatus Notes.

Looks like there'll be a bit of a delay.

Whatever was wrong with sendmail?

Re: who could have thunked?

NT4 SP6...

I guess they're still not testing their products correctly.

Re: Governments & Technology (+The Internet)

Erm, NIPRnet and SIPRnet predate the public internet.

Re: Dug their own grave

Only one problem, Ledswinger. When the government regulates and the monopoly states that if enforced, they'll withdraw from the service area and leave no service whatsoever.

Meanwhile, the monopoly pays large campaign contributions to "generate gratitude" in the elected leadership.

Our fiber backbones were supported and financed by the federal government leasing dark fiber. State and local governments are able to do the same, leaving the last mile to whatever organizations are willing to spend a little to connect people in that last mile, while enjoying a free backbone.

Seriously, if I was in that state, I'd be scrambling to try to keep up with that fiber, running those last miles.

Re: 'Murica

They simply learned from Pavlov and his dogs.

Conditioned response.

After all, "the rich guy knows everything, that's how he got rich" is the programming that is so well promoted in the masses.

Re: Not a bad idea really

Well, the original backbones were private, created with government assistance and leased dark fiber.

Around a decade or so ago, the government didn't renew the lease on a lot of dark fiber that Sprint and AT&T owned, which actually made the companies happy, as they could enlarge their backbone.

The only real difference is, it's the state and municipal taxpayers teat feeding this, rather than the federal government.

What I don't get in their objections is, they're essentially saying, "No! I don't *want* free money!", as they're be able to set up the ISP's to hook into the free backbone. That's free infrastructure they're rejecting!

We have some astonishingly short signed business "leaders" in the US.

Re: Money

Well, I've been saying for well over 30 years, the United States of America has the best government that money can buy.

I think I'll rent me a few politicians, just so that they'll take care of the populace for a change.

Re: It's competition (how unfair)

Isn't a little bit of competition amazing in its results?

In the area we relocated to, there is precisely one cable company that offers bundled internet, cable and telephone service. Service is mediocre, with outages whenever it drops below freezing.

If we had competition in the area, like where we previously lived, services improved and prices dropped.

Fork it my buttocks. Time to go with *BSD and call it a day.

Re: The Burgeoning Bureaucracy

"I can't help but think that if only the US government had created an investigatory bureau years ago, they might have saved themselves the bother."

Nah, they really only need to come up with yet another acronym to slap on the same old crap.

Re: New OPM

@Doctor Syntax, true enough. The only problem with these kids and their ageism is, some of us are still perfectly capable of knocking them onto their arse.

This boomer prefers respect, but is perfectly willing to settle for fear of reprisal.

Re: New OPM

Erm, the reason for the deficit is the over 50% of the federal budget going into the DoD, with its massive fraud, waste and abuse still rampant.

As for hiring the same people, don't be silly. They'll hire the same contracting firms, plus a new contract for new software, which will have cost overruns and failure to perform, but will be protected by hiring the DoD personnel after they leave the service.

I've witnessed that very thing, repeatedly.

Re: One!...More!!..TIME!!!...

Actually, the NSA has always been tasked with electronic spying *and* securing US DoD traffic from snooping. It's why they hire the most mathematicians in the world, to crack codes and create difficult to impossible to crack code.

Every bit of crypto kit I had, back when I was in the business of shooting and blowing people up, had NSA crypto keys. We knew that the NSA kept a copy and could listen in if something was amiss and we really didn't care.

We *would* care if the NSA was snooping on Congress, as then, they'd be seen to be attempting to undermine their oversight.

Our keys for network services, such as SSL and our CAC cards came from DISA, rather than the NSA and DISA retained a copy. That came in handy when one's encryption key was expired and replaced, as one could retrieve that key and decrypt old messages.

Now, I can't speak on how the GCHQ does things on Landing Strip One, province of Oceania.

Re: @a_yank_lurker

Not at all, slurp all, catch some oversight politician having an affair that would be embarrassing and your budget is guaranteed forever.

The NSA learned it from the CIA, who learned it from J Edgar Hoover's FBI, who set up the largest house of prostitution in D.C. Complete with tape recorders and cameras hidden behind the walls.

Re: Need to up the cost

When I was with the US DoD, encryption keys were issued by DISA, save for certain communication keys, which came from the NSA.

Isn't it handy to know that one's own government communications aren't being used against that government?

Re: Why didn't co-workers notice?

Shut down revision control system. Insert code, calculate new has, insert new hash into RCS database for that latest version.

Grab a cup of coffee, the day is still early.

The initial change was one single value out of all of the source code. Easily enough missed if there wasn't a security analysis of the entire code base.

Re: Playing the Xenophobia Card

USSR? Ancient history today. Today's buggerboos are Russia, PRC, USSA, The Commonwealth, as key players, up and coming, Iran and on their heels, every other nation .

Welcome to the real world, where every nation is listening to the other, some for commercial gain, some for national security, some just for the hell of it.

Slowing them down enough to catch and block them is a field with excellent job security.

After all, if you can't be part of the solution, there's excellent money to be made in prolonging the problem.

By the by, *all* spying is technically illegal. The trick isn't even not getting caught, as an arrest is impossible in your home nation, it's not getting caught dead to rights. Such as a Russian hacking team using Russian symbol coding and other telltales in their tools.

Add in a layer, "They're criminals and we're trying our best to catch them", hire them on as needed, you're golden.

Re: The problem with backdoors

Government 1 vulnerability researcher: Hey, this implementation's a bit weak, but still a nuisance.

Government 1 vulnerability researcher 2: Hey, are they using their own product? If so, let's break in and insert a weaker implementation that we can easily get in and send it to operations after it's implemented in the source code.

Government 1 vulnerability researcher: Great idea! Got it! (calling operations to notify of the weakness)

Government 2 vulnerability researcher:Hey, somebody bollocked the implementation on this model series, others are equally vulnerable and it seems it's a backdoor.

Government 2 vulnerability boss: Quick, we want our own backdoor, add it...

End result, brokety broke.