* Posts by Cynic_999

2855 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Aug 2013

Linus Torvalds rates his own words 'incoherent ramblings of a crazy old man'

Cynic_999

Re: I thought Linux was finished and compete...

I have never heard anyone state that Linux was finished. I do however hope that Windows soon will be.

TikTok to be hit by a UK class-action-style lawsuit backed by the Children's Commissioner

Cynic_999

Re: Why should children be treated differently in this regard?

"

Knowing which buttons to press does not make children better at understanding the terms and conditions they are expected to read and accept.

"

It makes no difference whether an adult is more capable of understanding something they didn't read than a child. The child is however often far more aware of who their data is visible to than an adult, which is the crux of the issue.

Cynic_999

Why should children be treated differently in this regard?

ISTM that adults are just as succeptible to having their personal details harvested and misused as children are. Perhaps even more so in the reasonably common situation where the child is far more tech-savvy than the adult.

The effects of mis-use of personal data is also likely to do more harm to adults than children.

Boeing will cough up $2.5bn+ to settle US fraud charge over 737 Max safety

Cynic_999

Re: The software isn't the main problem

We rely on automation to keep us safe in many areas. When you drive a car your life is often in the hands of the automatic traffic light system. Should a fault cause all lights at a junction to be green at the same time, it may well result in deaths. Airliners have depended on automation for a long time now - whether that is a computer system, an electrically powered system or a hydraulic system. It is simply not possible on a large airliner to have all the controls operated by the pilot's muscle-power as it is with small aircraft. There is arguably a far greater chance that a complex mechanical system will fail than a computer system. And both can have hidden design flaws (bugs).

In the vast majority of cases, computer systems make the aircraft more safe rather than less safe. Pilots can make random and unexpected mistakes - and the human brain has a surprisingly large number of "software bugs" that are responsible for many serious accidents in all sorts of activities. Computers do not suffer fatigue. They do not have lapses of concentration. They do not get bored performing the same task over and over again. They do not forget to perform vital actions that they have done hundreds of times before. They are not distracted by worries about their family or financial situation. They do not suffer from task fixation or a host of other "human factor" conditions that has resulted in many cases of "pilot error".

No, computers are far from ensuring 100% safety. But if correctly implemented theyare far safer than a human pilot.

Deloitte's Autonomy auditor 'lost objectivity' when looking at Brit software firm's disputed books, says regulator

Cynic_999

How?

How can a company sell hardware without anyone outside the company ever knowing that they are selling hardware despite having done pretty intensive investigating?

Cynic_999

Re: I imagine replies will be moderated for legal reasons...

Sorry, I was holding my phone upside down and thought I was hitting the up arrow.

Failed insurrection aside, Biden is going to be president in two weeks. What does it mean for tech policy?

Cynic_999

Re: Wait and see

If it is a state actor involved (or a reasonably competant hacker), you can be pretty sure that the IP address the attack appears to come from is NOT the place it originates.

Cynic_999

Democracy

If there is one thing that the USA has taught us, it is that democracy (US style) is always delivered via bombs and guns. So if that is true when democracy is being pushed on foreign countries, why should it not be the case in the USA also? Also, if its OK to manipulate elections in other countries to ensure they get leaders favourable to US interests, why would it be wrong to do the same in the US?

Good old America - reaping what it sows.

Julian Assange will NOT be extradited to the US over WikiLeaks hacking and spy charges, rules British judge

Cynic_999

Re: The turds are flying low today

Not sure I understand who you are referring to.

Cynic_999

Re: Dear Julian - Grow Up

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I think he should cease his whining and accept the consequences of his own actions, as the rest of us generally do.

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Do we? I certainly don't. How many times have you voluntarily turned yourself into the police and confessed to exceeding the speed limit?

Cynic_999

Re: Lock him up

I presume you are basing your statement on the "evidence" presented by the media which has never been tested in court - and never will be since charges have been dropped. There have been numerous cases where a person has been vilified by the media and convinced most of the public that the person is guilty of a heinous crime, but then had to back down after the person's innocence was conclusively proven.

Cynic_999

Re: I can't help thinking ...

I was not talking about extradition, but of the general public's percepton of what Assange did.

Cynic_999

I can't help thinking ...

... that the general perception of Assange's actions would be very different if the government wrongdoings that he exposed was China rather than the USA.

Cynic_999

Re: So

I doubt I would last a week in solitary without going insane.

Cynic_999

"

Maybe Trump will pardon him?

"

There is no longer enough time for him to do so. By the time he is extridited and convicted, Trump will be long out of office.

Cynic_999

Re: This confused me

The judge's remarks are pointing out that publishing UK state secrets is indeed a crime in the UK and so its equivalent in the US is recognised by UK courts as a "valid" crime. As opposed to an extridition request for doing something that would be perfectly legal had the equivalent act been carried out in the UK.

Cynic_999

Re: Suicide

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... and been a free man for 5+ years.

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Not in an American court. More likely life in prison - likely to be a short life as well after a conviction that he effectively attacked America.

Cynic_999

Re: pft

IIUC he liased with governments to ensure that information that could put lives in danger was redacted.

Cynic_999

Re: pft

Not of itself, no. But journalists are not permitted to commit a crime in order to discover facts for a news report. Not that I am saying that what Assange did was not justified. Sometimes laws are made for the sole purpose of giving governments an advantage and/or allowing them to commit highly immoral and/or criminal acts without the people who voted for them finding out. Breaking an immoral law is still a crime no matter how much you or I may believe that it should not be. Juries should however be specifically told about jury nullification, and the fact that it is perfectly legal for a jury to find a person "not guilty" even if the evidence makes it 100% certain that they broke the law.

The myth of fingerprints: The Xiaomi 10T Pro is well-rounded, but it's definitively a sub-flagship handset

Cynic_999

Re: "the absence of wireless charging"

When the amount of energy wasted by a week of wireless charging (about 7Wh more per full charge than wired charging) amounts to far less than the amount of energy wasted if you boil just a little more water in the kettle than you need (about 63Wh per 100ml), it really becomes too insignificant to worry about. If you were really that concerned, then the biggest changes you could make is in how you cook. Everything should be microwaved, and you should never use a conventional oven or cook any food by boiling. Better yet only consume foods that can be eaten cold and raw. And of course always fill your kettle with the exact amount of water you intend to use, not one ml more.

Most people will put at least 250ml more water in the kettle than they need, which means that it wastes the same amount of energy *every time the kettle is boiled* as that wasted in 250 flat-to-full charging cycles (or 7 months at 1 charge per day) of a wireless charger compared with wired charger.

Lay down your souls to the gods of rock 'n' roll: Conspiracy theorists' 5G 'vaccine' chip schematic is actually for a guitar pedal

Cynic_999

Easy to turn that around

This is a very obvious "false flag" disclosure deliberately designed to be blatently untrue in order to discredit those who are warning us of the terrible truth about the mind-control vaccine due to be delivered via 5G. The *real* chip is based upon quantum entanglement and anchors itself to your brain neurons using a strong titanium blockchain. The schematic can be found only in the 42nd dimension (second floor, left at the end of the corridor, ask for Schrodinger).

Brexit freezes 81,000 UK-registered .eu domains – and you've all got three months to get them back

Cynic_999

Re: Not my best New Years day.....

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It's also unreasonable to expect your registrar - the domain provider? - to check the contact data in their database and in the registry's.

"

Erm ... well they obviously did do so in order to suspend all the UK registered .eu domains. They could surely have done the same thing a month or so earlier and sent an auto-generated warning email to the registered administrators.

Cynic_999

Re: I want a .EU domain...

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I dont know if you realise this but the UK is in Europe.

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The *continent* of Europe, yes. The same as Bosnia, Moldova, Macedonia, and most of the population of Russia among many others not in the EU.

And just as New Zealand is in the continent of Australia.

So by your argument, a New Zealand company should be able to use the .au domain, and Russia can use .eu

Cynic_999

Re: I want a .EU domain...

While I was always under the impression that the TLDs were based on political regions rather than geographical regions. .au for example refers to the country of Australia rather than the continent. New Zealand has its own domain (.nz) for example.

Cynic_999

Re: This is to punish the UK

Nope. .com has never been US specific

The curse of knowing a bit about IT: 'Could you just...?' and 'No I haven't changed anything'

Cynic_999

Re: ya know, the IP address

It is perfectly possible for a network to end up with two DHCP clients having the same IP address. It can occur when the DHCP server is re-booted. In that case the next client to request an IP address can be given the same address as another client already has, because that client's lease time (given before the reboot) has not expired, and the server does not know what addresses it issued prior to being rebooted. To reduce the chance of that happening the server will ARP an IP address it is about to allocate to ensure it is not already in use - but if the DHCP server is also the WiFi hotspot (quite likely), and the client with the duplicate address has not yet reconnected to the WiFi after the reboot, it will not reply to the ARP. Things will get sorted when the lease expires on one of the clients with the duplicate IP.

Cynic_999

Re: Printers attached to PC's

Nah. Not entertaining enough. Just send a few ponographic photo prints and wait for the raised voices as the finger-pointing starts between the family members.

Cynic_999

Re: Printers attached to PC's

I once worked with an apprentice who I would definitely not trust with two rocks. I estimate that within a week he would have lost one and broken the other.

What can the 1944 OSS manual teach us before we all return to sabotage the office?

Cynic_999

Silver lining

While the number of covid-related deaths is large, the covid virus seems to have been a cure for both flu and pneumonia, both of which have seen a massive reduction in the number of seasonal deaths usually attributed to those causes every year. The number of industrial accidents has also plunged, especially in the catering & restaurant sectors.

Welcome to the splinternet – where freedom of expression is suppressed and repressed, and Big Brother is watching

Cynic_999

Only allow verified truth?

But *whose* truth do you allow? And who gets to verify what is true and what is not true? "Climate change is almost entirely caused by man's activities". True or not? "If a pharmaceutical company says a medicine is safe, you can trust it completely". True or not? "Leaving the EU will ensure that the NHS receives an additional £350 million per week" True or not true? "Homosexuality is a mental illness" - widely accepted as unquestionable truth not so many decades ago, but now almost certainly a view that would not be permitted to be uttered on a censored Internet. "Truth" changes over time. And so do "facts". Not necessarily together.

Nah. I'd rather be able to hear everyone's opinions and (for those I care about or that affect me) judge which has merit and which do not have merit for myself than have opinions censored by someone who purports to know with certainty what is and what is not the truth.

Business intelligence vendor MicroStrategy reveals it’s bought a billion bucks of bitcoin

Cynic_999

Re: End all this nonsense

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Two, Bitcoin isn't affordable. The transactions fees are quite expensive in comparison to common modes of fiat transfer, especially in the 'every-day' purchase sized transactions and can wildly gyrate day to day.

"

Huh? I had a small amount of BTC which I used to move between wallets (and finally sold recently at a modest profit of a few £k). The transaction fees for each move were typically under £1 per transfer (and you have a choice how much you are willing to pay). OTOH a foreign currency transfer of £100 I made recently via Barclays bank (to a country where it was not possible to do it online) incurred a transfer fee of £25, and that's on top of a hefty currency exchange fee charged by the receiving bank.

Cynic_999

In my life I have been quite good friends with several extremely rich people. I have also been good friends with several people who are well below average in terms of tangible money and assets. Overall, the poor people led a happier and more content life than the super-rich. Unless you inherited wealth or won a big lottery, making loadsamoney tends to be very stressful, and there is rarely time to just relax and enjoy what it can buy. Sure, the millionaire may have a private jet that can take them anywhere - but at the end of the day it is perhaps better to be 100% happy staying where you are and not be driven to keep moving to different places.

Cynic_999

Once you have more money than you could ever hope to use, it just becomes a game or a competition. Like collecting stamps or pokeman cards. The interest is not in the money itself, the interest is in its collection.

Cynic_999

Re: "Dependable store of value"?

Erm ... I did say, "Comparable percentage of the total". It is of course pretty near impossible that any one individual or company would or could sell any significant proportion of the total amount of USD in circulation.

Cynic_999

Really? A few million Venezualeans would beg to differ. Yes, BTC is at present still very volatile - but the volatility is both up and down. I don't know of any fiat currency that has has any comparable *increase* in value.

Cynic_999

Re: I have this nice London Bridge I can sell you

But your "investment" in sterling has not done very well. The pound is worth a small fraction of the value it had just 50 years ago. Just compare what £10 could buy in 1970 compared with today. Now compare what 1 bitcoin was worth in 2012 compared with today.

Cynic_999

Re: End all this nonsense

No, not really. What's your understanding?

Cynic_999

Re: Well said

Gold is indeed a prudent investment - especially in these times.

Cynic_999

Re: "Dependable store of value"?

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Bitcoin price is strongly correlated with the market-cap of illegal drugs

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It seems extremely unlikely to me, but I await your graphs showing the average price of illegal drugs correllated against the Bitcoin exchange rate.

Cynic_999

Re: "Dependable store of value"?

Just as he would tank the price if he were to sell an equivalent percentage of the total amount of issued IBM shares. Or US dollars for that matter.

Cynic_999

Re: "Dependable store of value"?

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As a way to make easy money for a while, I can understand - but as a way to store them, not so much.

"

Depends how long-lasting bitcoin turns out to be compared to any other financial instrument such as fiat currency, stocks & shares etc. Any of which can become worthless overnight in the right (or wrong) set of circumstances. Ask any Venezualean about the life savings they had securely deposited as Bolivar in a bank. The pound could go the same way. Or the people who had a fortune invested in Lloyds shares.

Anything you own that is not tangible goods with a real intrinsic value (such as land, buildings, fishing boats etc) is subject to sudden and unexpected changes in value - some instruments are just less likely to undergo sudden large change than others. And most things with intrisic value are subject to also subject to more tangible acts of fortune - flood, storms, fire, earthquake, acts of war etc.

The degree of risk is as much perception as it is reality.

Cynic_999

"

This one will be interesting when the crash comes.

"

As it will be to people with large amounts of fiat currency when the crash comes.

Cynic_999

Re: I have this nice London Bridge I can sell you

You do realise that the money in your fiat bank account is effectively also just e-money and equally imaginary? It only exists as binary data on the bank's computer database - just as bitcoin only exists as binary data in a blockchain.

Many people will however agree to give you something of real value if you cause the requisite changes to be made in your account database and their bank account database.

Just as a there is a huge base of people who will make similar transactions if you cause the requisite additions to be made to the Bitcoin blockchain.

It all depends on what people agree on. There is pretty much zero intrinsic value in either bitcoin or a £50 note.

'Best tech employer of the year' threatened trainee with £15k penalty fee for quitting to look after his sick mum

Cynic_999

Re: "top business and technology professionals"

Charging a fee for training is justified only if the trainee were to receive a *recognised* qualification at the end of the training.

Windows might have frozen – but at least my feet are toasty

Cynic_999

Re: Site services...

Type F *with the earth prong sticking out* would appear to be type E

Trump administration says Russia behind SolarWinds hack. Trump himself begs to differ

Cynic_999

Re: HOWTO: hack their voting machines

Whether they do or not means nothing at all unless you know of an *undetectable* attack vector that it could be used to implement. And even if they do have USB ports, that does not mean that it is easy to gain physical access to them.

Cynic_999

Re: HOWTO: hack their voting machines

Yes, and you can use a similar method to persuade an ATM to spew out its entire cash load.

The difficulty is in (a) gaining physical access to the hatches & cables, (b) plugging in USB sticks etc without anyone spotting you, and (c) not leaving any evidence whatsoever of what you have done.

Cynic_999

Re: In case you haven't realized..

Although any state actor worth its salt would be sure to put a lot of misdirection and false flags into its malware, so your guess is as good as mine as to how accurate any "forensic analysis" may or may not be. A few embedded Russian IP addresses and some Cyrillic comments/labels do not necessarily tell us anything at all about the code's origin, and nor does the IP address of the server the code was sent from.

Exonerated: First subpostmasters cleared of criminal convictions in Post Office Horizon scandal

Cynic_999

Re: don't worry

We will likely get more brown-outs after January when the electricity is delayed by border checks causing the current to slow down on its way from mainland Europe.

Cynic_999

Re: don't worry

A "brownout" is a period of low voltage, not a complete power cut.