Posts by a_yank_lurker

Re: the sun never sets on the British Empire

The reason the sun never sets on the British Empire according some old timers - "God doesn't trust the English'

Re: Bets, anyone?

Your an optimist.

Re: You cannot be serious ...

My reaction is the miscreants are targeting people with security clearances for espionage activities. This is a long game by some spookhaus looking to find someone to turn somehow to get the classified goodies.

Re: In prinicple

Per Mark Twain Congress can be shown by facts and figures to be America's Native Criminal class (near quote).

Yes and no, Shuttle's design was limited by Congressional funding of the project in the 70's and an unwillingness to spend money on a new series of orbiters about 20 or so years ago. The Shuttle was a very prototype vehicle class but they had some serious design issues caused by the original funding. After about 20 years of active service they should all have replaced with a new design based on the lessons learned from operating the originals. But Congress was unwilling to do so. The leadership of NASA was unwilling to fight Congress so the Shuttle was kept in service well beyond what any prototype should have been. Shuttle did prove reusable vehicles are viable but the thermal protection scheme could take another look for robustness.

Re: Two problems....

Cheaper and unskilled will only increase the frequency of 2. When the non-occurrence relies on no one making a mistake it will happen again and again.

Re: Elections???

Even manual counting of results should only result in a delay of a couple of days. So I wonder what Indonesia is doing to require a month to count. Most Western elections are certified within 24 hours or so pending all known recounts (many automatically triggered by law). Even the recounts typically only take a day or 2 before being official.

As posted below, similar systems have been spoofed off and on since WWII. Nothing new really other than someone cannot read a history book. Spoofing and jamming signals for various reasons has been since WWII on a wide scale by militaries in combat operations and possibly done to a limited extent in WWI.

"I won't hold my breath." - That's good because otherwise you be pushing daisies.

Re: Theres a big difference here

Another way to secure your information is to limit what the phone is used for. If no financial and very restricted purchase activities are done on the phone then the damage malware can do is limited. The real problem is that many use a phone as if it is desktop with a hardwired connection to the router. Their phones are very juicy targets for miscreants.

Re: Quick !

Is this way Chinese gear is an abomination to 'Five Eyes'; its actually secure?

Re: One “benefit”

One major flaw 'less “serious” user,' is an idiotic assumption. Photo editing software (as well as most of CC suite) is a mature product for both Adobe and their competitors. For most users, the software from anyone was feature complete as their needs a few versions ago. So the only reason to upgrade is for bug fixes and maybe some improvements in the algorithm speed. What the marketing weasels are touting, meh. Photo blogs and YouTube channels make this point. While each package has its strengths and weaknesses often which one to use is matter of personal preference than technical specifications.

Re: Hardly a surprise

The intent of the researchers is to find major problems so they can be fixed. Thus the publication of their findings. How many of these devices have already been hacked is unknown. Also, if the hack was used by a miscreant to aid in committing a crime before would the flatfeet have tried to check the device for signs of the hack; it would be a clue.

Re: Now Uber is going to face the harsh reality of Wall Street

Plus they have to file accurate 10-K reports and provide properly audited books for inspection. Failure to do so will get in legal trouble with the seriousness depending on the details.

Re: Dumb Corporate Profit Tricks.

This is a short term strategy that will leave any company in a poorer competitive position. Companies that value talent and ability do not care about the person's age, sex, etc. but about what they can bring to the table. They will hire grey hairs and those in diapers as they bring different skills they need and treat both with respect.

Re: Feral Pay Masters

They will leave a message with a verifiable contact number. Also, in a family emergency someone who is on my contact list is likely to be calling.

Re: Superhero Justice

Shades of MegaUpload and Kim Dotcom.

Re: Standard practice

Agreed, never click on an unexpected file or link from any source should be hammered into everyone's head. Social engineering is the most effective way to bypass any security measures.

I had a boss like that, did not use a computer at all.

Re: SaaS will eat the world....including Oracle

Legacy compatibility is a chimera for the Minions. What is keeping people from moving is an unwillingness to bite the bullet and migrate to something else. Relational dbms all work on the basic theory and model so they are fundamentally all the same product. Vendors do try to have 'features' that they claim are must have which in most cases are syntactical sugar; nice, convenient but really necessary.

Re: That is called swimming in money

Also, Amazon's original business (retail) is a notoriously low margin business. So Amazon grew up in a low margin business and tightening margins in the Cloud, etc. scare them less. Others are not used to retail type margins will have more difficulty adjusting as the markets mature. Web advertising, like all advertising will saturate as the growth of users slows and each user only has so much time to spend online.

Re: 'tis the Merkin way

tis the government way, be bought and paid for by the highest bidder. Just that other countries do it buying and selling a little differently. The net is average citizen gets screwed.

Re: "their freedom to wear whatever they want"

First the parents are on school grounds. Second the school can set reasonable policies to control the situation. So the question is not whether the school can, they can but rather is it a reasonable policy. I suspect someone will sue to block this and it will a crap shoot to know how the court will rule.

Re: Don't want it

Since it is built on Chrome, not likely to occur. The Blink rendering is used by many other browsers and Slurp does not have final say on the release.

Re: You can pry my password from my cold, dead lips.

The problem is most miscreants are using their main phone as the point of contact not a burner phone. Using your main phone leaves one vulnerable when a search is eventually done. In this case, it appears there substantial evidence from others that point to his main account. Thus, showing this evidence is actually from his account means he is toast. If he had used a series of burner phones and had ditched them periodically, it makes linking the messages to his account much more problematic, e.g. the flatfeet need to still prove it was his account during the relevant period.

Re: Out o'curiosity ...

As far as whether to use Bloat in the future there are few things to consider. One what applications are used and are there suitable replacements for them on another OS. Another is how much custom code has been written that would need to be rewritten in a new language. And how expensive would it be to retrain the staff who are largely just users not nerds. Primarily computers are tools to get a job done and you use the tools available and if those tools pin you to an OS you are stuck. Some companies have a lot of custom code written that would be royal pain to rewrite and revalidate to switch OSes. Doable but not cheap and somewhat to very risky. Most users are not nerds and do not really know how computer works so switching the software and OS will involve some retraining and loss of efficiency while they learn the new stuff. Even if the training time is relatively minimal per person, it is still time lost and money spent on the staff.

Each situation must be evaluate on its own and while many can easily ditch Bloat not all can.

Slurp looks to be trying to ditch home users and focus on enterprise users. Fewer but much more lucrative customers who will buy more than just a box and Orifice. Plus enterprises like subscriptions for accounting purpose and cash flow while home users are the opposite.

"And these are the people who you want to do business with?"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The only reason I deal with the Minions is because my employers use them otherwise avoid them like the plague.