Posts by Six_Degrees

Sadly, it sounds as though Comcast will have the market for Docsis 3.1 modems to itself for the foreseeable future. You won't be able to stop at Best Buy and pick one up for yourself, and just connect it to the incoming line, as you can with 3.0.

Which means we'll have to buy/rent Comcast modems, at some exorbitant cost, and be subjected to their ever-expanding "dual" modem plan that plants a WiFi hotspot in every customer's home, while the customer picks up the tab for the split bandwidth it demands.

I'm looking at you askance, Comcast.

Symantec is and always has been a crap company, doing a half-assed job at whatever endeavor they've belatedly taken up.

I'm surprised they aren't manufacturing unfiltered printer ink yet.

Any estimates of the percentage error for a representative unit?

"This off-planet economy will forever change our lives for the better here on Earth."

...or at least until an amateur space-miner shepards an asteroid into near-Earth orbit, and drops it.

"Oops..."

Maybe Sepp Blatter can take over ICANN when he leaves FIFA.

"So on at least one occasion the FBI has asked for specific details on an individual. We don't know for a fact it was their DNA tests, but since that is 23andMe's sole function, it's a fair bet."

Honestly, it's not a bet I would take. The FBI approaches many businesses for a variety of information, very little of it directly related to whatever it is the business may do. While it's disturbing that the FBI may be looking for a back-door way to collect genetic information, we simply don't know that's the case here, and it's much more likely the information sought had nothing to do with customer genetics.

When the FBI requests car rental information on a particular individual, for instance, it's a lot more likely they're looking for information related to, say, a truck bombing than building a database on the public's rental car usage.

Looks like a lot of hand-waving so far. Let me know when production samples actually start shipping.

Not Surprising

I worked for our school system's audio visual department while in high school, servicing 10 schools with movie projectors, cassette recorders, videotape machines, and what not. When equipment failed to function properly, we were expected to either fix it, or swap it out for a working model.

The single most common problem we encountered was that users failed to plug the machine in, and rapidly pronounced it faulty when it failed to function without power applied.

Clara and The Doctor just seem incapable of gelling. Neither seems at all comfortable with their roles, let alone with each other.

There's no question that Wikipedia has problems.

But there's a simple solution that doesn't involve having them change. Set up your own encyclopedic project and run it according to the rules you think would be better.

Wiki software is now widely available (even Wikipedia's own software is readily available for download) and initial hosting services cost pennies. By the time you outgrow basline hosting, you'll presumably have managed to establish enough of a clientele to keep you afloat and finance more substantial support.

Wikipedia is not going to change. Do better.

Obviously, they need to jump straight to dilithium crystals, and skip the lithium approach.

Shut up and take my money.

"It's an unknown group that doesn't exist any more."

Political moderates?

McAfee makes Donald Trump look nearly sane and reasonable.

So, how big is it?

"The two sceptics highlighted the ongoing hiatus in global warming, which has seen temperatures around the world remain basically the same for more than 15 years"

Last I heard, this particular claim has now been debunked, and it is now accepted that warming has, indeed, taken place over this interval.

"Wieder says he's been trying to contact the whistleblowing website to get the data cleaned up. He argues that you wouldn't expect a reputable news source to host malicious files, so WikiLeaks – which seeks to hold power to account – shouldn't either."

Well, there's your problem - assuming that WikiLeaks is anything other than an exercise in Assange's ongoing self-aggrandizement.

No.

Just no.

Rubbish

"Imagine a security researcher has plucked your customer invoice database from a command and control server. You're nervous and angry. Your boss will soon be something worse and will probably want you to explain who pulled off the heist, and how.

But only one of these questions, the how, is worth your precious resources; security experts say the who is an emotional distraction."

Now...

Imagine a kidnapper has plucked your child from your home You're nervous and angry. Your spouse will soon be something worse and will probably want you to explain who pulled off the kidnapping, and how.

But only one of these questions, the how, is worth your precious resources; security experts say the who is an emotional distraction.

Seriously?

The perpetrators should be named, dragged through the streets, and openly flogged in the public square. In both cases.

So, another "I'm really sorry I got caught" response.

You're not the good guys. You sell your goods and services to some of the most odious, repressive regimes on the planet, for the purpose of monitoring their citizenry and persecuting their opposition.

And you certainly weren't hacked by some government agency - which would have simply remained quiet about the theft, rather than publishing it for all the world to see. Intelligence doesn't do the holder any good if they share it with the whole planet.

You got hacked by a private organization, motivated by your loathsome business practices and clientele. Own it.

She would have been a good CEO, if she didn't suck.

I look forward to the day when permanent storage speeds converges on the speed of volatile RAM storage, and merge into a single 'storage' subsystem.

So, can Comey cite even a single example of a case where encryption stopped him from doing his job?

<crickets>