* Posts by Destroy All Monsters

16005 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Jun 2008

Security bods gagged using DMCA on eve of wireless key vuln reveal

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Holmes

Re: Oops

What's wrong with a standard piece-of-metal key, then?

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Holmes

Interestingly IOActive got slapped with a patent infringement nastygram back in 2007 though I would like to have seen that kind of bullshit manoeuver challenged in court. "I have exclusive permission to build crap according to this patent and I assert it and demand treble damages for filfull infringement". That would be 0.3 USD, then?

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You will find that whistleblowing may be construed as "terrorist activity" in the New World Order.

Now Smartflash wants $1.6bn for its iTunes patents. Apple: You'll get nothing and like it!

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Flame

A pox on both of their houses

I hope the very bodies of management and legal departments break out in fleshy necrotic pustules hideous to look at which after ten days give birth to crawling hordes of insects that will feast on their very flesh till only quivering decaying remains are left in puddles on the floors of their overheated office palaces.

Yow! It's the HOT NEW 'Collections' from Google! Oh wait ... it's a Google+ thing

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Re: Our Happiest Google+ users?

They have been spotted on a bad-quality, entropy-laden VHS videotape recovered from Fox Mulder's room...

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Paris Hilton

Where does the "El Reg Tombstone" icon come from? Has it been hurled through a time portal opened by the newly-awakened LHC (first collisions today, actually)? Is it a lowly easter egg? A nice attention from the Moderatrix? What is going on?

Round Two in Sky vs Skype trademark scrap goes to Murdoch's men

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Devil

Re: So what now?

KNEEL before the CANCER that is MURDOCH!

MWAHAHA!

Nasty Dyre malware bests white hat sandboxes

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Re: More to the point

Could be used by malware to run underneath the OS

Nothing of particular practical applicability ever came of that, mind.

High school students' record-setting pulsar STUMPS BOFFINS

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Next: Getting kids do some ISIS hunting via a carefully obfuscated drone control "science project".

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Re: How to tell?

I imagine it could not be impossible though unlikely, but in that case some third companion would have to carry the linear momentum away. One would like to check for a companion leaving the scene faster than speedy gonzales...

Meet the man who inspired Elon Musk’s fear of the robot uprising

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Holmes

But if the AI were to achieve superintelligence, which Bostrom believes is inevitable once it reaches human-level intelligence

First off, there are problems of what it means to "achieve superintelligence". In what? What does it mean? It does not mean that NP-hard problems drop magically away: approximation, errors, bounded rationality, quick-and-dirtyness and arbitrary dumbass attacks will be an inherent feature of AI, even if it is not limited by a short-term memory of ~7 items. There is also a hard limit on being "maximally intelligent", which would be fastest learning algorithm possible, and it is very closely linked to the untractability of finding maximally compressed representations (see here).

and be totally focussed on making paperclips, it could end up converting all known matter into making paperclips. What to us appears entirely maniacal behaviour makes perfect sense to the AI, its only goal is to make paperclips.

No it couldn't. First, what is described here is a factory that is, by its very definition, NOT intelligent. Looks like a bait-and-swtch-to-grey-goo scheme. Now being intelligent does not mean being suddenly able to command energy and material processes of the environment to perform crazy feats (even if Frank Herbert though so in "Destination: Void"). Doing "philosophy" does not mean having a license to veer off into crazy & unhinged territory.

He also reckons the probability that we are all living in a Matrix-esque computer simulation is quite high.

What the fuck do I even read? This is a discussion that is even lower bog-tier than the unprovable "multiverse" grappling-at-funding activities so beloved by sadass physicists out there. DERP! Extend and solve your Quantum Field Theories properly, you lazy f*cks, there is megaton of works to do!

Poseidon's Wake, Naked at the Albert Hall and Farewell Kabul

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Gimp

Re: Way too harsh on poor Alistair

I could literally feel myself becoming schizophrenic

Holy damn.

I do not recommend House of Leaves in that case. While Reynolds' novels are just, well, novels, of variable levels of acceptability, for some reason HoL made me float the idea of visiting a shrink presto. The day after finishing, a pipe accident flooded my appartment with raw sewage. Coincidence? More like Jungian synchronicity. I do not fully trust this level of reality anymore.

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Holmes

Re: Way too harsh on poor Alistair

the books were inconsistent and shredded your mind, you could actually feel your mind becoming schizo as the 'story' unfolded

But you don't say whether that is good or bad.

Galactic North, for one, is worth a read and re-read. Diamond Dogs is not shabby but has several problems, one of which is that Reynolds doesn't know his prime numbers too well, which is actually shocking and like putting "deleted scenes" back into a horror story. I quite liked "Terminal World" and most of "Revelation Space" (it's like a bunch of story goodies from various movies arriving in a big truck) but "Redemption Ark" was a step too far trying to pull bigger and more gothic stuff out of the hat. But then there is "Pushing Ice", which is (nearly) very good.

Shields up! Shields up! ASTRONAUTS flying to MARS will arrive BRAIN DAMAGED, boffins claim

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Re: neutronium hull...?

It will just curl up into a golf ball...

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Holmes

government funds won't stop flowing

Frankly, I think the "government funds" are just drip-drip-dripping and under constant menace and are nowhere NEAR any amount of money (not to mention infrastructure and skills to-be-built before you can get traction for your money) to get anything to Mars soon. WIth a paltry few automated probes in the Solar System, JPL/NASA seems exhausted already.

There are countries to bomb, there is "healthcare" to provide and there are F-35s to finance. Not to mention 120 trillion plus of outstanding debt to service.

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Re: How to fix your Mars mission in 2 easy steps

Throw away the ascientific EmDrive, then we will talk.

(It's gonna work ... after 15y+ of no results past measurement errors? Yep, ANY minute now...)

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Alien

Re: Not really equivalent

So, even for a lowly trip to Mars, we need to be in the Protector stage of our lifecycle.

We need more research into sweet potatoes, thallium and viruses!

Intellectual property laws in China, India are flawed, claims US govt without irony

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Holmes

Ah yes.

Remember in 2003, right after Iraq had been bombed to hell and DU-ed somewhat fiercly? One of the first planes to arrive carried that lady from the Intellectual Property enforcement squad? (See here and also here). Those were the times. I wonder if ISIS would allow camcording of Amurrican movies or allow Monsanto to determine which kind of grain may not be used? I guess snuff movies are copyrighted?

Unfriended: Odious screen-teens get theirs in this flat horror

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Devil

The original Blair Witch wasn't that good either

Laura joins their Skype call, starts sending them messages, photos and videos and, ultimately, forces them to be suicidal.

This is taking malware to a whole new level. Maybe if Laura were an AI excellent in psychology it might actually work?

It also sounds a bit like Serial Experiments: Lain

Age guessing with Microsoft is FUN! Now give us your metadata

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Holmes

Re: I find this kind of PR R&D manipulative and creepy...

The same people posting on Reg forums. Maybe they exchange telly time for this?

'Just follow the damn Constitution!' FBI, DoJ skewered over demands for crypto backdoors

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Holmes

It's called fascism

"unaccountable corporate interests produce things people want"

... and we must stop them because everyone is accountable to the State.

Yes, we have had quite a few freakshows like those.

Frankly, these guys should be fired at once for incompetence in (mental incompatibility with?) public office.

SECRET PROTOTYPE iPAD 'stolen from RANDY Apple employee'

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Re: Legalise Prostitution

Buying sex involves paying someone to pretend to like you.

Woah there grasshopper.

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Re: Legalise Prostitution

But also $7500 CASH?

He was ready for QE4!

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Re: 5 days ?!?!??!

Who said he didn't have the money on him and it wasn't the reason he was targeted?

I dunno.

Back to MumsNet with you.

Quantum CPU upstart D-Wave drills into physics simulations to boost vital magnetic shielding

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Holmes

Re: millikelvin not absolute zero

You might add that that "qbits" are not superconducting thingamabos (in the same way that bits are not capacitors) and the science is not particularly mind-boggling to anyone who know vectors and complex numbers. It does, however, lead to heavy breathing regarding the implications.

ZuckerBorg assimilates Microsoft boffins into potentially world-threatening FART

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Coat

Re: Easier than he thinks.

"Building" does not mean "fucking around".

Except if your team is too agile.

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The Internet of voting things?

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Holmes

Re: "FART"? really?

Ok then, RAFT: "Research on AI by the Facebook Team"

Not good? FRAINKEN: "Facebook Researches AI for New Knowledge Enabling Networks"

How about TOFULAIR: "Team Of Facebook UnLimited AI Research"

The true marketronym is of course "FAIR": Facebook AI Research. This IS El Reg, after all.

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Thumb Down

"has brought comment from many respected figures"

Quite a bit less respected immediately after the issuance of their comments which is out there with tofu attcking us in the morning because "it wants to be free".

Anyone who thinks "AI" will appear on the risk matrix of the non-tinfoil-hatters in any foreseeable future needs to get out more.

Why, just this morning: Ex-U.S., Russian brass: 'De-alert' nukes or risk disaster

Mounties nab Canadian woman, 27, in webcam hack shenanigans bust

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Re: Did get a good lawyer?

I checked the Daily Mail, but ...

"Law student laughs as she walks free from court for hitting aspiring male model over the head with a bottle of champagne cutting his forehead to the SKULL"

... no that's not it.

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Paris Hilton

Women in computing?

Things have gone too far!

Boeing 787 software bug can shut down planes' generators IN FLIGHT

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Re: "in practice this one is no big deal."

it's still a valid point

It's also a valid point to ask why the real world doesn't work as I want it to. Only idiots and politicians make it a talking point though.

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Re: Common Millisecond Counter Issue

I don't know what level of DO178 criticality/certification was supposed to apply to the Generator Control Unit(s) but it sounds like they missed it anyways.

I you think having a stack of paper on your desk and following the recommendations and ticking all the boxes on the discrepancy item sheet precludes you from missing abvious-in-retrospect problems, you have another thing coming.

This won't be the last error.

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Facepalm

Re: "in practice this one is no big deal."

The big deal is that this is a problem that could and should have been identified and eliminated before entry into service, but it wasn't.

This is probably coming from some dude who codes websites in PHP and get his requirements from a 5-second chat in doorframes...

Wordpress munching contagion turns Linux servers into spam bots

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El Reg is the checkout rag of IT.

Do you have the intellectual bandwidth to attend ISC 2015?

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This show is not for filthy casuals.

As for the "return of interest", well, go talk to the European Central Bank about that. Protip: Don't hold your breath, any return of interest will be only when the EURO is six feet under (unlamentedly, with a stake, garlic and added holy water to be fully sure).

EU Commish is rather pleased German BND and NSA thought it worth spying on

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Devil

Re: Ha

You have to pay more to make things better!

Think of all the unintelligible bullshit your are missing on by not having TWICE AS MANY people in the brainless top tier.

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Devil

Re: Privacy understatement of the year

Found the article

Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker has been brought down by a scandal handed to him by the country's intelligence service, the Service de Renseignement de l'Etat luxembourgeois (SREL). The service, which is supposed to address external security and terrorist threats, reports directly to the head of the government. That's why a 141-page report by a parliamentary investigation committee found that Juncker holds political responsibility for the illegal operations that SREL officers have conducted for years. The extensive use of Luxembourgish in the mainly French document means that, even without further encryption, it is poorly accessible to outsiders.

The report makes clear that Juncker simply did not treat the intelligence service seriously enough. Most of the time, he didn't even want to know precisely what was going on. He was satisfied with intimations and preferred to give advice rather than instructions.

This was wise as he got promoted to the Eurosphere...

Spiegel leaves out a whole lot of very tasty stuff (false flag attacks via actual bombings, targeted rumor-mongering by intimating that prosecutors are involved in paedophilia, buying cars on discount because 'member of the state', then selling them dear after hours, breaking and entering journalists' houses on direct order of the prime minister to check where info comes from ... the works!)

Airbus to sue NSA, German spies accused of swiping tech secrets

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Huhuhu

There are sounds emanating from the barrel with blue flag on it?

Well, Europe..... you have been sold down the river by politicos to abusive mobsters. Stop complaining and get with the program. There is P.U.T.I.N. to "oppose" and next up, the glorious Caliphate. You sure you don't want to buy a few more F-35? You might need them.

Burger me! Microsoft's chainsaw rampage through sacred cow herd

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Re: Bah!

Fetchez la!

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Paris Hilton

Hold on, when did "Devil Bill Gates" icon make a comeback?

NASA spies weird glow from Pluto's FRIGID pole

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Re: "The US has been the first to flyby every planet of the Solar System"

72 PLANETS AWAIT YOU, AMURRICA!

FLYBY THEM ALL!

Someone is trying to buy Salesforce – but who could it be?

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Holmes

Interesting times for SaaS people

It's like when you have very nice house and then a mustachioed man decides that the general area around it belongs to another country and taxes must now be paid differently. And maybe other unpleasantness may ensue.

ROBOT telescope discovers ENORMOUS planetary neighbours

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Trollface

Not sipping coffee on foreign planets while showing natives who's boss

Search of new Earth-like planets for study

More like exo-gaia exploitation, amirite?

Brit boffins blow up Li-On batteries and film the melting copper

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Liquid Iron Man?

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Trollface

Re: RE: And who said science was dull?

But the random shots of passerbys to dramatic "end of the world/dioxin blowout/nuclear meltdown soon, and these people don't know it yet" music were pretty cool.

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Holmes

Re: Cool

Don't these batteries contain small amounts of Cobalt? Is it a good idea to vaporize that stuff?

Big Blue boffins claim quantum computing measurement leap

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Holmes

Goddammit El Reg

IBM has claimed major breakthroughs in quantum computing after boffins in Big Blue's lab demonstrated the ability to simultaneously detect and measure bit-flip and phase-flip quantum errors for the first time.

NO! The paper reveals that

Here we present a quantum error detection protocol on a two-by-two planar lattice of superconducting qubits. The protocol detects an arbitrary quantum error on an encoded two-qubit entangled state via quantum non-demolition parity measurements on another pair of error syndrome qubits. This result represents a building block towards larger lattices amenable to fault-tolerant quantum error correction architectures such as the surface code.

So the actual work is an implementation of quantum error detection/correction (which I do not pretend to understand unless I am given the sabbatical that I so richely deserve to perform err.. research). This is very important for reliable quantum computing and a has been solved in theory back in 2001 or so (although people going full retard and dissing QC because of the possibility that incontinent 'observations' will destroy the computation haven't gotten that fact as yet).

Apple to devs: Watch out, don't make the Watch into a, well, a watch

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Holmes

Well, well, well, well...

You could display a coffinated Jobs slowly rotating in microgravity and cunningly deduce the time-of-day based on the position of his outstretched arms.

Of course, declaring Apple a "monopoly" would be stupid as it sure isn't. It's a successful business, that's all. Still, busting all the patents and flushing them down the drain would ensure that antitrust discussions would not even arise... but State loves to solve problems it has enabled itself, in particular if high-paying jobs in the bureaucracy and possible backhand deals are involved.

DDoSsers use reflection amplification to crank up the volume to 100Gbps+

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Re: "cloud hosting"

Hush!