* Posts by The Man Who Fell To Earth

1538 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Jan 2012

Facebook's democracy salvage effort tilts scale in Mississippi primary

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FAIL

Facebook's "real ID" is a sham

I only have a Facebook account for immediate family, and only log into it once every couple of months. In the last 2 years alone, Facebook has suspended my account four times claiming I'm not real. Every time I get it reactivated by submitting a scan of my driver's license. They reinstate my account, and then some number of months later (typically 5-6) they resuspend it until I submit the (same) scan of the (same) driver's license. They have been doing this for years. Pretty clear programming skills & algorithm development isn't the strong suit of anyone at Facebook.

Pentagon in uproar: 'China's lasers' make US pilots shake in Djibouti

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FAIL

Re thames: Laser canon and sonic death rays.

The Canadian embassy & it's employees in Cuba also suffered from the same "problems".

"Canada sends home families of diplomats posted in Cuba. The move comes as 10 Canadians continue to show unexplained brain symptoms, government officials said."

Finally: Historic Eudora email code goes open source

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Boffin

Re BillG: Keep it going

Yea, I forgot. That separate folder for attachments was definitely one feature Thunderbird should have adopted, but never did.

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Boffin

Keep it going

Used Eudora from it's beginning until it's demise, even for work. Have used Thunderbird since for personal email, have to use Outlook for work now. Fortunately, there were programs to port all one's old email from Eudora to Thunderbird. Let's just hope Thunderbird lasts...

How could the Facebook data slurping scandal get worse? Glad you asked

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Facebooks failure to comply with 2011 consent decree

Facebook can finger point all they want, but none of these data problems would exist had Facebook not violated the 2011 FCC decree.

‘I broke The Pentagon’s secure messaging system – and won an award for it!’

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Black Helicopters

Re: The myth of the "rock star" IT worker

I've worked in R&D groups as well as product development groups with people like this, who create problems (or even sabotage) then "discover & fix" it for acclaim. Even once I became a manager, the only way I found one could try to get through to my fellow manager's that these repeat heros were often the problem was to appeal to the "CSI mentality" in most people. You can try this by constantly reminding them of CSI-like statistics about murders & rapes mostly being done by the closest person to the victim. Or my favorite, that fire investigators know the most likely arson suspect is the person who "discovered" the fire. Especially if the fire-discoverer has a knack for "discovering" fires or is a fireman.

Windows 10 April 2018 Update lands today... ish

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WTF?

Focus Assist

Can you use it to suppress that useless time wasting trash called Slack?

Chinese boffins on 3D XPoint: If it works like phase-change memory, it's probably phase-change memory

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Boffin

I can see why Intel is keeping it secret

The concept and materials are so old there is probably not much in the way of IP they can protect.

Good news: AI could solve the pension crisis – by triggering a nuclear apocalypse by 2040

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WTF?

First

I'd like to see their definition of AI.

Translating Facebook's latest 'Hard Questions' PR spin – The Reg edit

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FAIL

Facebook = Surveillance Capitalism. Nothing more.

Surveillance capitalism is a term first introduced by John Bellamy Foster and Robert McChesney in Monthly Review in 2014 and later popularized by academic Shoshana Zuboff that denotes a new genus of capitalism that monetizes data acquired through surveillance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism

Musk: I want to retrieve rockets with big Falcon party balloons

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FAIL

Bouncy House

Actually, NASA did land on Mars using a bouncy house with the landing of Mars Pathfinder. I worked at JPL at the time. Mars Pathfinder carried the bouncy house with it.

Mars Pathfinder Bouncy House

Facebook previews GDPR privacy tools and, yep, it's the same old BS

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Thumb Up

Eh...

"To be clear, Facebook's entire business model is built on gathering as much information as possible on you and then figuring out how to use that information to make as much money as possible.

That's why the economists call it Surveillance Capitalism.

Surveillance capitalism is a term first introduced by John Bellamy Foster and Robert McChesney in Monthly Review in 2014 and later popularized by academic Shoshana Zuboff that denotes a new genus of capitalism that monetizes data acquired through surveillance.

Europe wants cloud giants to cough up data from anywhere in 6hrs

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FAIL

So that's where they went

Apparently the Stazi simply took over the EU.

It's US Tax Day, so of course the IRS's servers have taken a swan dive

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Mushroom

It's Putin's fault

And his trolls. In order to buy Trump more time to file his tax extension, since he's certainly not going to file his taxes on time.

Facebook admits it does track non-users, for their own good

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FAIL

Surveillance Capitalism

There's a reason Facebook & Google's business models are known in economic circles as "Surveillance Capitalism". Ironically, the best way to learn about Surveillance Capitalism is to Google it.

Anon biz bloke wins milestone Google Right To Be Forgotten lawsuit

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FAIL

Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin & Herman Goebbels called

They all want to invoke their EU "Right to be Forgotten" and be removed from all Google databases.

"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.” - George Orwell (From 1984) The EU

Super Cali's frickin' whiz kids no longer oppose us: Even though Facebook thought info law was quite atrocious

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FAIL

Surveillance Capitalism

There's no amount of lipstick you can put on the pig of Surveillance Capitalism that's going to make me want to kiss it.

Tried checking under the sofa? Indian BTC exchange Coinsecure finds itself $3.5m lighter

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WTF?

Re: Who's been using one of those funny CPUs?

Agreed. As of right now, 1 Bitcoin is worth US$8090.00 at Coinbase.

So 438 Bitcoin is worth

438 x US$8090.00 = US$3,551,510.00

That's $3.5 meeeellion not $3.5 beeeellion.

Imagine you're having a CT scan and malware alters the radiation levels – it's doable

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WTF?

Back when I actually ran MRI systems

The Bruker MRI microscope system I ran ran Solaris on Sun boxes. The CT scanner in the lab down the hall wasn't running Windows, and had Sun boxes, so I presume that ran Solaris as well. That was in the early 2000's. I would have thought these days MRI, CT & the like would all be running some version of Linux.

El Reg needs you – to help build an automated beer-transporting robot

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FAIL

Plumbing

This "project" is an example of viewing all problems as nails because you only own a hammer.

The correct way to get the beer to the office does not involve robots. It involves plumbing, just like you move beer around in a brewery. Nothing more.

They're back! 'Feds only' encryption backdoors prepped in US by Dems

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WTF?

I find it interesting

I find it interesting that despite the NSA hacking tools being stolen, the Federal personnel database being stolen, etc., that no hacker has published Trumps tax returns. Either the IRS has the best security on the planet, or only Russians can truly pilfer the US governments secrets.

COPPA load of this FTC complaint: YouTube accused of collecting children's data

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FAIL

Heaven Forbid

That the parents actually control their kids computer access in their homes.

Mind the gap: Men paid 18.6% more than women in Blighty tech sector

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WTF?

4%

This is interesting because Hired just released it annual pay report.

Here are some other stats that highlight the pay discrepancies in tech:

* Companies offer women 4 percent less than men, on average, for the same role at the same company

* Black and Latinx women are offered 90 cents for every dollar white men earn

* LGBTQ + women are offered more than their non-LGBTQ counterparts

https://hired.com/wage-inequality-report

Blackberry snaps, yakkity-yak Snapchat app brats slapped with patent trap rap

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FAIL

Re: Ahhh, the optimism of lawyers

That's not how it works. If you steal my IP, all I have to do is show you are using it in something you sell. It's irrelevant whether you make a profit nor whether your customers would have come to me if you were not around.

As Zuck apologizes again... Facebook admits 'most' of its 2bn+ users may have had public profiles slurped by bots

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Is there alien life out there? Let's turn to AI, problem solver du jour

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WTF?

Is there anything neural networks can do?

FIFY

Furious gunwoman opens fire at YouTube HQ, three people shot

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Mushroom

What has to happen for people to stop wanting to kill one another? :(

Shut down Youtube.

Danish Navy expert finds no trace of exhaust gas in private submarine

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WTF?

Re: Has he ever come up with a story ...

What's really baffling is why he does not just confess. It's Denmark. What's the penalty for murder in Denmark, a few years in a country club? It's not like Texas where he'd be facing a death penalty that will really get executed.

Donald Trump jumps on anti-tech bandwagon, gets everything wrong

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FAIL

Irony

Irony is Trump making claims that others are not paying their fair share of income tax while he uses the excuse that his own taxes are still being audited by the IRS* as the lame reason for not releasing his income taxes.

* For tax evasion. The IRS does not go around auditing folks taxes hoping to find over payments in order to pay the taxpayers back.

Europe dumps 300,000 UK-owned .EU domains into the Brexit bin

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WTF?

The EU has a top level domain?

Who n.eu?

Parents blame brats' slipping school grades on crap internet speeds

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FAIL

One in seven...

"One in seven think sub-par internet speeds are negatively impacting their child's education, according to a survey of 1,000 respondents by price comparison site uSwitch."

I have to wonder how much of this is ginned up by all the commercials Verizon ran in the US showing kids in class reading reports they wrote with stuff like "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth buffering... buffering... buffering... buffering..."

Seemed Verizon's idea of education is plagiarizing, and that faster internet speeds allows you to plagiarize "better".

Slap visibility beacons on bikes so they can chat to auto autos, says trade body

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Re: Yeah... Right

It's a scam to sell more crap as well as to allow the car makers to dodge responsibility for their rubbish.

Huawei wins patent injunction against Samsung in China

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FAIL

Re: Knock me over with a feather

Yea. Samsung would never have been able to develop rounded corners by themselves. Not in a million years.

Probe: How IBM ousts older staff, replaces them with young blood

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FAIL

Re: The case, Dr Freud, is clear.

Pretty much any company enters a death spiral, although the initially trajectory may be subtle, once it is run by MBA's. Apple the first time Jobs left is an example. Apple once again now that Jobs passed away is another, although still subtle at this point. As is General Electric. As is IBM. As have been many a US automaker. And countless other companies. (Just remember, the entire financial meltdown of 10 years ago was the product of MBA's.)

It's all due to the addiction all MBA's have to eating the seed corn for the short term appearance of gain.

What a hang up: US big box biz Best Buy kicks Huawei to the curb

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WTF?

Are any phones sold in the US not made in China?

I'm hard pressed to think of any.

The Register Lecture: How to build your own tractor beam

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Boffin

Re: 40MHz ultrasonic waves

Yes, the paper clearly states 40kHz. What's 3 orders of magnitude among friends?

Five things you need to know about Microsoft's looming Windows 10 Spring Creators Update

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FAIL

Great!

More crap to have to figure out how to disable.

Uber breaks self-driving car record: First robo-ride to kill a pedestrian

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FAIL

@Yet Another Anonymous coward

Everywhere in the US, pedestrians have the right of way.

Everywhere.

Even if they are not in a crosswalk.

So yes, it is the drivers fault.

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WTF?

Re: Clear cut...

Given Uber's history, I'm surprised they didn't try to hide the body.

FYI: AI tools can unmask anonymous coders from their binary executables

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Boffin

Questions questions...

1. How well does it work if the programming language is uncommon and can't be determined from the binary?

2. How well does it work if #1 is true & the programming language is Assembly?

3. How well does it work if #1 is true & the high level language compiler allows inline Assembly so the programmer can randomly jump between the language & Assembly?

Cyborg fined for riding train without valid ticket

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FAIL

Inbedding a chip

The bar to call oneself a "biohacker" is so low it's underground. My dog & cat have embedded chips. I guess that makes them "biohackers" too.

Mulled EU copyright shakeup will turn us into robo-censors – GitHub

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FAIL

Re: Not GitHubs problem

" I can't think of any other domain of human activity where people *expect* that a single entity should abide by two contradictory sets of rules at the same time."

Agreed. The EU's "Right to Defraud Forget" for search engines is a prime example.

Google to 'forget me' man: Have you forgotten what you said earlier?

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FAIL

Orwellian

"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.” - George Orwell (From "1984") The European Union

Fermi famously asked: 'Where is everybody?' Probably dead, says renewed Drake equation

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FAIL

Re: Not useful

"That's a bad thing how exactly?"

If we all lived like the Amish, most Reg readers would be unemployed.

Bad blood: Theranos CEO charged with massive fraud

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FAIL

She should do serious jail time

This business of settling and just paying a trivial fine ($500k when she claimed her company was "worth" $9B to investors) is ridiculous. She'd have been more likely to do jail time had she shoplifted a $700 item from a store, yet she just gets a small fine and no jail time for stealing $700M.

Researchers create AI attacker to defeat AI malware defender

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FAIL

AI malware detection = crap

When I submit the binaries of my own code to Virus Total, guess who's crap has the highest false positives? The AI-AV's. And guess which companies either have no false positive reporting mechanism, or otherwise seem to be the most unresponsive if they do have a false positive reporting mechanism? That's right, the AI-AV companies.

Russian anti-antivirus security tester pleads guilty to certifying attack code

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WTF?

Huh?

So how does their service differ from Virus Total?

Former Google X bloke's startup unveils 'self flying' electric air taxi

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Black Helicopters

Re: Waaah!

Makes sense on a lot of levels to only allow rideshares & airlines to own them:

1. Retail customers suck up of a lot more resources per dollar generated than fleet customers at the sales & marketing levels.

2. Aircraft maintenance is always a big deal. The more regular use also means incipient failures are more likely to be spotted. Organizations with fleets tend to adhere to FAA (or equivalent) requirements better than individuals due to the more regular use of the equipment.

3. The fleet customer gets sued first in the even of a mishap, with the manufacturer next in line. In retail, the manufacturer gets sued first.

Man who gave interviews about his crimes asks court to delete Google results

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Alert

@Stuart Burns

That is why in the US, such convictions usually get you banned for life from those those endeavors. An example would be Michael Milken, who as part of his 1990 securities fraud plea deal, had to accept a lifetime ban from any involvement in the securities industry.

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FAIL

Scary

"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.” - George Orwell (From 1984) European Union