Posts by Wzrd1 2268 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Dec 2012
Not really. Some of us find such guidance something of value.
As in, yeah, that's a *really* bad idea, I'll not do it.
Other items, "Why would I, that's beyond my comprehension as to *why* I'd do that!".
Then, wonder about my neighbor.
Which, to be honest, I've done more than a few times recently. ;)
"Don't forget "Life's about what you can get away with.""
Erm, largely in the US and Somalia. Civilized nations, your mileage may vary abruptly.
We're still busy regulating who gets to go into which bathroom and which religion gets to ignore the very first amendment.
And something about a repeatedly bankrupt casino guy.
"I have a shotgun that operates under differing rules and suggestions.
I dare you."
OK, I put my M1A on that oversized drone and return the favor.
Anarchy isn't the way to go.
Besides, my house isn't pellet proof, start shooting randomly around, I'll precisely engage you and win. I never did learn how to miss and I'm good to 2 KM with my current equipment.
They're precisely guidelines, as Congress hasn't passed any law to create such a code.
The "code" exists under the Executive Branch, barely.
Meaning, it's not especially enforceable, save within current existing legal code for aircraft or cameras.
Well, save in my area, which is a special aviation area, due to some critter called a B-52H.
But, to be honest, I'll give them that one.
As I have those BUFF's flying quite literally over my house, largely 24/7 in hours of operation and I do mean literally, as in cat running and hiding from their shadow literal, yeah, I don't want one ingesting a drone and falling on my house.
I'll be colored impressed when Congress isn't regulating bathrooms, coloring door stalls or similar nonsense and actually passes a law that actually has something to do with actually running the country.
Such as regulating drones, which are currently out of control.
This, said by a man who has used tactical drones in war and considered ginning up one to look at the traffic to and from work, save that it'd conflict with those B-52's...
No need accidentally conflicting and dropping one on my house, with a resultant loss of wife and cat, although the cat is beginning to become negotiable. (Russian Blue cat, exceptionally overaffectionate to the point of trip and keyboard risk, but alas, too cute to eat)
First off, nicotine is a lethal poison in high percentage form. We've had a handful of deaths from high purity e-juice in the US already.
Second, what are the health effects of breathing the oils and glycols used in e-juice? We don't want to replace a carcinogen with something that might cause cancer or lipid pneumonia.
Finally, howinhell do I know just what is in that e-juice? It could actually be what is advertised, it might also be anything from ricin to plutonium.
OK, maybe not that extreme, but let's face it, a lot's made in China, which is a proper warning label.
But then, I remember my own nation's history, when it was a good idea to drink water with either radium or thorium in it - right until some rich family lost a family member to jaw cancer, then we began regulating things touted as health bringing, medicines, etc.
I'll give full disclosure, I am a cigarette smoker, smoking worse yet, unfiltered cigarettes. I've yet to meet an e-juice that is strong enough to begin tapering down, they've all, save one lethal percentage I didn't dare toy about with, been too weak and I'm not about to touch that 80% nicotine crap without a proper chemical lab to ensure it's 80%, protect myself from that toxic strength (nicotine is trivially absorbed by the skin) and ensure I can survive even a dose at a properly diluted dosage.
And not inhale a brew that clogs my lungs with something even worse than my Luckies already are providing.
Daddy might've raised a dummy, but he didn't raise a fool.
Jump through the hurdles, prove that your product has what it says it has in it and be as considerate as I am of my secondhand smoke - I hate my own secondhand smoke, I'll not inflict it upon another.
Do excuse the tobacco stench of my clothing though, it is indeed a nasty addiction. I throw serious PVC's if I stop, toying with V-tach since that heat stroke damaged my heart.
Oh, to further complicate things, I have atrial flutter, secondary to left ventricular hypertrophy, due to ignoring my own health while caring for a dying father and long undiagnosed and well compensated for hyperthyroidism, with the only specific symptom being hypertension until tachycardia and stage 2 hypertension began.
As the hypertension was well controlled and considering the family history, yeah, it got missed until all hell broke out medically.
Quitting smoking now would be... Complicated, I'll be conferencing in a number of my specialists soon.
Before things get *really* complicated.
First though, I'll wait for the Grave's to move into remission, which so far, it's moving rapidly in the correct direction.
If you haven't figured it out, I'm in the medically advanced class of people, understanding medicine, physiology and pathology well, courtesy of my previous military career. I can converse intelligently with physicians, even fellows in highly technical fields of research.
An abrupt change would currently be hazardous, so, it'll take planning and consultation first. My specialties involved military medicine involving plumbing problems or pathogenic illness or fractured limbs, mostly, endocrinology is a voodoo best left to the specialists. As the heart and kidneys are mixed plumbing and endocrine, yeah, specialist time.
I still have biochemical questions on vaping.
Newest isn't always bestest, as quite a few drugs and fads have proved in the past.
This, from one who could never, ever be considered a Luddite in any way, shape or form!
Yeah, E. Remember those days, had my wife complaining about E as well back in the day.
She's finally using the proper names, Microsoft Outrage, Internet Exploder, Blotus...
Those are also a hit in our security shop, the kiddies never heard those highly technical terms. ;)
Some are astonished at my tales of remote registry editing, scripts performing complex maintenance tasks and repairs, etc.
Just whatinhell are they teaching computer science classes these days?
I've got scripts and jobs for everything, even scratching my nose, as that would take my fingers away from the home row. ;)
Then, there was that script writing script I wrote... Deep_thought.sh.
It was via secure satellite link. They can come to periscope depth, raise the antenna mast, acquire the bird and chat away.
Resupply by ship isn't uncommon either, if it's mission critical especially.
ULF is used for extremely short coded messages, such as come to periscope depth to receive traffic/orders. Voice ain't going that way, as just saying hello would take a week at that baud rate.
I actually did talk to a guy on a sub twice, once for a personal telephone call, once, a case of a sailor doing the "hey, I gotta take a crap, talk with this guy for a bit until I get back". The latter turned out to be a SEAL team member, on a sub going somewhere or something that I had no interest in, made small talk for a bit, then the RTO came back and took over.
It turns out, we chewed a lot of the same sand and were covering each other a few times in mutual aid missions back before I retired. He was thinking of retiring too.
I suggested, "When it starts hurting too much to put all of that crap on, it's time to retire. It's what I did".
Wow, but I still miss my guys!
Nice thing about Army: Nobody comes out of the ground and shoots at you with things that chase you around and won't miss. Navy doesn't have the advantage of being able to hide in a hole while calling in close air. Air doesn't have that advantage either.
Hats off to both!
As I've told my guys, back when I was wearing that military uniform, "Don't worry, our mutual rich and retarded Uncle has plenty more, warehouses full", when equipment was destroyed by enemy action.
Sure enough, a replacement showed up quite quickly and the asset written off as a constructive loss.
Heh, after retiring from the US Army, I took a contracting job with the US DoD in Qatar.
A place where pretty much nothing happens. One day, while waiting my turn in the line to security vehicle search, I heard a dozen shots ring out and a very familiar whizzing sound of a tumbling round, which passed between my chest and steering wheel, to impact the passenger side floor.
Apparently, someone had recently purchased a handgun at the new gun shop in the mall, which had opened earlier that month and decided to fire at the desert from the industrial area.
Needless to say, I rapidly exited my vehicle, placed one of the concrete barriers between me and the incoming random fire and waited for him to run out of ammunition, which was rather quickly, reported the incident to security, who notified host nation, who then sent some agents to have a little chat with the gentleman. He was quite taken aback, as he didn't realize that he was firing in the direction of a military installation and that anyone was around where the rounds were landing.
No damage was done, it was at maximum range for a handgun and the worst that I've had gotten had the round hit me was a minor bruise.
And here, I thought I was done taking incoming rounds after I had retired.
Oh well, now I'm back to a much more dangerous place, the US, where the chances of getting shot are much, much higher.
Actually, they have. I was personally present for one such call from a joint EOD (explosive Ordinance Disposal) team member who was having computer problems while attempting to disarm an IED.
As the IASO for their network, I helped out with part of his issue, as I had blocked that terminal, as it was infected with malware and shooting data to China as quickly as it was shooting data to the DoD.
I unblocked it, killed the malware, reinitialized all network services and he was back in business - while he was under fire.
We also decided that we needed to fine tune procedures for infected computers that were downrange, on the other end of a satellite fly away kit.
Brought back some memories though, I have hearing loss from an IED explosion, so taking care of those guys had a special priority to me.
I grew up and lived as an adult in an "open carry" state - Pennsylvania. I've since relocated to Louisiana, another "open carry" state.
The funny thing is, few bother to carry a firearm.
Decades ago, I lived in a rather lousy neighborhood in Philadelphia, so I got a concealed carry permit. That resulted in much more frequent cleanings of my pistol and one evening, while cleaning the pistol, I pondered just how much of a good sport an armed criminal would have to be to await my drawing my firearm, so that we'd be evenly matched.
So, I put the cleaned pistol back into its safe and only took it out to go to and from a range, permitting the concealed carry permit to expire.
"Does this mean that sock-holster-gun-fondler-guy could be judged blameless if he turns out to be functionally illiterate?"
Nope. Ignorance of the law is not a defense in the US. This sounds like someone has connections, so they're actively trying to not charge him with a felony.
Pity, convicted felons lose the right to possess a firearm.
As a multiple firearm owner, I'll just state outright, this is yet another case of negligence and it's also a felony to carry a firearm onto school property. Not seeing a sign isn't considered an affirmative defense in the US, it's well known where to not carry on school property.
We took a several year delay in getting FIOS in our area just south of Philly, due to the contract with the city and a further delay introduced by various townships holding up deployment for "gifts" like lighting from Verizon going through their townships.
I'm sure some envelopes were passing the desks as well, stuffed with green paper.
Delaware County and Philadelphia county are both lousy with corruption.
Dan, it's illegal to enter other people's networks without permission. He used the computer equivalent to a lock pick to enter a system without permission, rummaged around without permission, took data and used stolen credentials without permission.
Now, I know one county supervisor who thinks that burglary is OK, just as long as he wins his elections. I'll make sure I don't move or buy property in Florida. There are idiots in office who think that violating the law is acceptable, just as long as they win their election.
I thought you'd have learned something from that dust up over that Watergate hotel burglary.
@DanForSupervisor, you'd never get my vote at all, as you've failed to comprehend the law's basics.
I'll use an example for you.
Kwikset is a cheap, popular lock that is extremely easy to pick. His SQL injection attack was like me sticking my lock picks into that Kwikset lock and picking the lock. Without permission, I'd be committing burglary and rightfully convicted of burglary. With permission, I'd be evaluating security by showing that even my modicum of skill was able to pick the lock in seconds.
He should have written up a proposal, explaining that he's a security researcher and he was interested in examining their network for vulnerabilities for free. There's a fair chance that he'd have gotten permission. Instead, he went in, played around, exfiltrated data, all without permission. He picked the cheap lock and entered.
I'd have pushed to have him charged as well. I'd also have hit the roof that my site was so vulnerable and saw to it that it was properly secured.
But then, I'm an information security professional. The only systems I break into are my own and obviously I've given myself permission to breach my own systems.
1: He intentionally breached systems without the consent of the operator. That is indeed a crime.
2: He continued to breach more systems without the consent of the operators. That's also a crime.
3: Had he asked for permission, they may well have given it and then it would not have been a crime.
4: If someone breached my systems without my permission, I'll be taking them to court and get awarded punitive damages.
5: If someone entered my home without permission, they'll leave with a pair of 5.56 mm holes in them - head and chest, as I live in a castle doctrine state. I'm also a retired soldier who never learned how to miss.
Want to stay out of trouble? Easy, don't fuck with other people's shit without permission. If you ask me, I'll probably let you try to breach my systems, if you don't ask permission, we'll be meeting in court.
"Absolutely correct but "Dave" was vindictive, he didn't report the guy until he realised the guy wasn't going to crawl to him."
I've been in information security for government networks for quite a few years and have given that "don't do that anymore, it's bloody intimately logged" talk quite a few times.
Some idiots do try that dodge and I then dump the idiot's traffic logs and ask him how he'd like his superior to see that high risk activity. I then assign them back for retraining on their annual end user security awareness training, which wouldn't have been insisted upon had they simply acknowledged the warning. Not because I'm being petty, but because a gentle warning wasn't acknowledged and I was certain more and likely worse behavior would endanger an entire bloody network.
Endangering an entire network, all to get your jollies is a career ending error, take the warning, don't do it again and we'll forget about it. Do that crap on the civilian network, on your personal equipment.
After all, if you get malware from that surfing, now I have to investigate, report on it way upstairs and some serious personnel actions are certain to follow, with an iron clad chain of evidence.
"IT, Finance and the receptionist/facilities people."
As I'm the information security guy, I'll add in HR. I end up dealing with them over severe policy violations on a regular basis and honestly, that job really sucks. Boring most of the time, firing people, not a job that I envy them.
Having had something highly similar, although without the screensaver, well, initially.
A user of a military system, on a military network, had been issued a computer for his exclusive usage. While running my weekly vulnerability scan, I took note of that week's systems that stubbornly refused to accept their patches and lined up my work for the afternoon, as the LAN/WAN and PC shops were short staffed and everything had to be patched by end of week.
So, after wading through a few boxes remotely, repairing WSUS, SMS, etc, I come along to one box that had zero bytes free on an HD that was both recently imaged and quite generous for the image.
Run the remove clear all temp script, still pretty full, run the clear old uninstall patch script, still bloody full. Check user profile size, most of the drive!
Running a dir /s > listing.txt and parsing to see if there were some odd temps that were missed by the usual scripts revealed an extensive stash in My Pictures - many, uniquely named to suggest pre-teen pornographic imagery.
At that point, it became a matter for the military police, who received a copy of listing.txt and a short report.
Whereupon a helpful SCCM push changed his screensaver to display the imagery from My Pictures.
We averaged one per year in the theater.
All could have avoided prosecution by simply keeping their filth off of government computers and leaving them on their personal computers, which were prohibited from touching government networks.
Our CERT ran annual "porn scans", as did CENTCOM. Something all users were briefed on before they were allowed to sign for their new accounts.
Mindbogglingly dim!
"How do they turn up on random desks and get installed (Damn you HellDesk!)."
Oh, that one's easy. Add critical driver files for that specific model crapjet into the antivirus as malware, resulting in instant breakage and virus alerts on the drivers.
Then, confidently inform users that those printers weren't approved for a reason, they were infected at the factory and by the way, you need your desktop wiped and baselined again. No, that computer shan't work until the PC shop reloads it, as it's blocked from the network due to a malware infection that can't be cleared.
A few reload the driver, rinse and repeat, at try three, they get to have a long talk with HR.
"Like a giant coal fired watch."
Indeed, Bluto, apt, very, very apt. One of the few small office printers that is a natural fit as use after final retirement as an artificial reef - continents need only apply.
Ahh, the good old days, when moving small office equipment could result in major surgery...
"good for a month of sickleave when the Selectric fractures several bones in your foot, although chances are you'll never walk the same..."
Back then, we were wearing military boots, the worst that one could get while wearing those was a bad bruise.
Save, if it struck the leg, which would then be hopelessly fractured.
"unfortunate habit of yanking the sheet out of the printer before it was finished "
Yeah, try that one with a high speed, three head, high speed printer. That gets real expensive, real quick, with a blown driver board and melted ribbon cable. A quick note from Big Boss telling the staff that the next such repair comes out of the culprit's paycheck curbed that idiotic practice.
"Now for the fun part: in the HP LJ 1, the unit that does the page flip for double sided mode was at the bottom of the device. The flap would allow you to get a sheet out, but a very much stuck set of labels needed access - which you could only get from the top down by pretty much taking the whole thing apart. At that point it turned from a nuisance into a challenge :)."
Yeah, been there, done that, didn't have to disassemble halfway, as I've long had the practice of placing components in specific order on an adjacent work mat, like we did when working on bombs in the military.
I've also restrung the media tray base unit, when the cables stretched out of tolerance, as it was my department's unit. Other departments just had theirs binned and had to wait for a replacement.
Priorities and all, our games ran faster than lusers applications, as we have priority.
"I'm on the phone, can you turn the volume down on the printer please? Thanks"
I'll happily plead guilty to that very offense. I was also giving the tech a wink though, as this BOFH has a clue and just didn't enjoy my contemplation of a pint in my fist being interrupted by the dreadful noise. ;)
That's work best saved for a Monday, after a holiday weekend. :D
"Instead, it's being asked to infect Farook's iPhone 5C with a custom firmware that will allow the Feds to guess his passcode using a brute-force process without the device wiping itself after too many wrong login attempts."
Forcing someone to perform work without compensation is slavery, slave.
"They claim the "All Writs Act of 1789" allows them to compel Apple to do the work."
And yet, they're in a court of law, a court that has notoriously disliked Congress stepping upon the prerogatives of the court.
It's one thing to demand a key, it's yet another thing to demand a product be produced for free. That is slavery.
Frankly, I'd have a plan B that involved moving he entire corporate database overseas, to an unfriendly nation and physical destruction of the US based development storage hardware.
"Like Democrats they're quite good at ignoring the Constitution when it's inconvenient to their political agendas."
Indeed, what party created the Patriot Act, which undermined the greater part of the US Constitution?
Here is a small Cliff Notes version of US politics today, Citizens United means wealthy benefactors get to pay as much as they want to to get the candidates that they want in power, as money is free speech and that leaves the populace speechless.
"I thought the Republicans, particularly the hard line elements, were the ones who want "small government" that doesn't try to interfere with their lives."
No, they just want whatever big business campaign contributors want, no regulation on pollution, no quality control, no taxes supporting bridges and highways, no public health, etc.
In short, no taxes for the wealthy and the populace can sod off.
""Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.""
Franklin was speaking of raising tax money to raise a militia during the beginnings of the French and Indian war. He later lied to Quakers about money for a fire engine, while instead purchasing cannon. But then, a cannon most certainly is an engine of fire.
Especially to a freemason trying to help someone, despite their worst efforts to not be helped.
Things were a bit weird back then, but in the end, the Native Americans lost, the French lost and the militias largely had their butts handed to them by both the French and Native Americans, with the British rescuing those militias repeatedly.
3 Scots had members at our NCO open mess, where my unit at the time was formerly a militia and now is a US Army National Guard unit.
"Interestingly, this request to Apple, would seem to support the view that AES 256 is (currently) uncrackable"
Well, the NSA uses AES (which level, I cannot discuss) and has directed that the US DoD use it.
I'd still not call it uncrackable, just not crackable within a length of time that'd be operationally useful.
If it takes a year to crack encrypted data that is needed this week or this month, it's reasonably secure. Add in layers, as 3DES did, add in further great lengths of time to totally decrypt data needed "today".
"Basically if you take anything out of the device then it no longer has its necessary relationship with other components in the phone. "
It's called TPM. It can still be faked, with a hell of a lot of effort. As the FBI works routinely on national security matters with the NSA, it's likely a filling in a few minor blanks operation and hence, not worth the effort.
But, oddly, they're insisting that Apple should write an entirely new operating system that undoes encryption, all by fiat, rather than via a court order.
".. and the authority to ex-judicially execute US citizens anywhere in the world by drone strike"
Which is why a certain group of "militia" were all killed in a forestry center not too long ago, right?
Oh wait, they were stopped by a roadblock and arrested.
Don't be a tosser and ignore what a war is. Citizens were also targeted during WWII, when they were working with the enemy.
Or are wars different now and they're really pillow fights? It sure didn't look that way to me, or to our allied forces when we were fighting them.
Still trying to figure out the Iraq thing, as the US gained no oil, that's largely going to Europe. Maybe it was what I first theorized, "He tried to kill my dad".
As usual, the press gets it wrong.
Apple unlocked his phone - gladly, once a court order was obtained and presented.
Apple refuses to write a new OS that disposes of the cryptography, thus undoing all encrypted Apple telephones.
Let's review now, the FBI asked Apple to write an entire new operating system, to unlock, allegedly one telephone that was already unlocked.
How much do we have to pay for a new commercial operating system, but the department of justice wants one for free?!
In short, enslave corporation, acquire a free product and allegedly use it once. Just like GCHQ and the NSA only slurped once.
Frankly, I'd make rapid plans to move the entire company offshore.
"The figures given for the recently-detected black hole merger can give some context. If the merger happened 1.3Gly away and the signal only created a disturbance a thousandth of the width of a proton, then it would only disturb something one lightyear away from it by about a millimetre."
Two black holes merging does not make a solar system merging with a black hole - it'd be the equivalent of dropping a drop of water into the ocean of Europa, unnoticeable.
"Hint. Find a pond / pool and toss a massive rock in to it. It goes splash now doesn't it?"
Not really, gravity waves that would be that disruptive would have to originate from two black holes or a black hole and a neutron star, Sol couldn't produce such gravity waves when interacting with a black hole.
Indeed, it's likely that the entire solar system could enter a galactic core sized black hole intact-ish.
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