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User: MichaelSmith

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Comments · 11,670

  1. Re:Political stupidity at it's zenith on On Eve Of Election, Australia's Conservatives Announce Mandated Filtering Policy · · Score: 1

    The weird thing about the Liberal policy was their idea of rolling out filtering to new modems. These people must be seriously confused about what a modem does.

  2. Re:Expensive on Samsung Unveils Galaxy Gear Smartwatch · · Score: 1

    If the device has an internet connection it should know his location.

  3. Re:Peak Oil, shithead. on At Current Rates, Tesla Could Soon Suck Up Worldwide Supply of Li-Ion Cells · · Score: 2

    Batteries don't use up their working materials, speaking generally.

  4. Re:price competition via supply shortfall. on At Current Rates, Tesla Could Soon Suck Up Worldwide Supply of Li-Ion Cells · · Score: 2

    So make bigger pieces and use more automation. Invest to make them in cheaper labour markets.

  5. Re:and there goes the Nokia Android on Official: Microsoft To Acquire Nokia Devices and Services Business · · Score: 2

    I think it is a certainty, and the deal was done before Elop went to Nokia.

  6. Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench. on Lockbox Aims To NSA-Proof the Cloud · · Score: 1

    Even so, this service does not protect an individual against wrenches.

  7. Re:What good is tor on Feds Seek Prison For Man Who Taught How To Beat a Polygraph · · Score: 1

    Or government agencies could just operate large parts of Tor themselves.

  8. Re:Pseudoscience debunked? on Feds Seek Prison For Man Who Taught How To Beat a Polygraph · · Score: 1

    How about practice? In my experience the tests gets reused a lot and follow similar themes in any event.

  9. Re:Pseudoscience debunked? on Feds Seek Prison For Man Who Taught How To Beat a Polygraph · · Score: 1

    Or for helping people spot the patterns needed to pass an IQ test, &c. &c.

    So many job interview processes now include IQ tests that I expect the measured IQ of job seekers to increase significantly.

  10. Re:Amended quote on Snowden Spoofed Top Officials' Identity To Mine NSA Secrets · · Score: 1

    Such separation of access is fundamentally impossible

    ..without crypto. I can encrypt files on my laptop and store them on a server maintained by you and you will not see my data.

  11. Re:Amended quote on Snowden Spoofed Top Officials' Identity To Mine NSA Secrets · · Score: 1

    How do you propose keeping a sysadmin that needs root access to do their job from being able to copy something to a thumb drive

    Encrypting file contents and not giving sysadmins access to the keys.

  12. Re:Amended quote on Snowden Spoofed Top Officials' Identity To Mine NSA Secrets · · Score: 1

    I don't see why a sysadmin should be able to see the contents of files. For sure they should be able to move them around and such, but ways exist to encrypt file contents, using a key and passphrase. The sysadmin for servers need not see the keys on clients and the sysadmin for clients need not have access to encrypted volumes on the servers.

  13. Re:Minecraft?? on Researchers Reverse-Engineer Dropbox, Cracking Heavily Obfuscated Python App · · Score: 1

    Minecraft is written in java.

  14. Re:If they've alread captured the CO2, on Australian University Unveils New Carbon-Trapping Bricks · · Score: 1

    I thought Methane. Crack sea water for hydrogen and oxygen. Burn that mixture in combination with atmospheric carbon to produce methane. Compress, liquefy and ship it to the world.

  15. Re:Dead man switch on The Register: 4 Ways the Guardian Could Have Protected Snowden · · Score: 1

    The friends don't control the data, only the key to decrypt it. The only way that can fail is to not release the key, or to release the key at the wrong time. If they change the key the data will be just noise. The data goes out on bit torrent long before the keys go out.

  16. Dead man switch on The Register: 4 Ways the Guardian Could Have Protected Snowden · · Score: 1

    The recent approach of releasing encrypted insurance files is a good way to go. You put the data on a torrent and create thousands of copies, then give the key to a few dozen trusted friends. If shit goes down, one of the friends posts the keys in a public forum. It is simple and reliable.

  17. Unix on Ballmer To Retire · · Score: 1

    Windows never completely adapted to the networked world. They didn't have a good shell and they never gave their shell commands full access to the TCP/IP stack. Most things had to be done through the GUI and complex UI operations are often worse with a GUI. Windows was slow to start processes and thus slow to spawn threads and handle new connections. It didn't fly like UNIX. Apple bit the bullet and adopted UNIX. Linux is now the major OS player, via redhat, debian and Android.

    If anything the windows userland was the real failure. Microsoft should have invested in better shells and utilities earlier.

  18. Re:Hah! Slashdot likes Ballmer more than the Press on Ballmer To Retire · · Score: 1

    I don't think we can blame Balmer for killing Steve.

  19. Re:Bling from the heavens on Ancient Egyptians Made Iron Jewelry From Pieces of Meteorite, Archaeologists Say · · Score: 2

    I have read elsewhere that some ancient cultures knew of iron primarily from meteorites.

  20. Re:Hunters and Fishers on Wikileaks Party Making Questionable Deals In Attempt To Win Senate Seat · · Score: 3, Informative

    They are the Australian gun lobby (like the US NRA sort of) and not regarded very well. I always put them last along with the "fathers who don't want to pay child support" and the anti immigration groups.

  21. Re:Why wasn't this leaked by Wikileaks? on Wikileaks Party Making Questionable Deals In Attempt To Win Senate Seat · · Score: 1

    entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power

    Yeah

  22. Re:Again and Again on Wikileaks Party Making Questionable Deals In Attempt To Win Senate Seat · · Score: 1

    What does this have to do with Assange directly?He is only one of 7 wikileaks candidtates, and he is running in Queensland.

    I think that is nutty. Queensland is the home of fringe political parties, and right wing voters. Assange has ties in Victoria and would surely find more voters among the tech and academic industries here.

  23. Re:Why wasn't this leaked by Wikileaks? on Wikileaks Party Making Questionable Deals In Attempt To Win Senate Seat · · Score: 2

    It has everything to do with the freedom to communicate.

  24. Re:Why wasn't this leaked by Wikileaks? on Wikileaks Party Making Questionable Deals In Attempt To Win Senate Seat · · Score: 1

    The GG can take Assange's oath in London personally or appoint someone else to do it.

    Maybe she could ask the Queen to pop around to the Ecuadorian embassy on the way back from visiting the grandkids or something.

  25. Re:Questioning... on Wikileaks Party Making Questionable Deals In Attempt To Win Senate Seat · · Score: 1

    Anyway, I'm an American. I don't care about or understand British politics.

    This is about Australian politics.