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User: cyriustek

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Comments · 77

  1. Better Idea on Facebook Will Track What Physical Stores You Go Into (popsci.com) · · Score: 1

    1) If you do not need a mobile phone, do not carry one.

    2) If you need a mobile phone, make sure it is not a smart phone.

    3) If you must have a smart phone, turn off wifi, turn off location services, remove the microphone, and remove the camera.

  2. No Problem With Caps on Comcast Users Must Now Pay $50 Per Month Extra To Avoid Caps (dslreports.com) · · Score: 1

    I just stay out of Washington DC, and do not watch hockey on television.

  3. Re:Likely a Number of Causes on Silicon Valley Tech Workforce Is Vastly Different From US, Say Feds (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    What about age diversity? How does the SV employee population compare to the general workforce and society at large? What about ideological diversity? How does the distribution of Republican/Democrat/Independent in SV compre to the general workforce and society at large? Religious diversity?

    Great points AC. I am only a sample on one, which can be dangerous but I notice the following:

    Age Diversity - It may as well be the sixties in SV. The mantra could be "do not trust anyone over 30". If you are 50, good luck getting a job.

    Ideological Diversity / Republicans / Democrats - A lot of Libertarians, and Democrats.

    Religious - What religion? Most seem to be atheist or agnostic.

    SV is not a very diverse place in my opinion.

  4. Likely a Number of Causes on Silicon Valley Tech Workforce Is Vastly Different From US, Say Feds (computerworld.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I do not find the racial and sex mixture for Silicone Valley to be odd considering the following factors. I am not saying these are good things, but they are the big influences IMO:

    1) Privilege and Opportunity - It has been my experience that many of these people either grew up in a solidly middle class or upper middle class environment. A good education was available for them from birth, right through to university. This education makes a big difference.

    2) Birds of a Feather Flock Together - People often associate themselves with others who are like-minded, and similar in a number of characteristics. This could even include race.

    3) Females & Sciences - Women in general are under-represented in the sciences, especially within IT. IT has built itself a nice little sausagefest.

    Having noted all of the above, SV is getting more diverse now by giving the high paying jobs to people with H1B Visas. I am not so sure this is a good thing. It would be awesome if the USA can get more opportunities for its current population.

  5. This Often Happens on Fox 'Stole' a Game Clip, Used It In Family Guy and DMCA'd the Original (torrentfreak.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    DMCA is used far too often for things that do not make sense. The only people that really profit from it all is the lawyers, especially in a case like this where there is evidence of prior art.

    Shame on Fox. Shame on MPAA. Shame on RIAA. Shame on all of the Congress critters for creating this legal pile of excrement.

  6. Re:Giant problem on Declaring Code Is Not Code, Says Larry Page (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Organisations publish their APIs, because that want people to use them.

    Sun was making a huge push on this in the early 2000s. IMO Larry Page is spot on with this.

  7. A thing of beauty on Symantec Antivirus Products Vulnerable To Horrid Overflow Bug (zdnet.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Tavis Ormandy is bad ass, and is really awesome at finding bugs. Whether it is Microsoft, Symantec, or anything else, he will find a bug if one is there.

    This is a beautiful bug! Having the scan engine loaded into the kernel is sheer lunacy. Yet even more evidence on why AntiVirus is a useless and dangerous program to have running on your system.

  8. Failure Abounds on John McAfee Tried to Trick Reporters Into Thinking He Hacked WhatsApp (gizmodo.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    John McAfee is doing everything he can to and and be relevant in today's society, apart from actually creating anything and doing something productive.

    * He is a failed Libertarian candidate for President
    * He failed to decrypt iPhones for the FBI although he said he can do it.
    * He failed in decrypting whatsapp.
    * The software he originally wrote is a failed idea. (Who ever thought A/V signatures were a good idea other than a mad man.)

    It is too bad he could not move back to South America since he is now a known fraud and dog killer.

  9. Wide Spread Abuse on Tesla's New Factory Project Imported Foreign Laborers (mercurynews.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This "hidden workforce" arrives on B1/B2 visas, which federal authorities acknowledge are subject to "widespread abuse" in Silicon Valley

    If everyone realises that wide spread abuse is going on, then why the hell do they allow the practice to continue? I am not generally one who bashes big business and the tech giants, but give me a break. Create a points system for bringing new people in with the right skills and education, and make sure they are paid a similar wage, so that local wages do not reduce rapidly.

  10. I certainly hope that the FCC does not begin enforcing this with fines and threatened jail time. Having the ability to install new firmware can improve the security of the device.

    Another thing to consider is that 2.4g is pretty much open game. You have to accept any interference that comes along in this frequency range due to its designation. The FCC should not care so much, as long as no one is putting out so much power that they are cooking meat.

  11. Reduces BS E-mails on France's After Work Email Ban Is 1 Step Closer To Reality (huffingtonpost.ca) · · Score: 1

    Although some may bristle and think this will cause a slow down of business, I disagree. It may make for a more efficient business with well-rested, lower stress employees.

    I have seen so many e-mails sent overnight and in the wee hours of the morning from people that want to be seen as working extra time. It is kind of like the days of face time with the boss in the UK. You always leave after the boss leaves, so that it looks like you are a worker.

  12. Not Totally Bad on Where Does America's E-Waste End Up? GPS Tracker Tells All (pbs.org) · · Score: 1

    The end result is that many of these electronics are getting recycled, just overseas. One can make a sound argument for the health of the workers due to toxins, but lets face the fact the working conditions in some nations are lackluster. Remember employees making iphones killing themselves, and the sweat shops in India and Vietnam for clothing and shoes?

    I am not arguing that these people do not deserve better conditions, but think it is important to note that recycling is occurring, and some people are getting to work to feed themselves and their families.

  13. Re:Are there any viable North Korean targets? on This Unusual Botnet Targets Scientists, Engineers, and Academics (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    North Korea is thought to be 20 years behind every other country listed in terms of engineering and they use a proprietary OS. What would the antagonist hope to dig out of NK that they can't get elsewhere with no additional coding work?

    I would not assume that NK is 20 years behind, especially on their hacking ability. They have been sending teams of people to exploitation training.

    NK does have some interesting things to hack into as well. The western world is interested in the DPRK's nuclear program, and it would not be surprising if a 'Stuxnet-like' application was used at some point to affect their operations as done in Iran.
     

  14. Re:A list of unpatched vulnerabilities? on FTC Orders Apple, Google, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Samsung To Divulge Mobile Security Practices (networkworld.com) · · Score: 1

    Although your point is well taken, there other other things to consider.

    Mobile devices often go unpatched due to the relationship between the carriers and the manufacturer. For example, you may buy a nice shiny Samsung, only to find out that it is not patched for the StageFright bug since the carrier has not vetted these patches yet. This is exacerbated when you bring your own phone over to the network, as they may not even know anything about what patch would work on your device.

    The exceptions to this include Apple and the Google Nexus phones. These phones seem to get patches, even without the carrier's involvement. However, if you have a generic Android phone, good luck.

    Now to the bugs that are not patched by the manufacturer...it makes sense to hold manufacturers feet to the fire as these devices contain a lot of valuable information for the user. (and the attacker for that matter.)

  15. This Cannot Be Taken Seriously on The World Video Game Hall of Fame 2016 Inductess · · Score: 2

    How in the world can they be taken seriously if they did not induct Galaga, Asteroids, and Zork?

  16. The current zombie epidemic was caused by BioTek when they tried to reanimate the dead. (citation needed)

  17. It is a war in San Francisco on 'I'll Make Their Life Miserable': Tech CEO Bullies Low-income Vendors By His Home (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    Both sides of this argument are deeply entrenched.

    1) There are a lot of people in San Francisco that care about the homeless. They are seen as the noble poor, and in San Francisco, the homeless get a real leg up in financial terms. Although this has resulted in more homeless moving into San Francisco, many are just displaced from their dwellings due to the outrageous costs for apartments. One bedroom apartments that are not too terribly nice are going for 3.5k to 4k per month.

    2) Some of the homeless here have no regard for laws. Public urination is everywhere. Get off at the Civic Centre of BART, and you are quickly greeted by a strong waft of urine in the air followed by billowing clouds of marijuana. Walk out of the BART station in the early morning, and you have to be careful to not step on a needle that a junky dropped.

    There is certainly room and a need to help people who are in genuinely difficult situation. Counseling to help addictions and strong policing to enforce current laws are needed. However, taking the law into one's own hands and destroying another person's property as Mr. Woodward says he will, is not the answer.

  18. The Real Problem on After Netflix Crackdown On Border-Hopping, Canadians Ready To Return To Piracy (www.cbc.ca) · · Score: 1, Informative

    The Netflix offering in New Zealand is abysmal as well. As such, many people happily used services like Unotelly and others to circumvent the geo-blocking. As a matter of fact, one ISP (Orcon) actually offered a service to help its users to bypass geoblocking. However, this was taken away due to legal threats from SkyTV and cable operators.

    Services like DirecTV, SkyTV, Xfinity, and others are to blame for perpetuating an antiquated system of content rights. They have a lot to lose from globally available services because they are the middle men that need to be cut out, resulting in lower prices for the consumers and/or higher profit for the content creators.

    In the meantime, I guess it is back to downloading for New Zealand as well. It is a shame that content creators will lose due to the "middle men."

  19. Re:The Answer is Obvious on Child Porn Is Being Hidden on Legal Commercial Websites (theguardian.com) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Please note that I said the previous comment with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek to illustrate the mindset of politicians and much of LE.

    * They want access to our data because of terrorist and child pornographers.

    * They spy on us because of terrorist and child pornographers.

    * They want encryption backdoored because of terrorists and child pornographers.

    * List this goes on and on.

    By using their logic, it would seem that legitimate site would either need to be banned, or monitoring software installed for LE to see when porn is put on to the site.

  20. The Answer is Obvious on Child Porn Is Being Hidden on Legal Commercial Websites (theguardian.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We need to ban all internet sites. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

  21. Stress & Biometric Issues on Researchers Can Identify You By Your Brain Waves With 100% Accuracy (business-standard.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Some rightly noted that it may be possible for brain waves to change over time. However, I wonder if stress can significantly change the identification? For example, merely looking at images may provide a different brain wave result if the person being examined has a gun being held to their head whilst looking at the images. In kind, what if the person just learned his/her significant other is cheating on them. (By a mattress with an app, surely)

    A common biometric issue is that if the information that represents who you are is stolen (a fingerprint, iris pattern, etc...), you cannot easily change it. However, I wonder if appropriately controlled stress or mind exercises can change one's brain pattern?

  22. Many people in Spain are now noticing their dinner tables have an odd mess on them.

  23. Re:Industry? on New Zealand Halts Internet Copyright Law Changes · · Score: 1

    If this was the US, I would say you may have a point about the constitution. However, NZ does not have a written constitution.

  24. Re:Intrusion Detection Systems on Obama Stimulus Pours Millions Into Cyber Security · · Score: 1

    Some people with network connections do not bother running an IDS, as it is easily bypassed, and often offers little value added. Additionally, if one were to have an IDS, what good would it do you unless you are actually watching it, and tuning it? The staffing required for something like this on a national scale would be prohibitive.

    We also have to consider that to monitor all of the traffic with an IDS, you must have access to all of the traffic. Although we believe this is already occurring, you can be certain that your traffic will be watched if a country-wide IDS system is in place, and there will not be a law preventing the US govt from spying on you and others.

    The USA and Britain are losing so many rights in the name of security today. It is alarming.

  25. Use Social Networking to Defend Your Reputation on Linked In Or Out? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Social networking sites can be one avenue in which you lose your privacy. However, there is another side to this coin. Namely, do you want to be able to make your identity online, or do you want others to determine your identity?

    By using LinkedIN, Facebook and others, you can craft a very professional image that is put forth. In kind, you can be selective as to who you allow as a 'friend' or 'contact.' Therefor, your professional image retains intact.

    Obviously you want to avoid posting pictures of you doing your last beer bong, or wearing a lampshade on your head, whilst posting white papers, and pictures of you presenting at conferences.