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Comment Save the suspense (Score 4, Informative) 39

by jbmartin6 (#48364031) Attached to: First Victims of the Stuxnet Worm Revealed
Why is the summary being coy about the first thing anyone will ask upon reading it? That is pointless. Here:

It took us a long time to establish what organization it really was, but ultimately we succeeded in identifying it with a high degree of certainty. It is called Foolad Technic Engineering Co (FIECO). It is an Iranian company with headquarters in Isfahan. The company creates automated systems for Iranian industrial facilities (mostly those producing steel and power) and has over 300 employees. The company is directly involved with industrial control systems.

Comment Re:CYA (Score 2) 127

I'm not so sure that armoring POS systems is the cheaper option. Sure there are a myriad of things that can be done, but how effective are they likely to be? Even a company like RSA got breached, and their seed database was armored pretty well until reality pried it open. Ultimately the underlying issue will remain, which is that "shared secret" is an oxymoron. As long as the payment is verified by shared information someone will find a way to steal and use the shared information. After all, retailers can't just seal the information in a box and never access it, they need to use it. And thieves will just access it the same way the retailer does.

Comment There is a case to be made (Score 1) 231

by jbmartin6 (#48353847) Attached to: Canadian Police Recommend Ending Anonymity On the Internet
Just think of all the death threats and so on we wouldn't have to deal with without anonymity. And of course all the other sorts of attacks. The problem is, 'no anonymity' depends on the government being completely trustworthy. Which of course it isn't, even in Canada. If this plan were enacted, its main use would no doubt be to suppress criticism of the police.

Comment Re:Who is that? (Score 1) 112

by jbmartin6 (#48345021) Attached to: Amazon's Echo Chamber
There's a huge difference between net profit, which Amazon doesn't have, and gross profit, which Amazon has tons of. It is what they are doing with that profit that makes the difference. Mom and Pop can only dream of the sort of profit that Amazon has.

Comment Re:Why does it matter ? (Score 3, Insightful) 112

by jbmartin6 (#48345013) Attached to: Amazon's Echo Chamber
OK fair enough, let me take a stab at it. TFA was a piece of junk. Much like a Facebook post, it is a series of assertions without any substance. The author claims "customers have been pushing back" and provides no details. He says the hardware and software are crappy and 'unfashionable', and again provides no details. For all I can tell he is the only one who thinks so. "No one makes money selling media for consumption anymore. That market is quickly and brutally dying." is another example. Again, no details. Now, if the author were someone with an established reputation or a track record, or had a lot of karma, we might accept it on that basis.

Comment Re:Terrible (Score 1) 430

by jbmartin6 (#48309335) Attached to: Russia Takes Down Steve Jobs Memorial After Apple's Tim Cook Comes Out
No specific biological etiology is not the same thing as 'not biological in origin.' All that means is no specific set of genes or whatever have been identified. Since homosexuality has been documented in hundreds of animal species, I think there is sufficient evidence for a biological origin. Perhaps there are cases where it is choice rather than nurture, humans can be pretty diverse, but it beggars the imagination to think all those animals are choosing to be homosexual.

Comment A clever omission (Score 1) 228

by jbmartin6 (#48309123) Attached to: New GCHQ Chief Says Social Media Aids Terrorists
What he doesn't mention is that the existing powers of the government(s) are already more than sufficient. In cases where there is good reason to watch someone, the processes existed even before the attacks on the US. If one reads the US Congress report on the 9/11 attacks, it is striking to see how much these guys were already under surveillance. There is no example of 'we had a viable suspect and some legal barrier kept us from closing the case'. And the Boston Marathon bombings showed us how useful the global Internet surveillance has been. In other words, Mr Hannigan and his ilk don't need any more power. The existing powers are demonstrably more than sufficient. The fact that they keep asking for more power tells us more about them than about the threat of terrorists.

Comment A missing detail (Score 4, Informative) 150

by jbmartin6 (#48300531) Attached to: SpaceShipTwo's Rocket Engine Did Not Cause Fatal Crash
For those who won't read the article, it was unclear why the tail was deployed early. Pilot error was one possibility:

Normally, the feather system wouldn’t be unlocked until the rocket-powered spaceship is moving about Mach 1.4, or 1.4 times faster than the speed of sound. Instead, the co-pilot moved the lever from locked to unlock when the spaceship was traveling at about Mach 1, Hart said. “I’m not stating that this is the cause of the mishap,” he added. “We have months and months of investigation to determine what the cause was.” In addition to the possibility of pilot error, Hart said the NTSB is looking a variety of other issues that may have caused or contributed to the accident

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