I have a sideline job doing computer servicing/repair. Since the issues between Russia/Ukraine have ramped up, there's also been a noticeable uptick in online/banking fraud coming from Russia.
Thankfully the banks seem to be on the watch for this - the notify customers of unusual transactions, e.g. western union, to Russian accounts - so most of my work is just ensuring that machines are clean after the fact.

I won't say that this is state-sponsored, but likely more to issues alluded to with this guy: mainly that Russia doesn't seem to be very cooperative in dealing with known international criminals - especially with the poor international relations of current - and the criminal element are taking advantage of this.

I've actually had servers say that to me.

Usual cause: trying to execute certain commands while logged in as a user that no longer exists in /etc/passwd.

Also known as "oops I overwrite /etc/password!".

Bonus points if you get this while logged in a root. An associate of mine discovered that it's bad to use system variable names when he had this one in a script he ran (as root):
    deluser $USER

someone who never speaks, rocks in a corner, and screams if their normal routine is changed

So, middle-management then? Except for the never speaking part, they tend to speak at length *after* things go south. :-)

Perhaps so, but keep in mind those older models *still* resell for more than many others, and before the release of the PS4 you could see good condition CECHE01's selling for $100+ over the price of the regular models. When the PS3 first came out, the price jump over other consoles also included the blu-ray drive etc, and generally better build quality. The PS3 did have some issues, but the RROD and laser-burn (cheaping out over a 5c bumper, geeze) issues on the XB360 were legendary.

My understanding is that the main difference was in the chip that supported the older hardware, so why not just make it an option which could be easily added? A little socket for the chip and a dip-switch or jumper would probably do.

Without the contributions and crowdfunding Elite: Dangerous might not have happened! There are a huge number of people who have made this happen (including myself)! That money , not only gets you early access to the game but to actually help shape the games development. The reviews so far , despite the fact that were still in Beta have been amazing , some commenting that the game is remarkably polished for this stage in the game. Others have said its occulus rift support is possibly the best showcase of the hardware out there at the moment. http://www.pcgamer.com/uk/2014... N

How do they throw away the keys? If they're just zeroing the area with the identity/security info it might not be that much more secure.
That said, scrambling the stored keys *and* zeroing the storage space is probably the best solution.

I've got a couple that are definitely targeted at a gamepad rather than a keyboard/mouse. Injustice: Gods Among Us comes to mind. My solution was just to steal some controllers from the XBox and use them on the PC.

My buddy has the same game on console. The big difference:
I paid under $30 on a Steam sale, and got the "extended edition" or whatever it's called with all the addons. He paid around the same, but every time he starts it up his Playstations tells him about all the fun addons he *could* have is he's just willing to shell out another $15-30 for the expansions.

Also, it actually looks a bit better on the PC with the settings turned up.

On a PC, I can still play almost all of my games from up to a decade ago. Some of them require VM's (e.g. DOSBox, or perhaps XP in VirtualBox), but my library is still fairly playable excepting some online play and disc-rot.

XBox can't play 360, and PS4 can't play PS3. That's lame. I don't want to have 10 consoles sitting around

I think Sony actually had a good idea with adding a chip to the early PS3's for backwards compatibility. I think that current-gen would do better if this concept continued. I have a 360 with a decent library of games. The XBone didn't really launch with a lot of offerings, but as my old console is starting to show signs of wear I might have considered the newer model instead of fixing/replacing my old one.

Actually, even Origins looks pretty decent on a modern rig. One of the nice things about PC games is sometimes they get *better* over time. I've just started playing it a few months ago and considering the age it looks quite nice with all settings turned up to full. When I look at the trailers, they actually look somewhat crappy compared to my current gameplay (and youtube walkthroughs made on older hardware look particularly dated).

I've met a lot of people with degrees that "felt" they were good programmers, admins, whatever. For straightforward work they were good, but for poop-hit-the-propeller situations or ones that required imagination they actually performed rather poorly.

On the other hand, those with "life experience" were good in high-stress situations and worked well as creative thinkers, but were often fairly horrible at stuff like code structure, documentation, and time management of multiple tasks.

In many cases, schooling doesn't teach you to be a good worker. People who can read books and pass tests may be good for drone-work but not for many real-life situations. Alternately, there are critical skills learned in school which often make those people work better in an environment where they interact with others.

Most of the real rockstars/aces I've met aren't formally trained. They're highly skilled, driven, but often also cowboys who don't work so well with others (or produce work that can be read by others). Who you hire depends on what you need: formal structure, team player, or quick get-it-done ACE. In larger groups, usually having one of the aces is good for when unexpected stuff crops up, but having the formally trained guys/gals is also important for building a structure where you'll get less of the "oh sh*t" moments.

no-ip was the second most popular dynamic-DNS site for malicious software

How popular are they overall as a DDNS provider, and how many legit VS malicious customers do they have? It may sound big if they've got 1,000,000 malicious DDNS sites, but not so much if it turns out that's less than half a percent portion of 10,000,000,000 overall sites and the rest are legit.

Because "global warming" was a fairly terrible name for it versus "climate change"

Some places will get hotter, yes, but it also disrupts the flow of air/clouds/etc so that - as we've experienced locally - we get some extremely hot days coupled with an usual amount of wetter/colder days as well. I'm in what's considered a semi-desert climate, but it's greener than ever because we're getting a *lot* more precipitation than I've ever seen before.
For me, it's a positive thing since I'm not on a flood plain and the plants like it. The only drawback is the increased mosquitoes.
On the other hand, other people are suffering from floods, pests/pestilence (increased bugs and/or bacterium that prefer heat+humidity), and a change in biodiversity that is having both beneficial and detrimental effects on the local wildlife.

Maps and navigation work fine for me. I haven't used the others, or at least I don't think I have (what's a fusion location detector?)

The only things I have had issues with are certain applications with DRM that don't like rooted devices, but that's not a Play issue.

WTF are you smoking? I've used phones with Cyanogenmod and custom ROM's etc for years and have no problems at all with the Play store.

Sounds like Amazon and Facebook are working from the same playbook.