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Comment Password Safe is THE best (Score 1) 154

Password Safe is the only password manager that I trust:
  • https://pwsafe.org/

The database containing your passwords is a locally Twofish encrypted file (not NSA weakened AES) that never leaves your system. It is not like other managers where the database is kept on their server controlled by them, not you, thus making it a high value target for hackers.

It was created by Bruce Schneier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Schneier), a well known and highly respected cryptographer.

Any password manager that maintains YOUR passwords any place other than on your own freaking system, is one that should NEVER be trusted IMHO.

Comment Meta-analysis is untrustworthy (Score 1) 296

When you read ANY report using meta-analysis as evidence for their conclusions, alarm bells should go off.

Meta-analysis invariably leads to Simpson's Paradox, rendering any purported conclusion as ultimately inconclusive.

The easiest, most illustrative way to understand what Simpson's Paradox is, is the Batting Average example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Each study must be examined individually with conclusions drawn from each, depending on their validity (design, control, etc). The moment you combine them into a meta-analysis you run the strong risk of reaching an invalid (opposite) conclusion due to Simpson's Paradix.

Don't trust meta-analyses.

.

Comment Effective Cloud use requires faster UPLOAD speed (Score 2) 42

Just like the ISPs, everyone seems more interested in download speed than UPLOAD speed. But if you're going to be doing system backups to the cloud, faster UPLOAD speeds is key!

I've got Comcast (Xfinity) and over the years they've been gradually increasing my download speed to the point where today I enjoy speeds of 400Mbps. Great! But their UPLOAD speed is still only a extremely pitiful 10Mbps!

At only 10Mbps upload, it would take me over 1.5 days to perform a typical differential system backup to the cloud, and over an entire WEEK for for a full system backup. That's ridiculous!

For the cloud to be usable we need faster UPLOAD speeds, not faster download speeds.

Comment Re: How is the free market supposed to function (Score 1) 57

Here is how this will pan out. They list a job with a salary range of $56,000 - $89,000.

It already has panned out exactly like that:

"NYC companies quickly find ways around new pay transparency legislation"

Salaries for New York City-based tech jobs at Amazon were listed by the company at a range of $88,400-$185,000 per year. International consulting firm Deloitte, one of the city's largest employers, listed salary ranges between $86,800 and $161,200. Postings on The Wall Street Journal sought reporters and producers with years of experience but listed salary ranges between $40,000-$160,000. Citigroup's postings, however, took the cake -- listing multiple job openings with a range between $0-$2 million.

Is anyone really surprised by any of this??

Comment Sounds similar to years ago Capacitor Plague issue (Score 1) 57

The primary symptom (swollen batteries) described in a YouTube video I watched sounded oddly similar to the "Capacitor Plague" problem that Abit, IBM, Dell, Apple, HP, Intel and other computer manufacturers experienced between 1999 and 2007 due to faulty electrolyte composition that caused corrosion accompanied by gas generation, often rupturing the case of the capacitor from the build-up of pressure.

While batteries and capacitors are obviously different, they both require an electrolyte in order to perform their function. According to Wikipedia, the Capacitor Plague problem was believed to be the result of industrial espionage (a stolen and mis-copied electrolyte formula).

Could the cause of Samsung's current battery problem be the same or similar?

Hmmmm... Makes one wonder...

Comment Hewlett Packard Programmable Desktop Calculator (Score 1) 523

I forget the model, but it was a Hewlett Packard Programmable Desktop Calculator (I forget the model), approximately as big as a typewriter (if there's anyone still alive that remembers what those were. Typewriters I mean. If you one of those that don't, google it). ANYWAY... it had 8 "pages" of memory to hold instructions, with each page holding a maximum of only 64 "instructions" (operations or key presses). It had 10 "registers" that could each hold just one number (calculated value), ONE comparison instruction and ONE branch instruction. The comparison instruction compared one register value to another, and then depending on whether the values were equal or not, would either skip the next instruction or not skip the next instruction. The only branch instruction that existed was to branch to the FIRST instruction of any of the 8 pages. So you would code the compare instruction and then follow it with a branch to another page for the not-equal case. For the equal case you would simply continue with your code in the current page. It also had an optional attached card reader too, to read your manually punched punch cards ("punched" with a special pencil-like stylus they gave you) containing the instructions for your program so you could load them into memory via the card reader rather than have to manually type them in each time. VERY primitive but LOADS of fun!

Comment Wow. I might actually be able to use the cloud! (Score 1) 102

Wow. Faster UPLOAD speed?!

It's about freaking time!

I've been complaining about slow upload speed for years now. Every chance I get in fact.

Using the cloud for system backups is next to impossible with only 10 freaking mbps upload:

The fast download speed is certainly very nice, but it's not much of a priority for me. I'd be happy with just 100mps download.

Decent upload speed on the other hand, is hard requirement for practical cloud use IMHO.

I just wonder how long it'll take them to get around to the Seattle, WA area?

Comment They can't decrypt files encrypted before uploadin (Score 2) 52

Anyone who uses a cloud service and relies on the service itself to encrypt their files is a fool.

I use MEGA myself (the free 50GB service), but ALL files that I upload to MEGA are first strongly encrypted on my local system before uploading to my MEGA cloud drive. Thus even if someone does manage to somehow steal my cloud files and decrypt them, the resulting "decrypted" files are simply my original LOCALLY ENCRYPTED files that were encrypted beforehand using a completely different password and encryption algorithm.

So the fact that there MIGHT be a way for someone to decrypt your MEGA files is not really that much of a concern -- TO ME.

Now, to some idiot that fails to encrypt their files themselves before uploading them to their MEGA cloud drive, yes, such might be a concern.

But then as Rich Cook many said years ago:

            "Programming today is a race between
            software engineers striving to build
            bigger and better idiot-proof programs,
            and the Universe trying to produce
            bigger and better idiots. So far, the
            Universe is winning." - Rich Cook

Comment Re:Not significantly different than not brushing a (Score 1) 75

Study:

"Efficacy of a U-Shaped Automatic Electric Toothbrush in Dental Plaque Removal: A Cross-Over Randomized Controlled Trial"

https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601...

5. Conclusions

"The UAET that was tested in this study proved to be not effective in removing dental plaque. In particular, the UAET was not significantly different from no brushing, while plaque removal with the UAET was significantly lower than with a powered toothbrush and a habitual tooth brushing procedure. Therefore, its use cannot be recommended for regular oral hygiene at home."

Comment Not significantly different than not brushing at (Score 1) 75

Study: "Efficacy of a U-Shaped Automatic Electric Toothbrush in Dental Plaque Removal: A Cross-Over Randomized Controlled Trial" https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601... 5. Conclusions The UAET that was tested in this study proved to be not effective in removing dental plaque. In particular, the UAET was not significantly different from no brushing, while plaque removal with the UAET was significantly lower than with a powered toothbrush and a habitual tooth brushing procedure. Therefore, its use cannot be recommended for regular oral hygiene at home.

Comment Re:Sure (Score 4, Interesting) 306

He is very sorry that he got caught. What a moron.

Exactly. He entered the capital the same way all of his fellow criminals did: forcibly, violently, and without permission, and deserves, just like all of his fellow criminals, to have the book thrown at him.

Whining and saying "I'm sorry!" after the fact doesn't change that what you did was wrong (criminal) and deserves severe punishment.

No mercy for you, asshole, nor any for any of your other fellow insurrectionists either.

Comment What about people without cell phones? (Score 2) 185

What about those of us who don't have (nor want) those insecure devices called "cell phones"? (which are not actually cell phones but rather "smart devices" which just happen to also support making and receiving telephone calls)

What about those of us who don't have (nor want) laptops? Or iPads? Those of us who only have (and only want and only USE) desktop systems?

What about those of us who use extremely strong unique passwords on every single one of their many dozens or hundred of web sites because they used a Password Safe like you're supposed to? And have NEVER, in all the years they have been online since BEFORE there was even an Internet, have EVER had any of their accounts hacked?

What about us? Are you going to provide me a 2FA device free of charge?

This sounds like an industry's "solution" to the problem of incompetent service providers not wanting to be held legally liable for allowing their customer's un-encrypted and insecurely maintained passwords from being stolen by hackers.

User ids and passwords are NOT any less secure than passwordless signin technology -- as long as people use very strong and unique passwords across all of their accounts. But of course since you will never be able to properly educate nor change the behavior the ignorant masses regarding good security practices, I guess the rest of us have to suffer the consequences.

That's as sad as it is infuriating.

Comment When it comes to password security... (Score 1) 128

... it seems many of us are still reluctant to use a Password Manager that generates (and remembers for you) strong, difficult-to-crack passwords -- and instead, we are trying to remember all of the passwords for all of our many dozens of accounts ourselves, thereby forcing us to choose incredibly easy to remember passwords such as "football," "iloveyou," "letmein," and "pokemon." When selecting a password, you should allow your Password Manager app do it for you, thereby avoiding patterns or repetitions, such as letters or numbers that are next to each other on a keyboard. Any decent Password Manager will add a capital letter, symbols, numbers and/or special characters in unexpected places, and the fact that it will never "forget" your randomly generate password, helps, too -- and in ALL cases, you should NEVER try to choose your own password and instead let your Password Manager software generate (and remember!) a long, secure, randomly generated one for you.

There. Fixed that for you. ;-)

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