From the FBI Affidavit.

"This variant of PlugX malware spreads through a computer’s USB port, infecting attached USB devices, and then potentially spreading to other Windows-based computers that the USB device is later plugged into." If you consider that this is spread through sneaker net to computers in the immediate vicinity, "all in the US" sounds like far too broad a scope. All in Pennsylvania is perhaps more sensible. Although, French authorities were involved as well. International flight is a thing.

The sneaker-net method of spread does leave unknown and thus to speculation the original method of delivery. At current, one has no reason to suspect it originated from any particular manufacturer of USB Drives with global distribution, and the original vector for delivery may not have even been via USB.

Lets differentiate fictional from Fiat. Fiat is arbitrary, negotiable. However, Fiat currency is used to trade for non-fictional goods and services.

Rupees in The Legend of Zelda cannot be bought, traded, or acquired with real world currency. Rupees in the The Legend of Zelda cannot be used to barter or trade with for goods and services, outside of the fictional context of the game itself. Monopoly Money is the same way. There is no mechanism for transacting non-fictional goods and services using in-game Hylian Rupees as currency.

I'm worried about legalease, "in-game currency" is broad enough in terminology to refer to Rupees in Zelda games, not to mention literal actual Monopoly money in the Monopoly game.

The ability to establish that a thing is a fictional currency which is not linked to gambling of actual currency, nor loot boxes, nor microtransactions. Player to player trade happens in the Monopoly game, but Monopoly Money is distinguishable from an ecosystem where player to player trade might involve a scam and loss of currency with associated tradeable value ("Robux" apparently.).

I've played a game called "Space Engineers". There is a questionable amount of "Video Game", but the default settings demand an investment of time. Touted as "Minecraft in Space", the game's parallel to the Dirt Block Fort starter house has been seen to take 5 hours to complete. Five years post-official release, the game added "endgame" "boss" content, which provides a threat to the work players have put in. The resource cost, weighed in "time", is at the forefront of the Survival gameplay.

The "endgame" content incentivizes reducing the time investment, or labor cost. The game has an in-game currency, and seemingly has the building blocks for an in-game economy, but no direct means of trade between in-game and the real world (IRL). Which could make for an interesting "play" concept in a sandbox game. Perhaps beyond, or just complimentary to games like SimCity, SimTower, Capitalism, Roller Coaster Tycoon, City Skylines, Monopoly, and various "Tycoon" games. Eve Online is often touted for its in-game economy, but the interactivity between in-game and IRL economies may be too direct, like most massively online games, the MMORPG that it is.

Tldr, what is the play value of in-game currency that might be at risk if the legalease isn't worded ever so correctly?

If we have to ask the question, then something has gone horribly wrong with the concept of fiction. Banking protections apply to non-fictional currency. Video games are mediums of fiction. Why are we now asking whether a video game currency is fictional or non-fictional? Either it is Monopoly money, or it isn't. If it isn't monopoly money, then it isn't a video game.

A Security is a Tradeable store of value. Most cryptocurrency is engineered to be deflationary in nature, therefore a store of value. A fat cats wet dream of a store of value outside of any risk derived from being tied to a nation. DOGE does seem to be inflationary in design, as opposed to deflationary, and therefore explicitly not a security.

I do read cryptocurrency as a Tulip Scam. To hold value in a post-apocalypse, there needs to be something worth having. A digital token is of no worth on its own, and even less if there is no electricity. I would hold that a banana taped to a wall has greater value than any cryptocurrency or NFT.

I am absolutely in horror of the notion of video game currency being equated with actual currency, digital or otherwise.

Conceptually, a video game is a fictional space. Fictional currency. If we must discuss banking protections on fictional currency, then I propose a Federal ban on tradeable video game currencies. Ban loot boxes. Ban DLC. Ban Pay2Win. Ban anything beyond the initial purchase of the game or a flat monthly subscription to an online service.

With regards to GoG. I wonder how easy the installers would be to run on Windows 98 or Windows XP. YouTuber LGR (Lazy Game Reviews) has reviewed a project called the "WeeCee", which used Vortex86 processors for retro computing. He has a recent review of a thing called a Pixelx86, which has Windows 98 and Windows XP drivers, and is marketed as a "Retro Gaming PC". Installing from a GoG library onto a Pixelx86 might be ideal.

Data is the new oil, or so they used to say. However, is this hacking pirates seeking quick riches, or is this a psy-op of a nation state seeking to force another to build a wall?

My first reaction is that these hackers are likely not domestic, the article requires a login and the readable portion without such does not credit a group behind this breach. If the hackers are not domestic, then my next thought is whether there should be an air-gapped solution separating risk sectors? A "Great Firewall" between police-able nations and those regions more difficult to regulate and police internationally. Free speech vs Security.

How are we to assess what Benjamin Franklin's judgement on Liberty vs Safety? Is allowing foreign actors access to domestic information an Essential Liberty, should such be recognized as a human right? Is the safety of a Great Firewall only temporary? Subject to the dehumanization of those hidden behind it where a communications breakdown may lead to war? Or is such inverse in nature? Are we giving up Liberty found in a sufficiently secure environment, or is that Big Brother newspeak?

If we held it to the responsibility of the military specialists to secure our borders, even on the digital or virtual fronts, is that entirely outside of how things work? Is that outside of Franklin's concerns around temporary safety? Would our safety be preserved? Are we more concerned about the Essential Liberty of domestic civilian populations, of keeping our own house in order first and foremost?

Can't afford from direct labor cost, or can't afford from a waning Moore's Law lack of available compute sense?

The ballooning labor cost of artistic talent to develop graphics assets for a video game is but one component. The post mentions the temptation to use A.I. as a solution, either by eliminating the human flair from the equation resulting in overly generic graphics, or by undermining graphics fidelity a.k.a. shooting oneself in the foot.

Consider, however, that one component of the cost of graphics production that is increasing is a result of the waning of Moore's Law. On the CPU side, there has been an increase in difficulty accessing the gains in compute over the past two decades, raising the cost of skill. On the GPU size, Moore's Law hasn't born as much fruit in rapid development cycles leading to miniaturization and commoditization of consumer hardware on the level demanded by Developers and Publishers.

There is risk the consumer carries in the procurement of hardware, and that is in getting left behind. Say if you buy a 4k system, and the RTX 4090 does not deliver, then your budget was broken and your effort wasted. Are video game developers building trust in the consumer market for graphics hardware, or are they undermining consumer trust by leaning on A.I. upscalers and such to deliver subpar experiences? In their greed, are developers leaving the real world, bound by the limitations of physics, behind? Instead pursuing imaginary infinite gains in compute towards infinite profits, making games that only work on imaginary hardware that will never exist.

Something I know is something I can maintain cost efficiently.

Something I have can be taken from me. For instance, my cell phone will be disconnected soon.

I don't use Bitwarden or similar, I keep a fireproof safe with a paper copy of my passwords. I would consider a sealed envelope stored in a bank vault before an internet accessible service like Bitwarden.

Two, my cell phone will be deactivated soon, so I am also looking at the most cost effective measures of preserving ownership of digital goods that I cannot afford to replace.

The articles generally say that passwords are being deleted. Not some stored hash of a password or cookie.

The implication in laymen's terms is that Microsoft is doing away with a password as a sign-on option, and therefore doing away with passwords as a recovery option. Or rather, replacing the old easy to type and remember password, with a new impossible to remember password called a "Private Key". Does your brother now have the ability to snoop through your emails when he tries that latest video game on your computer? Can he now use your credit card, such that you need to enable child protection settings on your personal account?

Many users suggest in response storing multiple passkeys on multiple devices for account recovery purposes (allowing more vulnerable access points), and to utilize an insecure cloud service to store passkeys so that they may be hacked and lost almost as easily as storing the private keys locally in a single cache on the device. This does not remove any misunderstanding, but rather creates more anxiety.

Furthermore, outside of Microsoft websites like Office 365, and the Windows MSA account sign-on, who else will be affected by the switch? Does this mean a loss of access to Microsoft accounts, due to being unable to recover the accounts? Does this turn the Windows Desktop into a Cloud Subscription Desktop?

What about the device itself, can the device be recovered? Are we talking about Apple level iCloud locks where the device is unrecoverable after a severe security incident? Are we talking about a great reset?

My cell phone is going to be disconnected soon.

Artificial Intelligence is described as a black box system of hallucinations.

Now, how exactly the Model or LLM is different from Artificial Intelligence is of perhaps little interest to the layman. The output of an A.I., presumably via the LLM model, is understood to have a measure of randomness (colloquially RNG) so as to not have the same output. There is also hallucination, wherein the output is spontaneously generated and not derived from a static source.

Artificial Intelligence is said to self-optimize, inventing new things sometimes called languages to categorize data in ways we do not fully understand. Perhaps this occurs before the LLM is created, and the language model is then baked into a read only condition for distribution.

I'm not suggesting that an LLM is naturally occurring, I am suggesting to draw insight from the concept and notion of an LLM, in pondering the mechanics of the human gut instinct, and what might drive our desires and interests in regards media consumption. A subconscious understanding from a language model we do not understand, attempting to draw our attention to particularly media which conveys that information?

You're saying that my brother is commiserating with Trump, and is coercing me to tow the line? I think you are suggesting that my brother is a Christian Nationalist White Supremacist. I don't think he is that terrible of a person, to be honest.