But the Microsoft forums were quite useful. At first.

Greedy bastards always have to gut the golden-egg goose.

So there's this well known chronic and fatal condition known as TMB. Already getting to me even though I don't self-identify that way... Too Many Birthdays covers all the bases.

And now we have TMC as in Too Much Complexity for lowly humans to deal with.

But what actually interested me in this story is tangential. (Of course.) I am guessing that this is the same Notion that was introduced to me by an AI-driven phishing scam. The first celebrity impersonation that had me going for a couple of rounds of email. This particular scam was driven off of YouTube on the rather cunning theory that people who comment on celebrity videos might be suckers for "related projects" that spin off of the videos. I wasn't as soft a target as hoped, but "Live and let spam" from the google and friends almost always saves the scammers from jail. But my current theory is that Notion is basically legit but the reason the scammer recommended it was probably because it was his tool for managing the scam. (Perhaps a team or gang of scammers, since I've noticed a couple of similar-enough attempts since then.)

So have you seen anything like that and want to share notes? Or maybe you want more specific tips and cautions? (As if Slashdot was still such a communication channel.)

Please enable and use a spelling checker.

But mostly I think the entire discussion needs more consideration of the supposed economic safety and profitability of producing cheap sequels, which is most of how I'm interpreting this story. Another example would involve the publishing industry, but Amazon has made that moot...

Why is this moderated "Funny" rather than "Informative". Or maybe Slashdot needs a "Historical" mod?

I know that Slashdot can't fix anything these decades, but I wish the Funny tab would show any post that has received at least one Funny mod point... "Dream on", said the old fool.

Best of the three jokes but I was hoping for more. A previous Huang story was quite productive of Funny.

Only joke? And a rather weak effort.

The story had so much potential for Funny.

No, so I guess that means I agree with you on that part of it? I think the problem is that we basically surrendered on the idea that we could detect the gun irrespective of whether it was smoking or not. Not sure if "we" should be limited to America or extended to the rest of the world. Or maybe even extremely limited to security experts.

Maybe I need a disclaimer that I am not an official security expert of any sort, just a somewhat educated bystander. My initial approaches involved considering hardware features that would be of use in supporting software-based attacks in the least traceable ways. In other words, the device would not contain any sort of gun until AFTER the target was identified and appropriate attack software was downloaded. And even better if the software would go away whenever not needed... However we seem to have reached a similar sad state of affairs via our smartphones, so WtH.

I think that's the aspect I was wondering about, ownership versus actual driving.

I'm feeling surprised by how many electric cars I'm seeing these years. But I still don't like it when the electric cars quietly sneak up behind me. Too whiny?

I don't think you need to sound so apologetic in your Subject. You're just preventing propagation of the sock puppet tripe. But maybe it's better to be explicit about it? I just think it's better to ignore AC with substance, including a relevant and nonvacuous Subject, whereas yours is a metasubject.

On your actual topic, even the Chinese are standing on the shoulders of giants? (But that may have been intended as a personal attack on Hooke.)

I predict the AI sock puppet will respond in three... two... one.

And done.

Funny coincidence, but I'm just finishing a political sociology book focused on Japan. Gave me some new insights into the "level" problem. Short summary is that humans' high level programs are pretty much similar. I like writing as an example for the high-level programs, and you can find published authors representing almost any group of people. But at the low level most of the programs don't care much. For examples, the heartbeat and digestive programs don't even accept interference from on high. However some of the low-level programs are quite gender specific: (1) Ovulate each month until pregnant. (2) Nurse baby. (3) Resume ovulation ASAP. The ASAP was predicated on many of the babies dying quite quickly, but these decades many mothers override Step (2) with commercial formula as a high-level intrusion. (However rereading that made reminded me that modern medicine does include many high-level interventions into our lowest level programs...)

My vote for funniest but the story had a good crop.

Gimme Funny! Have to say it explicitly since Slashdot's sense of humor is so residual and twisted these years.

Leaving the Subjective joke behind because I still can't write funny, the story does make me nostalgic for the old days when Huawei seemed to be a relatively good source for my electronic toys. High performance and low prices. My dangerous assumption was that the non-Chinese security experts were still able to assess the security and privacy threats and therefore Huawei wasn't going to play any games that could be detected. There was a transitional period where the issue was unclear and Huawei might have been able to get away with claims like "It was just a joke" or "It's just a bug and we'll fix it" or even "The subcontractor did it", but the current context is different. I'm not assuming any more malice than I expect from American companies, but the problem is that America has surrendered and gone all in on the position of "We're sure it's dangerous to the point we can't even estimate how dangerous it is!" Sort of like AI?

I must have bought ten or fifteen Huawei devices over the years. I still have two that are "alive" and might be phoning home. Fortunately I'm of no interest to China so I don't care. But as regards this new made-in-China computer, I'm off the fence. Don't see and can't even imagine any path to trusting it. Can you imagine a reason to buy it, especially if it seems to be a great value?

"Return of the Return of the Living Dead" ?

Yeah, they'll recruit outrageously popular AIs to draw crowds at the cinema.

Go ahead and ruin every movie plot ever.