Comment Microsoft: Keep paying more. (Score 1) 49
Microsoft
Micro-Soft
Hugely-Hard
Micro-Soft
Hugely-Hard
Comment play more games (Score 1) 41
It's a strange fight. The robots sometimes seem unaware of where their opponent is, facing the wrong direction or throwing kicks and punches in the air.
Not strange if you've ever played a fighting game against someone not into computer games. They learn quickly that by just mashing buttons randomly they can often get a win without actually learning anything about the game. Same principle.
Comment Re:Well Duh! (Score 2) 101
I have to wonder if the geniuses who started these services ever consulted cab companies and drivers before the fact to have a better understanding of what they were taking on.
Of course they didn't. The name of the game is "disrupting an industry". Because on paper and in investor pitches, everything is straightforward, simple, and was practically waiting for them.
That reality is more messy, has more edge cases, doesn't always follow your process, is something you don't tell the investors and don't consider in your service until you've had the chance to cash out.
Comment oh no ! (Score 1) 101
It's almost as if having humans around can sometimes have advantages.
But I'm sure this'll just be seen to add one more robot to the robot taxi. A humanoid co-pilot bot?
Submission + - AI Data Centers Being Built Faster Than They Can Be Secured (securityweek.com)
wiredmikey writes: AI is reshaping data centers and introducing security risks traditional architectures weren't designed to handle. As AI data centers scale at breakneck speed, security isn't keeping up. Researchers outline the Top 10 AI infrastructure security risks, including hardware integrity, multi-tenant isolation, high-speed network fabrics, supply chain compromise, and patching failures.
Comment Re:Not sure what the answer is? (Score 1) 109
And related to Authors and others, yea they got robbed, but when it comes to LLM generated material not sure how it gets stopped now.
That's not an argument.
"Yeah, that guy is dead now. We have a pretty solid idea who did it. But not sure if that'll make him alive again, so let's not bother with catching them."
Submission + - Physicists create first room-temperature quantum material (phys.org)
alternative_right writes: In a study published in Nature, LSU physicists have developed the first room-temperature quantum material capable of distinguishing and transporting different quantum states of light, overcoming one of the biggest challenges in quantum materials research. Led by Associate Professor of Physics Omar S. Magaña-Loaiza, the work establishes a general design principle for engineering an entirely new class of quantum materials, opening new possibilities for quantum computing, secure communications, sensing technologies and advanced energy systems.
Comment An AMAZING number of flaws (Score 4, Insightful) 76
The big underlying issue is why does Microsoft deliver software with so many flaws?
Submission + - How Microsoft's "Little Workaround" Created a Major Pentagon Threat (propublica.org)
joshuark writes: ProPublica Reporter Renee Dudley heard Microsoft was running tech support for the U.S. Defense Department through China, the country’s biggest cybersecurity adversary.
The arrangement was called “digital escorting.” She thought it sounded like a conspiracy theory — until she started looking into it. This is the story of what she found and how her investigation changed government policy.
Microsoft is using engineers in China to help maintain the Defense Department’s computer systems — with minimal supervision by U.S. personnel — leaving some of the nation’s most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking from its leading cyber adversary, a ProPublica investigation has found.
The arrangement, which was critical to Microsoft winning the federal government’s cloud computing business a decade ago, relies on U.S. citizens with security clearances to oversee the work and serve as a barrier against espionage and sabotage.
National security and cybersecurity experts in the Trump administration contacted by ProPublica were also surprised to learn that such an arrangement was in place, especially at a time when the U.S. intelligence community and leading members of Congress and the Trump administration view China’s digital prowess as a top threat to the country.
Microsoft uses the escort system to handle the government’s most sensitive information that falls below “classified.” According to the government, this “high impact level” category includes “data that involves the protection of life and financial ruin.” The “loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability” of this information “could be expected to have a severe or catastrophic adverse effect” on operations, assets and individuals, the government has said. In the Defense Department, the data is categorized as “Impact Level” 4 and 5 and includes materials that directly support military operations.
“If someone ran a script called ‘fix_servers.sh’ but it actually did something malicious then [escorts] would have no idea,” a former Microsoft engineer who worked on the escort system, told ProPublica in an email. That said, he maintained that the “scope of systems they could disrupt” is limited.
In an emailed statement, the Defense Information Systems Agency said that cloud service providers “are required to establish and maintain controls for vetting and using qualified specialists,” but the agency did not respond to ProPublica’s questions regarding the digital escorts’ qualifications.
It’s unclear whether other cloud providers to the federal government use digital escorts as part of their tech support. Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud declined to comment on the record for this article. Oracle did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for the inspector general — whose office is supposed to operate independently in order to investigate potential waste, fraud and abuse — told ProPublica they were not authorized to speak about the issue and directed questions to DISA public affairs.
The arrangement was called “digital escorting.” She thought it sounded like a conspiracy theory — until she started looking into it. This is the story of what she found and how her investigation changed government policy.
Microsoft is using engineers in China to help maintain the Defense Department’s computer systems — with minimal supervision by U.S. personnel — leaving some of the nation’s most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking from its leading cyber adversary, a ProPublica investigation has found.
The arrangement, which was critical to Microsoft winning the federal government’s cloud computing business a decade ago, relies on U.S. citizens with security clearances to oversee the work and serve as a barrier against espionage and sabotage.
National security and cybersecurity experts in the Trump administration contacted by ProPublica were also surprised to learn that such an arrangement was in place, especially at a time when the U.S. intelligence community and leading members of Congress and the Trump administration view China’s digital prowess as a top threat to the country.
Microsoft uses the escort system to handle the government’s most sensitive information that falls below “classified.” According to the government, this “high impact level” category includes “data that involves the protection of life and financial ruin.” The “loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability” of this information “could be expected to have a severe or catastrophic adverse effect” on operations, assets and individuals, the government has said. In the Defense Department, the data is categorized as “Impact Level” 4 and 5 and includes materials that directly support military operations.
“If someone ran a script called ‘fix_servers.sh’ but it actually did something malicious then [escorts] would have no idea,” a former Microsoft engineer who worked on the escort system, told ProPublica in an email. That said, he maintained that the “scope of systems they could disrupt” is limited.
In an emailed statement, the Defense Information Systems Agency said that cloud service providers “are required to establish and maintain controls for vetting and using qualified specialists,” but the agency did not respond to ProPublica’s questions regarding the digital escorts’ qualifications.
It’s unclear whether other cloud providers to the federal government use digital escorts as part of their tech support. Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud declined to comment on the record for this article. Oracle did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for the inspector general — whose office is supposed to operate independently in order to investigate potential waste, fraud and abuse — told ProPublica they were not authorized to speak about the issue and directed questions to DISA public affairs.
Comment Re:People are sheep and can't help themselves (Score 1) 111
Your link - seriously?
"Tobacco giants say"? Dude, they said that smoking is actually healthy for a few decades. I'd trust my cat around buckets full of her favorite treat more than those companies.
Comment Re:People are sheep and can't help themselves (Score 1) 111
Why is that desirable?
Because the cost to society is paid not by the smokers but by all of us. And health care costs are only the tip of the iceberg.
Cull the least smart and self-restrained.
There's no culling here. Both doom scrolling and smoking kill you so slowly that evolutionary it doesn't matter.
Comment Re:Follow the money (Score 4, Informative) 25
Oh, no, it's perfectly "legal." You "agreed" to allow your TV to be used like this in the EULA when you installed the app. ( https://blog.includesecurity.c... )
Comment Re:Leave Meta alone or face embargoes on all trade (Score 1) 111
The endless scroll is predatory at every moment.
It even reloads when you stop for a while. Switch to a different tab, do something else for five minutes, come back - it reloads and refreshes everything. Why? Because that activates a primal fear in your brain that you're losing something, missing something that might've been important, so your instinct is to NOT divert your attention elsewhere.
Comment Re:People are sheep and can't help themselves (Score 1) 111
In theory I would agree, but the issue here is that social media platforms intentionally compromise your ability to make decisions. That's what the addictive pattern is all about. You could at any moment decide to stop scrolling and get back to work or life - but everything in there is designed so that the decision is made for you and bypasses any critical thinking paths in your brain.
And while I'm the first to agree the politicians are sleazebags and are the first ones that need much tougher regulation and laws, it's a fact that laws in this area actually do work. Anti-smoking laws have reduced smoking, for example.
Comment Re:so... (Score 1) 176
All of that is still available for you, all you need to do is stop clicking the cheapest price you see every time you fly.
Someone hasn't flown in a while.
I don't click the cheapest price. What happened is that the major airlines have copied some (not all) of the budget airline shit. Luggage used to be included, now it's an extra - which causes people to bring carry-on to the max instead, which leads to the overhead compartments always being full.
You're being offered a nice delicatessen along side a shit sandwich and *YOU* are choosing the shit sandwich and complaining about the taste.
Yeah, good point. No, wait, that's complete bullshit.
I've taken a number of trips on business class in the past years. What you get in business class today is what you got in economy class 20, 25 years ago.
Either way you're getting an order of magnitude better flying experience for the same price as the days of old.
You know what, you may actually be right if you compare multi-thousand halfway-around-the-world intercontinental flights. I've never flown to Australia, so I can't compare that. I'm talking about shorter flights (a few hours) which I do frequently and where I can compare. We might both be right.
