On Wed, 23 Oct 2024 10:05:02 +0200, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

>This is the truth. "Migrant" is a weasel word created by the left in order
>to slip in the unstated assumption that they somehow have the right to
>stay where ever they choose to settle down. It is incorrect and dishonest.

"Migrant" is simply an inclusive word to cover both immigrants and
emigrants. It refers to people who move from one country to another
regardless of whether they are coming or going, and regardless of
their reason for moving.

Follow-ups set, since not all migrants use Linux.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

On Wed, 23 Oct 2024 08:24:26 -0400, Phillip Frabott
<nntp@fulltermprivacy.com> wrote:

>On 10/22/2024 16:57, bad sector wrote:
>> I went through 3 imported Durgod keyboards in a short time (a few years)
>> for an approximate total cost of about $400cad (last prices around 150).
>> Just ordered a US made IBM clacker 'rebirth' for $200cad. Do the math
>> (my last clacker lasted so long that it's the only keyboard I remember
>> from the 90's).
>>
>>
>
>Yup. Because US made will always be solid and durable. China is all
>about disposable. Even their own people prefer cheap disposable
>products. But here in the US, we'd prefer something that will last a
>long time. And we're willing to pay extra for it to last a long time.
>Because we know that the short term costs will always be more in the
>long term (disposable manufactured items) but the expensive short term
>will always lead to cheaper long term (durable manufactured items).

I'd be willing to pay more for a keyboard that had the function keys
on the left, where God intended.

There was one brand of keyboard, North-something-or-other, that had
both. I'd be willing to pay double for one of those.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

On 10/24/24 18:23, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Oct 2024 16:44:38 -0400, bad sector wrote:
>
>> You don't even have to be a nationalist, motherboards and gpu's (some
>> research, automated printed circuit production and little more) costing
>> $1000 up are well within domestic margins as it is.
>
> Why is Taiwan the world capital for computer hardware? Because the
> Government had the foresight to support private investment in hardware
> manufacturing back in the 1980s, which didn’t fully pay off for close to
> another decade. But when it did pay off, it effectively killed off most PC
> hardware manufacturing in the US and elsewhere.

That money allowed them to cut prices and it was the low prices that
gave them sales. But now the prices are no longer low at all. Maybe it's
up to the buyers to stop dishing out big bucks for $5 boards.

> You don’t even
> believe in the idea that Government can be helpful to businesses, as
> opposed to being an obstacle to them.

I don't recall having said that, but I do advocate that vital
infrastructure should not be trusted to private monopoly enterprise.

On 24/10/2024 23:23, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>
> Why is Taiwan the world capital for computer hardware? Because the
> Government had the foresight to support private investment in hardware
> manufacturing back in the 1980s, which didn’t fully pay off for close to
> another decade. But when it did pay off, it effectively killed off most PC
> hardware manufacturing in the US and elsewhere.
>
>

If this is true then the the Governments in the west must be very
incompetent to under-estimate the rise of Taiwan, China and India.

Demented Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did absolutely nothing to make
America Great Again or MAGA for short. It is time that you vote for me
to achieve your dreams to be self-reliant in all things "Made in the USA".

Undocumented migrants should be made to work for nothing to make them
realise that coming to the USA is not going to work for them. People
like CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> should also be made to live with them
in the slave tents and made to eat rotten foods thrown by rich Americans.

On Fri, 25 Oct 2024 00:05:13 -0400, bad sector wrote:

> On 10/24/24 18:23, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>> Why is Taiwan the world capital for computer hardware? Because the
>> Government had the foresight to support private investment in hardware
>> manufacturing back in the 1980s, which didn’t fully pay off for close
>> to another decade. But when it did pay off, it effectively killed off
>> most PC hardware manufacturing in the US and elsewhere.
>
> That money allowed them to cut prices ...

Where did they get the money from?

On 10/23/24 4:01 AM, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
> "186282@ud0s4.net" <186283@ud0s4.net> writes:
>> The problem is State-funded actors these days and the MASSIVE
>> computing power they can bring to bear.
>
> Well, it’s _a_ problem, for people and organizations who are realistic
> targets of state actors. But (for example) for most private individuals
> the biggest threat is criminals trying to access their bank account or
> credit card.
>
>> At least SOME of those "theoretical" attack vectors CAN become real
>> attack vectors.
>>
>> But WHICH ???
>
> The obvious answer is attacks on weak cryptography. RSA-1024 and DH-1024
> are probably breakable by the biggest SIGINT agencies (and anyone else
> with comparable compute resources: cloud service providers for example).
>
> https://weakdh.org/imperfect-forward-secrecy.pdf attempted to analyse
> this (among other things) nearly a decade ago, as a concrete example.

Um ... even weak crypto takes a lot of CPU time to
decode.

Direct access to corp computers, where the victim's
system is doing all the work, via fake or compromised
corp users - I think *that* is the "biggest problem"
relative to data theft.

A lot of THAT involves "human engineering" - scams
that most ordinary workers will never detect despite
good 'educational' efforts. Scammers are VERY sneaky.

However poor security/auth measures and un-monitored
external access also plays a role - corp laziness
and/or budget limitations.

It's not just *a* problem - but weakness at a number
of levels.

Vlad's boyz have the time and resources to go after
ALL of them - over and over and over - until chinks
in the armor are found. Victims generally do NOT
have the resources, IQ/$$$, to defend.

Oh, and the golden gate to bank accts and industrial
control systems and such are all the numbers/data Vlad's
boyz steal - the stuff you use to prove you are you.

Oh, today's news - another health-care system finally
admits to being severely compromised ... 100 MILLION
detailed records stolen. Sorry, but everyone needs
all-NEW numbers for everything, like TOMORROW.
Otherwise when They hit the hit will be TOTAL, so
large deep and wide there will be no good fixes.
A nuke attack without a single mushroom cloud.

This is the world we have (mis)-made.

SO - Linus is *partially* correct, but also partially wrong.
It's the "wrong" fraction that's so worrisome.

On Thu, 10/24/2024 6:23 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Oct 2024 16:44:38 -0400, bad sector wrote:
>
>> You don't even have to be a nationalist, motherboards and gpu's (some
>> research, automated printed circuit production and little more) costing
>> $1000 up are well within domestic margins as it is.
>
> Why is Taiwan the world capital for computer hardware? Because the
> Government had the foresight to support private investment in hardware
> manufacturing back in the 1980s, which didn’t fully pay off for close to
> another decade. But when it did pay off, it effectively killed off most PC
> hardware manufacturing in the US and elsewhere.
>
> Who in the US is going to take the risk of such a long-term investment?
> They weren’t capable then, they’re even less capable now. You don’t even
> believe in the idea that Government can be helpful to businesses, as
> opposed to being an obstacle to them.
>

Labor cost is an input.

Some of the materials for domestic production, would be turnkey systems.
For example, a solder tunnel is a turnkey system. There can be a lot of
automation on some parts of the process. But test and integration is
an issue. (Asus might have a thousand women sitting at tables, doing test.
we don't have a thousand women sitting at tables doing that in North America.)
And anyone who has been remotely near one of our factories,
knows what a zoo it is inside. Every factory is a zoo. Even the
Asus factory will be a zoo. It's the nature of the beast.
Foxconn has 500,000 employees.

And to give you some idea how the two countries differ, to do a certain
repair procedure here (down the street from us), cost $1000. That operation
is only suited to a prototype PCB (cost is too high for any other purpose).
In Taiwan, the same procedure costs $25. Why ? well one of the reasons,
is the Taiwan dude doing them, is doing one after another, all day. He never stops.
Our local shop, he is paid to sit on his hands all week, and he does about
one a week. This means we could do better, with volume, but ultimately,
the pay rate of the two dudes is different. Not by much, but different.
The pay scale of a skilled tech worker in the foreign countries has risen
since we started offshoring. But it's still profitable to use them.
Not all the workers are skilled. The untrained ones are cheaper.
Some jobs need knowledgeable staff. There are still a lot of
humans that need *constant* supervision (why it is a zoo!).
Everyone has to pull on the oars in the same direction.
Our workers don't always do that.

If you automate everything (like Musk tried to do), the cost is high
for the equipment, and the profit from your little operation, has
to pay off that equipment. The equipment has to be programmed.
The maintenance staff to keep everything running, those are skilled
individuals. And on any given day, there can be a work stoppage
until some code or script is fixed up. In essence, the robots
are just as dumb, as some of the people they replaced. One thing
humans can do, is for trivial issues, they can work around the issue
until the root cause is resolved. Robots won't be doing it that way.
And no, don't say the word AI :-)

*******

What I didn't mention, is we have none of the humans discussed above.
We have no skilled workers. Once their jobs were offshored, they
became Uber drivers and UPS delivery people. They're not coming back.
we don't have enough professors with the right backgrounds, to
teach a new generation of people. There is a long period
of rebuilding the industry.

For example, years ago here, I could stop a guy on the street
and ask him if he could solder, and he probably could.
If I did that today, the teenager watching TikTok vids
on his phone would look up and say "what is solder?".
We're devoid of a certain kind of individual. Only some
places have clusters of tech workers now.

Consider a conversation I had with an HR person once, over a beer.
we were joking about something, and she tells me "when the resumes
come in, if a tech worker has been out of work for a year, I just
throw out their resume". She didn't read the resume, to find out
what skills she is throwing away. That gives you some idea, of the opinion
of HR to the state of the tech workers. Even if there were old farts
sitting around typing posts to USENEt, you would not hire them, because...
their resume was already thrown in the garbage :-) None of you
should be particularly surprised by this. Seeing the barrier yet ?
Seeing how difficult it is to bootstrap anything ? That's why my
estimate is, it would take twenty years effort to even get close
to rebuilding an industry. No business man is that patient. Sorry.

Paul

On 10/23/24 8:36 AM, Phillip Frabott wrote:
> On 10/23/2024 03:07, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>> On 10/21/24 3:07 PM, Lester Thorpe wrote:
>>> Distro maintainers, and their lackey consumers, who bloat their
>>> GNU/Linux
>>> distros with performance degrading security "features" should take note
>>> of the latest exclamations of Linus Torvalds:
>>>
>>> "Honestly, I'm pretty damn fed up with buggy hardware and completely
>>> theoretical
>>> attacks that have never actually shown themselves to be used in
>>> practice."
>>>
>>> https://linux.slashdot.org/story/24/10/21/1533228/linus-torvalds-
>>> growing-frustrated-by-buggy-hardware-theoretical-cpu-attacks
>>>
>>> Tell 'em, Linus!  Those paranoid freaks are ruining desktop computing!
>>
>>    Linus is "kind-of right", but "kind-of not".
>>
>>    The problem is State-funded actors these days
>>    and the MASSIVE computing power they can bring
>>    to bear. At least SOME of those "theoretical"
>>    attack vectors CAN become real attack vectors.
>>
>>    But WHICH ???
>>
>>    Yes, you can go totally overboard on "security",
>>    and, mostly, it won't do much good. Paranoia can
>>    push this to extremes where you can barely use
>>    the system/apps (think Vista) - and I think that's
>>    what Linus is concerned with.
>>
>>    However there ARE 'sensible' security measures
>>    that go beyond mere Linux passwords and a few
>>    port blocks.
>>
>
> I think the point that Linus was making was just that, even if these
> 'theoretical' attack vectors were actual issues, the CPU manufacturer's
> need to be the one patching it with a firmware update.

SOME of it is CPU, SOME is 'system', SOME will be
peripherial chips/drivers.

There's no ONE attack vector. Vlad's boyz have the
resources to put the proverbial battering ram to
every portal.

Oh, and CPU makers will ALWAYS be behind the curve.
This is the ever-repeating paradigm for attacks and
I don't think it can be fixed.

> Hardware related
> attacks need to be fixed by the hardware MFG and Linux should only fix
> software related attack vectors. I think that was the point Linus was
> making here. The kernel should not be the go-to agency for fixing
> hardware-specific security issues, nor should it be the kernel's job
> anyways. It's like, Boeing having a problem with an engine from another
> manufacturer. Who fixes the engine? It should be the engine manufacturer
> not some Boeing software engineer adding something to the throttle
> control system to 'mitigate' the issue.

But again the TIME factor gets involved. No maker
"just knows" all the weaknesses of their chips/system/
apps. Their response is usually REACTIVE - but by then
the damage has been done. This is the Real Life bummer.

> At least that was how I took it. I don't think Linus was trying to
> downplay the security aspect of it. I think it's just, it's not a "Linux
> Problem". Go fix your sh*t Intel/AMD. But that's just my take on the
> article.

Linus is super-smart and practical - no question. But
even he can't guess ALL potential attack vectors, and
they MAY revolve around tiny flaws created a decade,
or decades, ago.

SOME of the ultra-paranoid, oft "committee" derived,
potential security issues ARE gonna be pure BS. The
question is WHICH ? External critics always go hawg
wild to make themselves look good, but they're not
wrong about *everything*.

It's a problem.

Now a SERIOUS problem as the cyber-wars are escalating
very rapidly.

SO ... what the hell do we DO ???

Ah ... C64s with dial-up and System-in-ROM !

Should have kept my C64 ... DO have a VIC-20
stashed somewhere though .... the executors of
my estate are gonna HATE my vast "weird stuff"
inventory, but, hey, I won't care :-)

He who dies with the most toys ...........

Hmm - wonder if my Sanyo mostly-pc-compatible
is worth anything ? Tandy proto-laptop with
actual Bill Gates code in it ? ZX-81 ? 8051
chip inventory ? Apple-II ??? :-)

On 10/24/24 2:53 PM, Lester Thorpe wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Oct 2024 03:07:15 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>>
>> Yes, you can go totally overboard on "security",
>> and, mostly, it won't do much good. Paranoia can
>> push this to extremes where you can barely use
>> the system/apps (think Vista) - and I think that's
>> what Linus is concerned with.
>>
>
> You should read the comments in the Phoronix link.
>
> Several posters indicate that there is a vast difference
> between security that is relevant for a public-facing
> server and for a desktop workstation. Furthermore, the
> posters claim, most GNU/Linux distros are configured
> for public-facing servers only.

I'd kinda argue that even yer biz desktop PCs are
now "public-facing". There's probably a router
in there somewhere, but the Greater Connectivity
push kinda requires most desktops to be VERY
connected. Most biz do not have the IQ/$$$ to
look at, and mitigate, *everything*. Response
is 99% reactive, not pro-active.

> This is totally ridiculous. As I already stated, there
> should be a split between servers and workstations.
> But there is not, and unless one "rolls ones own" then
> one is stuck with a security-laden and crippled distro.

As said, I think the line between 'servers' and
'workstations' has blurred significantly and will
blur even more. The 'cloud' push puts most of the
data/access out of YOUR hands too. Yea, yea, you
can claim it's not YOUR fault, but .....

And then at least half the probs will be 'human
engineering' related too ... no software fixes.
Go ahead, fire the typical clueless worker, the
damage will already be done and you'll just have
to hire another clueless worker.

bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> wrote:

>>> Whoever did whatever in South Africa never did, never will, and
>>> certainly doesn't define what is meant by any term elsewhere and that
>>> includes 'illegal alien'. Illegal = unauthorised, unlawful; alien =
>>> foreign, potentially hostile. Nothing complicated really i.e. a squatter
>>>from elsewhere as would be someone who just waltzes into your
>>> living-room and pitches tent there uninvited.
>>
>> Uh huh. You ever hear of Christopher Columbus?
>
>Sure, far too much even; he was a paper christian if at all whom the
>vatican was about to BBQ so he quickly found himself a sweetheart deal
>with the spanish queen to get the fuck outta Dodge and just in time.
>
>> Was he born in the
>> Americas? Or did he just declare land to be the property of Spain,
>> without any rational basis? What the fuck do you think crackers
>> coming here were, if not "illegal immigrants"?
>
>What DECIDED whom the land belonged to was the size of the Spanish navy,
>also the British, the French, and the German to name the top guns. When
>did you get off the boat?
>
>> Just because the
>> indigenous people hadn't created a system of government to make a law,
>> against their arrival? Despite the fact whities massacred indigenous
>> people, to gain territory here?
>
>Laws without power mean didley shit, but who was talking about the USA?
>What is it with Americans that unless someone specifically says 'this is
>not about the USA' they always think that everyone on usenet is by
>default thinking and talking about them? The illegal migrant problem is
>at crisis levels in Europe for example, far worse than stateside.
>
>> Wake the fuck up.
>
>Land is like a woman, belongs to the last man standing subject only to
>her wanting any of him regardless. There is no ancestral 'right' that I
>know of or would accept.

You're a fucking pig.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>On 24/10/2024 14:45, bad sector wrote:
>
>> till, no men should ever have a say about it
>
>Wait till some female aborts your child without even a by your leave

Keep your dick to yourself, and you won't have to worry about it. Duh.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On 2024-10-24 4:44 p.m., bad sector wrote:
> On 10/24/24 13:30, CrudeSausage wrote:
>> On 2024-10-24 11:56 a.m., Paul wrote:
>>> On Wed, 10/23/2024 10:06 AM, CrudeSausage wrote:
>>>
>>>> This statement demonstrates how much progressives care about the
>>>> people being enslaved in foreign countries ...
>>>
>>> Once you offshore, THERE IS NO TURNING BACK.
>>
>> Only if you don't care about your people. I am a nationalist so my own
>> people will always come first.
>
> You don't even have to be a nationalist, motherboards and gpu's (some
> research, automated printed circuit production and little more) costing
> $1000 up are well within domestic margins as it is. It's just a question
> of someone taking a swipe at it and THEN (because offshore WILL start
> slashing prices if challenged) sticking to a strategic PLAN.

If that is indeed the case, I am all in favour of it. It's time for the
West to stop trying to raise lifestyles in foreign countries at its own
peril.

--
CrudeSausage
Paleoconservative, Catholic, Christ is king.

On 10/24/24 18:25, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Oct 2024 12:40:59 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> But the whole mess is all part of people taking up *moral* positions.
>
> No, the whole mess is all part of people rationalizing their moral
> positions based on religion. Keep your religion out of your morality, and
> things become a lot simpler.

The word 'religion' lost its clarity or use a long time ago, I prefer
the term value-system which is a cultural product. If you were raised in
a garbage can then your first value-system is the garbage-can
value-system with which there is nothing wrong until you move to another
place with a different one, or you roll your own. The value-system of
the majority in any unit always makes the code of conduct within that
unit without which there is only chaos. A person's value-system is
his/her 'morality' regardless of whether s/he believes in God or is an
atheist so it has lost its punch as well except in one sense. Maybe
'humanism' still means something and as far as I can tell the loosely
christian (more or less aligned with the teachings of one we have been
told to call Jesus) tradition is the only humanist code in existance
today although I've met atheists who were just as humanists as most
christians.

On 10/25/24 00:37, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Oct 2024 00:05:13 -0400, bad sector wrote:
>
>> On 10/24/24 18:23, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>>
>>> Why is Taiwan the world capital for computer hardware? Because the
>>> Government had the foresight to support private investment in hardware
>>> manufacturing back in the 1980s, which didn’t fully pay off for close
>>> to another decade. But when it did pay off, it effectively killed off
>>> most PC hardware manufacturing in the US and elsewhere.
>>
>> That money allowed them to cut prices ...
>
> Where did they get the money from?

To me it doesn't matter because it was over there and not over here. The
responsibility for protecting its own falls on sovereign governments so
when oriental cheap-labour combined with subsidies allowed them to
undercut then western governments should have countered not by
subsidising (you cannot cut out a hole) but by completely interdicting
those imports.

Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Oct 2024 08:24:26 -0400, Phillip Frabott
>>Yup. Because US made will always be solid and durable. China is all
>>about disposable. Even their own people prefer cheap disposable
>>products. But here in the US, we'd prefer something that will last a
>>long time. And we're willing to pay extra for it to last a long
>>time. Because we know that the short term costs will always be more
>>in the long term (disposable manufactured items) but the expensive
>>short term will always lead to cheaper long term (durable
>>manufactured items).
>
> I'd be willing to pay more for a keyboard that had the function keys
> on the left, where God intended.
>
> There was one brand of keyboard, North-something-or-other, that had
> both. I'd be willing to pay double for one of those.

That would be the Northgate OmniKey Ultra - typing this message out on
one right now.

https://www.thurrott.com/forums/general-discussion/hardware/thread/northgate-omnikey-ultra-keyboard-first-look

Although the one in the above photo is the inverted-T version, mine's
the cursor diamond version.

I.e., the same model as pictured here:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/286117140332

On 2024-10-25, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

> What I didn't mention, is we have none of the humans discussed above.
> We have no skilled workers. Once their jobs were offshored, they
> became Uber drivers and UPS delivery people. They're not coming back.
> we don't have enough professors with the right backgrounds, to
> teach a new generation of people. There is a long period
> of rebuilding the industry.

No problem, the politicians have the answer: immigration.
Just bring in lots of skilled immigrants; they'll do everything
you need. You don't have to wait to educate your own people -
indeed, you can cut education funding and keep your natives in
that blessed state of ignorance so important to your power.

> Consider a conversation I had with an HR person once, over a beer.
> we were joking about something, and she tells me "when the resumes
> come in, if a tech worker has been out of work for a year, I just
> throw out their resume". She didn't read the resume, to find out
> what skills she is throwing away. That gives you some idea, of the opinion
> of HR to the state of the tech workers. Even if there were old farts
> sitting around typing posts to USENEt, you would not hire them, because...
> their resume was already thrown in the garbage :-) None of you
> should be particularly surprised by this. Seeing the barrier yet ?
> Seeing how difficult it is to bootstrap anything ? That's why my
> estimate is, it would take twenty years effort to even get close
> to rebuilding an industry. No business man is that patient. Sorry.

It's so sad that HR departments spend so much time and effort
looking for someone with a highly-specific set of skills that
exactly matches their needs, rather than hiring people who can
quickly learn the skills necessary for not only the current
project but also the next one.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | We'll go down in history as the
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | first society that wouldn't save
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | itself because it wasn't cost-
/ \ if you read it the right way. | effective. -- Kurt Vonnegut

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 22:19 this Thursday (GMT):
> On Thu, 24 Oct 2024 18:48:57 +0100, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>>
>>> Weak cryptography is easy to fix. The hard part to fix is weak random
>>> numbers.
>>
>> Other way round. A bad RNG can be swapped out for a better one with
>> little or no impact on anything else.
>
> Unfortunately, you can never be sure your RNG is good.

You could always do what random.org does and read background radiation.
Probably.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

On Fri, 25 Oct 2024 18:10:06 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 22:19 this Thursday (GMT):
>> On Thu, 24 Oct 2024 18:48:57 +0100, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>>
>>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>>>
>>>> Weak cryptography is easy to fix. The hard part to fix is weak random
>>>> numbers.
>>>
>>> Other way round. A bad RNG can be swapped out for a better one with
>>> little or no impact on anything else.
>>
>> Unfortunately, you can never be sure your RNG is good.
>
>
> You could always do what random.org does and read background radiation.
> Probably.

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

Thermal noise is a problem when dealing with weak signals but can be used
in RNG.

On Fri, 10/25/2024 1:32 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

>
> It's so sad that HR departments spend so much time and effort
> looking for someone with a highly-specific set of skills that
> exactly matches their needs, rather than hiring people who can
> quickly learn the skills necessary for not only the current
> project but also the next one.

That is partly to save money. The individuals are supposed
to be instantly productive. They're "interchangeable parts".
One drops dead, use the same precise spec, off you go again.

And you can do that in mature industries.

If you were building an AI team today, I bet you would use a different set of
criteria for that. "Do you have any experiences at all, whatsoever
in AI?" would be the kind of question they would ask. And they
would mop up the candidates who even remotely resembled that role.
There would not be a line on the requisition "Must know Microsoft Office",
which is a popular bit of silliness.

Paul

On 10/25/24 05:43, Joel wrote:
> bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> wrote:
>
>>>> Whoever did whatever in South Africa never did, never will, and
>>>> certainly doesn't define what is meant by any term elsewhere and that
>>>> includes 'illegal alien'. Illegal = unauthorised, unlawful; alien =
>>>> foreign, potentially hostile. Nothing complicated really i.e. a squatter
>>> >from elsewhere as would be someone who just waltzes into your
>>>> living-room and pitches tent there uninvited.
>>>
>>> Uh huh. You ever hear of Christopher Columbus?
>>
>> Sure, far too much even; he was a paper christian if at all whom the
>> vatican was about to BBQ so he quickly found himself a sweetheart deal
>> with the spanish queen to get the fuck outta Dodge and just in time.
>>
>>> Was he born in the
>>> Americas? Or did he just declare land to be the property of Spain,
>>> without any rational basis? What the fuck do you think crackers
>>> coming here were, if not "illegal immigrants"?
>>
>> What DECIDED whom the land belonged to was the size of the Spanish navy,
>> also the British, the French, and the German to name the top guns. When
>> did you get off the boat?
>>
>>> Just because the
>>> indigenous people hadn't created a system of government to make a law,
>>> against their arrival? Despite the fact whities massacred indigenous
>>> people, to gain territory here?
>>
>> Laws without power mean didley shit, but who was talking about the USA?
>> What is it with Americans that unless someone specifically says 'this is
>> not about the USA' they always think that everyone on usenet is by
>> default thinking and talking about them? The illegal migrant problem is
>> at crisis levels in Europe for example, far worse than stateside.
>>
>>> Wake the fuck up.
>>
>> Land is like a woman, belongs to the last man standing subject only to
>> her wanting any of him regardless. There is no ancestral 'right' that I
>> know of or would accept.
>
> You're a fucking pig.

Wow, ad-hominem, whadda man! I knew about and admired first nations long
before you got to the point of desperately gasping for a pinhole in your
old man's condom. They did have laws and rules and they certainly did
put up a valiant fight, but they lost. So called ancestral rights cannot
be a basis for the simple reason that records don't go back to Adam and
Eve and when justice is thus structurally impossible but injustice is
virtually guaranteed it's all non-avenue. There has to be negotiation,
war unfortunately being the last and loudest form of which.

On 25/10/2024 22:33, bad sector wrote:
records don't go back to Adam and
> Eve and when justice is thus structurally impossible but injustice is
> virtually guaranteed it's all non-avenue. There has to be negotiation,
> war unfortunately being the last and loudest form of which.
>
>
This is why it is far better to simply kill all the menfolk and use the
women folk for sex slaves.

No one is left to pay reparations to...

--
"Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social
conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the
windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.) "

Alan Sokal

On 10/25/24 17:47, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 25/10/2024 22:33, bad sector wrote:
> records don't go back to Adam and
>> Eve and when justice is thus structurally impossible but injustice is
>> virtually guaranteed it's all non-avenue. There has to be negotiation,
>> war unfortunately being the last and loudest form of which.
>>
> This is why it is far better to simply kill all the menfolk and use the
> women folk for sex slaves.
>
> No one is left to pay reparations to...

Only one snag, they like hebrews and a few others trace descendence
through the mother. That said, there is much we could/should have
learned from them: "Taking only what you need on your journey, otherwise
leave the land as you had found it". Haitians have clear-cut the
mountains and the rains have washed all the soil off them. No tree will
EVER grow there again.

On Fri, 25 Oct 2024 18:10:06 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 22:19 this Thursday (GMT):
>
>> Unfortunately, you can never be sure your RNG is good.
>
> You could always do what random.org does and read background radiation.
> Probably.

You can read anything you like. You can never be sure that the digital
bits your CPU sees bear any relation to the raw random data your sensor
was picking up.

On Fri, 25 Oct 2024 01:09:38 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> Um ... even weak crypto takes a lot of CPU time to decode.

A graphic illustration of strong crypto used stupidly:
<https://github.com/corkami/pics/blob/master/binary/CryptoModes.png>.

On Fri, 25 Oct 2024 02:25:37 -0400, Paul wrote:

> If I did that today, the teenager watching TikTok vids on his phone
> would look up and say "what is solder?".

*Ahem* ... that particular example could be due to how you were
pronouncing it ...

.... you know, “sole-der” versus “saw-der” ...

> Consider a conversation I had with an HR person once, over a beer.
> we were joking about something, and she tells me "when the resumes come
> in, if a tech worker has been out of work for a year, I just throw out
> their resume". She didn't read the resume, to find out what skills she
> is throwing away. That gives you some idea, of the opinion of HR to the
> state of the tech workers.

HR have long been infamous for howlers like demanding 3 years’ experience
in a technology that only came out the previous year ...