dan_mctree

Another frequent type of blind SQL injection is when the server gives an error or a slightly different output on some queries. The server code may for example travel down a different path if the query doesn't output any results and then shows an error. Even if the error doesn't show the contents of the query, it can also be used to slowly extract data through generated yes/no questions.

In one case I managed a successful blind attack for a client because their server showed an English site for valid queries returning the right results, and a German one for unexpected queries.

The SF type of free speech is just of a very different kind. In China the wrong political ideas can cause you trouble with the government and potentially in jail. In SF the wrong ideas or words can lead to rejection from your social circle and loss of your career. To a lot of people the latter is just as scary, if not scarier than facing a hostile government. A year in jail doesn't sound as bad to some as becoming a social pariah.

And the government is at least sort of predictable, and is unlikely to make you disappear without any warnings. Social circles and careers can flip at a moments notice based on criteria no one is exactly sure of. A less than favorable opinion on any racial or sexual minority group or gender? A too favorable opinion on something sexual? Some comment regarding a woman's appearance? Support for a certain political party? Not thinking some individual woman/minority is amazing? Desiring the (il)legality of guns? Desiring the (il)legality of abortion? Other opinions on healthcare? Expressing a preference to (fe)males for some occupation? Acting on the belief it is okay to flirt in a workplace environment? Believing 'political correctness' is bad? Thinking human engineering is a good thing? Being for/opposed to the trans movement? Having some religion? Not having a religion?

You never know which one of these is capable of killing off your career/social group. In your average environment today, you really just can't tell which of them will set off the bomb. So you're silent on all.

It's too bad in the majority of cases you won't have someone besides you answering all the questions. Without that, the reader would've gotten stuck long ago.

If clonal plants count, could that mean that Henrietta Lacks (HeLa cells) is technically worlds heaviest animal?

There's no continuous project you're working on. It's just getting a lot of chances of winning the lottery. If someone finishes before you, you just slightly alter the number you're searching for and continue on. You're also not really working towards the same thing. Your solution probably includes you sending the blockreward to yourself and their solution includes them sending it to themselves too, on top of that you may also choose other secondary transactions. The chosen transactions influence the number you need to find.

It does happen that two blocks are found at nearly the same time, before adjustments can be made. In those cases one of the two ends up getting 'orphaned', it's relatively rare compared to normal blocks though.

Sure there are boundaries. But the limit of these boundaries may be way above what humans are doing. Computers, unlike humans aren't limited to the domain of the physical. An AI may well be able to meaningfully organize (read: hack) all of the worlds computers because it can self-replicate, increase computing power, communicate very complex information very fast, etc. We're limited by the output of fingers and vocal chords, by the size of our brains, by imprecise and slow memory formation and recall, by the input we can get from mostly eyes and ears, computers aren't.

An AI may well be able to reach consensus on millions of hypotheses per second.

'Better' as in achieves more results per unit of time. Which is a fundamental problem for humans too. Many do have the intellectual capacity to invent something like general relativity, but few would be capable of doing so in the very limited timeframe we have available and even fewer actually end up doing that instead of dedicating their thinking time somewhere else. More thinking and more output per timeframe should lead to significant improvements for both human and AI in terms of results, which is generally the meaningful part

Absolutely, the amount of technologies often required for full stack web development is astounding. Even for a smallish website, you can be quickly staring at 30+ essential pieces of technology you need to at least understand somewhat. Several languages, package managers, IDEs, frameworks, a database, debuggers, compilers, project management tools, virtual machines, server software, your OS, supporting protocols (SSL, TCP/IP, SSH, DNS etc.) and the list goes on. Who can truly understand all of that simultaneously? All of that bloat just massively increases the chance of errors and inefficiencies.

We've seen police/military fire into people in many places during protests recently. The Ukranian Maidan protests, in Egypt, Turkey and of course Syria. Why would Spain be immune to events like these while the people are easily as riled up as they were in Ukraine? Spain happens to have a history of civil war too.

All it takes is for armed police/military to meet large angry crowds that won't back down. If Spain sends the military to arrest the Catalonian government, we may end up with both of the ingredients. Perhaps a new Syria is unlikely, but is something on the scale of Euromaidan really that hard to imagine?

The international/European response is not set in stone and could wildly vary based on the Spanish response. If they send in troops, and should those troops fire on civilians, the Spanish may well lose international support. They were heavily condemned just for their police actions around the referendum.

There also aren't that many countries that have serious internal strife in the western world anyway, that point is always wildly overstated. The UK has independence movements but they've already allowed a referendum so they may not care. Belgium and Russia have some serious internal trouble, but the importance of their support may be too small to matter (and indeed Russia may encourage discord). France and Italy? But are their minorities really serious enough? What else is there? The vast majority of Europe will swing towards what has the best optics, as will the US. Sure they may pick stability first, but if that's out because of civil war, it becomes anyones guess.

The quality of the vast majority of my code is evaluated in 'soft' ways. Anywhere from "does this webpages layout work well on all browsers" to "does this AI feel like a challenging opponent" to "did you deliver software results fast enough" to "is the code neat enough and well documented". The part that can be meaningfully tested through any kind of formal system or automation is minuscule and it's very rarely where the problems lie.