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tomtoise

1,129 karma · joined December 3, 2014

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tomtoise··on Vigilante Hacks Government-Linked Cyberespionage Group
I suspect light sarcasm on the part of the perpetrator.
tomtoise··on A Feasible Approach to Human Stasis for Long-Duration Deep Space Missions
This was an absolutely fascinating read, the paper isn't too dense for a layman to read and understand. Finished reading the paper and it definitely makes space travel seem more within our grasp.
tomtoise··on Overconfident Students, Dubious Employers
Of course, if your stereotype is correct, this does beg the question about who decided it was a good idea to GIVE 'the kids' all these trophies.
tomtoise··on Intel made smart glasses that look normal
That'd be quite the technological feat considering they don't currently have cameras built in.
tomtoise··on Medical Device CEO Catches Stranger After Hours, Prompting Espionage Charges
Anyone got a non-paywalled link to this story?
tomtoise··on Breaking into 1Password, KeePass, LastPass and Dashlane
Ah. Thanks. So the idea is to stop the user before they get that far, I suppose.

Doesn't this hark back to "If the attacker has local access, it's already game over"?

tomtoise··on Breaking into 1Password, KeePass, LastPass and Dashlane
Forgive the naive question, but would 2FA completely mitigate this attack, assuming that the org trying to access a key vault did not have access to the 2FA device?
tomtoise··on Dark Futures: What happens when literary novelists experiment with Sci-Fi
Funny you should say that. Here in the UK we're three episodes into a Handmaid's Tale TV adaptation. It's surprisingly good and you're right, it's excellent TV, even if I found the book itself quite a struggle back in college.
tomtoise··on Song Calling UK Leader “Liar” Hits Top 10; Radio Stations Won't Play
Capital and Heart are privately owned and operated stations. The BBC Charts usually air on Radio 1 I think on Friday, so we will have to see if they opt to play it then, though I strongly suspect they will not.
tomtoise··on Song Calling UK Leader “Liar” Hits Top 10; Radio Stations Won't Play
This happened in the past, a lot of people bought the track 'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead' from the Wizard of Oz movie in the week Margaret Thatcher died, BBC refused to play it despite it hitting number one.

It does raise interesting discussion points about the role of places like the Beeb in censoring what is essentially a list of the 'most popular' tracks in a given week.

Luckily this specific case is a little more clear-cut, stations can just invoke impartiality rules due to the General Election being so close and get around having to play the track.

tomtoise··on Someone forged my resignation letter
I worked somewhere where the behaviour described in OP's post happened. It was just lighthearted. We worked in desk 'bays', so someone sat next to the unlocked PC would have visuals on what the prankster was doing on the machine. Harmless emails like 'I'm buying the whole office donuts at lunch' were sent. It was very rare for any employee to leave their machines unlocked twice with this unofficial procedure in place.
tomtoise··on Using Amazon Snowmobile to transmit 100PB of satellite images to AWS
Yes - the first year of University was designed as a catch-up to those who hadn't previously had exposure to this sort of thing and weed out the coasters.

I must stress this was a single question on a single first-year exam. Not representative of the whole course in the slightest.

tomtoise··on Using Amazon Snowmobile to transmit 100PB of satellite images to AWS
Yes, to those who had studied it was fairly obvious what the solution was, but the phrasing was such that to those who were just trying to wing it failed miserably.
tomtoise··on Using Amazon Snowmobile to transmit 100PB of satellite images to AWS
At University we had a question around this type of 'transfer'. I can't remember how it went exactly but we were to calculate the bandwidth of a jumbo plane carrying x amount of hard drives with y capacity to z destination. Given that the flight takes so many hours, what is the total transfer speed of data in seconds?

I saw a few students nearly have a breakdown over that one.

tomtoise··on UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
We didn't have a chance at PR. Highly emotive[1] and ridiculous[2] campaigning from the No side saw to that, much in the same way as it saw to Brexit.

[1]https://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_im...

[2]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SkJXglPtoq0/TW6vXWrtyuI/AAAAAAAADO...

tomtoise··on UK to follow US flight ban on laptops
3) as mentioned in the US version of this thread, to make it easier to intercept and search electronic devices. I'll find a link to the comment.

E. Top comment, that was easy.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13919760

tomtoise··on Scotland to seek second independence referendum
Ah yes, like the 'current polling' at the time suggested the UK would definitely remain in the EU, or that President Clinton was a surefire thing.
tomtoise··on USPS confirms Byuu’s PAL SNES package has been lost
Within the twitter chain was mention of an ebay listing suspiciously similar to the parcel contents being seen. Parent is likely referring to this.
tomtoise··on Stop using 'short' for line and allocation sizes (2013)
Original Title, for Posterity:

"Linus has been polishing a turd for two years"

tomtoise··on A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them
> There is no fairer way to decide who wants something the most than to ask who is willing to give up the most to acquire it.

What is 'the most' for one may be pocket change for another.

tomtoise··on A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them
This is another reason scalpers are bad. Botting the process gives an edge in both speed and tenacity over legitimate fans sitting in the queue. Ticket allotment limits are only affecting legitimate users, as those scalpers who use bots can get around this with multiple sessions.
tomtoise··on A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them
Well, why should the fan who is able to pay less money miss out in favor of the fan who has more? Are people fundamentally more deserving for having more disposable income?

The Artist (ie the provider of the 'value') is not making more profit, they have set what they feel their work is worth. Scalpers add no value and simply take. Automation of scalping is bad for everybody involved (edit: except of course the scalpers themselves), as typically bots will buy out tickets to popular events extremely quickly, leaving legitimate fans out in the cold.

tomtoise··on A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them
> Everyone's a winner.

Except perhaps those die-hard fans who do not have the extra money available to see what may be a once-in-a-lifetime show.

Perhaps a more correct ending would be "Everyone who has enough disposable income is a winner."

tomtoise··on [dead]
That was a complete trainwreck of an AMA.

Any guesses as to why Assange chose to livestream answers instead of have them transcribed as is the norm with these things?

Perhaps because of the 'proof of life' carnage of a conspiracy that went down a little while ago?

tomtoise··on Microsoft will make adjustments to Azure pricing in British pound (22% increase)
I prefer #BrexitBritain myself. Nice play on the whole #BrokenBritain hashtag.
tomtoise··on UK's new Snoopers Charter just passed an encryption backdoor law by the backdoor
No, nothing has happened. 100,000 signatures means it's considered for debate, not guaranteed. The response is inevitably:

"We have considered debating this and decided actually we don't fancy it. Keep signing the petitions though, they definitely make a difference and don't think about taking direct action of any form."

tomtoise··on Assange and Wikileaks – Some basic facts all in one place
Strangely appears to have fallen off the front page. Flagged?
tomtoise··on Show HN: A Web-to-RSS Parser in Common Lisp
I use Feedly and IFTT to pipe my feed of 150 or so lists straight into a dedicated Slack channel for monitoring new articles coming out on InfoSec. It's pretty convenient, but also not too intrusive as if you need to switch off, you can just mute the dedicated Slack channel for a bit.
tomtoise··on Safer to Puff, E-Cigarettes Can’t Shake Their Reputation as a Menace
I found it harder to quit as a rollie-smoker myself. My theory is the ritual of rolling up a quick cigarette is just as compelling as the actual smoke. I'd find myself rolling at my desk when in a stressful situation a fair bit.
tomtoise··on Deepgram – Find Damning Soundbites
Well then it backfired horribly.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/09/media/billy-bush-nbc-today-s...

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