sylver_dragon @ sylver_dragon @lemmy.world

Posts

4

Comments

961

Joined

2 yr. ago

This comic brought to you by the current situation in Haiti.

So, one thing to consider is that "how bad it gets" can be directly related to how well people and governments prepare. For example, if the CDC starts work on having vaccines made and stockpiled now, they may be able to react quickly and decisively to any outbreaks as they happen and prevent them from growing to a pandemic level. If infections are kept to low levels and the CDC ultimately has a lot of left over vaccines, did it "over react"? It's actually a hard question to answer, because it's entirely possibly that the end result was a direct result of that stockpiling and rapid reaction, leading to some level of wastage. However, had those precautionary steps not been taken, shit would have hit the fan.

We had something similar back with the Y2K Bug was being talked about. Companies lost their shit over it. But, when the date finally rolled over, it seemed to be a huge nothing-burger. Part of the reason it was such a nothing-burger was the fact that companies actually did a lot of work to validate and fix software before the date roll over. So, in retrospect, lots of people talk about the Y2K bug like it was all hype. But, had action not been taken ahead of time, it really would have caused a lot of problems.

This is the perennial problem with proactive fixes, if they are done right, people won't be sure you have done anything at all. So, it is often difficult to get people to prioritize future problems. Even when the cost to fix those problems now will be vastly less than waiting until the problem actually arrives.

So no, I don't think it's "overblown" per se. It something that governments and health organizations should be tracking and should be working to have plans and resources available for. On a personal level, not much is changing. It's not currently at a level that I feel I need to make major lifestyle changes to avoid. The CDC puts the risk as currently low, and has seen no cases of human to human transmission. If any of that changes, I'll re-evaluate.

Russia could do that. But, they are kinda busy trying to keep up with demand from their own forces. And that's only going to get worse as they run out of mothballed Soviet shitboxes to reactivate.

Had a Windows 2000 computer show up on the company network about a month ago, it was an oscilloscope. It was already infected with malware and trying to reach the malware C2 server.

Sort of yes, sort of no. This is one of those places where the US Federal system of government would be beneficial. For the most part, Homicide is a State crime. This means that the State where the crime occurred would have jurisdiction and The US President would not have the power to pardon for that crime. So, let's say that Biden sends a private hitman (and not Seal Team 6, the FBI or whatever fevered dream part of the US Government Trump comes up with next) to kill Trump. Said hitman would be indicted in New York under New York law for the homicide. President Biden's power to pardon would not be able to help the hitman. By contrast, New York Governor Kathy Hochul probably could (I can't be arsed to look up the power of pardon in New York). Where this breaks down is in DC or other Federal land (e.g. military bases). Since those are Federal lands, the Federal Government would have jurisdiction and the President probably would have the power of pardon.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

If you played the "evil" plotline, there is a point where Mission (the Twi'lek girl) is telling you how horrible you are and one of your options is to get her best friend Zaalbar (a wookie) to kill her. By this point he owes you a life debt and is honor bound to do what you say. For as terrible as "evil" plotlines tend to be in games, that was an amazingly well done moment.

Probably looking to make more money by convincing people on KickStarter to back another VR headset, only to sell the whole thing to a large corp.

That is a possibility. To be honest, I haven't tried very hard yet. I'm currently working on spinning up a Win10 VM in KVM and I'll see how that works. And Android emulator is another good idea, I'll have to give that a go.

And once you have found your specific collection of plugins that happen not to put the exact features you need behind a paywall but others, you ain’t touching those either.

And this is why, when I'm investigating phishing links, I've gotten used to mumbling, "fucking WordPress". WordPress itself is pretty secure. Many WordPress plugins, if kept up to date, are reasonably secure. But, for some god forsaken reason, people seem to be allergic to updating their WordPress plugins and end up getting pwned and turned into malware serving zombies. Please folks, if it's going to be on the open internet, install your fucking updates!

Did the same. The writing has been on the wall for a long time, Microsoft's anti-user behavior is only set to get worse. I made the jump to Linux (Arch) and things have been reasonably smooth. I did have a few issues with Enshrouded, but was able to get past those with Proton-GE. The only issue I haven't worked around yet is Roblox with the kids. But, I may just have to pick up a cheap tablet for that.

Languages shift and change over time. English, as we currently know it, has undergone several such shifts, to the point that it's less a language and more several languages dressed up in a trench coat pretending to be one. Adding more Spanish words to the language is really just a continuation of a centuries old trend.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said last month. “I think a lot of these cases [will] work up, and the Supreme Court finally says enough is enough, we’re not a banana republic.”

I really hope they do Senator. In a Banana Republic, the Glorious Leader is usually not held to account for his crimes. In the US and in functional Republics, we actually hold people to account for the crimes they commit, regardless of their current or former positions. Trump committed a crime, being a former President doesn't mean he can't be held to account.

It does seem that there is an implicit right to vote, but not an explicit one. Which is why I mentioned the Privileges and Immunities clause, if there is a Constitutional right to vote, it likely derives from there. But, being implicit, rather than explicit, means that it falls to judicial review to codify it. It's also not as solidly guaranteed. Unlike say, the right to assemble, there is no specific text you can point to and say, "this bit of text, right here, says it." So, it wouldn't be surprising to see any such decision overturned later on (see: Dobbs decision).

It's nice to see us reaching a tipping point where the market forces are no longer pushing so hard away from EVs. And it provides a good, texbook example, of the government stepping in to promote a better technology, until that technology can be fully competitive on it's own.

The US constitution does include the right to vote

Kind of, but also kind of not. I replied to another commenter on that, I'll point you there.

The state level clause about exclusions is only necessary if the right to vote exists in the first place.

I agree that, and event directly stated in my previous post, exactly that:

there seems to be an assumption implicit in this that people have a right to vote

Unfortunately, an implicit assumption is not the same as an explicitly enumerated right. It's a fine distinction, but can be a big pain in the arse. In theory, US Citizens have a lot of unenumerated rights, via the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution. However, as it's left open to interpretation, it ends up amounting to almost nothing.

So that explains the wooshing sound.
Sorry, I guess I've been primed by one too many comments where folks seem to want to ignore the laws as written when they are inconvenient to the outcome they want.

I was just focusing on what was there in the Kansas Constitution; but, lets walk through it:

15th Amendment, Section 1
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

We'll ignore Section 2, as it doesn't seem useful here (same for other amendments below). So, you have a right to vote that cannot be limited by "race, color or previous condition of servitude". That last bit meaning slavery. So, it kinda does seem to imply a universal right to vote. But again, this leaves open the possibility that the US Government (USG) and States do have the power to limit it otherwise. As a ridiculous example, it seems that this Amendment leaves open the possibility that the State could limit the right to vote for left handed people.

19th Amendment, Section 1
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Pretty much exactly as above, but extending the protections to "sex".

24th Amendment, Section 1
The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Continuing to extend the limits on USG/State powers. This time, it outlaws poll taxes.

26th Amendment, Section 1
The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

And now we've extended the prohibition on limiting voting due to age.

There is a through-line on all of these which amounts to "The USG/State cannot limit the right to vote in these specific cases". At the same time, they all leave open the possibility that the right to vote can be limited by the USG/States, so long as the reason isn't one of the protected classes. The text of the US Constitution itself is pretty silent on the issue.

Article I, Section 4
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

That kinda tosses the whole thing to the States to figure out. Though, that has been modified by Federal Law a few times.

Article 4, Section 2
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

This is the "Privileges and Immunities" clause of the US Constitution, and it's been a useful "catch all" to further push the rights of the people. If a universal right to vote exists in the US Constitution, it's probably here. But, that's going to fall to judicial review. Which, for the moment, the Kansas court seems to have rejected.

As opposed to?
While being a country of written laws does have it's pitfalls, it also means that we have something to go back to and agree on. There is a reason that political bodies have been codifying laws since the city-states of ancient Mesopotamia. The alternatives usually break down to some sort of "guy with the biggest stick, at the moment, makes the law". No thanks, I'll stick with being a "codified law savage".

That line isn't about voting, it's about being qualified to be a Elector, sent to the Electoral College to actually elect the next US President. So, not exactly textual evidence that there is a right to vote enshrined in the Kansas Constitution. The next couple of sections also kinda work against a universal right to vote in Kansas:

Disqualification to vote. The legislature may, by law, exclude persons from voting because of commitment to a jail or penal institution. No person convicted of a felony under the laws of any state or of the United States, unless pardoned or restored to his civil rights, shall be qualified to vote.

This shows that the legislature does have some power to remove a person's ability to vote under Kansas law. Granted, there seems to be an assumption implicit in this that people have a right to vote, so long as it's not been removed. But then we get to:

Proof of right to vote. The legislature shall provide by law for proper proofs of the right of suffrage.

That, right there, is probably doing a lot of heavy lifting for this law. The legislature has the power to provide "proper proofs" for the right to vote. So, it would seem that the Kansas Constitution is setting the legislature up to gatekeep voting, based on "proper proofs". That could well be the signature verification.

This looks like one of those cases where being a country of written laws can lead to weird outcomes. Yes, the right to vote should be universal. But, if the law, as written, doesn't say that, then that's not really the law.

You work in cybersecurity, yet you have company-controlled assets on your personal phone?
X DOUBT
Either you don’t give a single sh*t about your personal privacy, or…

Here's the rub, I've been through enough of this to take a realistic, risk based approach to security. Knee-jerk reactions like the one you are giving are not really useful. Step back for a moment and think about what's going on here. First and foremost, this isn't MDM on a device, that's entirely different from installing the MS Authenticator app from the public Google Play store and adding a work account to it. So no, the company is not able to go rooting around in the user's device willy-nilly. Second, even with MDM, IT control of the user's device isn't what it used to be. Google implemented containerization of work profiles some time back. Without Work Profiles and containerization, I would agree that enrolling my personal device in MDM carries too much risk to my privacy and also having my device remote wiped. But, the advance of technology has altered that calculus. While there are still risks to consider with having a work profile on my device, it's also not as worrisome as it used to be.

Security isn't some binary thing. There is no hard and fast set of rules, given from some entity on high. It's a game of deciding what risks are acceptable and what risks need to be mitigated and how. If you work for a company which you believe is trying to use MDM to go rooting around in your personal device, I'd suggest finding an new job. This isn't to say you should trust the company 100%; but, you need to take a realistic look at what the ask is, what risks it carries and if the trade-off in convenience is worth it. The risks inherent in the MS Authenticator app are basically nil. At least on Android, you can audit it's permissions and disable the ones you don't want it to have. The app provides zero control over the device to the company. Really, there's just nothing there to get your panties in a bunch about.

But hey, if knee-jerk reactions are your thing, then you do you. This whole tempest in a teapot still amounts to "Microsoft bad".