thesmokingman @ thesmokingman @programming.dev

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2 yr. ago

I can’t actually figure out what APTS does. I think it’s only a lobbying nonprofit. It’s not mentioned on the public television Wikipedia article and I’m struggling to find a good Google query that turns up something it’s done. Putting all of that together, it’s just a continuation of his regulatory capture.

Edit: I should have looked at the 501(c)3 stuff first. This org collects money from public stations and spends it on its staff. It lobbies but doesn’t present much in the way of returns.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521170071/202223429349300807/full

Context for anyone also confused

This is one of the worst articles I’ve read in recent memory from a purported source of record. Nowhere does it actually expand on the headline. It jumps all over the timeline. The fight information is buried. I think it’s supposed to be a human interest story related to something bad that happened. I’ve sent it to two people who were equally confused.

I am fairly confident that Roberta Williams was mentioned in Stephen Levy’s seminal work Hackers. It’s been 5+ years since I read the 25th anniversary edition so I don’t want to say it was good or bad; it was enough coverage that I remember it and think it’s really weird that PC Gamer wouldn’t include her work.

Thanks! My coworkers really like me.

I struggled with the same thing. I’ve got some ties from my dad from haberdasheries that hadn’t existed for a couple of decades before I was born. They are in regular rotation but that means they get worn once every few months like all my other ties.

I thought it was a really valuable question! There are several Russian APTs and you made me question my understanding of the attack. I had to reread some stuff to make sure I could answer you properly.

I don’t give a shit about the title. I think it’s a joke. The analysis you’ve given suggests you don’t understand both software and engineering.

• Bandwidth is much more than what data centers put out. There’s a constant question of request/response size and the factors that go into scaling. If your idea of web development is just code minification, your idea is wrong.
• Engineers can’t pass the design buck. If you wouldn’t tell a hardware engineer, “the design of the circuit board doesn’t matter; don’t worry about size or crossed circuits,” then you can’t tell an engineer the use of the systems they design is just the realm of the designer. I know a few industrial engineers that would be annoyed by your ignorance of an entire branch of engineering.
• Why does everyone want to be an engineer? I’m really missing that point.

I think this is a terribly naive view of the impact the physical world has on software development. Most web development is actively concerned with throughput which is governed by bandwidth limitations and API construction. The user experience concerns that go into, say, the design of medical interfaces is no different from the design considerations of physical switches in a cockpit. Alert fatigue is just as much a consideration for monitoring in software as it is for industrial controls.

I also disagree that engineering is applying physics for user experience concerns I brought up. If your industrial controller makes it impossible to understand what’s going on when shit hits the fan (eg Three Mile Island), I would argue you as an engineer have failed. That’s not applying physics unless we’re stretching “applied physics” to cover the movement of subatomic particles through brains as psychology.

One of the issues is that devs don’t know about the normal engineering certifying body (at least in the US). One of the problems with that body was its expectation that a software engineer also know other forms of engineering. For example, a chemical engineer needs to know some civil and industrial engineering to get their certification. It’s almost nonsensical to ask someone building cloud apps to understand the principles of chemical engineering unless their work is in chemical engineering.

I know a ton of engineers that don’t view software as a field that can use the term because of its lack of certification.

Sometimes people genuinely don’t know correct syntax. If you’re going to call that a shortcoming, you’re an ignorant walnut. Intellectual superiority is a shitty way to pretend to be better than someone else. It often incorrectly assumes everyone types the same language with the same proficiency which is a very provincial assumption.

Once again, you’re making incorrect assumptions. My concern is employers using the spyware we’re talking about without consent on devices they don’t control. Take a minute to think through before responding. Why would I be worried about either of the two things you mentioned?

Correct. That’s what I called out with my second link. Your question was whether Gamaredon did Olympic Destroyer.

No. Attribution wasn’t clear for Olympic Destroyer; it’s doubtful we’ll we ever know the specific APT responsible. Signals intelligence was used to guess at Russian attribution so we at least have a pretty good idea which country launched it.

tbh I think VBScript is more pleasant to write than C in many cases

Unless you’re rotating accounts and not posting anything on the internet ever, going so far as to use an in-memory OS like Tails won’t protect you.

Your incorrect assumption is that only cartels and nation states are using said software. Weaponized versions of this stuff are making their way to consumer levels where you just need to piss off the wrong person online. I don’t worry about the US government targeting me beyond normal levels; I worry about employers deploying spyware.

I’m not following. VBScript seems like the right tool. Why would they use something else? They’re generally light years beyond US defense capabilities so there’s a real dearth of suffering on their side.

Now if the joke is that they’re suffering because they have to use VBScript, I can get behind that

It’s not paid and the US Supreme Court has ruled that it doesn’t have to be. Why should I perform labor that I am not being compensated for?

I don’t think we read the same article. We’re talking about a product those goal is secure verification of identity, correct? Something all about security?