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1:58 AM
Would you install covid-19 apps? The government texted people to download their tracking app but I don't trust it, even if it's not made to be malicious, since it must have been quite rushed and is probably extra vulnerable.
 
2:28 AM
@JohnZhau what country? Although I'm not sure what country you would have to be in for me to actually answer "yes"
 
2:42 AM
@ConorMancone singapore has one
its even open source I think
 
2:58 AM
I'm in Vietnam right now but I wouldn't trust it for any country right now...
Considering the many many fake apps and such on the news, and the fact that these were all made in a pretty short time, I can expect lots of problem even if it was made by the government
 
 
6 hours later…
8:47 AM
@ConorMancone Luckily that wasn't the case. And also luckily, 90% of the time, when you connect something dangerous, the connectors are made in a way so that they can only go in one way
One curious exception are the power LED headers, which are labeled +PLED and -PLED
You can accidentally place those wrong and that could harm your power led
@JohnZhau Agreed. Even supplementary applications, such as calculators for your wages while stuck at home, are rushed out the door and probably vulnerable
 
9:15 AM
@ConorMancone I think your answer about salts is excellent. I think you could add a point though showing how even a very tiny salt can make the size of a rainbow table explode, and that's really the point of a salt: To make rainbow tables infeasible
 
9:52 AM
@MechMK1 rofl
@MechMK1 in your defence its not that obvious
though, man, com ports. I know they still have headers but I cannot remember the last time I used one
 
@JourneymanGeek Let me show you two pictures
Why the fuck can't I name a file COM1.png on Windows
What the fuck
Who the fuck thought that this was a good idea?
 
@MechMK1 hmm
If not for one thing, it would save money
 
Why so?
 
But as far as I can remember, most motherboards SHOULD have that colour coded
@MechMK1 same part :D
 
bruh :D
 
10:06 AM
@MechMK1 I have seen some PRETTY braindead things on motherboards
 
Yeah, it's not color coded, although my motherboard labeled the headers as COM1 and PANEL1
@JourneymanGeek Please do tell
 
@MechMK1 just the usual, unpopulated headers to save a few cents...
But I tend to buy asus boards for my DIY builds, and they're usually nice. Asrock... used to be their budget brand, but they're nicer in some ways
 
I did buy an Asus board for my girlfriend's PC, and the board was great, except it was slightly too big for the case (really)
The ASRock board was good enough for my mom's budget build
All she wants to do is watch some videos and play some casual games
 
@MechMK1 I like big cases and I cannot lie
 
10:34 AM
0
Q: Does builtin application X forms a privacy issue?

vosofar108In an old phone, I performed some action wherein phone numbers or person names of people in the nearby location where visible and displayed on my screen if I remember it wasn't a application installed from the internet or playstore, it somehing that was built in (probably a short code). Does so...

The guy claims he can see phone numbers of people close to him. I highly doubt that this is the case, though I don't know GSM well enough to rule it out as possibility.
 
Lol, you guys are hilarious! It's been at least a decade since I built a computer. The main thing stopping me is that it has been at least a decade since I owned anything other than a laptop. The gap between laptops and desktops is not as big as it used to be
 
@ConorMancone It's really not that hard to do. If it weren't for the COM1/PANEL1 disaster, it would have been a breeze
I honestly love building computers
 
@MechMK1 I'm definitely very dubious. I suppose I don't know cell phone tech well enough to rule it out either, but I wouldn't believe it without confirmation.
 
It's just a shame it's so expensive :D
But the bare bones for a PC aren't that complex:

- Motherboard
- CPU
- GPU
- PSU
- Cooler
- RAM
- Chassis
- SSD (+ HDD)
- Display
- Keyboard
- Mouse
Otherwise, it's like following IKEA instructions
 
@MechMK1 Its still for people who kinda love doing it
I can do most of what I do on a prebuilt system.
But its boring, and I can't upgrade it to make it last longer
 
10:50 AM
There's pre-built and there is "pre-built"
For example, our local grocery store sells their own brand of PCs targetting people who really don't know any better
 
@MechMK1 My current PC started its life as a Dell 530 I picked up from a dumpster :D
 
I mean, the price is okay, but the marketing in my opinion isn't
 
I've replaced everything. Twice
@MechMK1 like those wallmart "gaming" PCs?
 
@JourneymanGeek Which is what I like to call Theseus Gaming PC
@JourneymanGeek Basically. 500€ roughly as price without peripherals, outdated hardware, marketed as top-of-the-line gaming pc
 
@MechMK1 is it ok for the parts/price?
 
10:54 AM
Yeah, it's not a scam at least
 
Oh, and I guess "fun" cut corners like non standard PSUs missing connectors, and hard drives bolted to the side of the case to save on bays?
 
@JourneymanGeek I don't know, I never bought any
 
(the Dell only had sata connectors, and no HDD bays.. :D )
 
As I said above, my biggest problem is that they are marketed like top-of-the-line equipment, when in reality they're just mediocre
 
ah yup
I'd guess core i3s and i5s?
and like 4gb of ram? :D
 
10:55 AM
i3's maximum
basically
 
and spinning rust or second tier SSDs?
 
And some outdated GPU on top
Like a GTX 760 or such
 
Let me see
wtf Pentium still exists?
Here they sell a PC for 400€, with a Pentium G5420, 1TB HDD and 8 GB RAM
I mean, it's not a great machine (no dedicated GPU), but 400€ is about the price of a new smartphone these days
So I really can't give them too much flak
Also completely unrelated. I just learned yesterday that M.2 can be both PCIe and SATA-III
And that some connectors for M.2 are PCIe only, some are SATA-III only, and some are both
 
11:12 AM
@MechMK1 ???? Why in the world is a grocery store selling a computer???? That doesn't even make sense....
 
@ConorMancone Hofer (or Aldi in Germany) sells all kinds of non-grocery items, but only seasonally.
That includes lawn chairs, cheap electronics, etc...
The idea is that those would be sold under an in-store brand and be significantly cheaper than branded alternatives
 
@MechMK1 we have Aldi here as well (not sure if it is the same company). They do indeed sell non-grocery stuff which I occasionally buy, but it is definitely on the low-quality side and I certainly wouldn't buy electronics from them...
But hey if they can make it work for them....
 
For example, you could buy an iPad for 380€, or you could buy a Medion Tablet for 100€
@ConorMancone Yes, it's the same company
I mean, you could argue that they try to sell off cheap shit to people who don't know any better, but I argue that if you buy something at about one quater the cost of a "branded" product, you have to expect that it is not the same quality
A car for 10.000 USD will not offer the same features and luxuries as a car for 38.000 USD
 
@MechMK1 yup - E key and M key IIRC
 
And I'm sure there are plenty of people who want to have a PC or a laptop, but don't need any computational power at all.
 
11:18 AM
there's also different lengths of cards and some systems don't fit longer cards
 
@JourneymanGeek M.2 SSDs can be dual keyed and still only support one or the other
 
@MechMK1 I have an 80 dollar shitty tablet here somewhere :D
windows.
 
@JourneymanGeek Yeah, and it works about as well as you would expect from an 80 USD tablet
 
I managed to crack the screen and have no idea where I put it tho
@MechMK1 ... actually...
It dosen't work too badly if you kinda are smart about how you set it up
 
@JourneymanGeek Yeah, but do you think that most people who buy an 80 USD tablet do that?
 
11:21 AM
Nope :D
they'd probably run IE and whatever is stock
and then get all the viruses
 
So all in all, I don't think it's a scam. It's just low-quality, low-performance products for a low price.
You get what you pay for.
 
for people who either don't know better, or think they got a deal.
 
I mean, the deal isn't bad. Just not as good as some people might believe it to be
It's a bit like the tiger electronic games
You know, the really shitty LCD games that barely make any sense and could barely even be qualified as "video game"
 
I mean, in 1989, an original game boy costed 89 USD (which would be roughly 189 USD today). An average game costed between 39 and 49 USD, which would be somewhere between 80 and 100 USD.
A tiger game costed 25 USD (which is ~50 USD today), so it was a lot cheaper.
But you can't tell me that those games were even comparable to something like Tetris, Super Mario or Donkey Kong
Even if you would buy a Game Boy and Pokemon Blue, you'd pay 130 USD. Comparing that to a 25 USD Tiger Electronics game, you could buy 5 of those for roughly the same money. But let me ask you, do you think 5 Tiger Electronics LCD games are the same level of entertainment as Pokemon Blue?
 
11:57 AM
@MechMK1 considering that I have played Pokemon blue (on the 3ds) within the past year, I'm going to go with "No"
 
@ConorMancone I miss the old school style pokemon games
I even have this draft of a new kind of pokémon game in my head :D
Yeets all convention out of the window and is still "old-school"
 
12:54 PM
Also, Class A nightmare scenario: Imagine you could only fall asleep and dream, but never wake up. Every day ends in another dream, completely disconnected from anything that came before, anything that will come after. Nothing ever lasts. No friendships, love, nothing. All you can do is fall asleep and dream more.
 
1:30 PM
@ConorMancone , thanks, that's an interesting point of view
 
1:47 PM
@MechMK1 Short story opportunity?
 
I wonder if Varg would ever do an ambient black metal cover of X Gon Give It To Ya
@FireQuacker If I was a better writer, sure :D
Life is weird if you listen to so many different genres
The best comment on the whole video: I showed this to my white friend. He's still white, but he liked it.
 
2:28 PM
@ConorMancone I think I missed something there. The security team has new hires as well, and wouldn't they be just as likely if not more so to screw it up because they wouldn't know the value of the data they are working with?
@MechMK1 welcome to MS-DOS... ss64.com/nt/syntax-filenames.html#reserved
 
2:58 PM
@Gregory No, because the security team understands the importance of the principle of least privilege, and wouldn't be handing any access to any important data to anyone who has only been there for a day.
 
@ConorMancone how do they know what's "important" if they don't understand the data?
 
3:23 PM
@Gregory That's not a practical concern. Having onboarded many developers, I've never once given them access to anything dangerous right away (and oftentimes never). Developers get access to code repositories, and if you have CI/CD in place then merge permissions are in place to make sure someone can't just update master directly. Certainly no database access. Few developers should ever need access to production databases.
Obviously there will be sample data provided as part of running things locally, depending on how a team manages their development process, but again, very few developers should ever need access to production databases
 
3:43 PM
@Gregory All of this is so bizarre
Why on earth would Windows not allow me to name a file COM1.png?
 
@ConorMancone bare with me here, i'm having trouble phrasing this well. I can see that to be typical for an organization who builds apps, but would there be far more organizations who use the app? and Their dev team would have a fair amount of data analysts.
@MechMK1 to avoid accidentally sending stuff out the com port
 
@Gregory This is fucked up
 
copy file > com1
wait ... copy file com1
 
Why would this even be a thing? Why not make a pseudo-file akin to /dev/com1?
Or a file schema like com://1
 
@MechMK1 it's very old
 
3:46 PM
 
and may have to do with avoiding legal issues with bell's unix
 
WTF is wrong with the times? Last message posted 20 hours ago?
@Gregory You can't really copyright ideas
Only implementations
And the idea of having a file that isn't really a file isn't something copyrightable
 
@MechMK1 yeah that's well established now, but not when MS bought DOS
 
> But why do we carry these magic filenames forward even today? Because everybody still relies on them. Just look at all the batch files that do things like redirect to >NUL or test if a directory exists by asking “if exist directoryname\nul”, or all the documentation that says to create a file with “copy CON …”.
 
Man, this is such a buggy mess
 
3:50 PM
@FireQuacker guilty as charged, i've used this to setup a zebra label printer as default and it was just easier to just "copy MyLabel.zpl prn"
 
Even then, I would understand that COM1 or NUL are global special files
But why COM1.png?
 
You mean why does it work even with the extension .png?
 
@MechMK1 people don't always put the extension in when they click on save in notepad++, or ms-paint
 
The article explains about the extension
 
@Gregory People also don't wash their hands. Sometimes people do stupid things and it's better to let them figure out why they did stupid instead of making all the systems around overly complicated
@FireQuacker I'm checking it out
 
3:52 PM
@MechMK1 That is not how Microsoft thinks at all
 
@FireQuacker Yes, and that's why I like Linux more. Think about it what you will, but when i get any error in Linux, it tells me clearly and concisely what has gone wrong.
 
I think when software companies try to serve the enterprise market they start making their software more complicated because [insert big name customer] relies on that feature
 
Windows doesn't do that. It gives me some bullshit line that some component could not be initialized and now I have to just consult the dark gods from below to figure out what that means.
I wish Windows had a feature that, if something went wrong, it'd tell me exactly what went wrong
 
dark gods == google
 
Yeah, and then the search begins
 
3:57 PM
Try sacrificing more sheep. Google might explain it better.
 
In the beginning, you feel like a young adventurer, eager to leave the shire to find the answers that you seek.
But as your adventure progresses, you see the eldritch influences on the world. You see things no sane mind could even comprehend. And not only did you see them, you had to understand them. You had to consult with beings that were once human, beings that any sane mind would only describe as abominations, and you have to absorb their knowledge, only to see yourself turn into someting unrecognizable.
 
@MechMK1 hmm, if it could tell you exactly what went wrong, why stop there just go ahead and fix it and don't bother me
 
@MechMK1 One does not simply solve errors with Microsoft
@MechMK1 Now you're switching legendariums
 
As your adventure concludes, you realize that there is no going back anymore. You have chosen this path, and you are damned to walk it every moment of eternity, longing for the sweet release of death that shall never be granted to you. The knowledge given to you feels like a curse, and yet it is everything that remains. It is the knowledge alone that is the reason why you have undertaken this torment. You are now a Microsoft Certified Professional.
Or you could just use linux, see that ssl.h can't be found, run sudo apt install libssl-dev and be done
 
@MechMK1 or you could just use a TI-99/4a see that you have no program's loaded and then go find a cassette player and be done
 
4:09 PM
Ah yes, casettes. The good old days
I just found out earlier today Intel still makes Pentium processors
 
as apposed to?
 
Celeron of course
 
uh, celeron = defect pentium
 
But seriously, pentium are still sold. It freaks me out
 
i assume you mean like Pentium I or II or III or something?
 
4:15 PM
Yeah, but the new ones are called Pentium Gold
Pentium is a brand used for a series of x86 architecture-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel since 1993. In their form as of November 2011, Pentium processors are considered entry-level products that Intel rates as "two stars", meaning that they are above the low-end Atom and Celeron series, but below the faster Core i3, i5, i7, i9, and workstation Xeon series. As of 2017, Pentium processors have little more than their name in common with earlier Pentiums, which were Intel's flagship processor for over a decade until the introduction of the Intel Core line in 2006. They are based on both...
 
huh, what modern mother boards would target such a thing
 
No, those are really modern processors
 
@Gregory It's hard to reply to your hypothetical example without knowing more details. In general though, it's a good idea to make sure that people only have access to data that they actually need access to. That's at the core of your original statement "For many organizations data should be in the hands of the security team, not the development team". This doesn't literally mean that only security people should only be able to access it
 
Rather, it means that security people should be the gatekeepers, and make sure that only people who need access have it, only for good reasons, and only the access they need (for instance your analysts may need read access, but not write access). Obviously it doesn't work like this at all companies, but sticking to the principle of least privilege is usually a good starting point
@MechMK1 It's a "gold" processor, so clearly it's top-shelf.
 
4:23 PM
@ConorMancone Yeah absolutely. Only the Platinum are better
And I heard there's even going to be a Platinum X Limited Edition
 
4:47 PM
@MechMK1 I'm not sure i'd call a socket FCLGA1151 a classic Pentium, since you couldn't use it to upgrade an older system
 
@Gregory I'm not saying it's a classic pentium, but it is sold as Pentium nonetheless
 
5:23 PM
@ConorMancone is maybe the premise of the statement flawed, should it be that the data is in the hands of both the security team when it comes to user admin and gate keeping and in the hands of the dev team when it comes to what does the data mean how important is it, and probably a consensus between the two as to who should have access how much and what it should be used for?
 
 
3 hours later…
8:27 PM
@FireQuacker "or just because you didn’t want to waste the time creating a file just to delete it anyway." This is just going to drive me crazy, I know how sloooow a dot matrix is, but he's talking DOS 1.0. So was the tape really slower than the printer?
 
8:53 PM
@Gregory I don't think speed of the tape vs speed of the printer is main point. More like, we want to print, there are three steps involved, let's optimize it by eliminating two of them (writing to the tape and deleting).
Even if tape operations were really fast, the good old fashioned programmer mindset is optimize all teh thingz!!!
That's my take on it, anyway. Somebody who has more experience with the old time computers might be able to give you a better explanation.
 

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