SSDs have gotten stoopid expensive anyway, so maybe it's a good time to go back to spinning rust.

Then again, might this attack even work on the the silicon of a magnetic drive? Or is the buffer too small to be vulnerable in the same way?

They might, if they were subject to laundering and ironing on a regular basis.

That suggestion assumes that CEOs have sufficient imagination, familiarity with workflows, analytical ability, open-mindedness, and patience to do the required work.

In the days when CEOs rose through the ranks and actually knew shit, it might be feasible. But I suspect the average C-level these days is a placeholder who probably costs their company - and society - more than a dozen or more of them are actually worth in real-world terms.

Before I got to the end of the first paragraph I thought of how a bit of surface roughness can reduce drag between two solids in contact with each other. The best example I can come up with involves applying pressure while dragging your finger across a glass surface. If the glass is smooth and shiny your skin tends to stick and sort of 'ratchets', while on a finely etched surface this doesn't happen.

I don't have the math or science chops to know if there's any theoretical connection between what I just described and what TFA is talking about. Does anybody here know if I'm on the right track?

The phrase "dystopian hellscape" comes immediately to mind. This is just so fundamentally fucked up that it's hard to say much beyond that.

Can off-the-rack clothing which contains cameras and cell modems be far behind? Sure, that sounds like an impossible stretch, at least practically and technologically speaking. But wouldn't many of the dystopian developments we live with now be seen as unthinkable or outright impossible a decade or two ago?

On the bright side, at least we'll have sufficient data centres on line to process all that footage from all those cameras, along with AI to parse the images so humans will be spared the effort. /sarc

Guessing that your smooth brain is in your little head...

I think it's worth keeping in mind that much of the US private sector IS "government funded", in ways both direct and indirect.

Thanks for the link. The smallness of the increase is good news, and I hope it holds true for the foreseeable future. I'd like to be wrong about at least some of the damage I expect AI to cause.

https://xkcd.com/327/

I know we're not really talking about a traditional database here. Still, taking care to sanitize inputs seems like a good idea...

That, right there, is the central feature of Capitalism as it currently exists. It's the convenient and critical ethical flaw to which all other such flaws bow.

I came to say something similar, but while I was thinking about your comment some questions occurred to me. Can the victims' families sue the companies involved for whatever the French equivalent is of wrongful death? What would the chances be of winning such a suit? And, based on any relevant precedents, how high are the awards likely to be?

My first reaction was surprise at how low the fine was. But depending on whether or not lawsuits can be filed and won, maybe the fine is appropriate. Maybe a higher fine would result in prejudice against plaintiffs in subsequent civil actions. I'm not saying that's the case - just food for thought.

I examined the page linked in TFS very carefully, in two different browsers. I was unable to find any sources for the numbers given, nor a link supporting the contention that layoffs haven't increased.

It's possible that both of my browsers are blocking content, or that I just overlooked something - but I rather doubt that. So until I see specifics on where the stats came from, I'm ignoring the story.

'Nuff said - except to add that "broken tool" also describes Page, as well as Brin.

"Prohibit any recipient of federal highway funding ..." is not the same as "prevent any recipient of federal highway funding ...".

I predict that the people who salivate over this kind of data will find ways to collect it in spite of the prohibitions. It's just the nature of the beast.

In the first place, why would anyone ever want their payments viewable by the general public? And in the second place, why would anyone even want their friends to know about their spending by default?

I know I'm an old fart, and I do my best to take that into account. Still, I have to wonder why the fuck anyone would want to routinely share this kind of information. And that's before I even consider the ways in which such data might be weaponized.