I suppose if the only way to obtain the patch were through an automated download from the AMD website, the authentication through the site certificate would be better than nothing. But this is a security patch, and I think the researcher is right in pointing out that the bar needs to be higher?
Researcher commenting on the patch:
he remarks that the software only checks the validity of the downloaded file using the ancient CRC32 hash that isn’t considered cryptographically secure anymore
I have to respect the researcher for his incredibly charitable wording here. CRC32 is not even remotely crypto. That’s never been its purpose, and using it for digital signing is patently insane!
I fear I would have had a much shorter temper after what he’s been through, and yet here he is keeping his cool and his criticism constructive. Good on him.
Well, Skynet’s not just gonna up and build itself I suppose?
I remember finding an old BYTE magazine from the 80s while I was cleaning out the crawl space and thought “Oh this should be fun!” expecting a nostalgic tour of ancient systems.
But the feature article was on the RSA algorithm, explaining it in simple terms using an example involving low primes you could then scale up. It was public key crypto for dummies, but it left me understanding enough to encrypt/decrypt a message from first principles by writing a short Python script. I was like holy shit that worked!
Thanks for that. It set me straight on a few things.
What do you think about microloans then (kiva, etc.)? Is that a better approach? I know it’s more grassroots than a gov program, and I don’t know how much of an effect they have in the grand scheme of things.
I’m interested in your take on the USAid funding cuts. It only made the news briefly where I am amid a long list of disruptions that have wreaked havoc closer to home, but I can’t help thinking this has to be one of the worst things that happened on a global scale?
As I die defending the right of way, I will raise one more finger to signal the truck driver. You can guess which one that will be.
That’s awesome! I also love when petty laws contradict one another.
When I landed a bike courier job in Toronto back in the day, I read up on all the cycling by-laws. I wasn’t going to be one of these reckless types who give the profession a bad name!
Then I looked closely. One read: Cyclists must keep both hands on the handle bars at all times. Then just below it: Cyclists must use hand signals when turning. That popped my little bubble of youthful idealism on Day 1…
Yeah the effect is most noticeable to me for thematic albums or something classical like a symphony. I really don’t want those interrupted!
And I feel like fewer bands are making thematic albums now because they don’t translate well to the phone experience. That’s a shame.
My band plays charity gigs at nursing homes, and they seem to love the Wii! They’ll have like Wii Sports nights and stuff.
I’m getting on in years a bit myself. I have no problem with strategy/sim type games, but those where you can’t afford to even blink are beginning to test my stamina. Though my wife recently got me into Diablo IV, and I seem to be doing better with that. Maybe because it doesn’t use a 1st person perspective?
Others have covered the subtleties of how the sound could be reproduced on older players in a different way. But there may a psychological component as well? And I don’t just mean a nostalgia factor, though that could certainly be part of it.
One thing I miss is having a dedicated music player that will never interrupt my listening experience with a notification or anything like that. It’s the same reason I still prefer going to a theatre to watch movies. Zero distractions compared to a home screening and I feel like I can get far more immersed in it.
Ha! That’s a great idea!
Along those lines, have you considered the name Richmond? I ask a Chinese friend once why the Richmond district in Vancouver and the Richmond Hill suburbs of Toronto are basically China at this point. He said oh that’s easy! Richmond sounds like “rich man” to the Chinese ear. Who wouldn’t wanna live on Rich Man Hill?
Ooh that’s a tricky one! I looked it up and the most common character for it is a verb meaning something like to arrange for display? Good luck finding an English equivalent to that! There is a 2nd meaning of “old or ancient” which sounds a little more promising, though I can’t think of an English name with that meaning off the top of my head.
Apparently, Chen is the most common family name in Taiwan, and is really the same name as Chan, Tam, and Tran depending on where you live and what you speak. Not that that helps you any.
fwiw family names in English come typically come from several sources. They may be place names (e.g. London), descriptions of places (e.g. Ford: a shallow place where you can cross a river), occupations (e.g. Smith), or the name of a family business (e.g. if your name is Fox, your ancestor likely owned a tavern with a name like The Fox & Whistle or something random). If it’s an occupation that sounds too good to be true like King or Bishop, your ancestor was probably not royalty but served a royal estate.
Not that you need to follow any of that. Is there a Chinese ancestral name in your family you’re aware of? Maybe you could get it’s meaning and find a close English equivalent? I’m part Japanese myself, and Japanese family names are almost all of the descriptions of places variety. So say your name was Watanabe: a shallow place where you can cross a river. You might then choose to go with Ford as your English name? Just a thought.
The attack creates a large OPFS file on the victim’s SSD, with both Chrome and Safari allowing a website to claim up to 60% of total disk space through OPFS, which on a 256GB drive is over 150GB.
Am I reading this right? 60% of all your disk space can be confiscated by some random web site? I gotta figure out how to get my browser cache onto some tiny partition.
This reminds me of my trip to northern Honshu in Japan. I took the Shinkansen (bullet train) which was so smooth and quiet you literally had to look out the window to even realize you were moving. But then we switched to an old clunker that was shaking around and belching smoke and working so hard just to pull out of the station.
And the on-board experience was a huge contrast as well. The Shinkansen was full of people in suits minding their own business and it was clean and space-age-looking. The other train had a lived-in look and was full of chatty country folk who started asking me all sorts of questions and laughing because we could barely understand each other. My Japanese is a little iffy and they had this country drawl that wasn’t helping. But I enjoyed both trains for different reasons.
Nearly 50,000 residents of Lake Tahoe, a popular tourist destination in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, have been told their utility company will stop providing them with electricity in 2027. The utility, NV Energy, will instead use that power for data centers in northern Nevada, one of the fastest growing data center corridors in the nation and where Google, Microsoft and Apple have all either built or planned facilities, Fortune reported. Residents have until next May to find a new electric provider.
Wow, that’s rather appalling. Ars has a longer write-up about it.
I can’t remember who said this, but the quote that vampires are the aristocracy of the undead while zombies are the working class always stuck with me.