Author Archives: pappp

Article note: Getting a twofer today on "Intel processors get noticeably slower with each microcode update, as they are forced to disable sloppy bullshit that they shipped to win the numbers game." Latest microcode turns off all the TSX Hardware Lock Elision features in all processors, plus turns off a (probably exploitable) fast path for all JCC (Jump Conditionals) that happen to end on or across a 32-bit boundary (see: https://twitter.com/damageboy/status/1194751035136450560 ).

Article note: Oh boy! Banking with google so you can get locked out of your inadequately regulated pseudo-bank because someone got butthurt about a internet shitpost! That seems like a GREAT idea. /s

Article note: Yeah! It's a little narrower and much, much later than I'd like to see, but the legal process is showing signs of functioning.

Enlarge / US Customs and Border Protection agents participate in a training exercise at a vehicle entry point along the border with Mexico on November 5, 2018, in Hidalgo, Texas. (credit: Getty Images | Andrew Cullen)

The United States government violated the Fourth Amendment with its suspicionless searches of international travelers' phones and laptops, a federal court ruled today.

The ruling came in a case filed "on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without individualized suspicion at US ports of entry," the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said today. The ACLU teamed up with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to fight the government on behalf of plaintiffs including 10 US citizens and one lawful permanent resident.

The order from a US District Court in Massachusetts limits what searches can be made by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Article note: In case that there was any remaining doubt that the academic prestige game is a meaningless Goodheart's law artifact; preemptively priming your children's E-Peen for competitive advantage.

Article note: Is google _trying_ to get regulated? Flaunt that they won't be? Just being creepy for the fuck of it?

Enlarge / Mountain View, Calif. - May 21, 2018: Exterior view of a Googleplex building, the corporate headquarters complex of Google and its parent company Alphabet Inc. (credit: Getty Images / zphotos)

Google quietly partnered last year with Ascension—the country's second-largest health system—and has since gained access to detailed medical records on tens of millions of Americans, according to a November 11 report by The Wall Street Journal.

The endeavor, code-named "Project Nightingale," has enabled at least 150 Google employees to see patient health information, which includes diagnoses, laboratory test results, hospitalization records, and other data, according to internal documents and the newspaper's sources. In all, the data amounts to complete medical records, WSJ notes, and contains patient names and birth dates.

The move is the latest by Google to get a grip on the sprawling health industry. At the start of the month, Google announced a deal to buy Fitbit, prompting concerns over what it will do with all the sensitive health data amassed from the popular wearables. Today's news will likely spur more concern over health privacy issues.

Article note: Unlike many of these projects, I can actually see applications for this one, and it is very neatly exectued. It needs a protective membrane under the keycaps and a few other minutia to be really suitable as a field computer, but damned if it isn't cool.

Article note: This was a plot point in a William Gibson novel some years ago (End of Zero History? It was one of the two pattern recognition sequels.). At the time I found it implausible that we'd widely adopt surveilence technology that stupid, but here we are.

Article note: Regularly scheduled reminder that TVs (or cars, or other durable items) with built-in short-lived technology are a dumb fuckin' idea. Buy a _display_ and attach a gadget.

Article note: In addition to the near fight with the girlfriend due to a 9 month old message appearing annoyance, that's some exceptional ineptitude from what is theoretically serious infrastructure.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

Did you get a Valentine's Day text message on November 7? If so, you can blame a company called Syniverse, which provides text-messaging services to major mobile carriers.

Syniverse helps deliver text messages via its intercarrier messaging service and boasts that it is "Connected to more than 300 operators" and processes 600 billion messages per month.

Syniverse says it delivers 99.8% of messages within one second. But a server failure caused many messages—exactly 168,149, according to The Washington Post—to be delivered nearly nine months late. (Update: Syniverse later acknowledged that the actual number of late messages was higher, but isn't saying exactly how many there were. See the update later in this article for more.)