corvus_sapiens's comments

corvus_sapiens | 9 years ago | on: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

IANAL either, but there's a difference between not falling into a trap and deceiving the authorities. To continue the analogy, it would be more akin to telling the officer that you're willing to offer services if he meets you at a different street corner with the intention of fleeing later.

corvus_sapiens | 9 years ago | on: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets

1) makes sense if Levandowski did it over the company internet connection. There could be a record of his unusual requests (software download, software update).

> they can infer that he wiped it

For 4), Levandowski reformatted the hard drive before returning it, so there's no inference there.

corvus_sapiens | 9 years ago | on: Artificial cells pass biological Turing test

I feel like "biological Turing test" is a bit clickbaity. Bacteria aren't going to make cognitive decisions. In my mind, being able to communicate back and forth with bacteria is more akin to unlocking the bacterial API. It's still noteworthy nonetheless.

corvus_sapiens | 9 years ago | on: Carbon monoxide poisoning from 3D laser printer may have killed Berkeley couple

> I could see students skimping on that and no realizing the implications

They weren't students. Roger was a game developer while Valerie was a post-doc. They just happened to live in Berkeley.

corvus_sapiens | 9 years ago | on: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness

There are 250 million neurons in the corpus callosum, each with a diameter on the order of microns. Individually, each one transmits a very primitive signal (think biological bit) that doesn't mean much without the other millions of neurons. It's extremely complex and thus extremely frail. If the cut halves on both sides don't line up exactly, you have the equivalent of static. You wouldn't mash two cut ends of normal data cables together, and there are only on the order of 100 "neurons" there.

What you say is theoretically possible if the neurons weren't living cells and humans had the technology to reconstruct the brain's wirings. Your body isn't going to figure out which "wire" connects to which on its own.

corvus_sapiens | 9 years ago | on: Twitter discloses national security letters

Warrant canaries are a thing [1]. For example, see Reddit's one which disappeared last year [2].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary 2. https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4ct1kz/reddit_de...

corvus_sapiens | 9 years ago | on: Steve Bannon (Trump Advisor) implied that Silicon Valley has too many Asian CEOs

"When two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia"

What version of Silicon Valley is this?

"Ascend, an Asian-American professional organization based in New York, found that although 27 percent of professionals working at those companies are Asian or Asian-American, fewer than 19 percent of managers, and just under 14 percent of executives, are." [1]

[1] http://www.npr.org/2015/05/17/407478606/often-employees-rare...

corvus_sapiens | 9 years ago | on: DDoS Attack Against Dyn Managed DNS

I'm not using the service either, but I noticed this comment [1]. It's not the first time that a DNS server has been DDoS-ed, so it has been discussed before (e.g. [2]). At minimum, I would expect a company that exists for scenarios like this to have more than one DNS server. Staying up when half of existing DNS servers are down is a new problem that no one has faced yet, but this is an old, solved one.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12759653

[2] https://www.tune.com/blog/importance-dns-redundancy/

corvus_sapiens | 9 years ago | on: DDoS Attack Against Dyn Managed DNS

When your service literally says it exists to help provide uptime, redundancy makes sense.

corvus_sapiens | 9 years ago | on: DDoS Attack Against Dyn Managed DNS

> The Department of Homeland Security told CNBC that it is "looking into all potential causes" of the attack.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/21/major-websites-across-east-co...

Is this par for course for all large DDOS attacks or did something tip them off?

corvus_sapiens | 10 years ago | on: Uber ruled illegal in Taiwan

Well, Uber did try to sabotage Lyft on multiple occasions [1]. The real story is a bit muddier, since Uber claims that Lyft also tried to sabotage them.

1. http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/26/6067663/this-is-ubers-play...

Edit: Formatting

corvus_sapiens | 10 years ago | on: AI generated music to improve focus, relaxation and sleep

Hey, placebo effect is good enough. The placebo effect works even if you know it's a placebo.

corvus_sapiens | 10 years ago | on: Beware of hacked ISOs if you downloaded Linux Mint on February 20th

"Edit by Clem: We shut down the server until we find the source of the second intrusion (probably something left by the first)."

http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2994

corvus_sapiens | 10 years ago | on: Peach’s Most Interesting Feature, the Hybrid Command Line

Nope. However, it is more cumbersome unless tailored to voice. For example, saying "-r" versus "-R" or pronouncing something like "ioctl".

corvus_sapiens | 10 years ago | on: MIT researchers use Wi-Fi to recognize people through walls

So recognition doesn't work if it was calibrated while you were wearing different clothing? That kills some of the use cases.

corvus_sapiens | 10 years ago | on: For the First Time, a Prosecutor Will Go to Jail for Wrongfully Convicting

There is no difference. I just ran a diff.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150522105521/http://www.huffin...

corvus_sapiens | 10 years ago | on: For the First Time, a Prosecutor Will Go to Jail for Wrongfully Convicting

I don't get the point of discussing a two-year-old article about an event that also occurred two years ago. Can someone enlighten me? Has something changed?

Edit: You can check for yourself. https://web.archive.org/web/20150522105521/http://www.huffin...

The article wasn't updated. The only addition is that "Prison Tattoos" thing at the bottom.

corvus_sapiens | 10 years ago | on: Show HN: %%30%30: A Game

There's also this arcade-style shooter which kills a random file for each enemy. A bit riskier.

http://www.stfj.net/art/2009/loselose/

corvus_sapiens | 10 years ago | on: LastPass Security Notice

I do something similar in concept. I start off with a base password with numbers, letters, and symbols (to fit most website requirements). Then, I generate 2 random words based on the website name (based on the syllables). For instance, Gmail -> GM -> Green Mollusk or Amazon -> AM -> Aromatic Mitten. I find that it helps with remembering them naturally since the random words form a mnemonic on their own. The solution space is still large enough that knowing the rule should still be secure in real-world applications.

corvus_sapiens | 10 years ago | on: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes

What did the parent comment originally say?

For the record, Brennan has admitted that 8chan has boards for sexualizing minors (which is legal) though he doesn't support them.

" Unfortunately, yes. I don’t support the content on the boards you mentioned, but it is simply the cost of free speech and being the only active site to not impose more 'laws' than those that were passed in Washington, D.C.

...if you want /doll/ shut down you should instead focus on the studios who are producing this content. Some of them are even legally based in the USA. That’s the real story here, not some perverts posting them online after the fact. "

https://medium.com/@infinitechan/what-i-actually-said-to-pat...

Edit: Better source