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Comment Re:Function? Position? 6 Pins? (Score 1) 369

That depends on the BMC having such PSI or I2C interfaces.  Did the Elemental server BMC have such interfaces?
Given the complexity and cost of such a hack, I would say a firmware hack would have been much simpler and harder to detect.
Simply code in a weakness in the firmware to allow for external code injection, then you're done.
It'd be much cheaper and harder to detect.

Comment Re:Or--hear me out, I know it sounds crazy--we cou (Score 1) 239

by Tungbo (#54351259) Attached to: San Francisco Politician Jane Kim Is Exploring a Tax On Robots
"transitional unemployment"

THAT is the big assumption.
Do you think the unemployed coal miners and truck drivers can retrain to become youtube stars?

Many have become permanently unemployed and there is a costs to that.
When the buggy whip maker lost their jobs, they can learn to make wheel barrel or what ever.
The exponential changes in technologies make it very difficult for people trained in per-computer era to adapt.

Comment Re:No need to tax - End accelerated depreciation.. (Score 1) 239

by Tungbo (#54351217) Attached to: San Francisco Politician Jane Kim Is Exploring a Tax On Robots
I disagree with this view:  "Capital Input" is the same thing as corp-to-corp contracting of labor.

Capital in developed economy is held in the form of money, which is a claim on FUTURE products and services.
Automation means more money has to be spent up front to buy robots so that the business can spend less money over time to pay workers.  Even if the robot is no more productive than people i.e. earn the same gross profit each year, the accelerated depreciation provides an up front tax subsidy so that much less or no income tax is paid up front.  When the taxes are paid at the end of the productive life of the robot, it costs much less due to inflation.

Timing is important.

Comment No need to tax - End accelerated depreciation.. (Score 1) 239

by Tungbo (#54344151) Attached to: San Francisco Politician Jane Kim Is Exploring a Tax On Robots
You're pointing to an alternate approach.  Using robot is substituting capital input for labor input.  It may increase efficiency, but definitely more capital will be required. Current law favors capital investments by allowing accelerated depreciation (or even immediate depreciation under Trump tax proposal).  So by changing the depreciation schedule to the natural life of the robot or even longer, we can remove the current subsidy which accelerates automation.  But this need to be done on the national level.

Comment Re:100+ emails classified when they arrived on ser (Score 1) 289

According to news reports:  7 of these e-mails pertained to CIA Drone strikes news which we insist on classifying even though they have been reported by news paper and news wires.  The 8th one pertains to a visit from the new Malawi President.  Matters related to foreign head of states are always classified as a rule.

YAWN.

Comment Burner phones !!! (Score 2) 209

by Tungbo (#51763665) Attached to: Whistleblower: NSA Is So Overwhelmed With Data, It's No Longer Effective
I've said this several years ago,  All this metadata collection is easily defeated when the culprits uses burner phone or sim cards.  That is exactly what they did in Brussels.   Just because one has a lot of data doesn't mean you can make sense of them.  Think of the Internet Search Engines before Google.  You get TONS of useless hits.  Google's result were better due to massive amount of other people's usage pattern.  Here the terror acts are so few, that they offer little to help train any software.  It is a very difficult problem that may not be solvable by Big Data.

Comment Re:"Clock parts" wired together in an adhoc fashio (Score 1) 818

by Tungbo (#51003225) Attached to: "Clock Boy" Ahmed Mohamed Seeking $15 Million In Damages
" Unfortunately the kid did not follow these instructions and kept showing it around. "

According to the news report, the clock alarm sounded so the English teacher asked him what it was.  THUS, he had to show the clock to her.
The English teacher than alerted the Principal.  I do not expect the English teacher to know the technical details.
But I DO expect the Principal and Police to be more knowledgeable.

The Police did NOT evacuate the school indicating that they knew the device was NOT a threat.  So the remaining question is WHY
they feel it was a hoax bomb.  It's hard to see the same thing happening to a white kid in the 50's.

Comment Backward looking testing for Needs of the Future (Score 1) 283

by Tungbo (#50527539) Attached to: Report: Computers 'Do Not Improve' Pupil Results
What an incredibly MYOPIC article.
It purports to evaluate the benefits of using computers in school based on some undefined performance metrics.  The ONLY specific metric applied is 'reading skill'.

What if computer use improved the student's MATH skills? (Khan Academy) What if it improved critical thinking, because the student has to identify what's nonsense and what's reliable on the net? What if we can use animated dissections to teach biology? What if we are still discovering the best use of computer in education?

Why not lament the bad penmanship of children today, since they are all typing instead of practicing freehand loops, etc. ? Trying to use last century's metrics to plan for the education of our future generation is naive at best, and reactionary at worst.

Comment Re:Nice PR for Mandiant and Richard Beitjich (Score 1) 137

by Tungbo (#42956287) Attached to: Security Firm Mandiant Says China's Army Runs Hacking Group APT1
Did you like the Mission Impossible movies?  tv series?
Was it COOL how US spies manipulate the politics and economies of foreign countries?
Did you know that Panama was created SOLELY because US wanted to build the Panama canal?

What goest aroud comes around - in the real world.
Smart Charlie Wilson sent arms to help the Afghans fight those Soviet Commies - Oops.  They became the Taliban...

It doesn't make the hacking right - even if everyone is doing it.
The question is what can we do about the open nature of our internet and what COST there is to close up the security caverns...

Comment Re:Oh, I love this (Score 1) 617

by Tungbo (#41633883) Attached to: Mysterious Algorithm Was 4% of Trading Activity Last Week
Bill Gross said: " if we continue down the current road and don't address our "fiscal gap."
IF is the key word here.  No one dispute that US government bond will be less attractive (not bankrupt) if the US doesn't fix its fiscal problem in some undefined number of years in the future.  Let us look at what Bill Gross is ACTUALLY doing with his clients' money.

Go to here: http://investments.pimco.com/products/pages/346.aspx  and click on Portfolio Statistics.
You will see that 20% of their investments are in US Treasury securities, 3% US agencies securities and another 49% in mortgages.  The mortgages are almost entirely in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities which are ALSO guaranteed by the US Government.  In contrast, investments in other developed governments' bonds are less than 10%.  Gold doesn't even show up.  In total, his fund has 70% plus in US government guaranteed securities and no one is forcing his investment choices.

In other words,  he overhwhelmingly trusts the US Government to pay back his clients' investments.

In simple terms, we're on a boat headinng toward a shoal IF we don't turn away.  IF we hit the shaol, the boat may leak.  You are claiming that the boat is already leaking and ready to sink.  It may be fun to pretend to be Cassandra, but only real data will anchor you to the real world instead of a fantasy world that makes you feel superior.   Please don't just read hermetic Austrian theories, look at what real people are doing with real money. 

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