The power to send mass messages to a whole country is the worst thing google/apple have given to governments across the world.
Where do AI-based military target selection systems fit in your ranking?
Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil
61–70 of 142 posts
Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
“BRAZIL ELIMINATED FROM WORLD CUP”
This would create more chaos than any other suggestion so far. Well done.
Wouldn't. There isn't a single Brazilian who doesn't know Brazil's current world cup status. The entire country stops when there's a game. Nobody would fall for that.
Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil
#63Of all the messages they could have sent they chose the most boring.
lets play a game HN, what would be the best alert to send? mine would be something scifi, like "ALIENS HAVE LANDED" or "PLUTO DECLARES WAR"
Not a message, but a date. There's this huge national exam called ENEM that is like SAT that every Brazilian in age to enter a college takes. Millions of students are taking it every year at the same date and time, as its result is what determines who enters in the best universities. Obviously, security against cheating is a huge concern and so everyone must have their phones turned off and sealed in a bag that stays in front of the class until they finish the exam. Now I can only imagine the chaos that would be if an alert was sent in that day.
Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
As programmers in programming culture, we have a distinction between hacker and, potentially, cracker that no ordinary person has. ESR’s prescriptivism is pretty much worthless in this respect: words mean what people think they mean and what people use them for, and programmers do not have a monopoly on how people use the term. OED has the “computer intruder” sense first cited in 1963, and the “enthusiastic programme…
Thanks for highlighting the even earlier term from 1963. If that is the case, then why don't journalists use the word "computer intruder" instead of hacker, when it's less a catchall? The funny thing about these comments is that most of the replies to my comment have been more defensive than my own. I wasn't suggesting a monopoly on the term, and I wasn't suggesting "hacker" shouldn't be ever be used. I just said it'…
I think you misunderstood. The 1963 term is "hacker", and its 1963 meaning is "computer intruder". I.e. the journalists are using the earlier definition and the definition referred to by "Hacker News" came later.
Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil
#65"The message sent was of the ‘Extreme Alert’ type and contained the word ‘misanthropy’ – which means hatred towards humanity. It is probably a hacker attack,” the agency’s statement said." As this happens whenever there is an intrusion reported in the press, the word "hacker" is often misused: "There is another group of people who loudly call themselves hackers, but aren't. These are people (mainly adolescent males)…
I didn’t realise that people still fought this fight. it’s time to drop it, dude. It’s truly blatant language prescriptivism at this point.
This is a blast from the past for sure. To me, someone who read 2600 magazine in the dial-up era, that argument seemed passé 15 years ago. The world at large agreed many years ago that the word ‘hacker’ commonly connotes system penetration, or at least security circumvention. Words can have multiple meanings.
Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil
#66Disabling alerts is the second thing I do to a new handset (after rooting) - including Presidential alerts.
The Amber alerts I got were often hundreds of miles away. But even if they were closer - say only 25 mi away, I'm still not going to be any help.
Weather alerts weren't much better. Having my device sound the klaxons over Red Flag warnings conditioned me to ignore all alerts.
Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil
#67Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil
#68TBH phones in Poland allow to call you "from" an arbitrary number (i.e. display it on your phone). Also send SMS with arbitrary source. This is being used by scammers who call you and tell they are from police bank etc
I constantly get scam calls from numbers that are very similar to my own in Canada. I assume this is an attempt to look like a normal trustworthy number.
Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil
#69misantropia é um perigo rapaziada
porra
Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil
#70"The message sent was of the ‘Extreme Alert’ type and contained the word ‘misanthropy’ – which means hatred towards humanity. It is probably a hacker attack,” the agency’s statement said." As this happens whenever there is an intrusion reported in the press, the word "hacker" is often misused: "There is another group of people who loudly call themselves hackers, but aren't. These are people (mainly adolescent males)…
This is like a new philosophy student objecting to someone saying, “This begs the question of whether…” It’s essentially a category error, an incorrect application of context. You - and Eric Raymond, who believes he’s an incarnation of the god Pan - are both using a meaning of the word that has only ever been used in a relatively tiny subculture. That meaning has no bearing on its broader use.
I think the usage of the word in the CNN article is more like a news report saying there was a bear attack. Bears hunt salmon, eat berries and veggies, since they're omnivores. A report is only going to be typically referring to bears in reference to an attack on humans, but bears have other normal activities, like communing with other bears, taking a nap, raising cubs and going on walks. In that sense, hackers do partake in multiple, non attack activities.
It would be just as unusual to have a story about hackers doing acts of good will, like helping old ladies cross the street. But a news report isn't going to cover that. "Hacker altruist volunteers at soup kitchen" might make a headline, I suppose.