Search results

  1. C

    Future Android phones could warn you about data-stealing fake cell towers

    So, it'll stop you from connecting to a "tower" with an unencrypted connection. But the Stingray is in position to do a MITM attack. What's stopping it from just using its own keys to set up an encrypted connection, and decrypting it at its end? Do phones have a trusted root that all tower...
  2. C

    The Internet is (once again) awash with IoT botnets delivering record DDoSes

    Can you please sanity-check articles before publishing them? 5.6 Tbps from 13,000 devices is an average of 430 Mbps for each device. That's not a sane average for a botnet of home routers.
  3. C

    Welcome to our latest design update, Ars 9.0!

    Can the "Most Read" customization include an option for "None"? I always scroll the full list of articles (until I come across what I read to the last time) and read whatever interests me. I don't care what's "hot", and I find that box distracting.
  4. C

    Hummingbirds thrive on an extreme lifestyle. Here’s how.

    Your calculation of 100 20-oz cokes having a sugar content equal to 80% of the body weight of a 150-lb person is ... inaccurate. There's ~63g of sugar in a 20-oz Coke. 100 20-oz Cokes is therefore 6.3kg - a little under 14 pounds - of sugar. C.
  5. C

    Floppy disk requirements finally axed from Japan government regulations

    Not quite accurate. Even if you don't count floptical drives (120MB was common), 2.88MB 3.5" floppies were around for years before the demise of floppies. They weren't as common in North America, but were widely used in Japan and elsewhere.
  6. C

    Hackers spent 2+ years looting secrets of chipmaker NXP before being detected

    Uh, ASML is not a chipmaker, so NXP can't be the second-biggest after them. ASML makes equipment that chipmakers buy, not chips.
  7. C

    Is the NFL making progress in tackling its concussion crisis?

    The problem is the NFL culture. They're still not serious about addressing the problem. The CFL - Canadian Football League - did get serious about it. They brought in rule changes to reduce head contact and attached significant penalties to them, but more importantly, they actually enforce...
  8. C

    New material provides clean water and electricity using nothing but the sun

    How did this story get written without a single reference to Tattooine moisture farming? ;)
  9. C

    Twitter held in contempt, fined $350K over Trump data delay

    Every other article about this case has stated the fine was 350 million dollars, not 350 thousand.
  10. C

    Physicists achieve fusion net energy gain for second time

    Ars, if you're going to run "science" articles by non-science publications like the Financial Times, could you at least vet them first? "Ignition" absolutely does not mean what this article says it means. Ignition is where they succeed in triggering nuclear fusion in the plasma. The thing...
  11. C

    Borax is the new Tide Pods and poison control experts are facepalming

    This article is far too credulous. Not only does it endorse the "Tide Pod Challenge" as being a real, widespread harmful phenomenon - it wasn't, it was a joke, and TikTok users knew it - it also leans into Borx being hugely toxic. But Borax - sodium borate - isn't toxic. Don't eat pounds of...
  12. C

    This LiDAR-equipped, 30-pound robot dog can be yours for $1,600

    A few of the shots in this video look like the robot is CGI and has been composited into the shots. Interesting.
  13. C

    Banks serving as guinea pigs for Federal Reserve’s instant payments system

    So, a nice long article about this new system. But ... No mention whatsoever of any tradeoffs or drawbacks from using it. What's the cost to get hooked up? What are the transaction costs like? Are transactions reversible in case of fraud or network intrusion? And exactly zero information...
  14. C

    Nvidia’s new AI “Superchip” combines CPU and GPU to train monster AI systems

    This article doesn't even say what the CPU cores are, much less any of their technical specs. I presume they're ARM, but could they be RISC-V instead? Or maybe x86 cores on a die purchased from Intel? Or what?
  15. C

    How the FBI pwned Turla, a Kremlin jewel and one of world’s most skilled APTs

    "Advanced persistent threat" refers to the software payload, which persists on the target machine. It does not refer to the group having been around a long time. C.
  16. C

    Synthetic gasoline promises neutral emissions—but the math doesn’t work

    This article argues against synthetic fuels on the basis that we don't have enough spare electricity that proponents aren't accounting for. But somehow we're supposed to have the far, far more electricity that adding 100M EVs will take? The article fails to account for that.
  17. C

    How Chinese netizens swamped China’s Internet controls

    Can we at least stop using CCP-friendly euphemisms? This is China's Uyghur genocide, nothing less.
  18. C

    First round of socket AM5 motherboards cost between $260 and $1,300

    > The cheapest motherboard currently available from the likes of Newegg and > Micro Center is the ASRock X670E PG Lightning, [...] ... with no price given in the article. Great work!
  19. C

    Mini-review: Dell’s XPS 15 9520 is a low-key improvement to an established design

    So it's good that this machine has "Decent battery life for the size", but somehow it isn't mentioned that the smaller Thinkpad Z13 Gen 1 gets nearly **twice** the runtime and performs better? Someone mentioned damning with faint praise. This appears to be worse than that, as this looks like a...
  20. C

    Rocket Report: Used Electron engine gets re-tested; Canadian spaceport is a go

    I also have concerns about the way the last steps of SLS's journey are being handled. The first wet dress rehearsal failed; that's fine, that's what testing is for. But the second one, despite their after-the-fact declaration of the rehearsal as successful, did not actually achieve the...