asciilifeform: refining and slicing Si boules is not getting cheaper
asciilifeform is asked re: chip fabs question with some regularity. is quite accustomed to explaining how it is in many ways a considerably trickier and more delicate affair than, say, a factory of atomic bombs
asciilifeform: in practice, naturally, 'not caught - not thief'
asciilifeform: just as much as to those inside the razor wire
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: for extra lulz, the statute applies to u.s. subjects going off the reservation and working elsewhere
asciilifeform: nubbins`: what state's your beast in now << stuck on crafting the ramdisk (in-ram root fs) for netbsd. as of a week ago. haven't the time, presently, to do anything☟︎
asciilifeform: while everyone knows the caveats of the 'million fly eyes', the concept of closed source os is really dead forever - as far as thinking folks are concerned
asciilifeform: but because forced to on account of working for usg or having to use some likewise closed turdware (usually also because, ultimately, usg)
asciilifeform: the folks running ancient closed-source unixen today do so 'not from a good life'
asciilifeform doesn't see the appeal of closed source unixen, no matter how he tries
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: my uni threw out pallets of these
asciilifeform: 'QUESTION: Are you insane? Are you stupid? No one would ever pay this much for a laptop! You should sell it to me for $10 because it is so old and worthless. / ANSWER: Contrary to your opinion, I sell several of these machines per week. These machines are used for many reasons including: / Government & Military projects ...'
asciilifeform: mega-lol in the 'faq' on that listing ^
asciilifeform: you can get any lisp machine ever made, for example, with a crate of parts to last you a lifetime, for half of this
asciilifeform: without even having to contemplate opening the chassis, in which, as is known, daemons live
asciilifeform: updatable via the bus for the same reason as everything else: so lusers can update from winblows
asciilifeform: if these produce statistical anomalies (distinguishable from white noise) as rc4 is known to, this'd be a good avenue to search for 'mouse droppings' in the wild.
asciilifeform: (not news) usg really loves rc5 and rc6 as non-attributable stream ciphers
asciilifeform: it is done, like the 'anal child' in mircea_popescu's essay, 'because they can get away with it'
asciilifeform: i can see no legit reason to ship a drive with buggy firmware.
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: what is the reason why it should not be a mask rom ?
asciilifeform: if there exists, somewhere, a maker of drives which demand signatures - usg is the first to get a copy of the key, to no one's great surprise
asciilifeform: anyone who has ring0 on the box and can send raw ata cmds. can flash.
asciilifeform: of the handful of vendors whose drives i have studied personally, not one used a signature scheme of any kind, for example
asciilifeform: (and yes, virtually all extant hdds are trivially reflashable.)
asciilifeform: it'll be in every ring0 turd on the planet before the year's out, possibly.
asciilifeform: (by remaining winblows users, that is)
asciilifeform: and now that the multivendor diddlomatic is out, winblows users will get what they so persistently beg for
asciilifeform: hdd firmware << 1) snore. revealed definitively in doc. ~month ago, http://log.bitcoin-assets.com//?date=18-01-2015#981436 2) proven as concept in 'linux on hdd head controller' ~2 yrs ago 3) experimented with privately by numerous folks, incl. yours truly, for a few years before 4) mostly a snore, even the best hdd diddle falls down in a raid5 system☝︎☟︎
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: speaking of which, gnat built and functions on another box (presently i lack the time to investigate why, but will eventually say)
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: i suspect that 'grandfather time' has already clobbered most of'em
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: i learned of it from ilkka kokkarinen. despite the format, worth the evening or two to read.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: there is a very entertaining comic book (yes) titled 'samurai executioner', about the life and times of a (loosely historic) fella who famously specialized in testing swords on whole bodies (alive and dead).
