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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • I will admit I had to look up what Pluton is, but I think Microsoft did a decent job of explaining it by themselves:

    Microsoft Pluton is a secure crypto-processor built into the CPU for security at the core to ensure code integrity and the latest protection with updates delivered by Microsoft through Windows Update

    Microsoft Pluton is designed to provide the functionality of the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and deliver other security functionality beyond what is possible with the TPM 2.0 specification

    In other words, Pluton is an enhanced TPM that’s baked directly into newer CPUs, for code integrity of Microsoft’s software. Here, integrity means the software was not tampered with, and will do exactly what Microsoft wanted it to do. That no guarantee that their software won’t spy on you or expose your data (see Microsoft Recall controversy), though.

    Now, Microsoft can extend that integrity guarantee by blessing other software makers’s code. That is one of many avenues to use Pluton as DRM and/or anti-cheat, if game makers obtain the necessary blessing.

    But this is still years away from fully rolling out, and it necessitates that everyone buys a CPU which has Pluton enabled. I personally wouldn’t want to pay money for something that historically would have given me full control. Game consoles have always been locked down, but I draw a line at PCs. Everyone will have to decide what they’re comfortable with, as we enter this brave new world.


  • In a nutshell, the TPM works great as a trust anchor if it’s only needed once during boot-up. But anti-cheat and DRM software run concurrently with the software payload, so it’s not a one-time deal but a continual process to reverify. More so, the TPM is not self-enforcing so there would have to be software which issues a challenge to the TPM, and then interprets the response. This uses CPU power, at a minimum.

    The crucial challenge – likely unsolvable in the general case – is that anti-cheat software has to try to monopolize some portion of the machine, to prevent running other software like hacks or keygens. But this is diametrically opposed to the goal for the past 60 years of multitasking operating systems and context-switching CPUs, which try to divy out the machine so different software appear to run almost simultaneously and independently.

    As a result, some anti-cheat software is truly horrible, because they have to employ very strange tricks to coerce the system to either prevent something undesirable from happening, or to act as a canary when something undesirable has happened. The definition of “undesirable” is left to the software package makers to define.

    The only plausible way I could see the situation improving is if OS makers integrated anti-cheat and DRM into the scheduler (the very core of an OS) in a uniform manner. But this is: 1) really complicated, and 2) a security nightmare if malware could exploit it. And that’s ignoring whether the Unix/Linux/BSD world would ever tolerate such a kernel feature.






  • To lay some foundation, a VLAN is akin to a separate network with separate Ethernet cables. That provides isolation between machines on different VLANs, but it also means each VLAN must be provisioned with routing, so as to reach destinations outside the VLAN.

    Routers like OpenWRT often treat VLANs as if they were distinct NICs, so you can specify routing rules such that traffic to/from a VLAN can only be routed to WAN and nowhere else.

    At a minimum, for an isolated VLAN that requires internet access, you would have to

    • define an IP subnet for your VLAN (ie /24 for IPv4 and /64 for IPv6)
    • advertise that subnet (DHCP for IPv4 and SLAAC for IPv6)
    • route the subnets to your WAN (NAT for IPv4; ideally no NAT66 for IPv6)
    • and finally enable firewalling

    As a reminder, NAT and NAT66 are not firewalls.





  • Rack-mounted beer holder.

    Jk. But really, anything which helps organize stuff is a worthwhile job for a 3d printer. Even something to loop fibre optic cables on, so that they don’t exceed their maximum bend radii, is useful.

    I think you’ll also find the 3d printer aids in other endeavors. I’ve used mine to print replacement car trims, ham radio accessories, a photo film spooler, a bushing to convert vacuum hose diameters, and other odds and ends.








  • It’s unclear if you mean an outdoor faucet appearing out the side of a house, or a freestanding garden spigot. But in either case, the full solution often involves replacing the spigot with a frost-free spigot. It prevents freezing by having the valve located somewhere warmer, such as within the house or underground.

    The normal handle will turn a long rod connected to the valve, and when closed will drain the excess water out the spigot, leaving no water outside or above ground that can freeze. The freestanding spigot has the complication of needing an underground gravel base to drain the excess water into.

    An alternative might be to use an air compressor to force water out of your spigots, as part of annual winterization. This only works if you don’t plan to use the faucet during the cold season, though.


  • I’m going to take a first stab at some parts of the question.

    Regarding rheostat vs resistor, I don’t think one term replaces the other. In modern terminology, a rheostat refers to a two-lead device that varies in resistance. Whereas a resistor implies a fixed resistance. Rheostat brakes would make sense, since a fixed amount of braking current would be… unusual. “Variable resistance brakes” would mean the same, but is longer.

    For cycles vs Hertz, I’ve not personally come across a technical reference which only listed “cycles”. Rather, old radios often list “cycles per second” when documenting the intermediate frequency, for example. So compared to writing “cycles per second” or “cps” over and over, Hertz is much shorter and easily abbreviates as Hz (eg MHz, kHz).

    For condenser vs capacitor, I honestly haven’t any idea. I’m also keen to see some other answers to this question.


  • It’s more that this claim of immunity causes a pause in the proceedings. My understanding is that there are many ways to pause different sorts of proceedings, such as insanity in a criminal trial and bankruptcy in a civil trial. In these two cases, though, once the issue has passed, the trial starts again where it was.

    However, for pauses caused by claims of immunity or anti-SLAPP hearings, the result of those hearings could cause the trial to become moot, meaning the proceeding would immediately end. And that’s why there’s a pause in the first place.

    In that sense, there is no circumnavigation because if immunity does apply, the trial wouldn’t matter. And if it doesn’t apply, the trial would proceed. Judicially, there is no drawback, but politically, burning down the clock may be a goal of the defense, as the primary and general elections draw closer.

    It is very tempting to dismiss seemingly frivolous issues out of hand, and the judge could have done that. But presidential immunity has been a gray legal area – see Nixon presidency – such that judicial confidence isn’t fully established. In a way, the judge is saying “ok, show me what you’ve got” knowing that proof of immunity is an uphill battle, waiting for the defense to fall flat.



  • I understand where you’re coming from, and fully agree that anytime someone goes to prison for something they didn’t do, society is doubly worse off: once because the wrong person has been jailed, and once more because the real culprit has evaded justice.

    That said, what you’re describing is an issue with the practice of plea bargaining, not necessarily with giving less time for defendants pleading guilty. There are very compelling arguments that we should ban plea bargaining, as it’s extremely one-sided, among other things. But while plea bargaining is partly enabled because the sentencing guidelines allow leniency for pleading guilty, I would argue we should keep the latter.

    As a society, we should incentivize people to voluntarily come forward and atone for their crimes. If a murderer pleads guilty and divulges the location of the buried body, the victim’s family can have a proper funeral service. But if that murderer instead flees, there’s a chance that officers can make an arrest, but there’s also a chance of successfully evading the law. Even if taken into custody, there’s no requirement that a hardened murderer needs to reveal the burial location, and our laws prohibit beating that answer out of anyone.

    A principle in law is that different criminal behavior should be punished proportionally. Ruthless killing versus accidental death. An accident versus indifference to human life. A clouded conscience versus a maligned intention toward the victim’s family during a prolonged trial. This is what the sentencing guidelines seek to implement, moral hazards be darned.