More Stuff

[AmriloJim]

Actually, it's jeffepp who has Elle as his avatar... figured someone might grab one from Juniper's entrance.

[AnotherFairportfan]

Actually, it's jeffepp who has Elle as his avatar... figured someone might grab one from Juniper's entrance.

Ah

Not a comic i follow.

[Warrl]

Actually, it's jeffepp who has Elle as his avatar... figured someone might grab one from Juniper's entrance.

Ah

Not a comic i follow.

And I thought of Juniper from A Practical Guide to Evil.

[Alkarii]

From what comic did jeffepp get his avatar? I'd been wondering, but never bothered asking until now.

[AmriloJim]

From what comic did jeffepp get his avatar? I'd been wondering, but never bothered asking until now.

Shotgun Shuffle

[AnotherFairportfan]

tilthip.png (84.26 KiB) Viewed 9028 times

[TazManiac]

That picture fits quite right w/ the current local conditions:

100+F, all through the two (3?) day Blackberry Festival...

[jwhouk]

So.

Friends of mine from AZ have a booth at Minnesota Fan Fest in Saint Paul. They have free passes for us - YAY!

First ever con for me. It's Minnesota, so you'd think someone would be there, right?

Wrong. No Pablo.

[Alkarii]

My sister's oldest kid got me sick... Half the time it's a chore making it to the toilet, less than 20 feet from my bed.

Too bad we don't have any Pepto Bismol, though I'm afraid I wouldn't keep it down, after having spent some time kneeling at the ceramic shrine.

[Catawampus]

My sister's oldest kid got me sick... Half the time it's a chore making it to the toilet, less than 20 feet from my bed.

Too bad we don't have any Pepto Bismol, though I'm afraid I wouldn't keep it down, after having spent some time kneeling at the ceramic shrine.

Could do what I did one time when I was seriously sick: just spend the entire day curled up in the empty bathtub. That way you don't have to worry about making the mad shambling dash to the toilet, because everything will stay contained in the tub and you can just run the shower to clean it away.

[Alkarii]

No more vomiting, but it took me several hours to eat a banana, and even longer than that to drink an entire glass of juice. Now my neck and head hurt, but at least I don't get floored by trying to walk to the toilet.

[Atomic]

Try some Pedialite. Great for babies, better for adults with icky tummies. Best when cool, not cold. Good Luck!

[Warrl]

Pedialyte - even more than Gatorade - if it tastes good, you really need it.

(for me, if Gatorade merely doesn't taste vile, I really need it.)

[TazManiac]

In a pinch, a half or full teaspoon of Sugar and two pinches of Salt in a Mason Jar of water can help get you over the hump.

It should taste neither sweet nor salty...

[AnotherFairportfan]

My 64 ounce vacuum bottle of cold Gatorade came in handy for a couple people beside me in the hot sun on Eclipse Day.

[AnotherFairportfan]

If you can't trust your fellow spies, who can you trust?

Why did CIA create a bogus software upgrade? To steal data from FBI, NSA

WikiLeaks latest Vault 7 details the CIA's 'spy versus spy' Trojan

The CIA didn't trust its security service partners to share biometric information with it, so it created a bogus software upgrade to steal the data.

The data-stealing Trojan was created as part of a CIA project called ExpressLane, a piece of software installed by CIA Office of Technical Service (OTS) agents under the guise of upgrading the CIA's biometric collection system.

This biometric system is installed at the 'liaison services' or partners such as the NSA, Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI, according to WikiLeaks, which released the ExpressLane documents as part of its Vault 7 collection.

The CIA installed the biometric system at partner offices around the world and expected them to voluntarily share biometric data with the CIA.

Just in case they didn't, it installed ExpressLane to "verify that this data is also being shared with the Agency". It also had a feature to cut-off the liaison's access to the system if it didn't provide the CIA with access.

"The systems are provided to Liaison with the expectation for sharing of the biometric takes collected on the systems. Some of these biometric systems have already been given to the Liaison services. OTS/i2c plans to revisit these sites with the cover of upgrading the biometric software to perform a collection against the biometric takes," it notes in one document.

So that OTS agents could install the Trojan in the presence of partner agents, ExpressLane included a "splash screen with a progress bar" to look like an authentic Windows install.

OTS agents would install the software with a USB stick and could set the installation time of the update as well as a kill date before visiting the target.

Once installed the Trojan collects relevant files and stores them in a secret partition on a specially watermarked thumb drive that an OTS agent inserts during a subsequent maintenance visit.

The biometric system itself was provided by US identity management firm CrossMatch. It specifically didn't want the update to reference CrossMatch software.

It's unlikely this specific version of ExpressLane is still supported given the documents are dated 2009 and describe functionality for Windows XP.

{Original post}

[GlytchMeister]

This seems appropriate...

[Hansontoons]

My forecast for the next few days... hoping any Wapsi fans along the Texas coast near Corpus are in a safe place.

Screen Shot 2017-08-25 at 3.55.46 PM.png (237.14 KiB) Viewed 8899 times

[Dave]

Ugh. "Foul" about sums it up, I think. NWS says that Harvey has achieved Category 4.

Agreed, Hansontoons - everybody in the area should hunker down in as safe a place as possible. This is not a day for trying to be out and about, for anything less than life-threatening emergencies.

Good luck, all!

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Yea, Harvey is a Cat 4, but I'm far enough inland that, while I've made ample, in fact almost certainly excessive, preparations... I very much doubt they will be necessary. My particular property is in an elevated section of my part of Texas, some 20 feet of elevation above the '100 year flood point' for my area, a point which figured prominently when I made the purchase, so even should general flooding occur (which is, in fact, likely), my personal residence is almost certainly NOT going to be impacted. My property is also contoured at around 1.5 degrees for a 'watershed angle', which was my very first property improvement I made, just in case we get some three feet of rain over a twenty four to forty eight hour timeframe, which seems likely this time 'round.

I also have an evacuation route planned which avoids any local flood-likely areas to get onto the highway system which, itself, is well above any potential flooding, and I have a full tank of gas, with an 'emergency ready kit' in the trunk, including bottled water for the family for minimum one day in the event traffic is poor, which means should we need to evacuate in an absolute worst-case scenario, I can be on the road with my whole family in five minutes tops. It will almost certainly not be necessary this time, but the plan is already in place should it ever be required and a more significant weather event hits at a more unfavorable angle to warrant evacuation in my area.

Furthermore, I have enough food and potable water on hand to last minimum one week without utilities, including power and water. So even should the worst occur, I can just 'sit it out' until waters recede.

Having said that, I'm likely to get, minimum, tropical storm force winds, possibly up to full category 1 hurricane conditions, and there is a non-zero chance of tornadic activity which might possibly threaten me. Aside from a direct strike from a significant tornado, however, I don't foresee anything this storm can throw at me that can circumvent my preparations.

I'm an engineer. When I say 'ample' preparations, it is about four stages beyond what most people call 'ridiculously excessive'. Because I don't gamble, I don't 'play the odds', not with my family's safety. I calculate what should be appropriate, double it, then add in a safety margin to operate on should the worst-case scenario prevail. With a backup plan should that prove insufficient.

I might be knocked offline if local power goes out, but I'll be back once everything is over.