dredmorbius

FM dongles for smartphones and tablets are a thing. You can stream your own playlist or podcasts over your tuner (and anyone else's within a small radius). The devices are cheap but effective.

Absent heatwaves and water shortages, generally, yes.

Pros: Cheap land, generally predictable weather, few severe storms, little seismic activity, reasonably close to population centres (Phoenix, Tuscon, Las Vegas).

Cons: Little water, wildfire hazard, heat, sand and dust storms.

Inland northern locations (Dakotas, say) might also work. Moderate tornado risk, cooler weather (particularly in winter). Subject to winter storms, but generally more water availability. Technical populations might be difficult to recruit.

The link shows that well-established security practices are often not followed, even by those who really should damned well know better.

Which is to say: even when PQC mitigations against QC are available, I expect a target-rich environment for QC attackers.

Not so far as I can tell, though the Internet Archive may have some individual holdings. (There are other Sears collections however.)

Searching author "Sears, Roebuck and Company": <https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Sears%2C+Roebu...>

1918, for example: <https://archive.org/details/catalog1918sear>

Duke University has an (offline) physical archive, described here:

<https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/searscatalogs/pdf> [PDF]

Dupe. 18 days ago, 584 comments: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48776044>

AI seems to have been involved in the targeting process, so partial truth.

There may have been outdated information which incorrectly associated the prior use of the site "as either a factory or arms depot". See Wikipedia:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack#Analy...>

Citing "Iranian school was on U.S. target list, may have been mistaken as military site" (March 11, 2026) <https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/03/11/...>.

I'm not drawing conclusions one way or the other, but there do seem to have been multiple factors at play, and assigning full responsibility to use of AI seems suspect.

Which isn't the same as saying AI isn't at fault; e.g., an AI might challenge a dated assessment of a prospective target's role or status, as might a human-in-the-loop target assessment team and process.

Tag the mods by emailing them: hn@ycombinator.com

(Obv. now moot in this case, but for future reference.)

<https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

CBOM: Cryptography bill of materials.

<https://cyclonedx.org/capabilities/cbom/>

Earthquakes and floods tend not to specifically target major banking and information centres. Terrorist attacks have intentionality.

That said: San Francisco / Silicon Valley are home to both tech and an active seismic zone, and there's long been a tacit understanding that data centres are best located (or at least backed up) at quite some distance. One large brokerage firm located at the time in downtown SF had its datacentre in Arizona, and it wasn't the only such instance. Many other organisations opted for nearer-but-still-remote locations in the Central Valley.

The history of diligence in properly utilising and applying security measures strongly suggests that QC will in fact provide positive utility even if viable PQC countermeasures are developed and deployed.

From yesterday's posts: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48983610> (my comment on the Romanian land registry hacking thread).

Somewhat ironically given the relationship drawn, my understanding is that Claude Shannon spent relatively little time at the Bell Labs Murray Hill campus, instead living in the more intellectually-stimulating environment of New York City.

Though he apparently did spend enough time at Murray Hill to meet his wife, Mary Elizabeth Moore ("Betty") Shannon.

<https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/voices/betty-shannon...>

The countries that do prepare for catastrophic megaquakes do so despite the fact that the incidence frequency is quite low, because the consequence magnitude is so great.

Even regions with few quakes may have a history of large quakes. The New Madrid region (southern Illinois, southeastern Missouri, southwestern Kentucky, northwestern Tennessee, northeastern Arkansas) doesn't experience especially frequent temblors, but when they do occur, they're doozies:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1811%E2%80%931812_New_Madrid_e...>

The potential risks of PQC are large enough that preemptive countermeasures seem prudent.

PQC: Post-Quantum Cryptography.

The concern is systems which won't be resistant against quantum cryptographic attacks.

The US's NIST has an explainer page, "Post-Quantum Cryptography PQC":

<https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/post-quantum-cryptography>.

Dupe: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48995199>

Earlier / dupe: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48995199>

Dupe: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48995199>

Dupe: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48995199>

Dupe: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48995199>

Yes, quite, this.

One of the lessons (and subsequent data integrition / continuity of business practices) learned from the 9/11 attacks in New York City, and destruction of both primary and secondary data stores of multiple entities (as well as several emergency-response agencies at various government levels from city to federal) was that essential data and operational roles need to be redundant across very widely-separated locations.

E.g.: from "Discussion note prepared by staffs of the Federal Reserve, the New York State Banking Department, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, for discussion at a meeting on February 26, 2002 at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York":

[I]t was clear that business continuity planning had not fully taken into account the potential for wide-area disasters and for major loss or inaccessibility of critical staff. Contingency planning at many institutions generally focused on problems with a single building or system. Some firms arranged for their backup facilities to be in nearby buildings on the assumption that, for example, a fire might incapacitate or destroy a single facility. Very few planned for an emergency disrupting an entire business district, city, or region. As a result, some firms lost access to both their primary and backup facilities in the aftermath of the September 11 events, severely disrupting their operations.

"Summary of "Lessons Learned" from Events of September 11 and Implications for Business Continuity" February 13, 2002" <https://www.sec.gov/divisions/marketreg/lessonslearned.htm>

Geographic distances were rarely considered prior to 9/11. Most companies were comfortable replicating data intercampus or to a facility within a few miles of a primary data center. A few firms, such as Nasdaq, actually replicated data out of state.

"9/11: Top lessons learned for disaster recovery" (Sep 9, 2011) <https://www.computerworld.com/article/1545389/9-11-top-lesso...>

Also: "Hard-Earned Disaster Recovery Lessons From 9/11 and other disasters" (2025) <https://backupcentral.com/hard-earned-disaster-recovery-less...>

Terrorist attacks, natural disasters, widespread power and other failures, etc., can all have impacts across many kilometres, possibly many hundreds. Redundancy equates to survivability here.

More broadly, information and data services are fundamentally about risk management and disaster response, as realised during 9/11 (as well as multiple earlier and subsequent incidents) in ways which weren't fully realised at the turn of the millennium. Or even today in some organisations.

Make backups. Test backups. Practice switchovers between primary and secondary (or multiple redundant) operations. And keep those resources and facilities widely separated.

There's victim-blaming, and there's gross incompetence.

My own problem with the top-level comment wasn't that it claimed fault on the part of the victims, it's that it didn't substantiate why that claim of fault was applicable in this case.

Multiple use of weak passwords in a critical system isn't acceptable in 2026 (nor has it been for many decades), and yet there's credible evidence (as my own follow-ups in this subthread and my own top-level comments should indicate) that the victims here did contribute significantly to their own harm. For that they should be found accountable. Hosting inherently insecure data systems is gross negligence, quite arguably criminal.

Where "fico" refers to "Robert Fico", prime minister of Slovakia since 2023:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fico>

Not to be confused with, say, Fair, Isaac, & Co., a credit-scoring company, or its eponymous FICO score (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FICO> and <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FICO_score> respectively), an abbreviation for a FInancing COrporation (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financing_Corporation>), or even a song by Cliipse and Stove God Cooks (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.I.C.O.>).

It wasn't immediately clear to me what (or who) "fico" (lowercased) referenced. Make your reader's job easier and be clear in what you're stating. Slovakian politicians of any standing may be less widely recognised internationally than you expect.

And yes, Wikipedia notes Mr. Fico's Kremlin-friendliness, which would cast doubts on his credibility in such matters.

Again: I've no particular reason to believe the account, hedged my own belief, and don't see much evidence for (or against) the accusation, though an early naked attribution of responsibility without any particular evidence isn't particularly convincing. Again my first reaction to the accusation was doubt, and I continue to harbour same.

Poor password practice and policy, and likely a lack of 2FA / physical token security, seem to have contributed to this breach.

Posts and screenshots apparently by the alleged attacker show "P@ssw0rd" and other well-known / readily-guessable passwords from the hacked systems:

<https://spear.cx/Thread-Selling-RO-Thy-arss-shall-be-spanked...>

<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iZc93XfViOk7izusgIG1ni7Kmsx...>

Originally noted, without references, by ExoticPearTree here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48978836>.

NB: If you're going to point out stupidity verging on cliched tropes, do so with sufficient evidence that it doesn't read as a tired and unsubstantiated canard. The fact that this does happen (and apparently did) doesn't mean it's necessarily the case in any specific instance.

Sincerely, thank you.

Your initial comment would have been far more substantial, and probably much better received, with these additions.

There are a few other instances which come to mind.

The spread of cable television within the US had distinct limits through the 1980s and 1990s, with much of country (by area, though not population) excluded. Satellite TV had its heyday, and regions in which it was popular (often as the only alternative to very limited over-the-air terrestrial broadcast) were referred to as "Birdland", after the dishes pointed at orbiting "birds", or satellites.

Which is a long way of saying that looking at the proliferation of cable and penetration of satellite TV might allow for some differentiation within US populations.

Back in my uni days, an example which came up was of inverse relationship between fertility and television reception within remote mountain regions in Southeast Asia (Thailand if memory serves, which it does poorly). I'm not finding that reference though there's more recent research of a similar nature:

Diffusion Processes and Fertility Transition: Selected Perspectives, Chapter 7 "Mass Media and Fertility Change" <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK223858/> (2001).

The general inference being that late-night TV viewing and sex were substitute activities.

Film (and television) seems studiously underrepresented given the presence of authors, playwrights, poets, and musicians. Musicals are also absent.

I'd also suggest that cultural impact plays a strong part in Homer's prominence. The American Homer would probably be older rather than more recent (at least by present reckoning).

Francis Ford Coppola / Mario Puzo, The Godfather; Michael Curtiz, Casablanca; Steven Speilberg; Orson Welles, Citizen Kane; Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, Oklahoma!, South Pacific, The Sound of Music, etc., might make my list.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48740177> (dang, on 2CP & timestamps).

More: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>

Ukraine was specifically mentioned in two of the articles I'd referenced, though not in the one originally submitted to HN. I was dubious finding it once, hedged with "apparently" based on the 2nd. I did look for a Wikipedia article on the event which might have included a more substantive and reflective post mortem but didn't find one.

If you've specific information clearing or establishing the link, post it. I agree that hasty accusations are risky. The main point I was looking to establish was that the source wasn't indicated as Algerian, as with the Romanian incident.

I'd thought of some other remote island locations as well, though most have quite small populations. That would make large-scale studies challenging.

Slightly orthogonal: Simon Winchester's book Outposts details many of these, including aspects of their cultures, though I don't recall if he dwelt long on the specifics of television or its lack.

<https://bioeconometrician.github.io/outposts/> (Review)

Several of those islands have significant military and/or communications roles for the UK, and as such may have better-than-expected comms links.

Specifically: <https://moisttowelettemuseum.com/MVC-0044F.JPG>

Your comment could have been shortened to:

Take a closer look at the screenshots posted by the hacker: entire systems and network devices with the password P@ssw0rd for the admin user.

Linking those would be bonus.

<https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>