Comment by deweydecibel@lemmy.world on Stealing everything you’ve ever typed or viewed on your own Windows PC is now possible with two lines of code

Q. Is this really as harmful as you think?

A. Go to your parents house, your grandparents house etc and look at their Windows PC, look at the installed software in the past year, and try to use the device. Run some antivirus scans. There’s no way this implementation doesn’t end in tears — there’s a reason there’s a trillion dollar security industry, and that most problems revolve around malware and endpoints.

Are Microsoft a big, evil company?

A. No, that’s insanely reductive. They’re super smart people, and sometimes super smart people make mistakes. What matters is what they do with knowledge of mistakes.

I have no doubt there are smart employees, but they don’t call the shots. Case in point.

The dude set up a strawman argument, then didn’t even bother to burn it down properly.

If this is a mistake that they made, they’re not smart. If anything, they super dumb.

They’re evil.

Being super smart and super evil are NOT mutually exclusive. Intelligence =|= morality.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/zone-of-interest-oscars-banal-dreams-nazi-settler-colonialism

On what morality is: This was a quick read about what enables dehumanization and mass atrocity, as relevant to both history and ongoing fascistic settler colonial imperialism.

Wasn’t Lex Luthor supposed to be Tony Stark levels of intelligence?

As we get older, I tend to agree with the supervillains.

Lex Luther wants a weapon to counter this insanely strong, invulnerable Superman that can destroy the planet … I’m like: Yes we should

Magneto considers mutants superior and if humans wage war, then mutants have the right to wage war back, and win. Survival of the fittest. If I was a mutant, I would be on Magnetos team.

Magneto wanted supremacy, not equality, and was willing to use genocide of non-mutants to get it. And Lex Luthor was a narcissist who was jealous of Superman’s power and popularity; he wasn’t acting for the benefit of humanity, he was acting in his own interests.

Every good villain has mostly justifiable motivations, they just take it too far. Magneto would be justified if he sought equality, and Luthor would be justified if he developed but didn’t use the weapon until Superman did something evil.

The only justifiable amount of force is just enough to neutralize an active threat, and no more.

Why reach for a fictional example when so many real world examples exist? Just curious because I think of Bezos, Musk, and to a lesser degree Gates as examples of smart people doing bad things. I mean there’s several very smart people that have done good things as well but those are harder to come by. Even people like Alfred Nobel created something he thought would save the lives of miners only for his invention to be used for war. Einstein also did a lot for the advancement of theoretical physics and his work was subsequently used as the foundation of the atomic bomb. It’s actually way harder to come up with a Tony Stark type smart “good guy” in the real world for me because reality is often far more grey.

I don’t think of Bezos, Musk, or Gates as exceptionally intelligent. They are lucky and influential, sure. Intelligent? Musk is automatically out just because of his Twitter feed. The other two haven’t shown themselves to be particularly intelligent, just ruthless and efficient when it comes to generating profit.

As far as the other side of that coin, I tend to agree. Most of the really intelligent people that have existed have been pretty grey morally speaking.

Hence why I went with fictional examples. At least with Lex Luthor, there’s very little grey area in his moral stances.

Gates is insanely intelligent, like demonstratably so. Musk and Bezos are also very highly intelligent people. Do they have terrible, awful, even downright despicable views? Absolutely. But don’t be fooled, all three of those people are incredibly smart with actual high IQs (not in the braggart, “I have a very high IQ.” sense either).

Intelligence doesn’t translate to empathy or wisdom. Some of the least book smart people I’ve met have been profoundly wise at times, and some of those same people were incredibly empathetic. Unfortunately, I think all three of those people (Musk, Bezos, and Gates) are lacking in those traits, but saying they aren’t in fact measurably intelligent is only fooling yourself.

I say this as someone who was raised by a measurably very highly intelligent person who could be, and was, a complete monster at times, and had some really twisted views on the world/other people. Lucky for me I didn’t inherit that innate Intelligence I guess!

These totally normal human beings you sound like you deify…are you their psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, counselor? Short of those professions or a former tutor who happened to treat all three…

Well, interesting thing to devote anecdotal brain power to, I’ll tell you that.

Is musk really intelligent? He’s not dumb but honestly seems like most of his success is from buying things and or getting smart people under him who are able to succeed despite his medlling. The ideas he forces through tend to be bad. Giga factory was largely a disaster and he had to relearn manufacturing. Giga casting? Dead. A lot of the super heavy stuff he’s directly influenced failed or are drawing out the timeline as the struggle to address. Cybertruck and semi…

A rotten apple spoils the bunch.

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

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Stealing everything you’ve ever typed or viewed on your own Windows PC is now possible with two lines of code — inside the Copilot+ Recall disaster.(doublepulsar.com)

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