"limit of 8x" of what, exactly.File Size ? Compression Time? CPU time ?I'd understand if they made a mistake and confused Picture with Document. But, most phone images are already heavily compressed, RAW image data is lossless compression while JPEG/PNG and GIF are reduced quality. Significantly reduced. if you take an 8mb JPEG and make it 1MB, it won't look like the "original". you've just made it blurry.And recently, since 2007 or so, DOCX is a compressed Word format. it packs up a lot of OpenOffice XML data into a zip folder.Most compression is lossless, because people want to recover the original data.A Limit, would only work if there's a way to throttle the incoming data, or select the method to encode to meet/match a limit.The throttle doesn't exist if you are streaming data, ie video or audio, because then you start to need a larger buffer and output cache to write the result, as the number of blocks increases to throttle the output size, you also risk corrupted files if the buffer crashes or the stream ends prematurely.For file compression, limits make less sense, because the need for a throttle becomes useless unless you are maintaining a desired outcome of quality or size, and to achieve this size/quality, you can remove data or detail.It would never make sense to remove data to hit a limit on lossless compression, unless you had a lossless encoding system with a variable method. But that would defeat the purpose of saving time or data. You'd also need a way to stratify or select a codec or algorithm that could be used to throttle or limit performance... which would require a tier of different codecs to use. On hardware not designed for the codec, for a different technology base from future technology. Lossless doesn't need to have a variable bitrate or a reservoir to predict and adjust the rate or limit of compression. It just has a filter that matches patterns within a series of blocks of around 4kb.So when you say Limit, it's usually for variable bitrate or variable methods/filters where you can choose multiple algorithms or multiple options to fine-tune the size or difficulty.But, most compression is for streams, real-time, Block by block, where you only get 1 pass, and no ability to look backwards or forwards in the file as it's being provided, usually because it's encoding a stream of data. Or File Level, where the encoder can take 2 or 3 passes to hit a desired bitrate or quality by creating an analysis pass, storing the practice of how it would operate with the same settings, then it would encode.You can also hit a desired compression level by using multiple attempts for a small test sample, or it can skip compression to save CPU time if the file ends up being larger. For video, a third pass would check the results meet the standard, tweaking or adjusting based on the original video and the encoded video, or redoing the scene without the 1 or 2 settings while keeping the bitrate. 3 pass is often a manual process, but it's due to noise and HDR effects being difficult to encode, that a single pass leaves artifacts behind. Especially because the effects are layered, often 3D motion vectors designed to mix with 3D audio vectors for Dolby Atmos mixing and layers in the post-production background optimisation. The particles interact with a 3D environment, which looks great but it means that it's extremely difficult to encode hundreds of motion changes and edges travelling in different ways.If you have lossy compression, eg music and video, pictures and vector illustration/3D Geometry. Lossy compression can usually have limits and throttles for quality, because it has either a fixed bitrate, or a variable bitrate can be chosen. because the algorithm is built to have variable blocks, it can choose to "spend" more on difficult blocks and less on simple blocks, it has a budget or reservoir which determines the average / desired bitrate.

Oasis Online... not Online Online

So, It seems like people don't quite realise how much work would be done to get Gov approval. A superior security app, can be very lucrative if used to break rather than fix.Perhaps 2000 to 5000 people would be assigned from various different government departments. brought in from other Military, Contractors, Intel groups, bodies in the room to discern if it's malware. Three months would be rushed.The traditional thing would be to load the software code in a SKIF room, an air-gap room with separate electrical and reinforced walls with steel mesh to block radio and radar signals up to terahertz frequencies and hundreds of watts of power.Teams of 5-10 people sit in a room, and troubleshoot each step of the logs, while another team is in another SKIF. The team then breaks down what the structure is, what the language used is, similar structures, alternative tests, idiosyncrasies, errors, unknown code, and tamper/break points, etc. And they leave the SKIF to exchange notes and similarities, send notes, and start over to determine how the code itself is built, and the capabilities / intent, but also weaknesses or ways to neuter the software if it's running. The sandbox can also halt the process , allowing the decompiler to read memory, decode or decompile code while it's operating. is inserted, etc.The tech level of 2013, escaping a sandbox would be slightly more involved as it requires knowledge of the hardware/OS. Plus, they can replicate the same vault and sandbox in different locations, play the code against other versions and hardware changes and determine the opening process/idle process and threads. Teams of 20-40 people would be breaking down the structures and algorithms across the instruction logs to determine how it breaks the sandbox, and how it works out the nature of the code itself, or what encryption is being used to access its own storage processing. Different teams, different objectives, etc.

In a normal situation... the game company would be sued for endangering players, by not protecting privacy ... Unless they had Government backing, and despite it, they would be held liable for assault, manslaughter and homicide. especially leaking Players ID, ie their Real face. As would anyone using government ID systems. This is the future, it's backtracked... and it would be red flagged by AI, automated police corruption filtering services, for when people are scanned by the system using a profile/drawing and then become victims... repeatedly. And, it's China. They can just trace the person using Face ID requests in the threats timeframe, and hold any/all game employees in jail until suspects are found. Especially if the game devs continue making it easy for criminals.

While CN does have an extensive FR database ... tied to ID cards - which is insane... this would be a crazy loophole for a game development company to leave intact. Rich Families would sue and win if the fights went outside of the game. The police would figure it out by notoriety, shut ins being assassinated... would raise a lot of red flags. Especially if they were online at the time. While it does raise tension, it's impractical. Elimination based on age and location, maybe. Not in hours... that's AI level creepy. But this is explicitly why Real Name, Real Face Game ID is flawed. If people hired Mercs, gangs or security to break in, in this VR future, the game employees would be the first ones questioned and arrested for confidential disclosure, given that the person was attacked explicitly, or died and had no other social interactions. The chat history would be forfeit or the employees charged with conspiracy and assault/ manslaughter. No Dice.

If he was creating a business that disposed or disclosed security vulnerabilities, and they are not made public, or disclosed to the author/company that wrote the code ... there is a different standard of liability and responsibility/account to the information. Especially because 0day, or "no previous public disclosure" exploits are in a different category and legal status. 0day Vulnerabilities are often traded on the black market or sold/developed between foreign nationals as intelligence tools. The reason is, 0day can be petty intrusion, theft or fraud, banking access, social media manipulation/disinformation or it can be used for espionage. The recent Orion "SolarWinds" hack that infiltrated the US government, Microsoft in 2019-2021, used remote administration and went undetected for 2 years, until they got caught by a security company, FireEye (iirc) and a few other companies that reported to FBI. It started with an old server being hacked with an existing vulnerability, then they got passwords and credentials to escalate up to a patch server, then patched the RA to get backdoor access to firewall and security software, et al. In 2013 this would not exist yet, but MC is basically implementing a similar security service to the one that got hacked, ie Remote Deployment / analysis. It's a bit like holding a skeleton key that opens bank vault doors. And you've just given someone a copy. If that person uses the vault opener, on another vault, the original party would have knowledge of the trade. If you then go to a 3rd person to sell another vault opener, and everyone uses the same vault, but, you don't contact the manufacturer ... do you see why he can't resell the "deluxe" package, if he is restricted by the secrecy of the original deal. It's "Amazon's" vault opener, until they take it to the vault manufacturer, or choose to disclose the 'vault key' and warn the manufacturer. Usually because of the proprietary and confidential information intended by disclosing source or compiled code. "Fresh" vulnerabilities, unpublished anywhere else usually fall into the category of weaponry under some circumstances/countries legal systems. Usually because they are employed and purchased by intelligence agencies. However, at the corporate level, it can also fall into espionage and intrusion, especially because the software if disclosure does not exist, they would be obliged not to have a working copy, for legal reasons. IE someone who used these tools and exploits on 3rd parties, could/would be the suspect of future claims, possibly declared as a foreign state actor, and arrested/charged as such. Security infrastructure laws do get quite sensitive about intrusion.

Unless he's using the magic runes, Petabyte is a crazy amount of storage for 2013. and 3 minutes to download a terabyte .. 55 hours, no chance. This is 2013. unless you are running 100-500 machines you won't see anything above 1gbps. Its... About ... $1 million dollars of investment, 50 servers of 100tb each, 2,000 4Tb SAS drives, approx ~100 SSD drives or more. If it's 2013, you might not be able to order 20,000x 240GB/256GB SSDs, so you might need a mix of technology options. And probably costs $20k a month in electricity.This would be ~$80k to $250k for 500 4TB drives, about 50 4U servers with 40 drives each, 5x 8 drive RAID controllers, each about the size of a suitcase, approximately 100TB per 160tb server once you add redundancy or caching SSDs. and it requires hotswap rack mounting, so you could be forced to add more racks and more servers. 3 servers per rack, 18 racks, battery backups, networked together in a refrigerated room with an airlock/cabinet to reduce the vibration and noise. Doable, but it's not exactly cheap. half the cost would be preparing the room and HVAC, and having electrical, HVAC maintenance and admin people.

For someone who just hacked into Google a few chapters ago, this is just silly. Google already does this in 2013, using the experience of building a distributed search engine, they can compress/decompress files on the fly and index results. This is because Google relies on tens of thousands of old machines instead of one big server. it lets them run millions of tasks like background optimisation with little disruption. dozens of systems act as caches within their storage systems, so retrieval is usually a few seconds. among other systems, they built a distributed file storage database called BigTable for storing data internally, and added optimisation and compression, caches, etc. As they started using more hardware, and applications like Google Earth, YouTube, GMail, Workspaces etc. they split text and video across different systems, so the storage had both redundancy and deduplication by using SHA2 signatures, hardware acceleration, compression etc.

Not how compression works. You don't get levels, you get algorithms designed for different file types, and different CPUs or free RAM and L3 cache.

Cache has been a thing forever. at least the 1970s with Swap, and Paging.Once hardware became faster than the motherboard Bus speed, other devices like Storage, display and sound, etc. added DRAM and buffer/cache so they weren't interrupted when a device was hogging the core. This is also seen today with USB devices, like mice, keyboards and printers, halting or rebooting a PC if unplugged, it's legacy code/hardware dealing with the Motherboard Bus interrupts.Memory and Cache management is usually called Garbage Collection, as it culls or moves recent data, and swaps cache in/out to fill the swap or paging file/drive. Since the 90s and RAM became larger due to the change to 32-bit and VGA graphics. Before that, you had Swap and Paging, paging files and swap files, then L1 and L2 cache as CPUs got faster than RAM by 10x to 100x, L3 caches.

Most people didn't upgrade to Windows 8 or Server 2012. they stayed with Windows 7 or Vista/XP, Server 2000/2008. Just look at Steam Hardware survey data from 2010-2014

No, that was the obvious deduction to make once you "had to" write your own language. The next problem is that as a security platform, the next step above a security service, is hosting shopping and ecommerce, and basically taking on Amazon. good luck cowboy. Because an OS is not the big sell, it's the combined "everything company" that you would need to provide against Google/Microsoft and others

Rothschild's are a terrible choice for antagonist. A Family Gathering would likely be held in an Embassy, not a private mansion. This is a banking family, sic.They have old relationships with royal families, banks, and other merchant families. They would not be so centralised, or live with US laws. The party would likely be held in a diplomatic embassy, assigned to the Ambassador, so that they could have private military.Mansion in the North of Hollywood that have 150-200 rooms isn't that rare, since they expect earthquakes and would over-engineer the buildings at that scale. which makes them ideal for Embassy roles, and those older mansions tend to be bunkers with large estates and security staff across the compound, because they have countermeasures on their own property. anti tank/AA radar and helipads would not be improbable.

It's not that the bank gives you more security, it's that you avoid using your own name to buy expensive goods, to avoid the individual tax burdens. he'd still be screwed over ... PI can access credit card and simple phone records, sic. and can track family, friends etc. more than the police can.

Corporate risk assessment, and software licensing/ anti-piracy alliances would run crackdowns and licensing audits, especially Microsoft backed, prior to the Office 365 subscription model and Google Workspaces taking over. WinRAR is often only included by companies that got caught in audits before, since it's an easy win. Especially compared to the licensing for Word/Excel/PowerPoint etc.Either they pay a fine and set up new licensing, or they backdate the licensing to the first installation time, which could be decades.WinRAR, like Tetris didn't get deals with US companies, they could have negotiated with Google or Microsoft but they would have lost the name and the RU affiliation. It's on a video explaining that they were almost billionaires, sic.

Can't ? it's code. They can decompile it. Unless you are using magic Rune Defence BS to prevent file access, drive encryption isn't that useful when NSA has tools and resources to obtain the source.Especially if you want Gov access, they will not bring in contractors with unknown security and unknown risks. Doubly so with Snowden just having left. IDK. The naivety is astounding. Even with the NDAs, people would notice a security company starting up with a law firm attached, it would be anomalous. It might also ring bells with local tech orgs and firms wanting insider information, since security tends to be skewered between difficult negotiation partners. Alternatively, the NSA or rather, foreign agents working with the NSA, just break into your house and copy the source code, the compiler, the early draft work product you don't have, etc. This would also lead them to conclude that there is a second person, and they should be afraid of that person's knowledge. Which would be correct. It would be better to send them off looking for this hacker named 4 chan.The government does not play fair, neither do foreign intelligence services. They don't need to keep it secret either since their reputation is flagging, a Win would help their political reputation and funding.

No, Windfall / sudden deposit amounts trigger different legal procedures for the bank(s). They ask you to come in, because the standard account has deposit limits, usually $250k, as seen with Silicon Valley Bank (and other banks) collapsing. A lot of accounts had tens of millions & they may not be recovered.Also, the law firm would not hold the money. Or delay the payment process unless this was negotiated in the agreements. There would also be significant NDAs that require involvement of all parties. CN might not honor these due to party involvement, but they do understand them, even if they don't agree or flaunt the penalties.

The tiers don't really make sense unless it is performing antivirus/malware or firewall type scans of the network/WiFi and apps.Those generally need to run 24/7, not every week. Free AV isn't a bad idea, but the goal is different when you know most of the vulnerability methods. Instead... updates and Deployment is the killer app, since most big corporates spend huge amounts locking down hardware for security. especially 2013 before VM / profiles and proxmox / thin clients were big. And, which idiot is going to be the customer support for this, Rune Clippy?

This likely would have been necessary because of the NDA agreements with Facebook, and non compete, compliance regulations et al. Especially since the report content is confidential secret, he may not be able to show or reuse the same content.Depends on how much control Facebook has on the legal teams, as to how restricted the vulnerability disclosures were.

Not as difficult as imagined, but schools /colleges didn't all jump ship to Gmail/Workspaces. And, downloading Gmail emails would take hours or days, just because they had several rate limits over the web, SMTP was faster. until it wasn't older professors (especially in IT) may not have moved their personal emails to Gmail either, YMMV on getting any significant "dirt" without finding his home PC and the local emails, professors typically don't stay on campus to write personal emails, as they have assistants, etc and there's no expectation of privacy. YMMV .