Skeptics Stack Exchange
Skeptics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [computers]

A computer is a programmable machine designed to automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations.

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Did Bill Gates tamper with his school's computer system?

There is a story around that Bill Gates tampered with his school's (or college's) scheduling system to get in class with all the 'hot' girls. Did this in fact happen? References I've found: 10 crazy stories about bill gates Slick Bill Gates…
Benjamin Gruenbaum
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Does Van Eck Phreaking work?

Does Van Eck phreaking perform as described, i.e. allow a person to observe what is being displayed on a given computer screen (notably a LCD) from a distance without having any physical connection to the machine being monitored, and without the…
Brian M. Hunt
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Is Google Chrome killing my laptop battery?

I was reading an article on Forbes that says Google Chrome might be draining my laptop's battery because it brings the system into a mode that uses a tick rate of 1ms instead of 16ms, and is using up to 25% more battery power in the process. (And…
corsiKa
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Does using headphones to drown out ambient noise reduce the quality of work?

There has been some fierce discussion about this subject in blogosphere and on Programmers.SE. It all started with Joel Spolsky's claim: [...] putting on headphones to drown out the ambient noise has been shown to reduce the quality of work that…
vartec
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Thermal advantage of "server" CPUs over "consumer" CPUs

It seems that one of the main advantage of CPUs that are marketed for servers (e.g. the AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon) over CPUs marketed for consumers (e.g. AMD Phenom II and Intel i7) is related to reliability under thermal strain. The response given…
Brian M. Hunt
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Are scammers using AI voice cloning to fake kidnappings?

There have been numerous news reports of scammers using AI voice cloning to trick people into thinking that their kid has been kidnapped: NY Post An Arizona mom claims that scammers used AI to clone her daughter’s voice so they could demand a $1…
joshuahhh
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Did a computer server get accidentally walled in?

I'm in IT and I've repeatedly heard stories of a server that was left stuck in a space that had a wall built in front of it, and was only discovered years later when the wall was torn down. This 2001 article from The Register gives an example of…
Citizen
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Does the US army use unlicensed copies of Windows 7?

I saw this claim at TorrentFreak: However, a signal soldier serving in Qatar informs TorrentFreak that this incident may not be as unique as it sounds. According to the soldier, who we will name Mark, the soldiers’ education center at his base has…
ike
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Have "backdoors" in software programs been seen in the real world?

Has there ever been a software program that has been shown to have an in-bad-faith "backdoor" allowing privileged access? When I say "in bad faith" I mean, "that cannot be credibly explained by incompetence." At SD Times, we received a letter today…
Larry OBrien
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Were nuclear sub engineers told that when alarms go off they should grab a bar, until they have examined their instrument panel?

The book Debugging: The 9 Indispensable Rules for Finding Even the Most Elusive Software and Hardware Problems by David J. Agans, which was first published in 2002, contains the following claim: On nuclear-powered subs, there's a brass bar in front…
Ryan1729
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Is Canadian PM Trudeau's explanation about quantum computing accurate?

In a recent press conference Justin Trudeau answered a journalist who asked him (initially jokingly) to explain quantum computers. He obliged with a <1 minute explanation which seems to receive acclaim across the social media. Here's a video I found…
user69715
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Did the NSA pay RSA $10 million to make Dual_EC_DRBG the default in BSafe?

According to this article from Reuters Undisclosed until now was that RSA received $10 million in a deal that set the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation in the BSafe software, according to two sources familiar…
ike
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Is leapmotion a scam?

Looking for altertative ways of Human–computer interaction, I found www.leapmotion.com, which looks promising. They say in the website and in some interviews that they will release this device to the market in winter 2012, and they have a pre-order…
yms
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Have ATMs across the US "spat out money" in the second half of January 2018?

In a response to the DDoS attacks on several Dutch banks and other institutions, "cybersecurity specialist" Rian van Rijbroek claimed on 29 January 2018 on the Dutch news programme Nieuwsuur that banks in the USA had been hit with DDoS attacks,…
SQB
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Has anyone ever hacked into a traffic control system to change the stoplights?

This is a relatively common trope with regards to the powers of hackers in film: Someone hacks into the "Traffic Control Center" and gains instant access to all stoplights in an area. This includes the option of turning everything red; everything…
MrHen
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