Posts by Yorick Hunt

OpenAI's Altman and Friar walk back remarks about federal loan guarantees

Re: Socialism is bad, mmkay?

I think they just mistranslated the truth of it, "a multis sume, uni da."

Socialism is bad, mmkay?

... Unless it benefits the oligarchs.

Palantir CEO celebrates one cash culture to rule them all

Pest!

Carp are a recognised pest in Australia.

Karp is a recognised pest in the USA.

Exterminate both species, I say!

Cisco suggests a stubby chassis, shrunken servers and router, to tame the edge

Fat chance.

Cisco suggests shovelling money into their coffers, for their latest and greatest Swiss Cheese flavoured offerings.

Anyone with even a little networking knowledge suggests steering well clear.

Attackers targeting unpatched Cisco kit notice malware implant removal, install it again

Are you dead?

Once upon a time when I had more time on my hands and mischief in my heart, I'd reply to the Nigerian e-mails asking "are you alive?" with "sorry, I died three weeks ago; I won't be able to help you."

Suspected Chinese snoops weaponize unpatched Windows flaw to spy on European diplomats

Re: Windows. Like an abusive spouse. Can't stand it, and apparently can't live without it.

"Oh it is easy to understand: MS don't give a shit about security."

That part I can understand. I'd fully expect IE, Edge, Outlook and whatever else MS come up with, to not only allow but actively encourage people to spread crud, and Exchange to merrily distribute it far and wide.

What I can't understand is real mail clients allowing such attachments, or admins of real mail servers allowing them to pass through their servers as attachments.

Yes, I've in the past had users complain that their "file didn't get through" to their recipient and inspection showed they'd sent a .LNK instead of the file. Yes, I'm one of those who bolts things down before putting them into production. Unfortunately 4x2 battens and baseball bats aren't allowed to be used in user education programmes these days :-(

Re: Windows. Like an abusive spouse. Can't stand it, and apparently can't live without it.

I still can't understand how/why "those pesky .LNK files" are allowed to be spread - there's no reason ever to allow them to pass through e-mail or be downloaded from web sites.

Australian police building AI to translate emoji used by ‘crimefluencers’

Re: AI in court?

Yes, but then they wouldn't be able to funnel money to their "Eh? Aye!" purveyors.

Company that made power systems for servers didn’t know why its own machines ran out of juice

Re: The Really Wild Show

"I do not think it means what you think it means."

I don't know, it seems quite succinctly defined.

"Must be nice to work at a company where issues are solved by throwing money at it."

Throwing money at the wrong thing(s), then saving money by erecting signs instead of getting an electrician to put in a dedicated feed for the servers.

I've done that at several customer premises - nothing as drastic as server power, just power to sensor lights in entry corridors to save people breaking their necks if they needed to come in after dark. Massive "DO NOT SWITCH OFF!" signs in bold red lettering. You think people noticed?

Microsoft's OneDrive spots your mates, remembers their faces, and won't forget easily

Identifying the faces?

MS: "Who is this person?"

You: "George Bush"

MS: "Who is this person?"

You: "George Bush Junior"

MS: "Who is this person?"

You: "George Bush the Third"

MS: "Who is this person?"

You: "Margaret Thatcher"

... etcetera ;-)

Vodafone keels over, cutting off millions of mobile and broadband customers

Ted, is that you?

youtu.be

Kubernetes kicks down Azure Front Door

Don't worry, they just need to sprinkle some more AI onto it; that'll fix it for sure!

Amazon grounds drone deliveries in Arizona after two crashed into a crane

Re: How to parse this?

"So…er… it was the crane’s fault?"

If we could read the insurance claim form, I've no doubt it would read something like this;

"A perfectly clear path with no obstructions, when suddenly a crane lept out from behind the bushes, we simply didn't have time to stop or swerve!"

New string of phishing attacks targets Python developers

Re: "And now for something competely different."

Makes a change from being attacked by someone savagely wielding a banana.

Nvidia GeForced out of China as Beijing demands tech titans embrace homegrown silicon

Cue Tim the Enchanter...

... pissing himself laughing at the carnage XD

Ruh-roh. DDR5 memory vulnerable to new Rowhammer attack

Ah, the memories...

... I have "fond" (for the most negative connotations of that word) memories of RAM issues back in the late '70s, from so-called "alpha particle degeneration."

I remember back then there being a strong push towards static RAM for critical implementations, but marketing soon overcame the will of the greybeards.

It's time mobile devs started to think seriously about foldable smartphones

Re: Shitty computers?

Cast your mind back to the early days of the 'net, when lazy developers defined fixed dimensions for all objects on a page.

Got a higher resolution monitor than the developer had? Tough, you'll just have to put up with a page that occupies a quarter or your screen.

Same thing here. There's no shortage of methods to elegantly scale an app's output and make it layout-agnostic - but there are far too many developers who refuse to think about anything more than their own environment.

Nokia successor HMD spawns secure device biz with Euro-made smartphone

Re: OS

Perhaps if it's AOSP-based, sans Google Services (and associated apps), they could market it as "mostly secure."

Several porcine squadrons will need to circumnavigate the globe without once landing, before that happens.

Critical, make-me-super-user SAP S/4HANA bug under active exploitation

The more things change...

... the more they stay the same...

https://xkcd.com/327/

Boffins detail new method to make neural nets forget private and copyrighted info

Pffft, easy!

rm -rf /

Absolutely fabless: Trump derails TSMC's China chip-building effort

Re: Get it right

"The USA is beggaring buggering its 'allies'."

FTFY.

Microsoft readies Windows 11 25H2 while Windows 10 circles the drain

Re: "the installation is little more than an enablement package"...

"... once the new features have been verified as stable"

You haven't been paying much attention to Microsoft's actions over the past few years, have you?

One long sentence is all it takes to make LLMs misbehave

Re: Well that's that then!

Where's that Jive command-line translator i so loved back in the '90s?

Well that's that then!

"Chatbots ignore their guardrails when your grammar sucks"

Most people drawn to "Eh? Aye!" struggle to spell even the most basic of words, let alone adhere to anything resembling proper grammar - so let the fun begin!

Good morning, Brit Xbox fans – ready to prove your age?

Re: Well now...

"... linked to a Microsoft Outlook account which goes back to the late 90s"

ITYM Hotmail, surely?

Fake CAPTCHA tests trick users into running malware

Microsoft only just discovered this?

This has been happening for at least the past year.

Nice to see Microsoft is "on the ball"

Your CV is not fit for the 21st century – time to get it up to scratch

Give it a wafer-thin dinner mint.

Write about all the top-500 companies you've walked past or viewed the web sites of.

Give it a 5-paragraph detailed description of what you did, including bending over to pick up a 5-cent coin.

Write another page about precisely what you think about "AI," its current state, and how those who use it should be the first ones replaced.

Once upon a time concise brevity was appreciated by recruiters who valued their time. Now it's time to go in the other direction, over-feed the bugger.

North of England snubbed by UK government bag-a-boffin scheme

Re: Such an apt acronym...

Don't forget the organisation which administers the fund ;-)

Microsoft patches failed to fix on-prem SharePoint, which is now under zero-day attack

Re: Sharepoint

"Is it just badly configured, staff not adequately trained, or the normal Microsoft cruft?"

Once upon a time, Microsoft found a piece of string and discovered that if they added some sticky tape to it, they could sell it for a profit.

Since then, tonnes of sticky tape and even more string have been added to the "product," to the point where not even their most experienced programmers (which these days means they've worked at Microsoft for all of three months) can figure out what the "product" does.

So of course, they just keep piling more on, to preserve the perceived value they've brainwashed their customers into believing.

‘I nearly died after flying thousands of miles to install a power cord for the NSA’

A berm?

"... intersection with a huge berm..."

https://youtube.com/watch?v=GLDvtpSC_98

UK tech minister negotiated nothing with Google. He may get even less than that

Re: 'decades-old "ball and chain" legacy contracts'

But the balls will be heavier and the chains will be shorter.

Iran seeks at least three cloud providers to power its government

Well...

... you can be sure that Google, Microsoft and Amazon won't be in the running.

Telefónica Germany offloads VMware support to Spinnaker due to high renewal costs

Re: "Our offer from Broadcom was five times higher than we expected"

"Rather like buying the cow and still having to buy milk !"

I think in this case, very aptly, they'd have been buying (a) bull.

C-suite sours on AI despite rising investment, survey finds

Sneaky!

Survey CTOs, instead of the ones forever pushing the shit barrow, CEOs.

Microsoft developer ported vector database coded in SAP’s ABAP to the ZX Spectrum

And yet...

... Microsoft struggles to port code from Windows 10 to Windows 11.

Scholars sneaking phrases into papers to fool AI reviewers

Re: This is the difference with a human

"It's like the AI is just a super smart idiot lacking any ethics."

Quick! Promote it to CEO!

Samsung predicts profit slump as its HBM3e apparently continues to underwhelm Nvidia

Shovels, of course!

... because the "AI" craze is quite literally the act of shovelling sh*t.

Ousted US copyright chief argues Trump did not have power to remove her

Re: And suddenly...

This has nothing to do with AI or with policies, it's about an entitled brat screaming for attention.

And suddenly...

... Shares in micro violins soared...

ChatGPT creates phisher’s paradise by recommending the wrong URLs for major companies

Any surprise?

Given that "AI" frequently (exclusively?) operates in the realm of a late-stage Alzheimer's sufferer, is anyone really surprised by this finding?

Just as you wouldn't ask your nonagenarian grandfather for such advice, you shouldn't trust an "AI" for anything more than casual amusement.

I know several people who swear by ChatGPT, preferring it over legwork through traditional web searches. And the more incorrect ChatGPT's answer is, the more adamant these people are that it's correct. Gospel-like, even.

MethaneSAT 'likely not recoverable' after losing contact with Earth

Someone's glad

Mr. Methane is happy that he can now return to a peaceful life without having a satellite tracking his every move.

AIs have a favorite number, and it's not 42

That's among singles though; once beknotted, you'll find the more likely answer will be 96.

Amazon's Ring can now use AI to 'learn the routines of your residence'

Re: "Two people are peering into a white car in the driveway."

Goatse to the rescue!

Now, should the picture be of the more popular "receiver," or of the oft-overlooked "giver?" ;-)

Huawei chair says the future of comms is fiber-to-the-room, which China has and the rest of us don’t

Re: Going beyond 10Gb/s requires fiber for now

"The question is when people really need 25+ Gb/s links in each room in the foreseable future"

It's about building a future-proof infrastructure when the opportunity presents itself, rather than wasting time and money on re-building everything every few years.

Look at how much money NBNCo has wasted re-building the network in Australia because HRH King Rupert decreed once upon a time that "FTTN is more than good enough."

Do it once, do it properly.

BTW, I'm pretty sure that "room" was mistranslated from "abode" - as in, a fibre link to each flat (apartment) in a block, not a link to each room therein.

Eat or be eaten by AI, Amazon CEO warns staff

Re: Sigh...

Paradoxically, those pushing for it are precisely the ones whose jobs would be most suited for replacement by "AI."

Seeing a team of bots playing daily Bullshit Bingo could even become a popular televised sporting event (hey, if they can classify breakdancing as a sport, it's open season).

Here’s what it’ll take for Nvidia and other US chipmakers to flog AI chips in China

Re: Newegg pricing today

Tseng Labs ET4000 - priceless!

That barn door is getting rather rickety

Chinese companies are heading their own way, innovating with software and using ever more home-grown tech - which might not be quite up to the level of western technologies at the moment, but it's (1) cheap, (2) available, and (3) highly likely to evolve beyond what the western players are offering.

Faces, noses, etc...

If it can’t double our money, we’re not building it, Intel Products chief says

Re: Thus strongly encouraging poor predictions

We saw what happened to Boeing when accountants took the place of engineers.

Good thing AMD is around to take up the slack.

AI kept 15-year-old zombie vuln alive, but its time is drawing near

Re: And this is why we

GIGO