Posts by Blue Screen of Bleurgh

It's an AI web, and we're just rats in the walls

When you access the NHS site for some advice on a medical condition you have to wonder whether what you're reading has been written and authenticated/verified by a human, or is just some AI C&P job!

Given the legal ramifications one would have thought the NHS is a site you can trust to be "human made". But then if you go down a deeper level could the authors of these NHS health conditions be sourcing their information from AI searches?

Perhaps the Tyrell Corporation should update their corporate motto "More AI than Human"

Openreach nudges another 112 exchange areas toward full fiber

Living out in the sticks of England have been stuck with BT and their standard fibre FTTC broadband for years, and all I see is slower speeds and rising prices, with no hope of OR upgrading our exchange to FF "for the foreseeable future"

Had to dump them and went with Starlink. Politics-aside with Musk, this was the only realistic option for superfast & stable broadband, even at their 100Mbps and 200Mbps lower tiers, with prices at around £40 - £60, the kind of prices I was paying with BT for a poxy 40Mbps (on a good day!)

LG kills McAfee pop-up after Windows boss steps in

Quote ""We appreciate LG working with us toward a shared goal of a better experience for our mutual customers. We will keep improving here with our ecosystem partners.""

You see this often when vendors are hit with criticism, especially buzzwords such as "better experience", "customers" and good old "ecosystem partners". But strip away the PRspeak and its just another "Damn, we got found out, people are moaning. Guess we better do something nice to make them STFU"

AI music platform Suno hits bum note as 55M users exposed in data breach, claims infosec expert

Another day and another data breach.

It's like becoming the norm now, either because sites don't care or don't know how to keep PI well and truly secure.

Windows 11 Start menu changes trickle into Beta, movable taskbar still MIA

I always liked the Start menu on XP and 7, and even 10 at a push. But what they're doing to it now on 11 is really taking the piddle!

As for the taskbar - again I loved being able to put it where I want it in previous OS versions, but here we are some 5 years into W11 and they still can't give us the option despite being requested bigtime since 2021.

Ministers arm under-16s social media ban with least surprising study of the year

When talking about Social Media, most people often think of the traditional platforms such as Facebook, X, TikTok, Instagram and shedloads more no doubt.

But when you Google exactly what social media actually means, it's basically any platform that offers two-way communication or opinion, which could encompass any site that offers a forum for posts, such as this one. Ergo, should sites such as this be banned to under 16s, or is the government focusing just on the more popular social networking ones, such as Facebook, TikTok and Whatsapp?

AI slop writing has taken over the internet, particularly LinkedIn and X

Expect to see an AI detector-detector extension on Chrome that will detect AI detectors that are detecting AI.

This will tell the user - at £30pm - that an AI detector has detected that they're using AI

Britain's cloud habit has become a billion-pound risk

And then there's the scores of data breaches, hacks, poor upgrade rollouts and ransomware demands that have befallen various Cloud sites, especially UK government agencies (Craptia) and financial institutions such as Lloyds just a couple of months ago.

The standard response from those companies to its customers is "Oh dear, there's been a technical issue which we didn't see coming, but even though all of your PI has been stolen from our Notepad text file, don't worry, just change your password and hope for the best!"

Plex appeal fades as Lifetime Pass jumps to $750

Tried Plex back in the day when things were simple and you had control over your own media viewing and local libraries. But over the years and the arrival of the sub model and emphasis on streaming. I moved onto Kodi for awhile, and now just use Emby (free version) for my own NAS collection of films and TV show accumulated over the years and streaming internally to up to 5 devices on my LAN, which suits me fine.

Vodafone dials up full control of joint venture with Three in £4.3B deal

Reminds me of the plethora of energy companies that sprung up out of nowhere in the Uk back in the late 00s/10s. All offering cheap deals and wonderful contracts, up until Covid and the subsequent ramp up of raw energy costs + interest rates + inflation, and a lot of them got found out and either went to the wall or were subsumed into the bigger players. And now we're left with the usual gang of perhaps 5 or 6, with no suggestion at all of collusion and rigging prices among themselves!

Telecoms and broadband providers are going the same way: competition becomes a joke and oligopolies become a thing, while OFCOM and CMA look the other way.

Consumers will be shafted of course, shareholders and investors will be quids in as per usual

Who needs ghost train scares when Windows is such a fright?

Windows 8

'nuff said!

Phone users know when to hold ’em, delay upgrades amid inflation

Storage and memory suppliers turned their noses up at the consumer sector earlier this year when they saw bigger profit margins geared towards all things AI in the commercial sector.

Computer manufacturers felt this knock on effect almost straight away, and now of course the IoT and smartphone divisions are noticing similar falls in consumer demand for new kit for a variety of reasons.

But as others here have said, phone makers such as Samsung and Apple are finding it difficult to sell the latest phones not only because of the reasons stated in this article, but because whatever new features they try to upsell as something hugely spectacular and life-changing, really isn't in the cold light of day, especially with the pushback against AI features and the "whatever!" with latest camera features.

There is only so much a smartphone can do and I think we've almost reached that plateau. For most ordinary users they're happy with what they've got and will keep them for a good 4 or 5 years. Whereas the sheeple will still fret about not having the latest "number" in the phone brand, but even they are starting to think twice about the need to show off their latest iPhone/Samsung Galaxy.

Microsoft tackles quality control issues. Just kidding, it's encouraging experienced workers to leave

Re: Raising the bar

I recall similar scenarios with the run up to Y2K, with quite a few businesses (not all IT but across the board), wanting to make savings and the IT guys were the first in the firing line.

Of course this clean out happened 2 or 3 years prior to Y2K becoming a thing. Inevitably, when it did become a huge potential issue and these same companies went into headless chicken mode not knowing what may happen come midnight on 2000 because they had no experienced nerds left, they went to temp agencies looking for nerds and were royally ripped off with quadruple salary rates over a 18 month contract.

Some even went begging back to the fired nerds who knew the infrastructure inside and out: A few came back on triple salaries, others told them to GTFO

This also happens with big corporations performing massive updates but not doing a full a proper level of testing or QA before a live roll out primarily because they fired their expert testers and QA staff in order to save cash. But when the update went live it fell on its arse and everything went dark for days on end. (A British Bank beginning with T and ending on B, springs to mind)

UK gov pays public £550 to discuss Digital ID – then bans journalists from the room

Quote "The government will also pay for meals, flights or train tickets, hotel accommodation and childcare or other care costs"

The government - past or present - isn't paying for anything. Taxation is.

Quote "Those who then take part in all seven sessions will receive £550 in cash, vouchers or a combination of both, with the letter pointing out that "cash payments may affect your tax position or benefit"

The government giveth, and the government taketh away with all due haste!

Moreover, if the overall consensus among the sample-set is a resounding "No Thanks!", will the government take that on board, or will they simply move the goalposts, reframe the question and ask another sample set of volunteers? Or better still will they simply ignore the response and do their own thing anyway?

Age checks could turn internet into an ID checkpoint, complains Proton CEO

National Social Credit System, moves a step closer.

These days everything you need in order to exist seems to be on the web with applications needing permissions to access other apps, contacts, photos and whatever totally unrelated stuff there is on your device (the device itself will also reveal its make, model, mac address and even location)

They need your email address and phone number of course, along with another level of identity, and now we have to go a step further and supply official age verification documents.

With this huge collection of personal information you suddenly become a puppet on a string at the whims of the big corporations you depend on, especially government agencies, banks, building societies, ISP and phone operators. In fact anyone and anything you do business dealings with will have some form of control over your ability to do things.

We have already seen politicians having their bank accounts closed due to "our (the bank) beliefs and values did not align with theirs (the politician)". This could go a step further with the ordinary person on the street. Say something, Do Something that is not "aligned" with an institution you depend on, and they can close you do on a whim. Which may even cause a domino effect with other institutions you depend on via your device doing the same thing until you are basically at the mercy of government to become a "good citizen" again and earn some "social credits" just so long as you behave!

All fanciful stuff of course, but probably exists in China and/or North Korea, so why not here as well!

Claude Desktop changes app access settings for browsers you don't even have installed yet

Quote "Kenney said, "Putting the legal ramifications aside, there is substantial reputational damage and loss of user trust that comes from a company that users perceive as being committed to safety and privacy releasing tools that seemingly undercut that posture."

Added to which Anthropic's lack of comment when questioned, proves that trust isn't very high on their agenda, and they're certainly doing themselves no favours either. But as others have said on here, if you're mug enough to install the Claude Desktop app, then more fool you

AI is reshaping Britain's datacenter map away from London

Re: Translation

I recall David "The Office" Brent, quoting Sir John Betjeman: -

"Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough, it isn't fit for humans now".

The name itself doesn't help much either

Attention data hoarders: Alexa loses its Plex appeal as voice feature gets canned

If we allow ourselves to become too deeply engrossed/dependent on the Internet of Toys, all it takes is an operator such as Plex to announce "we made the difficult decision... <to remove whatever loss-making app in our toolbox>, and therefore you're on your own, but please keep on paying your monthly subs...) ", then we have to find workarounds/alternatives, which means configuration/pairing and whatnot.

Gym giant Basic-Fit confirms data on a million members stolen in cyberattack

Quote "n the same disclosure emails, the company advised customers to watch out for potential phishing attempts, and to contact the company via official channels to verify the legitimacy of any suspicious communications"

Another typical response by putting the burden (and distress) on their gym members, warning them to be on the look out for phishing attempts and to report anything suspicious" which is exactly what the gym club should have been doing right from the off.

Instead they just shrug their shoulders and do a "oh well, whatever!" and hope the problem will all go away. Meanwhile their members now have to check emails, bank statements and other correspondence just to make sure they haven't been hacked, while also having to change passwords and hope for the best.

And surely this is a breach of GDPR?

Iran cyber actors disrupting US water, energy facilities, FBI warns

Ironically I was watching a film last night called "Sneakers" (1992) with Robert Redford and Sidney Poitier, regarding a team of cyber hackers accessing critical US infrastructure. government departments, finance houses and airports.

Fast forward 34 years and here we have Iranian cyber actors doing very much the same thing for real and not for the first time either. The fact this has happened before under the noses of the the FBI and US cyber defence agencies, and is still happening, makes me wonder how secure such infrastructure etc really is!

If an AI agent screws up while running your business, there's nobody to sue

Self-Drive cars - can you really trust them? And when it all goes TU who is to blame?

Online password managers get hacked, massive data leak. But vendors just shrug shoulders and tell punters "don't worry just change your password even though there' a chance a good chunk of your login/password details are being sold off as we speak!"

Ditto general and financial websites, internet management website - they get hit for minutes, hours even days. But no one at the top seems to give a genuine shit as its always a collective issue and just one of those things that happen. Ergo: move along, nothing to see here, even though yet again punters either have to face the possibility their PI has been stolen, or face massive disruption while the sites they're trying to access are back online, but there's very little recourse.

There will be a scenario where an AI agent in the healthcare field will kill a patient through misdiagnosis if there are not enough checks and balances in place, along with "human oversight". But if such a scenario does happen, who will take the blame?

Say goodbye to budget PCs and smartphones – memory is too expensive now

Re: Recycle / re-use?

The big Smartphone guns of Apple and Samsung's marketing division know that by introducing a new phone to the marketplace, but with a number after it, will generate itchy fingers for desperate individuals not wanting to be tied to "yesterday's old number" and wanting the latest number, with a total disregard regarding exactly what extra features you'll be getting from the latest model!

Just like with car reg plates in the UK. Some people want the latest 26 plate and can't be seen dead with a tatty old 75 plate even though they bought one a few months ago when the 75 plate came out because ...

It's all in the numbers, and not so much the latest features - most of which are probably just minor tweaks anyway. But it gives the makers an excuse to ramp up the price and the sheep will gladly swallow

'Uncle Larry’s biggest fan' cut by email in early morning Oracle layoff spree

No doubt all the big guns who are investing big bucks into AI will be doing the same sooner or later - thousands of people told their services are no longer required because you're a) expensive, b) only work 37 hours a week, and require time off for holidays and sick days; c) too slow, too unreliable, too old school.

Therefore tens of thousands of white collar workers will find themselves on the scrapheap much in the same way blue collar workers did during the 70s, 80s and 90s and the advent of automation, especially in the car industry.

The CEOs will just call it collateral damage and move on seeking every greater profits and bonuses - until the shit hits the fan, which it surely will sooner or later. But by then it won't matter because pockets will have been well and truly filled with lovely lucre, along with very nice pensions and golden fuckoffs. They won't give a shit when the company goes south.

Even Microsoft knows Copilot shouldn't be trusted with anything important

"For entertainment only."

Nice little get-out clause from the big guns, who roll out a product they're not really sure about, shove it in your faces from all angles and expect you to use it ... but only "for entertainment only"

What a waste of time, money and effort. But also shows how premature the likes of MS are when it comes to rolling out half-baked stuff like this, just shove it in our faces and hope for the best!

Microsoft veteran says some 'broken by update' PCs were already doomed

I would also maintain full overnight backups where possible prior to any MS update, especially given their unpredictable outcomes.

I realise backups might not be acceptable to some departments running apps 24/7, but better safe than sorry.

Moreover some tin stored in datasheds probably haven't been properly maintained in months or even years, with some potentially on the verge of some hardware failure, dust build-up or any other trivial little thing that has been left to become a big issue when a reboot is needed.

Taking preventative action is again not always convenient for the rest of the business, but an IT dept should be checking the health of all its tins, including controlled reboots prior to major updates, but not just with a day or two gap, but perhaps 4 or 5 days just to make sure that if something does go tits up, it can be dealt with.

And given the huge expense of ram and storage these days, you can bet that a lot of companies (especially the bean counter departments) will insist IT depts make do with old tin and old components while the bean counters cut costs. It's only when those old components can no longer hack it is there the usual blame game

ServiceNow allegedly says salesman 'overachieved' and is not entitled to comp

Incompetent CEOs and senior pencilheads pick up nice bonuses and pay rises for being shit at their jobs!

Competent grunts further down the ladder, work hard, tick the right boxes, bring the money in only to find they get stiffed by some hastily written small print in their T&Cs, and then if they kick up to much a fuss end up fired for being good at their jobs.

So much for the work ethic and incentivising your teams

Oracle cuts jobs across sales, engineering, security

One hopes those people made redundant will find similar jobs elsewhere. Trouble is though, exactly where and who wants to employ humans when AI bots will do the job anyway!

Not much of New World for them, and probably thousands more to follow as the big guns perform similar clear outs of human collateral

Folk are getting dangerously attached to AI that always tells them they're right

I wonder if we can expect further age verification or mental state verification demands from governments in order to prove we're fit and able to integrate with AI!

Lloyds app glitch turned transactions into shared experience for 447k users

This has to be a breach in GDPR. One would hope ICO will deep-dive into this upgrade bodge because it may well happen again either with Lloyds or some other bank.

Data breaches are happening far too often as of late, which doesn't offer much confidence when age verification requirements happen across the board and your PI is at the mercy of IT managers who don't fully understand what is going on under the bonnet

UK government admits Capita pension portal was crapita at launch

Past and previous UK governments don't seem to have done much due-diligence when it comes to roping it some private sector organisation - Capita and the former G4S to name but two ugly ducklings, that gave "incompetence" and entirely new meaning when working in collaboration with government departments.

They were quick enough to siphon as much money out of the Treasury, but had little or no idea of responsibility or accountability for their poor handling of the services they were supposed to provide.

Not that any of that matters because inevitably it will be the Taxpayer who will foot the bill

NASA's lunar reboot is long on ambition, short on answers

Hope they don't use Windows 11

Remote or not, workers are drifting back toward the city

For some clerical workers WfH, perhaps one reason some of them are returning to the office is fear of being replaced by an AI bot.

Managers are already attracted to the idea of cutting costs, wages, pensions, holiday/sick/maternity pay and office politics. And for workers not being visible in the office could work against them when it comes to cost savings.

Ofcom sees no need for overhaul in next phase of fiber rollout despite BT domination

Starlink

We live out in the rural sticks of the Lake District, and although all the big gun ISPs do offer FTTP, our situation is exacerbated by the fact we live on a private residential estate, and the owner won't allow Openreach or anyone else to come digging up their roads just so that their residents can enjoy full-fibre at the same price we're currently paying for pisspoor FTTC broadband.

Fibrus came round last year and laid cable in our village offering everyone FTTP. But when they came to the office of our private estate they were told to sod off. Therefore we're stuck with 40Mb/s broadband from BT/Vodafone/Sky while seeing prices rise.

The only alternative is Starlink, which now offers three deals (£35/m for 100 Mb/s, £55 for 200 and £75 for 400+). Very tempted, even though their customer support is non-existent.

Windows boss promises to heal the operating system's self-inflicted wounds

Same as platitudes after the event.

You would think an organisation as big as 'Slop would know how to develop, support, test and roll out its own operating system with the minimum of fuss and maximum confidence.

But clearly they've got their heads and hands up their a'holes and haven't got any clue what to expect when they rollout the next update.

Good to know that the top brass will still get bonuses for being crap at their jobs. But then that's how it always is

EU broadcasters say smart TVs and voice assistants are the next gatekeepers

IoT is Not Your Friend

The whole Internet of Things, is not working for your best interests. Anything with "Smart" as a product prefix is nothing but smart. Instead it is acting on behalf of various autonomous and known gatekeepers, all keen to listen in to what you're doing, what you're watching, and what you're talking about.

Tablets, TVs, phones, are all listening in. And when you throw in the Age Verification sham for operating systems, they will be able to join the dots as to who is saying/typing/watching what and to whom. And if you do or say anything you shouldn't expect a knock on the door by the fun-police.

Big Brother and all of his siblings are taking root in your home, your office, your car, your handbag, your pocket. In fact any place you go with your "smart" device, They will be there with you.

Half of VMware users plan to reduce usage by 2028

Small carrots, big sticks - the usual corporate game when you're sucked into something that you can't easily wiggle out of

Microsoft fixes broken Windows update days after vowing fewer broken updates

Has there been a week so far this year where there hasn't been a fuck up with 'Slop's updates?

Perhaps we should all party and celebrate for the week where W11 has actually stayed stable!

Junior disobeyed orders and tried untested feature during a live robot demo

The I-know-best junior seems well suited for a life as a "tester" at Microsoft

Microsoft breaks Microsoft account sign-ins in Windows 11 with latest update

Patch Day Tuesday => Fucked Up Wednesday => Workaround Thursday => Hope for the best Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday

Rinse and Repeat

Sorry, Amazon, you couldn't pick a worse time to bring a phone to market: IDC analyst

Buy a phone and be owned

Jaguar Land Rover's cyber bailout sets worrying precedent, watchdog warns

The bank bailouts of 2008 by the UK government was a farce beyond relief

Not only did Darling/Brown nationalise Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley, with the former sold to Virgin Money at a loss to the taxpayer; but they also bailed RBS, Lloyds Group and HBOS, costing many billions but at an ultimate loss to the taxpayer of around £22bn

The ongoing trope for bailing the banks was "They're too big to fail" and would cause huge recessions of epic proportions without state intervention. Which just means that if the banks fuck up again they know full well the State will bail them out once again.

Rinse and Repeat

Starmer's digital ID reboot raises same old questions as its Blair-era ancestor

Who will hold and manage the data? Hopefully not some incompetent bunch like Crapita! What happens if there's a hack and a massive data leak? Who will be held responsible and will they give a toss even if ICO kick up a fuss over a GDPR breach, knowing full well that any possible fine will no doubt come from the Treasury - also known as the Taxpayer!

The National Audit Office suggests that "the sector faces severe, frequent attacks, with 40% of 777 high-severity incidents managed by the NCSC between 2020 and 2021 targeting public sector bodies. High-profile breaches have recently hit HMRC, the MoD, and the Police Service of Northern Ireland."

It then goes onto say that government IT systems are not totally secure against cyber attacks in 2024.

I have no confidence in this or future governments managing PI in a secure and proper way, not that these politicians will care because they'll be long gone when things go shit-shaped.

https://www.nao.org.uk/press-releases/cyber-threat-to-uk-government-is-severe-and-advancing-quickly-spending-watchdog-finds/

Competition watchdog cracks knuckles, probes legality of Adobe cancellation fee

Re: fees on membership plans

Another niggle is with "recommended" trialware apps where you pay £1/$1 via your credit card on the assumption that you have 14 days to use the app, but if you don't cancel before then they will go onto charge you full price. But this is often buried in very small print and a pre-ticked box that suggests you agree they can take 50 quid out of your account every month.

UltraPDF, is a software house well known for doing this trick and its almost impossible to get in contact with them to cancel

Re: fees on membership plans

This is the big problem with SaaS, especially media creation where you don't own the work you create because the host will have it buried in their T&Cs that such work is copyright to them rather than that of the creator. And if you want to bail out you still have the battle on your hands to take your work with you

"Own nothing: be happy, sucker!" - seems to the ongoing trope from the big corps these days

Time to end the 'uncontrolled experiment' of social media on kids, scientists say

Years ago parents gave their toddlers dummies (pacifiers) to chew on while also giving them soft toys and lots of attention.

Over the last 20 odd years it seems parents are too busy with their lives and more or less give their very young children tablets to play games on and perhaps even learn from.

From that point on the child is immediately plugged into the Matrix, so to speak. Their lives more or less dictated and shaped by what they see/hear/read via social media or even MSM.

Age verification tools won't work because there will always be workarounds.

Social media must be one of the biggest misnomers ever

Alibaba Cloud hikes prices by up to 34%, blames hardware costs and AI demand

Quote - “Due to the surge in global AI demand and rising supply chain costs, the procurement costs of core hardware in the industry have increased significantly,"

Expect every corporate business - IT related or not - to wheel out the same trope just to squeeze a bit more cash out of already cash-strapped punters

"Sorry, sir, your double quarter pounder and fries has gone up by 34% due to global AI demand and stuff!"

RAM is getting expensive, so squeeze the most from it

ZX 81s and Spectrums - limited storage, very limited RAM, which meant programmers had to be super efficient and creative in equal measure to produce awesome games such as 3D Monster Maze and The Hobbit

For the last few years coders have reversed the roles: they can write apps as inefficiently as they can get away with knowing that the punter will have to upgrade to accommodate their bloated games and apps

Perhaps the current crisis might focus the minds somewhat, although I doubt it

Users protest as Google Antigravity price floats upward

Google probably have a small department (broom cupboard probably) called "Carrot", and a department occupying an entire floor called "Stick"

So much for power to the people – AI datacenters could jump UK grid queue

Re: more madness

When bubbles are due for a good poking I anticipate another 2008 Banking Crash, and the "we're too big to fail!" cry from exposed UK banks, and in steps the government and the BoE with huge taxpayer funded bailouts and nationalisation takeovers.

CEOs and shareholders walk away stuffed with cash, and guess who is left holding the baby!

Just like the railways - constant state subsidies to privately owned train operators; then there's the PFI circus that fell on its arse in 2018 when the "experts" realised it was just too expensive, too slow, to inefficient.

And then there's HS2 and spiralling costs running into the tens of billions over initial estimates

AI sheds could go the same way hence all the sudden interest from foreign investors and speculators.

"Privatization of profits and the socialisation of losses" was the common buzzword back in the day

News in today reveals that the UK's largest proposed AI data centre is outlined for approval any time soon.

The campus, to be built near Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, will be 1.5m square metres of floorspace across 14 data halls, utilizing almost 200 hectares of a former RAF airfield and at a cost of just £8bn.

It will have its own energy centre generator, but may also have to tap into the National Grid, as will many other proposed AI sheds. One wonders if there will be enough energy production - both from fossil, nuclear and green - to keep all sectors sustained and dependable!

https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2026/03/12/uks-biggest-ai-data-centre-plan-approved/