* Posts by Pascal Monett

16607 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2007

HashiCorp reportedly considering sale amid growing challenges

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"upper management at the software biz are evaluating all the available options"

Translation : they're looking for a position elsewhere.

UK tech titan Mike Lynch's US fraud trial begins today

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Flame

Boooooring

We already know that HP didn't do it's due diligence, didn't listen to insiders who were ringing the alarm, and went on with the acquisition because the idiot in charge thought it made himself look good.

The whole case should be thrown out on those grounds alone.

Microsoft reseller Bytes says more than 100 undisclosed share trades linked to ex-CEO

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Facepalm

"abruptly quit with immediate effect last month"

And he honestly thinks that that will be enough to get him off the hook ?

Or has he abruptly gone on vacation in a non-extradition country as well ?

Because if he hasn't, he'll be speaking with the judge in not too long, I think.

Microsoft promises Copilot will be a 'moneymaker' in the long term

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Mushroom

Hey, vastly overpaid CxOs, riddle me this

All you high-falutin' business execs who swear on Sun Tzu, explain to me why :

1) you are willing to not only give your internal company workings to a competitor (Borkzilla is nobody's friend), but are willing to pay for the privilege

2) you have apparently no qualms to hand over such data to a company you cannot trust to either not benefit from it, or not sell that data or use it somewhere else

Is it because, when Borkzilla starts a new branch that does what your company does, you're hoping to get hired as branch manager ?

Good luck with that.

Filipino police free hundreds of slaves toiling in romance scam operation

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: 9 arrests?

Well, the inquest is not finished. One can only hope that accomplices will be found during interrogation of everyone they have. The victims will be only too happy to describe the people who beat them, and the nine arrested will certainly be taught that it is in their best interest to cooperate fully.

I am hopeful that more perpetrators will be brought to justice, but let us not kid ourselves : the top level who put the money in this operation will never be bothered.

That annoys me immensely.

Infosec teams must be allowed to fail, argues Gartner

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Infosec is one of the hardest IT domains there is

I really think Infosec the hardest area one can work in in IT. You need to juggle with the needs and demands of users and management, while stitching together the failures of the products you didn't choose to use to try and ensure that miscreants inside and out won't make a total dog's breakfast of the whole network.

And every time Borkzilla posts a new update, I'm guessing you just cringe and hope for the best . . .

As if working at Helldesk weren't bad enough, IT helpers now targeted by cybercrims

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Helpdeskers are disciplined to be helpful

Meant to be helpful, yes. Stupid, no.

I have trouble understanding how this is supposed to work. Every company I work for has a helpdesk, obviously. The phone number is internal. It is not posted on the Internet. Yes, it is accessible from outside once you know it, but you won't find it in the phone book. Curiously, companies I deal with do not post their Helpdesk number in the Yellow Pages - I wonder why.

Second point, most organizations I work with do not allow users administrative access to their computers. You might manage to get control, by a miracle and a magic wand, but you're still stuck in user space. You can't install anything. The few companies I deal with that leave me a computer with an admin account are companies I cannot work with remotely, and the helpdesk drone knows me by face and name. Someone tries to pose as me by phone ? I wish him good luck.

In short, this whole story stinks of incompetence and lack of proper procedures at the highest levels. There are none of my clients - and I don't work for Fortune 1000 companies - that appear to me to be subject to this kind of shenanigans.

We talk to W3C board vice-chair Robin Berjon about the InterPlanetary File System

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Stop

Blockchain

DOES. NOT. SCALE.

Explain to me how this is supposed to be a solution in a 7 trillion+ intergalactic population.

McDonald's ordering system suffers McFlurry of tech troubles

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Because The CloudTM, obviously.

It is impossible today to handle things locally. That's just not how business is done now. You have to have your ordering system, your procurement system and your payroll in The CloudTM.

So, when The CloudTM fucks up, you're out of business.

Personally, I rather like this result.

IBM CEO pay jumps 23% in 2023, average employee gets 7%

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Nothing to complain about

If the Board is stupid enough to shovel a boatload of money to some guy who just points to a direction, it's the Board's problem.

NASA missions are being delayed by oversubscribed, overburdened, and out-of-date supercomputers

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"The Space Launch System team alone spends $250,000 a year"

Okay, this is armchair-general level, but if every team spends a quarter of a million per year, I think they could pool together and buy themselves a nice upgrade, no ?

LockBit ransomware kingpin gets 4 years behind bars

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Flame

"Mikhail Vasiliev took responsibility for his actions"

Yeah, just like a driver who got caught red-handed running a red light is going to recognize that he ran the red light.

Sorry, that does not instill any measure of leniency in my mind.

Let him be extradited to the US after he's done his time in a Canadian jail.

Forget TikTok – Chinese spies want to steal IP by backdooring digital locks

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Electronic locks

The only place they should exist is in the tiny safes of cheap hotel rooms, for the occupant to throw his valuables and pray that nobody is going to try anything on the obvious target within the day or three that said occupant is there.

Anywhere else, an electronic lock is a no-go proposal because, if you actually have the need for a safe to put stuff in, the last thing you want is a power outage to keep you from accessing said stuff when you need it. Mechanical locks have made a lot of progress since the days of the Wild West, and there are numerous ways of protecting a safe beyond just the lock on the safe itself.

If your "valuables" (whatever they may be) are worthy of a safe, the go the whole hog. Camera surveillance, multiple locked doors, access via airgapped sas, etc.

Just chucking a safe in a corner of the office isn't secure anyway.

Google gooses Safe Browsing with real-time protection that doesn't leak to ad giant

Pascal Monett Silver badge

I already have Safe Browsing, thank you

Safe from Google, that is. NoScript keeps me very safe, an Ublock Origin shores up the walls.

Claims emerge that Citrix has doubled price of month-to-month partner licenses

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Mushroom

"flexible monthly model introduces [..] uncertainty into the business."

And there we have it. Citrix is not interested in serving its customers, it is interested in getting fixed revenue every month for life.

You're in business, Citrix. Uncertainty is what you live with.

Deal with it, or get a government job.

Ad agency boss owned two Ferraris but wouldn't buy a real server

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Mushroom

"They have that kind of money"

And very little sense to go with it, apparently.

Normal, it's an ad agency. There's no intelligence there.

Record breach of French government exposes up to 43 million people's data

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"up to 43 million citizens [..] dating back 20 years"

Well that's just about every citizen of working age since modern records exist.

So . . . I'm in there somewhere !

Ten nations tell social media, banks, and telcos to get better at stopping scams

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"making it easier to recover money lost to scams"

I don't know what is going on on social media, I don't have any account. But, here in France, there is a platform called LeBonCoin (the Good Corner) that allows people to sell stuff they don't want any more. It's basically a nation-wide garage sale. Prices are reasonable because it's not Ebay, so people who want to gouge find their offerings languguishing.

But the important part is since LBC integrated a secure payment system. It's not secure as far as banks are concerned (well, not any more than elsewhere), it's secure as far as the user is concerned. When I purchase an item on LBC, I can use its payment system or I can pay directly. If I choose LBC's system, I pay the money to LBC. LBC then notifies the seller that the money has been paid and the seller can send the item. When I receive the item, I notify LBC which then releases the money to the seller.

If I'm the one selling, the system works in reverse, of course.

There is obviously the case where the buyer lies about receiving the item, I don't know what LBC does about that but, when I am selling via LBC, I am specifically encouraged to send the item with postal trace - so I'm guessing if the buyer tries to stiff me, LBC will contact La Poste and get the record of that item.

In any case, I've never heard of wiespread problems or scams on LBC. I think the payment system has a lot to do with it. Maybe that sort of system should be widely copied on other platforms ?

From quantum AI to photonics, what OpenAI’s latest hire tells us about its future

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"it'll take [..] about a million physical qubits just to compete with modern GPUs"

Sorry, why ?

We have been repeatedly told that the quantum computer resolves all possible values in one go. I am aware that modern GPUs have more than a million transistors, but I am not aware that anybody has yet drawn an equivalence between how many transistors are needed to equal a qubit.

Now, all of a sudden, a million physical qubits are needed to equal a single Nvidia GPU ?

When the best anyone can do at the moment in a lab are 1000 qubit computers, it looks like quantum cumputing is looking weaker by the year.

The NSA would do well to set up a 1000-GPU system to crack encryption, rather than wait for quantum.

Cryptocurrency laundryman gets hung out to dry

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Re: Land of Freedom and Opportunity

Or just the stupidity of thinking that the Bitcoin public ledger was invisible to the FBI.

'Chemical cat' on the loose in Japanese city

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Unhappy

Looks like Curiosity did it again

Poor little kitty.

The end of classic Outlook for Windows is coming. Are you ready?

Pascal Monett Silver badge
FAIL

"Microsoft has warned that those days will be coming to an end"

Sure.

Here's a warning to Microsoft : you do not dictate how millions of your customers work.

You've already tried and failed before. I expect you will fail again, big time. Millions of companies have processes that depend on COM + Outlook. You pull that rug out from beneath them and you're looking for massive pain in the PR department, and, who knows ? That just might be the drop that pushes a fair portion to other solutions. Mail + COM is not entirely unfeasible in the Open Source area. there's going to be a lot of upheaval by 2029.

You keep on acting as if you dictate the terms. You have erected this wall for no good reason. I'm looking forward to seeing you crashing head-first into it.

Japan's first private satellite launch imitates SpaceX's giant explosions

Pascal Monett Silver badge

I can't get the video to work

In Firefox it didn't want to go. Said "can't find MIME format" or somesuch.

Tried in Brave, no cigar. Seamonkey didn't like it either.

So I copied the URL to my work PC and tried with Chrome. Still no go.

What format are you people using for even Chrome to not agree ?

P.S. : all my browsers are up to date and have no trouble viewing videos on YouTube or elsewhere, like this one.

How to Netflix Oracle’s blockbuster audit model

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: the Law is drafted by those who wish to legitimize their delinquent behaviour

If that were a fact, then murder would be legal.

Your PC can probably run inferencing just fine – so it's already an AI PC

Pascal Monett Silver badge

So I can run a local chatbot

With my i9 10980XE, my 64GB of DDR4, my 8TB of HDDs and my GeForce RTX 4080 Panther, it would seem, from your experience, that I have a machine that can run a chatbot.

Now if you could just convince me why I would need one. I already have a wife and a cat if I wish to talk with someone, and even the cat has more brains than a chatbot.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Extra mile

Haven't you read this ?

Whizkids jimmy OpenAI, Google's closed models

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Windows

My, what drama

All that for a statistical analysis machine that invents stuff on the fly, distorts the truth and cannot give all the relevant data properly.

Keep your weights. It's the concept that is flawed.

Dirty data shocks Indian taxpayers with huge bills

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"India has historically struggled with tax compliance"

Seems like it is still struggling . . .

Trump 'tried to sell Truth Social to Musk' as SPAC deal stalled

Pascal Monett Silver badge
WTF?

"the use of a Chinese firm"

Sorry ?

Trump, who has been bleating about how Beijing is our enemy, imposing a ridiculous trade war and blaming China for everything he can't blame Mexica for, has used a Chinese firm for one of his shady deals ?

Wow. I would say somebody alert MAGA, but they'd have to have a brain to understand.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Sounds exactly like something the OHSG would try.

IBM said to be binning off more staff as 'workforce rebalance' continues

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Confused here

Don't be confused. The rule stays the same : no managers are getting laid off.

UK council yanks IT systems and phone lines offline following cyber ambush

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Oh, all is well, then

"Leicester City Council has a good reputation for information governance, so I have some faith that the damage done in terms of sensitive data will be quite limited "

Yeah, well we're going to find out just how "limited" the damage was. Not that I wish them to languish for weeks, it's just that I doubt that their reputation is enough to get them back on their feet next week.

We asked Intel to define 'AI PC'. Its reply: 'Anything with our latest CPUs'

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Ah, so an AI PC just needs a specific Intel CPU

Yeah, go tell that to Nvidia.

Or rather, just keep on banging that drum. There is no such thing as AI anyway, so make the most of it while you can.

After all, quantum is coming . . .

Microsoft calls AI privacy complaint 'doomsday hyperbole'

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Not surprising

Borkzilla automatically brands any privacy concern as doomsday fodder, because truly respecting our privacy would indeed be doomsday for it and many others.

Attacks on UK fiber networks mount: Operators beg govt to step in

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Trollface

So, the UK is a pre-apocalyptic wasteland, then ?

Roving bands of hooligans are trashing the infrastructure in preparation of the apocalypse ?

Is it safe to walk the streets in the daytime ?

Do I risk getting burned when walking by a manhole that suddenly belches flames ?

So many questions . . .

Airbnb warns hosts who use indoor security cameras they may face eviction

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"where guests can reasonably expect privacy expectations"

Isn't that fun ?

When I go to a hotel, I reasonably expect privacy everywhere.

I do not expect my face to show up on the hotel's Facebook page of reservations. Nor do I expect that I be found on the hotel's Facebook restaurant guest page.

I am willing to accept that there be a security cam in the garage, but that will be the extent of my understanding.

If you so much as show a pic of me wandering around in your garden, I will sue your ass off.

Filing NeMo: Nvidia's AI framework hit with copyright lawsuit

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Mushroom

Ooooh, Nvidia

Lawers must be salivating at the prospect of carving out a piece of Nvidia's financials.

I'm sure they're already calculating how many times they can bill $300K/hour.

Oh, sorry, defending the little guy ? Who do you think you are ? Move over, I've got money to make.

Kremlin accuses America of plotting cyberattack on Russian voting systems

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Attacking Russian voting systems ?

Talk about useless.

And Putin is scared, why ?

He already knows he's going to win. Is he going to be miffed by winning by 99.4% instead of 99.9% ?

Really ?

Justice Dept reportedly starts criminal probe into Boeing door bolt incident

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Mushroom

"if the door plug removal was undocumented"

If it was undocumented, then someone needs a good whipping. NOTHING concerning airplane maintenance should be undocumented.

Climate change means beer made from sewer water, says North Carolina brewery

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Trollface

"Climate change means beer made from sewer water"

So, Budweiser finally has an excuse ?

Reddit wants to raise $748M with IPO, sets value at $6.4B... and it has yet to turn a profit

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"it has yet to turn a profit"

So, a dinosaur from the dot-com bubble then ?

No problem. Go public. I'll see how you fail, then I'll choose if and when I invest.

I'm sure all your VC partners have long since prepared their exit.

Start turning a profit and I'll pay more attention.

How do you lot feel about Pay or say OK to ads model, asks ICO

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: These services have to make money somehow

That supposs that "these services" are actually useful to the general public.

I'm not sure that is always the case.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that is hardly ever the case.

Intern with superuser access 'promoted' himself to CEO

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Same problem. Had the recipient decided to respond, the CEO would have gotten involved, and I'm not they are of a race who approve their name being used without their knowledge . . .

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"That it did not happen"

And he could count his blessings that day, because today there would have been a response, quickly, and then things would have escalated from there.

A massive semiconductor company, eh ? Not based in Taiwan, eh ? Sounds like Intel. Looks like Intel participated in the learning IT security paradigm.

You don't give interns superuser access to anything.

Now they know why.

You got legal trouble? Better call SauLM-7B

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"systems specialized for the legal domain will perform better than generalist ones"

Yes. They used to be called expert systems, and there, just like today, there was no AI to be found.

But they did work.

We'll see how this one lives up to the legacy.

An engine that can conjure thrust from thin air? We speak to the designer

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Coat

It's incredible how everything seems to get thinner and thinner except me.

Nano a nono: Pixel 8 phones too dumb for Google's smallest Gemini AI model

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Trollface

"Google declined to comment on the record"

And off the record, what did Google say ?

Trump, who tried kicking TikTok out of the US, says boo to latest ban effort

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Stop

"a government that can demand data and pretty much anything else from [its] organizations"

Um, yeah, you can pretty much say the same about the USA.

Why is nobody remembering National Security Letters on newsdesks these days ?

Yes, Beijing can perfectly well ransack a Chinese company's data. The White House can do the same to any US-based company. I'm convinced the same is true for just about any country.

This is a pot meet kettle argument. Stop using it.

The S in IoT stands for security. You'll never secure all the Things

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Stop

Re: Some smart devices have strong security

I'm not sure you're describing security there. To me, that sounds much more like simple lock-in.

It's a security for the vendor, to be sure, but it secures the vendors financials, not my security.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

IoT ? Not for me

But I'm not going to go dissing on hospital stuff. I'm very happy that we have hospitals, insecure as they are. The people who are there want to help, they really do. You have to want to help when you're paid so little for saving people's lives, or even just making them slightly better. As I am getting on in age (60 is an asteroid that is looming ever larger on my horizon), I think that, if push comes to shove, I will gladly accept an insecure pump or whatever if it gives me more years to be with my family.

Yes, I would definitely prefer that medical thingamajigs be secure, it would certainly be reassuring, but I think I can stand the insecurity if my life is on the line.

But in my house ? Never.

I can get my fat ass of the couch and go for the dumb, stupid, secure switch.