Posts by Pascal Monett

Ofcom officially investigating X as Grok's nudify button stays switched on

"a serious violation of human rights and dignity"

So, the very definition of Elon Musk, then ?

How CP/M-86's delay handed Microsoft the keys to the kingdom

CP/M wasn't late

It was just IBM already being stupid, administrative and corporately blind.

Windows 2000 still earning its keep running a rail ticket machine in Portugal

IIRC

Windows NT 4.0 was the last (and maybe only) Borkzilla OS certified by the US DOD to be secure - in a standalone configuration.

I am convinced that if Portugal "upgrades" their terminals to Windows 11, they will basically have no end of troubles until they finally understand that Linux is the way to go for long-term stability.

Stability has been crossed out of Redmond's dictionary since Y2K.

Tories vow to boot under-16s off social media and ban phones in schools

"ban phones in schools"

Go ahead and try. Then find yourself facing the wave of helicopter parents who abosutely have to have tabs on their sprogs at every moment of day.

It's a wonder that Humanity has survived the past 300,000 years without parents being able to track the location of their offspring . . .

2026 brings a bumper crop of Microsoft tech funerals

"Microsoft has given ample notice"

As usual, but that doesn't matter.

You've sold a product and you have tens of thousands of customers paying annual licenses for those products. You're duty is to continue maintaining those products until there is no one left using them.

You've got the money to do so, so honor the contract. Stop thinking that you can make companies dance to your tune or, sooner than later, you'll find that they're not listenining to your tune anymore.

Microsoft, the best advocate for Open Source there has ever been.

Techie banned from client site for outage he didn’t cause

“They still banned me from site”

Well at least, that way, when they finally found the problem (or didn't until it happened again), they couldn't blame him any more.

Cloudflare CEO threatens to make the Winter Olympics a political football after Italy slugs it with a fine

"a shadowy, European media cabal should be able to dictate what is and is not allowed online"

I'm sorry, it seems to be that you're talking about a sovereign country, not a "cabal".

That's the problem with US-based conglomerates. They are so used to paying lobbyists to make sure that "the law" is in their favor that, whenever they meet any kind of legal resistance they cannot control, they go the tried-and-true US-way of invoking conspiracy theories.

You don't like the conditions ? Go ahead and pull out. You'll be leaving the spot to the competition and you know it.

India’s government denies it plans to demand smartphone source code

I wish India lots of luck

China has its own homegrown IT culture, even more ever since the orange shitgibbon has done his level best to convince Beijing that that was the way to go.

India, on the other hand, may have the population, but it has not been asked by The West^TM to provide it with millions of tons of The West^TM-defined shitty products, to the point that China has many times more the experience required to build its own ecosystem than India does (and, come to think of it, many more times than The West^TM does).

Not to mention the amount of Chinese nationals who have been caught stealing industrial secrets from The West^TM and sending them back to the homeland.

I'd like to see a comparison of the number of Chinese nationals being condemned for theft of industrial secrets in the USA versus the number of India nationals and, more importantly, the number of US nationals being caught in China stealing chinese industrial secrets (that last part is almost a joke, given that China had practically no industrial secrets it hasn't stolen from The West^TM).

Malaysia and Indonesia block X over failure to curb deepfake smut

Free speech

Musk does not know what those words mean.

If he did, he would not block people who provide (justifiable) complaints against his site.

Free speech is for everyone, but Musk bought Twitter (being forced to do so because His Business Geniusness hadn't bothered reading the small print) and transformed it into His Platform Of Speech, Free be damned.

And it's not surprising that he reinstated a bunch a Nazi-wannabes but shuts down anyone who posts against him.

Frankly, this asshole doesn't deserve the money he has.

Meta admits to Instagram password reset mess, denies data leak

"If you have not enabled MFA] on your ownCloud instance"

. . then please resign from your post immediately and go follow a training course in Web Security 101 before looking for a new job. McDonalds might help you in the meantime.

Seriously, this kind of problem had existed since the Web has become a thing. Controlling user-input data and securing access are the basics of secure programming.

It's time to get the incomptent idiots out of the user-data arena. They can go and screw up the data for the Board's precious Excel charts and find out how long their career will last then.

How hackers are fighting back against ICE surveillance tech

Sorry, help protecting those who elected a known criminal ?

No. They can deal with the fallout of their own decisions.

QR codes a powerful new phishing weapon in hands of Pyongyang cyberspies

Thank you, Microsoft

Another wonderful idea that ends up being a threat portal for your abysmal operating system. I seem to recall that, from day one, somebody already suggested that fake BSODs with malware-tailored QRcodes could be used to infiltrate a user's system.

Honestly, Microsoft, the only reason you are still alive is because Bill Gates had the genius to flood schools with early versions of Windows so as to hook kids on it, kids who later became job seekers who needed to proficient in . . Windows (because that saved on training costs and because "managers" didn't know anything else).

The day will come when Linux reigns supreme. I know I won't see it, but my daughter's children might. Okay, shush. Don't go detroying my dream.

While you pay through the nose for memory, Samsung expects to triple its profits in Q4

Well, they need to celebrate now

Because in a few years, Xi Ping will be controlling their revenue, and Champagne (French spelling) might well be forbidden.

Hmm. No icon with a beret. Too bad.

ESA calls cops as crims lift off 500 GB of files, say security black hole still open

"ESA calls cops"

Sorry guys, but the police are not going to be of any aid on this issue.

What they know is biometric forensics, how to shake down an "informant" (aka, criminal left loose because his info is worth more than throwing him into jail), or how to block roads so that "important" people can drive through unmolested by ignorant "citizens", aka the very people they are supposed to be working for (hey, you were elected, right ? You weren't elected to play king, you were elected to serve).

What needs to be done is double the IT budget, hire sombody who actually knows something about securing networks, and getting on with business.

Ring embraces the end of the world, starts using home cameras to track wildfires

"false positives [..] or false negatives"

In other words, it is not reliable.

Plus, I would really like to know who has a doorbell camera that can take the picture used for the article.

Brave refurbishes Rust adblocking engine for reduced memory footprint

I support Brave

And I tell everyone about it for their smartphones. Brave has saved me an untold quantity of data bandwidth by cutting out what I don't need and leaving me with what I actually want to see on that damn handheld screen (that I hate - mostly because my customers have my number and some of them have no notion of what time is too late to phone someone).

I have installed Brave on all my computers and laptops as well, and I have made it the default for my wife's laptop, my daughter's laptop, and I am endlessly advocating it to anyone who will listen if the conversation crops up.

Fuck ads. Long live Brave (and Firefox with NoScript and uBlock Unity).

Lego crams an ASIC in a brick to keep kids interested

Re: Nah...

I will join you there.

I used to have a litteral barrel-full of LEGO bricks of all sorts. I could build planes, spaceships, warehouses, police cars, motorbikes, castles, fire stations, moon bases (yes, I had six moonbase tiles in addition to the dozen regular road tiles) - you name I could do it.

A few years ago, my (at the time) 9-year old nephew was thrilled when he got the Saturn rocket kit for XMas. He spent XMas morning building it, and I was on-hand to oversee the project.

And once it was done ? Well, there isn't much else you can do with it, now is there ?

Once upon a time, LEGO kits were sold with an included manual that showed you how to build the kit as sold, but also included ideas of what else you could build with the pieces included.

That time is gone. You buy a Star Wars A-Wing and you won't build anything else but an A-Wing. It will take a large collection of Star Wars kits to be able to even start thinking of a new something to do with all those specific, specialised pieces.

That makes me sick. LEGO has become the domain of grown-ups who used to have imagination and are now happy to buy the latest, piece-specific set of their dreams. Never mind that their imagination will server them no more, they're just happy to have an X-Wing, a Tie fighter and a Millenium Falcom on their shelves, never to be used for anything but gathering dust.

Pathetic.

UK urged to unplug from US tech giants as digital sovereignty fears grow

It doesn't matter what direction Trump heads off to

The USA has proven, beyond any semblance of doubt, that it can no longer be depended on as a serious partner and ally in the long term. Even if Obama got re-elected, it wouldn't change that fact.

As things stand now, it's not even certain that Trump would order US forces to defend Taiwan if (when ?) China tries to invade.

Since this absolute absence of intelligence has been re-elected by all the Democrats not bothering to vote, his mantra has been "why pay US dollars for everyone else's benefit ?". What is beyond his single-neuron mind is that the US is not paying for everyone else, it is ensuring global peace. That is a position that people vastly more intelligent that him (Eisenhower, to start with) have understood since decades, but given that His Orangeness fires anyone who gives him a headache, there's a fair chance that Xi is going to have a good shot at taking over the world's prime CPU manufacturer.

Since the orange shitgibbon prefers McDonalds, he won't see the problem and won't care about any consequences since he won't feel any.

AI's grand promise: Less drudgery, more complexity, same (or lower) pay

Rational

That concept is sooo last millenium.

These days, it's all about paying insane costs for "Cloud^TM" and bragging about "AI integration".

Don't worry. The Board will soon realize that they can't give themselves their usual bonuses because their "AI"-integrated business is not making enough money for that anymore, so they will adapt.

How many workers will be laid off in the meantime is another issue . . .

Capita tells civil servants to wait for chatbots to fix pension portal woes

Let's try to see the good side

Maybe, just maybe, if the companies abusing this pseudo-AI bullshit notice that their subscriptions are falling through the floor, the board might just wonder what they need to do to keep their bonuses business to continue to make profits.

"a website that works"

And a hallucinating bullshit generator is supposed to help how, exactly ?

Honestly, if any governmental service stoops down to that level to solve its problems, it's time to shut it down, erase everything and start over from scratch.

Without any "helpfull" suggestions from any management-level, government-decorated morons who think they know how things should work when they haven't worked a day in their lives.

One criminal, 50 hacked organizations, and all because MFA wasn't turned on

"Most of the organizations [..] have very sensitive data and span critical sectors*

And yet, apparently, they did not have the required IT expertise to secure that data.

I'm guessing thwt they're going to be paying extra to get their IT up to speed now.

Gmail preparing to drop POP3 mail fetching

Kudos Google

One more step on the "you have no privacy, get over it" march.

Sorry, Eric Schmit, but we are going to cling to our privacy in any way possible whether you like it or not.

Fuck you and all your kind.

Your smart TV is watching you and nobody's stopping it

Re: I've long since given up trying to contain them

Never give up.

There is a price for liberty and freedom. If you're not willing to pay in blood (I have some ideas on that, but they cannot be expressed on any public forum), you can at least keep looking for any and every possible way to make the data hoovers' lives as difficult as possible.

"all this is old news"

Yes, unfortunately.

Old enough for me to know that, when the time comes when I will have to buy a new TV (because that will happen), I will have one question : does it work without a connection to the Internet ?

If the answer is no, then that model does not interest me.

A TV screen is a viewer. It does not need to know what I'm viewing. It does not need to know where that media comes from, and it certainly does not need to report that to anyone.

Period.

New Zealand orders review into ManageMyHealth cyberattack

"the company believes the incident is contained"

Oh, so the company that couldn't detect the breach and protect its own data now believes that the incident is "contained".

How reassuring.

Newsflash : health companies have been targeted for over a decade now. It might be time for you guys to put some money into actually securing your client patient's confidential data.

Just a suggestion.

Headset hype meets harsh reality as Apple and Meta VR shipments fizzle in 2025

Re: Do you then simulate being at home and being unemployed?

That already exists. All you need is a TV, a sofa, a table-full of junk food and a deep well of dispair.

Re: immersive gaming

Okay, first : it's "corrugated".

Now that we have that out of the way, it must be said that you can't reason with Apple users. They will pay anything Apple asks for for the "privilege" of having the "latest and greatest" iWhatever without even blinking.

As for immersive, I have an Acer Predator XB281HK, a 26" screen with a resolution of 3840 x 2160. I can assure you I am quite immersed enough with the games I play, I don't need to spend thousands more to strap some inaquate, battery-heavy, resolution-weak thingamajig to my head for three or four hours of gaming, which the batteries of said thingamajig won't be able to deliver.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that there is no VR anything that can give me that resolution and that I could stand having strapped to my noggin for more than half an hour.

Let's keep this bullshit for where it can actually be useful : remote attending a medical operation by a specialist for something happening x hundreds of kilometers away as a matter of medical urgency.

Sorry, but a commercial about a guy sitting in a public place with a large amount of pigeons just waiting for a chance to shit on him is not exactly what I call an incentive.

Trump admin sends heart emoji to commercial spyware makers with lifted Predator sanctions

"It's the latest indicator that"

Trump will invariably pardon anyone who cheated, ignored the rules and made money, instead of doing his duty as President and uphold the Constitution (which, if memory serves, he swore to do - but hey, he never read it and doesn't have the goldfish attention span required to understand it), he only uses his power to gather as many useful people as possible to lean upon when his his Presidency is over (assuming he doesn't find a means to make himself President For Life - like his dear friend Kim Jong WhoCaresWhichVersion).

Techie turned the tables on office bullies with remote access rumble

Well Done

I can only approve anything that makes a bully sit down and reevaluate his position.

Unfortunately, that is not what happened here, but kudos for making the bullies bully their own kind.

Safe CEO: AI is an assistant, not a replacement

"There is no automated substitute for experienced staff"

Somebody needs to email IBM and HP . . .

Welcome to Wendy's! Before your order can be taken, you must first reset this kiosk

Re: "I went to a Wendy's once"

So that's what you think of couples who have more than one child ?

Then again, you might not be wrong .

Re: Ladies and Gentlemen. The Baconator

I'd pay for that;

Zuck buys Chinese AI company Manus that claims it deals in actions, not words

So, The Zuck is openly integrating Beijing into his empire

What does that say about his confidence in Western-based chatbots ?

That thing can now open ZIP files on your PC. What guarantees that it's not opening anything else well ?

Facebook was bad enough when it was "only" tracking your online activity. Now it is openly giving itself access to your hard drive (or SSD, whatever).

If I ever had a FB account, I would certainly be shutting it down now.

IT team forced to camp in the office for days after Y2K bug found in boss's side project

Ah, the great Y2K scare

I remember spending months on client sites checking any and everything that could possibly go wrong, making some updates here and there to coding commands that had been deprecated and replacing them with the newer "accepted" ones.

And I had it easy. As a Notes developer, in those days Notes belonged to IBM and, say what you want about IBM and how it markets its products - or fails to do so (and I have already vented a lot in these hallowed pages) - one thing you cannot take away is the fact that IBM made Domino/Notes a solid, resilient platform.

So Y2K came and went and I didn't get any panicked calls from customers because of Y2K-related issues.

But the groundwork had to have been done.

Windows is testing a new, wider Run dialog box. Here’s how to try it

I wonder

I wonder when Windows Insider is going to give us an OS. You know, that thing that used to be used only to allow the user to run what HE wanted to run ?

Memory is running out, and so are excuses for software bloat

"rewards should be given for compactness, both at rest and in operation"

They will be - in time. When Linux will have as large a library of applications as Windows and be able to run comfortably in an 8GB PC while doing everything you need to do, just like in a Windows Bloat system with 32GB of RAM.

There are people who are still capable of minimalist programming, but they do not include GitHub libraries in their codebase. They write their own libraries and know exactly what is in them and why.

But yeah, that takes time. Time to think about the how, time to write and time to debug and make sure it works in all use cases including edge cases.

Time is money, so managers prefer to bring on the GitHub bloat - even if that means "supply chain risks".

The cost of RAM is up ? Who cares ? Time to market is more important (especially for bonus purposes).

The Roomba failed because it just kind of sucked

"as someone who lives in Silicon Valley"

Your world is that of AI startups and people who somehow manage to capture billions from "venture capitalists" without providing anything tangibly useful in return.

You already live outside of reality.

There’s so much stolen data in the world, South Korea will require face scans to buy a SIM

"Korean authorities have already fined SK Telecom $100 million"

Well at least they know the difference between a fine and a slap on the wrist.

Re: A soul scanner would be more effective

If that tech existed and was reliable, no politician would ever be authorized to run for election.

DOE recruits cloud, chip, and AI giants for Trump's Genesis Mission

So, Trump put his name on another thing

And, given that the AI bubble is at serious risk of bursting (just Google for "is the AI bubble going to burst" and watch the list of results), that's going to be another failure in Trump's long list of failures.

User found two reasons – both of them wrong – to dispute tech support's diagnosis

Re: Idiots are not always wrong

Even a broken watch is right twice a day.

I must be an exception, but I have known more than one of those kind during my helldesk time.

Funnily enough, a lot of them were in upper management . . .

Your car’s web browser may be on the road to cyber ruin

Re: This all getting absurd

Absolutely.

Why put a web browser (that doesn't get updates) in a car when everyone has a smartphone these days and all of those have web browsers that do get updates ?

I can get video screens for backseat riders so kids can play games or watch videos, but a car must remain a self-contained unit and that means no YouTube, Instagram or anything web-based.

You have your smartphone for that shit.

Purdue makes 'AI working competency' a graduation requirement

So AI is now going to be mandatory for graduating at Purdue Uni

I have one question : which AI ?

Because there's a new one announced every month, and a new version of one announced every quarter.

So I'm really interested in seeing which hallucinating bullshit generator they're going to consider needing to be proficient in.

Isaacman finally confirmed as NASA boss after Trump derailed first attempt

Only one good thing in this whole mess

If the US considers itself in a race with China, maybe, just maybe, there will be money to get things going.

Especially if Trump wants to brag about beating Xi to the punch (although, with all the love letters these two have allegedly exchanged, I dount the fight will be that fierce on Trump's side)

He loves to brag, but he doesn't fight, he just punches below his weight. Xi is way above his weight rating (intellectually speaking, of course, but Trump couldn't even pick him up with both his arms, whereas Xi could probably get Trump's ass on his knees with both hands tied behind his back).

Ford shifts gears to build batteries for datacenters

“underutilized electric vehicle battery capacity”

Hmm. Sounds like the electric vehicle market is on the downward slope.

Interesting.

Repent ye inefficient – the ‘Palantir-ization’ of IT services is upon us

"forward-deployed engineers"

Hey look, a new entry for Bullshit Bingo Card !

"Consultant" is soo last century now.

In any case, kudos to Palantir for spreading its mindset into the AI world. With hindsight, it was kind of inevitable. Palantir thrives on gathering data, and AI needs all the data it can get its mitts on (legally or otherwise), so yeah, a Palantir virus in an AI company was kind of inevitable.

IBM unleashes CUGA, an open-source AI agent that actually completes more than half its tasks

"40 percent of agentic enterprise projects will be cancelled by 2027 for lack of business value"

Yeah, but that means that there will be 60% of projects that won't be cancelled, so that's where the money will be.

For an open-source AI.

Are any of these people actually thinking about the consequences of what they're doing ?

Is IBM going to pull another Red Hat and offer support for enterprise projects ? Would that make it more SAP then ? They get a team of "experts" in there and those guys will never leave.

And they'll cost you a pretty penny as well.