Posts by Pascal Monett 19006 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2007
It beggars belief that someone would actually try this. I mean, sure, a counterfeit luxury purse is still a purse, but a counterfeit processor ? How do you justify that ?
You can't just go sell an 8086 and brand it a Pentium. A counterfeit luxury purse can look as good as the original, but a counterfeit chip is going to be found out real quick.
These guys must be happy to sell just once to each customer, because I'd never buy from them twice.
Oh I absolutely agree.
For a given value of "immediate", that is.
Nor did I say that the ticket wouldn't be read immediately.
In other words, we are in perfect agreement.
Now, let me tell you how things would go in some other customers I have worked with (ie banks and insurance companies) . . .
To put it simply : do you know what an SLA is ? It's what a university generally doesn't have.
Obviously. It's a university. They don't have the money or the intellectual resources to do things properly.
I know I'm not going to make any friends by saying this, but I've never seen a university network without some major, jaw-dropping choices (and I've seen a few), all because the IT people they have were never top-tier in the first place.
In the second place, an "urgent" ticket is generally considered as something that must be fixed this semester. University IT does not live in the same timeframe as its computers. A cyber attack ? That must have reset their clocks in a very hard fashion.
Maybe some good can come of this. And, if indeed there was no data leaked, well their IT guys do deserve a few brownie points.
Now all they have to do is properly segment their data domains and, the next time, they might be able to not lose everything.
I hope their backups are good.
Honestly, with so many failures on its CV, how the Hell is it that Capita continues to get contracts ?
Who's is whose cousin in the upper spheres ? Or is it somebody's wife's son ?
Because there is absolutely no financial, professional or reputational reason to choose Capita. With its history of delays, overcost and underdelivering, it simply boggles the mind that it keeps getting new contracts - that it regularly fails at.
Current ?
I don't know if you're aware, but BitCoin's price has never stopped fluctuating (wildly).
It's only because it is the funny money granddaddy that it has attained such heights. As usual, the first into the pyramid scheme reapes the most rewards.
Adopting BitCoin as legal tender. I don't think that will last all that long. Then again, it's El Salvador, so they can go ruin what's left of their economy, it won't be a big problem on the world scale.
It will be a problem for the poor in El Salvador, though.
Of course you can have proper project management, just like you can design an Access database correctly.
The only problem is that, when you put design tools in the hands of Joe Anybody, you get a project coded by anybody. From my experience, that mostly means a collection of Excel spreadsheets with buttons calling VBA code that nobody knows what it does because the guy who coded it left the company, there is no documentation, cryptic information popups and basically everyone is praying every day that the whole hairball keeps working.
So you go ahead and put process design tools in the hands of people who don't know how to code. I will be chortling quietly when reading about how your customers are frustrated because they can't make anything work properly.
"Online services like fraud analysis or threat intelligence are some of the areas that are expected to become increasingly powered by AI, and these capabilities were already previously handled by software"
And they will continue to be. Just slapping AI on the process doesn't make it AI. Fraud analysis is not entirely easy, but if you think that a statistical analysis machine is going to erase fraud I have a bridge to sell you.
I have had a training course in detecting fraudulent activity, mandated by one of the clients I work for. It is . . . complicated. I'm not convinced that an "AI" is going to do any better than what is in place at the moment.
But hey, banks have money. If they want to waste it on this, good for anyone who gets the deal.
Yeah, but when you don't care about collateral damage, or you're too stupid to imagine that your actions just might be detrimental to some people who are not like the ones you lump in one giant category, it doesn't matter.
So, this Miller is an asshole.
Oh well, maybe it will help people understand that YOU DO NOT DOWNLOAD LIBRARIES TO YOUR PRODUCTION SERVER.
I would prefer a site that can compare the characteristics of any year's smartphone to any other year's smartphone.
I have a Galaxy A3 I got in 2017. I'd really like to have a side-side comparison with an A3 from 2021 (as I suppose the 2022 version isn't out yet) to see if there is any really must-have feature that I might feel I could actually use.
Probably a moot point anyway. My A3 is starting to behave somewhat erratically at times, so I guess I'll be replacing it this year whatever else might happen.
"The FCC also expressed concerns about Beijing gaining access to communications and associated data and using it for nefarious ends – including espionage."
Obviously.
The NSA is the only authority that has the right to gain access to communications and associated data and use it for nefarious ends - especially espionage.
Duh.
As much as I sympathize with Uber drivers, being paid simply because you're logged on is an open invitation to being paid for nothing.
I hate Uber and its managers with a passion, but no, this is not acceptable. You get paid for your work, not for being logged on.
There should be no setting to hunt down.
Any optional software should be on the Store. People know about Stores. Let them search for their own upgrades.
The OS is only there to make the computer function. Stop confusing it with a sales pitch.
"when a computer does the calculations and activates the movement, it's completely normal"
Indeed it is, because moving a satellite does not include checking the rear-view mirror for another satellite in the left lane, or paying attention to road signs, or needing to be wary of rain, snow or ice. It's just apply this amount of Newtonian thrust to attain this result.
A pocket calculator can do that today.
I salute this study, and will keep a link to it, because it brings into sharp relief exactly how unintelligent what is commonly called AI is today.
And that is why the USA has made it a crime to pay kidnapping money. It worked.
It must be made illegal to pay ransomware scum. Don't pay them and the well dries out, they stop and everyone is better off.
Insurance companies must abolish their policies on this.
Companies need to train their staff and have (better) backup procedures in place.
If you don't do it for yourself, do it for your country.
That is not a "not advanced" technology, that is dinosaur technology these days.
I'm wondering if it wouldn't be cheaper and more efficient to purchase a low-end Intel or AMD chip and program that. Even a 14nm general design would almost certainly be faster than a dedicated 130nm design, and more energy-efficient.
Of course, not if you're using Windows on it . . .
"It is like trying to ban the internet because it takes up 70 percent of phone line bandwidth."
The phone line takes a ridiculously small amount of energy compared to the amount of data being transferred. This is a strawman argument without any basis in reality, but I expect no less from someone purporting to defend the best method criminals have to whitewash their ill-gotten gains.
Banning crypto would put paid to many, many pyramid schemes and other scammer attemps to make an easy buck. I'm not saying crypto is only used by criminals, but when criminals have massively adopted something and use it so successfully, there might be a good reason to put a serious crimp on it.
Where I live, in France, I use Orange for my Internet/TV/landline connection needs. Orange owns the backbone and everything up to my house. If I have a problem, there is no finger-pointing to be done, it's all Orange's responsibility from start to finish.
That is why I have no intention of leaving Orange for SFR, as SFR regularly asks me to.
If I did that, then I would be right smack in the middle of the same problem you had, SFR saying that it's Orange's fault and Orange saying the reverse.
I've been there before, I have no intention of going there again.
Don't worry, I'm pretty sure that, if ever the Democrats get accused of some horrible crime against Democracy, the Republicans will be all over it and subpeona everyone and their dog to get the dirt.
Republicans are very respectful of legal procedure when it's a case of bashing the Dems, much less so when it's their turn to be bashed.
It's called hypocrisy, and it is shameful when you are supposed to represent The People.
I'm sorry, remind me of who's tanks have invaded a sovereign nation again ?
The Pravda spouting misinformation and outright lies is par for the course, for hackers it's just them trying to gain the high moral ground.
You were attacking us before Putin invaded Ukraine, and you'll be attacking us whatever happens after.
You're always attacking us anyway, so taking a lie to paint yourself in a good light is just laughably pathetic.
Our love affair with IT is over, we're in slippers now in front of the stream and it's all humdrum from now on.
I remember buying my first VooDoo 2, my first GeForce 2, my first Athlon Thunderbird.
Heady times.
Now ? Yeah, I upgraded my PC for the first time since ten years ago. Yeah, it works fine. No, I'm not going to benchmark it.
That's where we're at : IT is now a tool, IT is no longer anything special.
Sorry.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
