* Posts by Pascal Monett

19006 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2007

Guntrader breach perp: I don't think it's a crime to dump 111k people's details online in Google Earth format

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: He's never heard...

Well he's going to be getting an earful now, I'd wager.

And rightly so.

It may not be a criminal offense, but he had no authority to publish data concerning the private lives of over 100K people, whether or not he likes whatever activity he thinks they have.

I inherited two rifles from my late father-in-law. I never have wanted a firearm at home, now I have two. Is he going to lump me in with the hunters he very visibly doesn't like ?

I don't see that he's making any effort to make a difference. 5-year-old data doesn't phase him one bit. Collateral damage is obviously not his problem.

In short, he's a terrorist.

Jail the fucker.

ProtonMail deletes 'we don't log your IP' boast from website after French climate activist reportedly arrested

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Well in any case, ProtonMail has now publicly and officially joined the vast coterie of "secure" mail services that are anything but.

Their lies destroy their credibility as far as I'm concerned. If you say you don't record IP addresses and, in fact, you do, you are not worthy of my trust.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Tor

You are aware that Tor was created by the US intelligence community ?

If you think they don't know how to subvert it, I have a bridge to sell you.

'It takes a hell of a mental toll' – techies who lost work due to COVID share their stories

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Some people have had a very hard time of it

And I would like you all to take a minute's pause and reflect that there are some people who have been driven to suicide because of the whole situation, and others who have lost everything they were trying to build (let's just say February 2020 was not the right time to start a restaurant).

I am part of the very lucky ones, and I am glad for all of you who managed to make it.

Let us not forget those that did not.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Agreed.

I second that.

Chinese e-commerce tycoon Richard Liu to step away from the spotlight

Pascal Monett Silver badge

How am I contradicting myself ?

Do you forget that, in the USA, if a company gets a National Security Letter it must comply ? And without telling anyone.

How is that different from China ?

It's not because we all agree that China is a dictatorship that the private sector is vastly different.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Chocolate-like

I disagree.

Private companies in China are run privately - but if the Chinese government sends them a memo, they had damn well better listen.

Kim Kardashian and Big Tech slapped for spruiking craptocurrency – and holding back useful crypto

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: They used to be called socialites

And that is still their rightful name. People who look good and are completely useless.

But now, because of social platforms, these people have gained the moniker of "influencers". And Kardashian went and it what she usually does, find something to say in exchange for a boatload of money. The fact that she's encouraging her "followers" to lose their money is not a problem for her.

Kardashian is poison. It's normal that she is promoting funny money.

Dobler effect: Spinnaker Support snaps up rival database consultant

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"Open-source databases now make up around 51.1% of the installed base"

Open Source is the future.

Oracle is a dinosaur slowly chocking on its own ashes, and SAP is going to follow the same route.

Besides, in space no one can control your licenses.

Report details how Airbus pilots saved the day when all three flight computers failed on landing

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"Seems the pilots did a good job,"

The pilots did a fucking Grade-A job. Kudos to them.

Now we really need to know how it is that a triple system went haywire like that, because the last thing the aviation industry needs now is for yet another entire airliner model to be grounded.

Italian stuntman flies aeroplane through two motorway tunnels

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Oh no.

He had those before.

What I would like to know, though, is what exactly is his cocaine budget ? It's funny how I have no problem imagining Al Pacino pulling a stunt like that.

GitHub merges 'useless garbage' says Linus Torvalds as new NTFS support added to Linux kernel 5.15

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"I've never actually required that"

May I humbly submit to the overlord of the One True OS Kernel that it might, just maybe, be an idea to think about doing so, given all the grief that is currently being caused by state-level groups who are actively trying to subvert entire supply chains ?

Not that I would be so bold as to tell The Great One how to manage his pet project that powers the Internet, worldwide communications, space probes and practically everything that is not a desktop PC or a laptop.

But it might be worth considering . . .

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: From 1982 to 1992 there was no Internet to speak of*

So yeah, things were a lot more stable when the only way to hack a computer was to sit in front of it.

* - yeah, I know, the Internet existed in 1992, but the number of people who actually had access to it was pathetic and the hacking culture was yet to be invented on the scale it has become today

Facebook apologises after its AI system branded Black people as primates

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Staples insists that these algorithms don't have racial biases baked into them

It's not because you don't know what they are that there are no biases in the code.

UK's NHS hands Accenture another £5m for Test and Trace system for another year

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Trollface

"a commitment to wean itself off consultants"

Yeah but, was there a date on that ?

They'll wean themselves off - once the contract is over.

At which point they'll write a new contract and, lo and behold !, there will be other consultants.

At £1200/day.

Progress !

Docker’s cash conundrum is becoming a bet on a very different future

Pascal Monett Silver badge
WTF?

"Progressive pricing may seem dangerously like socialism"

What's so dangerous about socialism ?

It's only rabid, selfish capitalists that rant about socialism.

I live in a country where you can make a living and, when you fall ill, you can go to the hospital and benefit from help that will not force you to sell your house.

In my book, socialism is dandy.

A practical demonstration of the difference between 'resilient' and 'redundant'

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Ohhh Yesss

It's always better to own up to one's mistakes, that way you don't get a reputation of the guy who breaks everything and lets others take the blame.

China's biggest chipmaker to build colossal chip factory

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Very true, but don't forget the rash of facial recognition that is currently sweeping the USA.

Only 'natural persons' can be recognized as patent inventors, not AI systems, US judge rules

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Well it can always be turned off . . .

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Thumb Down

"Those are mighty big questions"

And they will be answered when the time comes.

As for AI, we don't have it yet and your neural network is not AI either, so the judge is right.

And if you need to look to Australia for help, you're not doing yourself any good.

Virginia school board learns a hard lesson... and other stories

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"DARPA wants an ekranoplan"

Another good video on the ekranoplan and how it was discovered can be found here.

An interesting concept, to be sure, but its use is limited to bodies of water that have no waves.

The Caspian Sea, or the Mediterranean are viable areas for a ground-effect transport, but I doubt the Atlantic or the Pacific are calm enough to see this kind of vehicle survive.

If DARPA wants an ekranoplan for the Great Lakes, fine, but it won't be transporting troops from San Fransisco to Hawaii any time soon.

Then again, if you don't try, you'll never succeed.

Norwegian student tracks Bluetooth headset wearers by wardriving around Oslo on a bicycle

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: ...and in other news

Sorry, but a mobile phone is not at all a pair of earbuds.

To be able to make or receive a call, your location must be known at the very least by the nearest mast. That is part of the bleeding obvious in life.

To learn that you can be tracked by earbuds is something else entirely. Unexpected, and unwelcome.

Unfortunately, it is not entirely surprising.

Lenovo pops up tips on its tablets. And by tips, Lenovo means: Unacceptable ads

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Holmes

"looking for the best balance between information and experience"

Here is the best balance : information comes before the purchase, experience comes after the purchase.

It's not up to you, Lenovo, to "inform" your customers when they have made the purchase. Your customers know how to use a browser, they can inform themselves.

Apple engineers complain of hostile work environment to US labor watchdog

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Apple is not a company I would want to work for

Apple has an internal police that can carry concealed weapons.

Apple has given itself the right to search your house with its stormtroopers if it even only thinks you are a risk of giving away something about its latest curved-cornered smartphone.

Who in their right mind would want to work for a company that gives itself state-level police rights without a warrant ?

Not me.

US Air Force chief software officer quits after launching Hellfire missile of a LinkedIn post at his former bosses

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Flame

To be fair ?

To be fair ?

Let's make one thing clear : bosses are not techies.

There may be a one-in-a-million people who rise to management after having lived in helldesk, but this is more than an exception ; it's a miracle.

The rest are all manglement material who have flunked Board-level entry and haven't the faintest idea of what an IP address is, much less how to manage a firewall.

Let me give an example. I was once part of a vast administrative entity with an IT department and, at its head, an individual who's grasp of IT was the following : one day, I and my colleague were summoned to the official's office to discuss access to the Dev server and how things were not going to standard.

My colleague had access to the Dev server. I had been refused access to the Dev server.

How is it that the fucking head of IT didn't realize that before I put it on the table ?

And you want me to believe that that fucking idiot would be entitled to not appreciate that I know that he should fucking know who he granted access to what ?

Head of IT. You should definitely know who has access to what. That's not rocket science. That is your responsibility.

Can we talk about Kevin McCarthy promising revenge if Big Tech aids probe into January insurrection?

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Remind me how they caught Al Capone ?

Capricious tyranny ? Really ?

Republican representatives have been spouting treason for years now. I'll take anything that can take them down.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

So, when are you moving to Florida ?

Or should I say, Mar-A-Lago ?

Pascal Monett Silver badge
WTF?

Don't you just love it ?

I am always absolutely flabbergasted when I see a US politician spouting bullshit without any consequence whatsoever.

This asshole is publicly trying to obstruct a government inquiry, and nothing. The cops don't show up, no journalist is calling him out, nada.

It is not a Democrat inquiry, it is a Government inquiry you moron. You're lucky I'm not the President, because I would have the IRS take your taxes apart line by line. I'm sure you've got some dirty laundry to hang yourself with.

Don't like the new Windows 11 Start or Taskbar? Don't worry – Microsoft's got your back

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"Windows team's [..] apparently slipshod approach to quality"

Apparently ?

I didn't know it was Christmas already. You are being way too kind to this band of borkers.

Microsoft Azure deprecations: API changes will break applications and PowerShell scripts

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Trollface

"tired of updating scripts to keep existing functionality when the previous modules work just fine"

Yes but, it was old code.

You know, code that was written ten years ago ? It's rusty now.

Borkzilla doesn't give a flying fig about the efforts you have to make to continue working. Borlzilla knows best, and Borkzilla is all about innovating. If all that innovation makes you work overtime, it's a sacrifice Borkzilla is willing to make you make.

A speech recognition app goes into a bar. Speak up if you’ve heard it already

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"Edit Select-All Delete Yes"

I can guarantee you that the guy who would try that on me would think twice before doing that again after picking up his battered body from the floor.

I'm not a violent guy by nature, but if you sabotage my work you will pay the blood price.

Oh! A surprise tour of the data centre! You shouldn't have. No, you really shouldn't have

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Once I was on holiday in the USA when I got an SMS from a client asking me why I wasn't answering my mail. I had to phone at 6AM (California time) to explain that I was out of the country.

The interesting thing (from my point of view) was that my associate at the time was also in contact with the client, and he apparently did nothing to handle the issue before they texted me.

He is no longer my associate.

Perseverance rover drilled a rock on Mars and probably snaffled a core sample

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Trollface

"NASA's image of that sample"

Hey Mulder, is that a bit of black goo I see on the left-hand part of the image ?

Branson (in a) pickle: FAA grounds Virgin Galactic flights after billionaire's space trip veered off course

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"the choice of either aborting the flight"

Let's be real, that was never a choice. If there was any chance to keep going without loss of life, that's what they would choose.

You can't take your boss for a ride and, because of an administrative alarm, tell him after one minute "uh, boss, we have to abort and all that publicity you made for yourself is going to come back negative times a hundred".

Being grounded after the fact is negligible, PR-wise, compared to the absolute shitstorm that Branson would have been subject to if the mission had aborted.

Busy day in China: Xi Jinping announces tech-sharing, services export push and a bourse for startups

Pascal Monett Silver badge
WTF?

"young men who dress fashionably and don't conform to male stereotypes"

Um, what exactly is that brain fart ?

Which "male stereotypes" are acceptable in China now ? The rugged woodcutter ?

I'm absolutely not and never have been a fan of boys bands in general, but I fail to see how the argument of male stereotype can be used to ban them.

That's pretty backwards as far I'm concerned.

Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa test cross-border crypto-payments

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"all the qualities of other instruments like banknotes but lends itself to electronic exchange"

I'm sorry, fiat currencies do not lend themselves to digital exchange ? Since when ?

The only time I have to use banknotes is when I'm going for pizza takeout at my friendly local pizzaiolo in his mobile kitchen.

The rest of the time, I'm using a no-contact VISA.

Apparently, you can also use your phone for paying stuff.

I can also send money to anyone with an IBAN number. I do that all the time when I have to pay an invoice for work done in the house, or an important delivery. Easy as pie.

The only thing I can't do digitally is give someone ten bucks (euros, whatever). To do that, I have to use physical currency.

If that is the problem they want to solve, I think it would be a lot more simple to have an app from the bank that you can charge, and via Blutooth you could sync between two phones for a given amount. End of problem. No need to go fabricate some more funny money for that.

Stop with the funny money already.

FTC bans 'brazen' stalkerware maker SpyFone, orders data deletion, alerts to victims

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Zuck...

Zuckerberg's evil twin, perhaps ?

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Ah, Forbes.

"A shocking new tracking admission from Google "

It's only new to you, Forbes. Only to you.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: THREE YEARS!

And that's only since the data breach. SpyPhone was operating before that, but I don't know for how long.

"We will be aggressive about seeking surveillance bans "

You need to be a bit more aggressive than that, I think.

Facebook: Let us tell you WhatsApp – we don't want to pay that €225m GDPR fine

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"We will appeal this decision"

Well of course you will.

And when the appeal has found you also guilty, I hope the fine will be doubled.

In space, no one can hear cyber security professionals scream

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: It's just boring numbers anyway

You do know that, for a computer, pictures are just boring numbers ?

Pictures transmitted by spy satellites, for example.

I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people who would not find those numbers boring at all.

UK VoIP telco receives 'colossal ransom demand', reveals REvil cybercrooks suspected of 'organised' DDoS attacks on UK VoIP companies

Pascal Monett Silver badge

The transition has already started, my friend. It's largely on its way to be completed as well.

Imaginary numbers help AIs solve the very real problem of adversarial imagery

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"a more 'terraced' or 'plateaued' landscape to explore"

Sure, we're already pretending we have AI, why not throw gardening in the mix ?

I really would appreciate it if El Reg at least could stop pandering to this marketing illusion. It's not AI, it's a statistical analysis machine.

In any case, call me when they need mowing the lawn. I'll be sure to ensure that all the data points are cut down to the same height.

AWS Tokyo outage takes down banks, share traders, and telcos

Pascal Monett Silver badge

What is insane is that a bank relies on someone else's server.

Banks have a duty of security and confidentiality with their customer's data. How is that duty respected on a cloud server ?

Arm says it has 'successful working relationship' with Chinese joint venture run by CEO who refuses to leave

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: This is a no-win for China

What it is is a giant warning sign for companies wanting to set up a branch in China.

Do so and you will run the risk of losing your IP to a local who refuses to obey your commands.

I don't think there's any other country in the world where the subordinate relation between a branch and company headquarters has ever been put into question. The Board wants you out ? You leave. Period.

But apparently, in China, that's not how it works.

Well I'm sure of one thing : even if I become a billionaire, I'm not setting up shop in China until I have the guarantee that no local can refuse my orders.

Dissected: A dropper-as-a-service miscreants pay to push their malware onto potentially 1,000s of victims

Pascal Monett Silver badge

It will be interesting to put your theory to the test.

Obviously, I subscribe to the idea that Linux is generally "safe" because not many people use it on the desktop. That said, malware can be had on Linux, it's just that Windows is a far more juicy target.

Even so, the fact that most, if not all, Linux users do not work with an admin account, something that is virtually impossible to do on Windows without an IT department to manage things, means that even on Linux, malware will be rather limited in its effects.

But hey, when the day of the Linux desktop has arrived, we'll see what the scum manage to do.

Because one thing is certain : they will give it a go.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Free porn viewer program anyone?

Well there's a browser and YouPorn.

Or so I've been told . . .

NASA tests flying taxis made by biz dreaming of being the Uber of the sky

Pascal Monett Silver badge
FAIL

I count six spinning beheaders

Okay, I will be upfront about the fact that I absolutely do not believe that airtaxis are going to be a thing.

We have enough trouble with the thousands of land-based accidents we already have, we hardly need to add falling hunks of metal into the mix.

If aerial travel was so important for hopping from one place to another in a given city, helicopters would already be a roaring business. It's not because your vehicle is electric that all of a sudden it creates an entirely new market, nor will it bring the cost down to regular taxi levels. Only rich people will be able to afford it, and rich people can already charter a helicopter.

Not to mention that landing sites are at a premium in any city that could use an aerial taxi service. It's not like they'll be landing in a park.

So I fully expect this startup to fail miserably, although I will be sad to see it go.

Fired credit union employee admits: I wiped 21GB of files from company's shared drive in retaliation

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Absolutely.

Shame on her for deleting files.

Shame on the IT department for not having regular backups.

Shame on management for not insisting on proper security rules and surfing on the "hey, it's working, everything's fine" attitude.

Yes, she is to be blamed for what she did. But the company bears a greater burden of blame for making it possible in the first place.

Microsoft previews free Visual Studio Code for the Web

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: I just don't get it

People don't keep pushing.

Companies managing clouds do.

Because an actual developer will not be pulled into this fairy tale.

An actual developer needs his local network, access to what it is he's working on, and no external dependencies.