Posts by Pascal Monett

International infosec rules delivered to make nations and non-state actors behave themselves online

Re: Possible but unlikely to be effective

And besides, take the USA, Russia and China.

I wouldn't trust any of those countries to sign up to this initiative and actually mean it.

[Checks meeting agenda...] Where does it say 'Talk cr*p and waste everyone's time'?

That is awesome. I wish I could do that too.

New lawsuit: Why do Android phones mysteriously exchange 260MB a month with Google via cellular data when they're not even in use?

Re: How

The same way you turn on your flashlight : swipe down from the top to get the system apps. The mobile data icon (two vertical arrows in opposite directions) should not be far from the wifi icon.

Tap to turn it off.

Given that my mobile phone is a work phone, I go one step further : outside of work hours, I put it in airplane mode. That saves power.

Election security fears doused with reality: Top officials say Nov 3 'was the most secure in American history.' The end

Bullshit

You have just been told that the body that is specifically in charge of making sure the election was safe officially stated that it had been the safest election since forever.

Deal with it.

Their cut ?

I think their cut should be measured in millimeters.

9, to be specific. Tipped with hollowpoint.

To be applied generously.

A perfectly fitting coincidence.

Bio-boffins devise potentially fast COVID-19 virus test kit out of a silicon wafer and machine-learning code

"Tiny holes 300nm across are drilled into the metal"

To me, that means that the system can only detect viruses that are a maximum of 300nm 299nm in size.

Can a virus get bigger than that ?

What happens if the virus is 302nm in size ?

BOFH: You might want to sit down for this. Oh, right, you can't. Listen carefully: THIS IS NOT AN IT PROBLEM!

a COVID expense

I'm guessing there is quite a lot of that doing the rounds.

Nokstalgia: HMD Global introduces yet another homage to the past – a 4G rework of the Nokia 6300

Cool

I'll be happy to have a phone like that when I retire.

Someone's not Biden their time... Trump administration bars US investment in top Chinese tech giants

Biden has his work cut out for him

On top of all the stuff a US President has to take care of, he has a mountain of Trump shit to undo, scrape away and tidy up.

Honestly, I don't know if Biden will be the best US President, but he will certainly have come after the absolute worst.

Tax working from home, says Deutsche Bank, because the economy needs that lunch money you’re not spending

Sure, let's increase taxes on the little ones

That being said from the comfortable leather chairs of high-level banking officials who are probably pissed that they can't have lunch at their regular five-star restaurant at the moment, so they pass their anger on us.

Taxing people because they're working from home, great idea. We're being taxed on revenue, so where we work has little to do with it. Sure, the restaurants and sandwich shops are taking a hit at the moment, everyone can understand that, but there are a lot of people who bring their lunch to work every day. Nothing changes for them except, in your scheme, they would now get taxed for not doing something they never did anyway. How's that for social justice ?

I propose something different : instead of taxing workers, tax companies that force workers to work from home - but only banks.

They have the money, they can pay.

1248373 deaths as of November 10 says it is not nonsense.

HP: That print-free-for-life deal we promised you? Well, now it's pay-per-month to continue using your printer ink

Just buy a laser printer.

You don't need to print color all that much anyway.

Python swallows Java to become second-most popular programming language... according to this index

"Python creator [..] joins Microsoft"

Run for the hills !

Anytime any creator of a valuable anything joins Borkzilla, you can be sure that a basterdized, weakened version of the same thing will emerge from the cursed depths of Redmonia.

Just look at Sharepoint for proof.

Apple suffers setback in epic Epic Games games fight: Federal judge zaps damages counterclaim

"simply wants to pay nothing"

Um, there is quite a difference between nothing and a 30% commission.

If Apple were anything but a multi-billion dollar behemoth, that commission should be of proper size, i.e. 10%. And that would already be a lot for a service that sells the same virtual bytes repeatedly, without having had any work to do to create them.

Also, Apple has some cheek talking about breach of contract. There are no contracts on the Internet, there are only Terms of Service. Terms of Service can be unilaterally changed, contracts cannot.

Microsoft warns against SMS, voice calls for multi-factor authentication: Try something that can't be SIM swapped

Re: U2F

Interesting project, but at the moment it only works on Chrome.

Sorry, I do not see how my privacy and security are improved by using the biggest slurp browser that exists.

FCC sucked deeper into partisan politics, Trumpism: Nominated commissioner sparks conflict-of-interest row

Typical Republicans

Absolutely not doing what they clamored the Democrats to do four years ago.

Such obvious disregard for tradition, law, the Constitution and basic good behavior is beyond disgusting.

YouTube to world: Move along, nothing to see here … because we’re having an outage

Ah, so maybe that was it

Last night at somewhere past eleven, I was playing a game and watching YouTube and suddenly everything froze, the sound went all weird and the computer locked up.

I was convinced I was going to get a BSOD, so I rebooted, got everything running again and thought no more of it.

Now I wonder : was it the game that froze first, or was it the video ? And why did one have any impact on the other ?

When sci-fact beats sci-fi: Echoes of exploding stars' final cries may be trapped in the rings of trees on Earth

Sounds plausible

Now all we have to do is find a 13000 year old tree.

That might be a tad difficult.

Google to end free unlimited online photo, vid storage, will eventually delete files if accounts go over their cap

Another one bites the dust

"Google justified the changes by saying its users were consuming tons of digital storage space in its cloud "

Well duh, you gave them the space, don't come complaining that they are using it. If I had availed myself of that cloud platform, I would currently have 61.6GB stored up there (the total of all my family picture data on my Photo disk) and I would be wondering just how much this change would impact me.

As usual, something offered up as free is now being taken advantage of to tie users into paying. A despicable move, even if it had been forewarned.

Honestly, people should stop falling for all that free crap - it's just a bait and switch.

Mr President? Donald?! Any chance you can actually decide if Oracle can buy us or do we have to leave?

"we have offered detailed solutions [..] – but have received no substantive feedback"

And you most likely won't now.

Trump has spent his entire presidency avoiding actually answering questions - or making important decisions. The few decisions that he has actually taken were mostly terrible, and he's avoided answering for that as well.

Unfortunately for him, he will be held responsible for them, because he is.

Trump knows very well that anything he does now can and likely will be overturned come January. He's never been a hard worker, why start now ?

Europe clamps down on cybersurveillance exports, pushes human rights focus

"the rules will only apply to countries within the [EU]"

Yeah, well, you have to start somewhere.

Now, is China on the bad list ? Because it should be.

Now-patched Ubuntu desktop vulnerability allows privilege escalation

Once again, it's a local access issue

If the miscreant has local access, it's already game over.

It's a vulnerability, for sure, but I won't be losing any sleep over that one.

123 Bork? Six-day DNS record-edit outage at domain name flinger 123 Reg enrages users

"Hello Chris and thank you for reaching you"

Seems to me that 123 Reg masters its control panels about as well as it masters English.

Cutting the ties: European hosting provider OVHCloud to offer Google Anthos, no Google account needed

European Data Sovereignty

As far as I'm concerned, it is just not compatible with Google.

Huawei has now been baselessly accused of handing over data to Beijing for the past four years. Google is a US company and everyone knows that an National Security letter will get any data on Google servers anywhere in the world.

So if you want to enforce European Data Sovereignty, the sine qua non condition is to have nothing to do with a US company.

It's simple.

Ericsson warns investors: This Biden fellow coming into the White House may look to resolve China trade dispute...

"any loosening of sanctions [..] could stymie its own growth"

Um, the contracts are already signed, no ? So you have the deal, no one can back out on that just because sanctions are loosened against a competitor.

Now, in the longer term, it would obviously mean that, for the next round of contracts, maybe Huawei equipment would be on the table again and thus, you'd have more competition, but right now it won't make a difference.

Halt don't catch fire: Amazon recalls hundreds of thousands of Ring doorbells over exploding battery fears

Re: Shows people don't read the instructions

So Amazon did test the things, saw the issue and provided a warning, yet people still installed it wrong.

I was all ready to blame Amazon for not having tested, but it would seem that it's more the idiots who don't pay attention that should be blamed.

I don't know how clear the instructions were, but if I open an electrical appliance and there is a clear warning sign about something, I read it. The warning telling me about being careful with the screws means I'll pay more attention to the instructions.

US-EU project to bring Mars samples back to Earth needs two more years, extra $4bn, watchdog warns

Re: A shed load of money. OTOH...

Um, I think that, if you miss your launch window by a month, you've definitely missed it and will have to wait another 640 days before you can launch again.

"cost about $4bn more"

Ouch. Given that NASA is continually strapped for cash, from what other project is NASA going to take those funds ?

Because this mission is under way, and everyone is saying "full steam ahead". That'll only be possible if the cash is there, and the US Government, even the upcoming one, is not necessarily going to pour billions into NASA just because they need it. US Gov has been cutting NASA funding for decades now, that trend is not going to change.

Especially now that a private company has proved capable of making a launcher. Okay, not without taxpayer dollars, not entirely on their own either, but still, the few billion given to SpaceX were a lot cheaper than having to create a new launcher entirely on NASA funding. The Apollo program on its own cost $152 billion, and to get Apollo, they had to do the Mercury series before, because there was so much to test before we could actually think of going to the Moon.

The final cost of human spaceflight to the American taxpayer seems to pegged at $486 billion.

A few billion to a private company for the same result is a bargain by any measure.

Soyuz later! SpaceX gets NASA green light to lob astronauts to the International Space Station full time

Re: that'd be like France claiming the term European for themselves

Um, just to clarify here : we French know very well that we do not rule Europe, and we have no desire to at this point in time.

We've already got our hands full ruling ourselves, thank you very much.

Re: what NASA brought to the party here

I'm sure NASA's engineers brought their experience of space requirements and dangers, which is not something Musk's engineers would necessarily have.

But yeah, the billions were obviously a great support.

Brace yourselves: Google Cloud preps server firmware upgrade to fix GPU glitches

Why can't they just say downtime ?

“Affected customers will experience elevated frequency of Host Maintenance events ”

Saying the word downtime does not make you less professional.

This culture of avoiding saying specific words, or wrapping their meaning up in other words, is not good.

There isn't a single recipient of that email that did not immediately translate Host Maintenance = downtime, so just bloody well spell it out already.

One more reason for Apple to dump Intel processors: Another SGX, kernel data-leak flaw unearthed by experts

Seems like isolation is the best solution

Look, I'm a gamer. I like powerful processors (and GPUs). I like high framerates. I like a responsive computer, ie one that does not make me wait for a second every time I click the mouse.

So it seems that I'm going to need an Internet-connected computer for my browsing, and a unsecure but non-connected computer for my playing.

That's going to wreak havoc with multiplayer, but multiplayer is not all that exists.

We'll find a solution.

Hyundai announces its own OS for Nvidia-powered smart-ish cars

“software-defined and constantly updateable vehicles”

Meaning the thing will snitch on you and report every aspect of your driving habits.

You went 1km/h over the limit ? Report sent. You didn't actually stop at the stop sign (there was nobody around) ? Report sent.

Constantly updateable means constantly connected. What could possibly go wrong with that ?

Well, that's Hyundai, Kia and Genesis off my choice list for a new car.

India launches Google antitrust probe and Google mostly shrugs it off

Something is not right

I disagree with private companies taking shares in national telecoms infrastructure.

On top of that, it's Google, the single, most connected entity there is tracking your online behavior.

Now, Google is using its vast financial power to put its claws directly into the carriers themselves. What could possibly go wrong ?

Tim Berners-Lee asks everyone to do new biz a Solid and let him have another crack at fixing the Web's privacy

So there is now a pod server for privacy

Good. I will welcome every idea that improves the privacy of my data.

Now tell me how that impacts Google's data hoovering, because I don't see that it changes anything there.

And if Google doesn't adopt it, well let's just say that it won't have much impact.

Plague, sanctions shrink Chinese smartphone sales but 5G keeps buyers in the hunt

“If the position of the US administration does not change"

It will change.

That said, Huawei is obviously able to increase focus on its local market and should probably devote some effort in that direction.

But one thing is certain : Biden & Harris are going to point the USA in a better direction, to the relief of all.

Bad software crashed Boeings. Now it appears the company lacked a singular software supremo

Boeing gamed the system because it could

It had people at the FAA to muddy the waters and smooth things over, and it used that advantage to keep the FAA from taking a good look at what was going on.

Yes, Boeing cheated, but IMO the FAA has a large share of responsibility in this matter and nobody is talking about that.

If the FAA had done its job properly, it would never have accepted to just wave the MAX through and would have rightly decided that pilots needed recertification.

The FAA does not exist to save customers money, it exists to save people's lives, and it utterly failed in this instance.

Agreed.

Once upon a time, Boeing was all about safety. Boeing was the definition of safety. Boeing didn't need a software supremo because everyone had safety in mind.

That lasted until the CEO was no longer an engineer.

Like NASA, the beancounters took over and now here we are. No moon base, and no more redundancy in Boeing planes.

Get the beancounters out of decision roles, stat !

The day I took down the data centre- I mean, the day I saved the day. Right, boss?

That's interesting

So, you have a network tool that has a setting that can basically kill the network. It's up to you to not use that setting.

That doesn't sound like a useful thing to me.

Is there any reason to have that setting ? Stress test, maybe ?

Shopping online for Xmas? AI chatbots know whether you want to be naughty or nice

Great article, once again !

And thank you so much for that link. I will be referencing that to no end every time I have the opportunity to put down some blabbering idiot who thinks that his "investments" are secure.

That said, there is a bit of fluff in that article, such as this :

"Blockchain is primarily used for recording transactions made with cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. However, it has many other applications as well. "

Many others ? Such as ? Oh, yes, there is Ethereum, LiteCoin, and other funny-money apps. It's the same thing.

The one "application" that is indeed different is, from the article, Tron, which is "a blockchain-based decentralized platform with a goal to build a free, global digital content sharing system ". Yay, we will get to have a free second Internet, that we will have to pay the storage space and the bandwidth for. Great idea, guys. Revolutionary even.

My opinion on blockchain is not changed : anything using it is useless and a nuisance.

Hey, over here, I'm talking... Academics help computers figure out which way you're facing when you speak

RotM

Now they'll be able to triangulate our position via sound.

Great work.

America's democracy on the brink, Brexit looming, climate crashing... when better to get the first fast radio burst from our own galaxy?

Ah, to be a scientist

"We've studied magnetars in our galaxy for decades, while FRBs are an extragalactic phenomenon whose origins have been a mystery. This event shows that the two phenomena are likely connected, ”

That is why I could never be scientist. To me, this event patently demonstrates beyond any doubt that they are connected. But to a boffin, no, you can't say that until the paper is published and peer reviewed.

Let's... drawer a veil over why this laser printer would decide to stop working randomly

Ah, the good ol' let's put all the expensive electronics in the only room that can get flooded decision.

Amazing how quickly the floorplan can get changed after a good rain.

Deloitte's 'Test your Hacker IQ' site fails itself after exposing database user name, password in config file

So, made in 2015, last changed in 2017

Sounds like a management idea that management lost interest in but forgot to shutter the site.

The irony is delicious.

India, UK strike tech co-operation pact and plot deeper links once Brexit's done

Re: if they make it a priority

They have made it a priority.

Whoa, humans have been hanging out and doing science stuff in freaking space aboard the ISS for 20 years

So the ISS will be decommissioned in 2030

What are the plans to replace it ?

Or are we all just going to accept that we don't have the money to do that and leave space entirely to private entrepreneurs ?

We reached the Moon because of a pissing contest between two governments. As soon as we got there, we basically turned back and forgot about it.

We put space stations in orbit and now we can't be arsed to continue that either.

It's all very nice to have lofty opinions about ourselves, but acts count more than opinions.

We need a space station for science and experimentation in micro-gravity. If the only one we have left is going to shut down in a decade, we need to start planning its replacement now, because it'll take a decade to get something functional up there again.

Criticalstudies.org sounds pretty important, right? Wrong: USA says it’s an Iranian fake news front

The FBI missed a site

Should have seized Fox News as well.

Those 20+ Iranian sites didn't do 1% of what Fox News is doing as far as damage is concerned.

City of Edinburgh Council selects services-slinger CGI for £102m contract despite abandoned Unit4 ERP project

Re: Anyone for Bingo?

I'm missing synergizing resources, disruptive, proactive, paradigm, moving forward and the all-important blockchain.

Dang.

Apple on the hook for another $503m in decade-long VirnetX patent rip-off legal marathon

Apple will appeal - again

At this point I think it is high time that the courts decide that, if yet another appeal is to take place, the final fine of the previous appeal is automatically doubled.

Appeal again ? Double the fine again.

Frankly, it is unfortunate that there is no point where the court has said : enough, pay the fine, and Apple had to pay.

I know nothing about Virnetx, but I do know that Apple has lost multiple times. It is high time it looses permanently.