Posts by Pascal Monett

Facebook Giphy merger stays on ice after failed challenge to UK competition regulator

"web tracking beacons cunningly disguised as funny little animated images"

I always marvel at the intelligence of people who can purposely lie in order to get money.

Giphy is a company that wants to track you, just like Google. In order to do so, they imagined chat images, because everyone likes to add an emoticon now and then.

They made them funny, which makes them appealing, increasing their chance of use.

But all of this is to enhance their tracking ability, siphoning your private life to sell it to ad companies.

Giphy is a bunch of vampires.

Not surprising that El Zuck wants to get his hands on it.

Tor users, beware: 'Scheme flooding' technique may be used to deanonymize you

Okay, I bit the bullet

I came back to this article and decided to try the schemeflood link.

What I got was : "If you're seeing this message, that means JavaScript has been disabled on your browser, please enable JS to make this app work. "

NoScript FTW, again.

web links like "skype://" or "slack://"

These things should absolutely be forbidden and blocked by default.

I do not want a browser to be able to launch anything on my computer. A browser's job is to allow me to browse the Web, not my application list.

Apple's expert witness grilled by Epic over 'frictionless' spending outside the app

"Hitt blamed the error on his research team"

Nope.

You're the "expert". You can blame no one but yourself.

If your research team didn't do its job, you're supposed to be the one to control and double-check and make them do it right.

You're just a lazy slob who went before a judge without doing the job properly, but accepted the money to do so.

You will forever be associated with failure.

The lawyers always win.

Sometimes, they're the only ones that do.

20% ?!?

Are you out of your mind ?

5% and not a cent more.

It's code Apple didn't write and hardly bothers vetting, sitting on a hard disk waiting for a customer to click on a button that has already been coded a decade ago.

The Apple Store has paid for itself already, maintenance costs are next to nothing.

5% is already generous.

Audacity's new management hits rewind on telemetry plans following community outrage

"at odds with the public perception of trustworthiness"

In other words : We have no problem of trustworthyness in Yandex or Google, but apparently you do. We can't understand why.

Way to go to demonstrate just how deeply we're no longer able to trust you.

Protip: If Joe Public reports that your kit is broken, maybe check that it is actually broken

Blackberry's could take screenshots ?

For the marketeer that has everything – except a CPU fan

Re: I think the reason the users go for Windows PCs is simple. Management.

You're considering the wrong type of Management.

What you mean to say is : Management decided on Windows PCs, because they can't be arsed to imagine that there's anything else in the Universe that could fit the bill.

When you've got a hammer . . .

NHS-backed org reacted to GitHub leak disclosure with legal threats and police call, complains IT pro

My 2 cents

Stop bothering with Apperta.

Let them fuck up as large as they feel they can't be bothered to care.

Hospitals cancel outpatient appointments as Irish health service struck by ransomware

Despicable

I think this calls for a DDoHS : Direct Denial of Hospital Service - to be administered with a 9mm. Maybe even a Beretta.

Your private data has been nabbed: Please update your life as soon as possible while we deflect responsibility

"assurances that everything is being done too late to be of any use"

Indeed.

They might have had some use of calling in the expensive security consultants before the shit hit the fan, to ensure that, when it did, they would be prepared.

But, hey, that costs money.

These days, reputation costs nothing, so the beancounters say no.

Until it happens.

Then it becomes a PR exercise, and that goes into the marketing budget.

Still not important.

Colonial Pipeline was looking to hire cybersecurity manager before ransomware attack shut down operations

"assuming it was filled before the attack"

Whether it filled before or after the attack, the poor sod is going to have a helluva start.

If I'm not mistaken, that target has already been bull's-eyed.

Open-source developers under corporate pressure to adopt less-permissive licenses, Percona CEO says

"pressure from their boards"

This is just Capitalism at work, people. No surprise here.

What these boards would like is to benefit from actual Open Source, but not have to risk someone else benefitting from their company's work.

Capitalism : the definition of selfish.

If you don't want to share the results, don't use Open Source code.

I'm sorry, even if you're on the board, you can't have your cake and eat it.

Guy who wrote women are 'soft, weak, cosseted, naive' lasted about a month at Apple until internal revolt

"I'm actually honest, self-deprecating, and funny"

These days, it's what you say that counts, not what you do.

Women are soft ? Thank God they are. I love rubbing up against my wife's soft skin.

Women are weak ? Let's see how weak you are while giving birth. Oh right, you can't, mutherfucker.

Disparaging women and pursuing them is a sign not only of assholery, but of inherent lack of manitude.

A real man can respect women, because he's not afraid of them.

Ransomware victim Colonial Pipeline paid $5m to get oil pumping again, restored from backups anyway – report

$5 million for criminals

Well guys, looks like you can now budget $10 million for your backup procedures, because they'll be back in a quarter or two and you obviously need to lock down your backup procedures to something a bit more robust.

And there should be a fine of 10 times your blackmail money to prevent this kind of thing from happening.

Pentagon backs away from labeling smartphone maker Xiaomi a military org run by China's communist elite

As usual

"Nor does the Chinese government or military, or any entity affiliated with the defense industrial base, possess the ability to exert control over the management or affairs of the company "

can very well be replaced with

"Nor does the US government or military, or [the NSA], possess the ability to exert control over the management or affairs of the company"

and it will ring just as true.

National Security Letters are a thing. We know that. Stop screaming hysterically about another country's companies when you have set the example.

Microsoft bins Azure Blockchain without explanation, gives users four months to move

Yeah but, for Joe User, there are no alternatives.

He wants to use Outlook, because everyone he knows uses Outlook. He wants to use Office, because everyone is talking about Word and Excel. He wants to play some games, because they're all the rage these days.

He doesn't know about Linux and, if he did, he couldn't go about installing it himself. If he did install Linux, he would have to learn a different mail program. He would have to install LibreOffice, and that's not Word. And he couldn't play many of the games that "everyone else" is playing anyway.

Now that Borkzilla is laser-focused on The Cloud (TM), and has finally started porting parts of its software empire to be Linux-compatible, we have a chance to see the day when Office will run natively on Linux and DirectX maybe as well.

That will be the day that will signal the start of Linux on the Desktop, because there will be a real alternative, ironically brought about by the same entity that has done its level best to keep Linux out of the desktop.

SAP co-founder's charitable arm made investments in a joint venture with the software giant

Indeed, all those poor investment companies managing billions in funds, where would they be if SAP didn't lend a helping hand ?

Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, right ?

Water's wet, the Pope's Catholic, and iOS is designed to stop folk switching to Android, Epic trial judge told

"They now need to spend hundreds more to get to where they are today"

Indeed. Because you put the barriers in place to ensure that would need to happen.

It's funny, in a way, because I've been hearing for decades now that buying a video gave me a "right to view", and not a right to own.

Of course, that discourse is a load of crap but still, I'd really like to see someone argue in court that their "right to view" transcends the platform and any restriction artificially implemented by a company is an illegal impediment to their right to view.

Heck, if I were a millionnaire I think I'd give it a try, just to scare them shitless.

Salesforce fell over so hard today, it took out its own server status page

Re: Business-speak I’ve missed?

You're on the cusp, the bleeding edge.

It's a bit like Preschoolers, they blabla and they blabla and, every now and then, they make a new noise they like.

Meanwhile, the adults translate their sounds into actual words.

Another week, another issue: Virgin Galactic mulls test flight restart as VSS Unity fixed – but VMS Eve might be borked

"he expected demand to be so great"

Sorry Richard, there may be quite a few millionnaires on this planet, but even so, I'd wager there are also quite a few that prefer to continue benefitting from their status and not risk getting presented before the Pearly Gates ahead of time.

Rackspace CEO: Offshoring, real estate closures and other cost cutting measures. Did NASDAQ cheer? Well? Nope

I skimmed over that transcript

It's nothing but growth and percentages of growth throughout.

If you take the transcript at face value, in every single category they mention it's year-on-year growth. Just growing like crazy.

Even their financial department apparently improved the cashflow. I wonder how beancounters can improve cashflow. I though it was sales people and the grunts on the ground that improved cashflow by working more deals, but no. Maybe they invested a lot in BitCoin and made out like bandits ?

In any case, there is absolutely no explanation whatsoever for delivering $1 instead of $1.10. Reading that blurg, they should have delivered $1.50.

It's all malarky anyway.

Britain to spend £22m influencing Indo-Pacific nations' cybersecurity policies against 'authoritarian regimes'

World beating coders ?

Really ? Where ?

In all those companies you've sold off to foreign interests ?

Tip : Bletchley Park has been closed for some time now.

Open-source JavaScript project Babel 'running out of money' after employing paid maintainers, sponsors pull out

Which is not a problem for many people who work in Open Source.

It is not much of a problem either for projects that can be realized by one person.

It's when you need a team, and need to coordinate, and use procedures for submitting code etc, that's where Open Source falters if there isn't good management and some form of financial backing.

Re: Open source stuff should be free ...

It is free. Nobody is paying to use Babel JavaScript.

But if you want the project to survive, you need to have people willing to give their time to that, and it is simpler and easier to attract developers if they get a financial incentive out of it - especially if you want the good ones to work full-time.

That being said, I'm sorry but $11k a month is not the kind of incentive I think is justified for an open-source project. Up to $4k could be justified, following the amount of work the developer contributes, but I think that is pretty much the high bar.

It's Open Source. A living wage, yes, but if you're in it for the money, go back to being a company drone. Either that or create a startup and go hit venture capital.

Blessed are the cryptographers, labelling them criminal enablers is just foolish

Re: Will government idiots never learn? They might have to be taught by example

Total riots ? Probably not.

Some russian hackers making a fortune and leaving thousands in poverty ? Very likely.

Re: Are banks criminal?

Absolutely agree. It's the first thing I want to say to any idiot with a public mandate. You want backdoored encryption ? Fine, let's start with your communications. See how you like that.

After all, leading is showing by example, right ?

Okay, stop pushing, I'm on my way out.

Re: Kinda covers it all, no?

Not really. Not in my opinion.

Otherwise, our justice system would be quite simple : you committed a crime, you get executed.

There are degrees, and they must be taken into account. A group of thieves who stake out a house, find out when the occupants are gone, break in and loot the place and get gone will get less attention than a group who break in and murder everyone, then loot.

And that is logical.

Yeah, but it's about managing incentive.

If the thief's incentive is rendered null because he wanted a radio and is not interested in that one, the you've succeeded in protecting your car.

If the thief is determined to search the glove box, well, too bad.

App Tracking: Apps plead for users to press allow, but 85% of Apple iOS consumers are not opting in

Have you heard of Brave ?

Install Brave. Ads will be a thing of the past.

On a mobile phone, I feel this is especially important. You're the one paying the bandwidth.

NHS App gets go-ahead for vaccine passport use despite protest from privacy groups

Re: I can't see that it erodes my privacy any further

I'm sure you'll find out soon enough.

Ooh, equating Thatcher with Hitler.

That's a new one.

UK's Computer Misuse Act to be reviewed, says Home Secretary as she condemns ransomware payoffs

"online child sexual abuse"

Yes, of course, obviously. You definitely need to mention online child sexual abuse if you want anything computer-related to pass into law.

Rude awakening for O2 customers after network runs surprise test of emergency mobile alert system

"Cell Broadcast is not affected by traffic load"

After reading this article I was curious, I'd never heard about this technology before.

So I looked it up.

It is so reassuring to know that, when I'm desperately trying to call for help, my phone will be able to blare at me that I may be in trouble.

IBM wheels out AutoSQL, Watson Orchestrate in bid to fend off cloud irrelevance

"bid to fend off cloud irrelevance"

I'm sorry ? Cloud irrelevance ?

Oh, you mean IMB's cloud irrelevance.

Okay, now I get it.

SolarWinds CEO describes overhauled Orion build system after that 'very small, unique' security breach

a “very small” number

Well of course, compared to 7 billion people on the planet, 18 000 is indeed a very small number.

Except that your 18000 customers just happen to include some of the most important organizations on the planet.

Oh, you forgot that point, didn't you ?

Well we didn't. And neither did they.

Intel throws sand in the face of 'musclebooks' with 10nm Tiger Lake tech

"a new PC will be faster and smaller and lighter"

I don't want my laptop to be smaller.

I want my 17" screen.

I want 6 USB 3.0 ports.

I want a DVD/RW drive.

These requirements preclude you shrinking a laptop to the size of mobile phone.

Stop trying.

Tencent research team scores free powerups for electric cars with Raspberry Pi-powered X-in-the-middle attack

"messages sent on the Controller Area Network"

And here I go again.

Sorry to grind the same organ again, but since when has it been a good idea to mix the network controlling the car with the network accessing the outside ?

Answer : never. But the beancounters argue for economy of scale.

Fuck them.

Beancounters are the bane of security and common sense.

Vietnam’s biggest industrial conglomerate quits smartphones and TV biz, bets on electric cars

Vingroup, VinSmart

You'll excuse me if anything with the name "Smart" in it gives me a serious case of the hives.

I have no problem leaving that group to Vietnam. They can deal with it.

China’s digital currency adds support for AliPay – the Alibaba payment app with over 700 million users

Re: Euro is useless as a transaction currency

I'm sorry that you have issues transferring Euros from Thailand.

I live in France. I work in Luxembourg. My main bank account is in Luxembourg. I have an international VISA card, obviously.

When I ask for a professional's intervention at my home, be it plumbing, electricity, delivering wood for the chimney, or remaking the shower, I pay by IBAN transfer.

I've never had any problem with it. I consider it to be secure and convenient. I am not unhappy either with the knowledge that VISA is not going to gouge a transaction fee out of it.

I don't know why Thailand has issues with IBAN transfers, but, as an insider, I feel that you need to look to your banks rather than blame the Euro for your issues.

Re: those who have nothing to hide etc

I've got nothing to hide.

I demand to know what right you have to ask*.

* theoretically, of course

Samsung reveals DDR5 memory module that’s ready for Compute Express Link

Don't get it

There are obviously many much more intelligent people than me that have worked on this (not difficult), but I fail to understand how something that has less connectors than a proper DDR5 RAM stick can be faster.

Can anyone enlighten me ?

Microsoft embraces Linux kernel's eBPF super-tool, extends it for Windows

"Microsoft on Monday"

Totally off-topic, but that is a serious start to a 12 Days of Microsoft something or another.

Sorry I'm not smart enough to give the kick-off myself.

It's Borkzilla.

Obviously they'll find a way to ruin Linux, and then blame it.

Another platform on which Java will not run – platform 1 of Newcastle's Central Station

"We assume it is just the modern way of doing things"

The "modern" way of doing things is to link your production code to some fookin' Git library and call it a day.

Don't go checking the code of said library to make sure that it does what it says on the tin, that would be actual work.

Train operator phlunks phishing test by teasing employees with non-existent COVID bonus

Re: "They all still think that the attacks have poor grammar and spelling"

They most often do, and that is a major factor in sorting the wheat from the chaff, but the truth is in the link.

If the link you're asked to click on does not obviously belong to the corporate address the mail is supposed to be from, then good bye, nice try.

But if the link is to a verifiable corporate domain and you come tell me that it was a phishing exercise, I will rip you a new one.

Re: Unfortunately,

I use Rules in my corporate mailbox. Every time someone sends out something that has absolutely no bearing on my daily job, I set up a rule to shove it into a folder labelled "Ignored".

Given that I am a freelance consultant, and only log in when I am asked to by the customer, such rules are pretty easy to set up. If it doesn't concern the project I'm on, it's ignored.

Re: The whole intention of a phishing attack is to make it both believable and tempting

I'm sorry, how is it believable that you have to register for a company-wide bonus ?

Either the company gives the bonus, or it doesn't, but it does not make its employees register for one. I think that would be grounds for a lawsuit.

Not blaming the people who clicked the link, but I think this whole affair is going in the wrong direction.

Somebody should have complained about the principle.