Posts by Pascal Monett

While waiting for the Linux train, Bork pays a visit to Geordieland with Windows 10

Re: Need a bit of Raspberry Pi action

The problem is that Windows comes with a built-in bork generator in the form of constant updates and changes that modify its behavior. It fills its disk with data it doesn't need, then ends up borking because it doesn't have enough space to function.

A Pi is good enough for a stupid infomercial screen, and doesn't modify its behavior from one day to the next. Just get a product to manage a million of them at a time, and maybe Windows will finally get out of places it never should be in the first place.

And maybe I'll win the Lottery this week. I think I know which has a better chance of happening.

Highways England waves around £62m contract for National Traffic Information Service after brief chat with vendors

"a new system to perform this function"

Why ? Is the hardware rusting ? Why can't modular elements be added ?

Why is it that, even at government level, we have a culture of consumerism and throw out the old, it's time to buy some new stuff ?

So they want to modernize. Well, here's the deal : your new system ? Make independent modules out of it. Do not make any part require all other parts to function. Also, make it so new parts can be added at a later time. That way, you can add or upgrade individual modules without having to fork out for an entire system the next time.

Or is that just too 3rd millennium for you ?

cmd.exe is dead, long live PowerShell: Microsoft leads aged command-line interpreter out into 'maintenance mode'

"It shouldn't have lived so long"

One day, that will be the epitaph on Borkzilla's tombstone.

One day.

Oh cool, tech service prices are plummeting. And by tech services, we mean botnet rentals and stolen credit cards

Trend Micro

So, Trend, what's the trend on companies cheating on Windows certification ? Any figures on that ?

Any comments on the threat landscape that that creates ? No ?

Didn't think so.

Rich Communication Services: Nobody uses it, nobody wants it, but analysts reckon it's on the verge of a breakthrough

Indeed. If Google is interested in it, I'm not using it.

'I wrote Task Manager': Ex-Microsoft programmer Dave Plummer spills the beans

Re: Beware of Sysinternals Process Explorer

I use Process Hacker.

I am not aware that it phones home. It works flawlessly, however.

Sorry, but I use Windows 7

I don't need to use Ctrl-Alt-Del nearly as much as when I used XP.

Ctrl-Shift-Esc, however, I have just learned and I will treasure the knowledge.

Twitter ticks off Trump with new 'Get the facts' alert on pair of fact-challenged tweets

Re: I, as President, will not allow it to happen!

Yes, absolutely that. I dare you to show us exactly what, as President, you can do about it.

Go on, show us your full dictator suit.

Microsoft blocks Trend Micro code at center of driver 'cheatware' storm from Windows 10, rootkit detector product pulled from site

"It is not clear why Trend's software does this"

I don't care if it's clear or not, it should not be done, period.

Good on Borkzilla for reacting on this and pulling the driver. Now Trend is going to have to submit another one, and I'll bet it will get a lot more scrutiny the next time around.

A reputation takes years to build, but only a day to trash. Trend Micro has now trashed its reputation.

Oh they're experts all right. Just not for your security.

Ah yes, the ol' rogue engineer excuse.

China to test digital version of its currency at 2022 Winter Olympics

Why the uproar ?

Do you think your government is not aware of what you spend your money on online ?

What's different here ? Is it because there's the word "China" is the article ?

I guarantee you, it doesn't matter how democratic you think your country is, if your government takes an interest in you, your expense record will be the first thing they'll get their hands on.

Mulled Chrome API shines light on long-neglected privacy gap: Sites can snoop on your find-in-page searches

"the potential benefits outweigh the risks"

The potential benefits for who ?

Also, is this a pure-Chromium issue, or are other browsers at risk also ?

In any case, I note that this is, once again, a JavaScript issue. And that means, once again, that NoScript saves the day.

NoScript : protecting privacy every day, without fail.

India said its coronavirus contact-tracing app is perfect... adds bug bounty and open-sources it anyway

"the app's data retention period has extended"

And so it starts. Well that didn't take long, barely a month in usage and they're already pushing the agenda forward.

Seems that India is going to treat data retention like Disney treats copyright protection.

US lawmakers get a second shot at forcing FBI agents to obtain a warrant before they leaf through web histories

Yeah, but no

It's the "USA Freedom Act", therefor, given the inverse rule about law titles, this Act is clearly about restricting freedom in the USA, so there's no chance of adding any section that would improve freedom in the USA.

Besides, the NSA doesn't care about the Law or the Constitution. It has a friggin' big 'puter and it's gonna keep using it.

You E-diot! Formula E driver booted off Audi team after getting video game ace to take his place in online race

Absolutely. Cheating in a video game ? Happens all the time. There are many people out there who simply cannot stand losing. They're not there to play the game, they're there to win. Ask any company with an online FPS game. Even Minecraft has a server module to prevent cheating. Minecraft.

But the line that really gets me is "it was never meant with any bad intention". No it was meant with the intention of winning, because he obviously just couldn't stand the fact that everyone had observed his lackluster virtual performance and his ego couldn't take it any more.

When you get to that point, it doesn't matter what the goal of the competition is, you just want to show them all, charity be damned.

Well, one thing's for sure, there will be some tensions around the dinner table come next Christmas.

If someone could stop hackers pwning medical systems right now, that would be cool, say Red Cross and friends

I hope it will amount to something

Maybe governments will make an effort to increase blocking of bot traffic or somesuch, I really haven't a clue what they can do though. Spam and phishing is only malware when it reaches the endpoint, when it's on its way there's next to no way to tell.

Yesterday, I received the laptop from my friend the postman. It was sent by a customer so that I can work on a project on their servers in a secure VM configured by them. Coincidentally, I also received a mail telling me that my package was waiting for me and there was a €2 transport charge to pay. With a friendly link, of course.

Out of sheer habit I checked the URL of the link, which immediately made me suspicious because of the strange name that had nothing to do with the company that the mail alleged to represent. Then logic kicked in and I realized that, even if there is a transport charge to pay, it's my customer that should pay it, not me. Finally I trashed the mail and thought nothing more of it.

But I am certain that such a mail would make many a person click on the link and just follow instructions blindly. Especially these days where Amazon is becoming king of the hill. Now transport that kind of attack to a hospital environment, with a nurse that has a thousand other things to do and just wants this mail out of the way. It's easy to hack hospitals, they are trying to save people, not computer hardware. They already have their minds full of medical knowledge, cramming security procedures on top is a nuisance they don't have time for.

I don't know what the solution is. Maybe a filter machine that all email is sent to by default before a human checks that it is legit and lets it continue to its intended recipient ? Put a fancy statistical analysis machine with oh-so-vaunted "machine learning" and maybe something automated could be tuned to be useful.

Live analytics without vendor lock-in? It's more likely than you think, says Redis Labs

Re: Vendor .......

A long as you use the Redis database.

You're just switching from one lock-in to another.

Microsoft brings WinUI to desktop apps: It's a landmark for Windows development, but it has taken far too long

I think many people would be happy with a Linux that includes DirectX.

Because for all Borkzilla's faults, DirectX was a bloody miracle of performance. OpenGL is still not there.

eBay users spot the online auction house port-scanning their PCs. Um... is that OK?

Re: This is not okay

Absolutely. You want to scan my computer ? You pop up the question and ask me, along with a description of what you are looking for, where you're looking for it and why you think you have the cheek to ask me.

If you do security checks on your side of the intertubes, that's your business and nothing I have the right to wail about, but on my side, you will only do what I bloody well allow you to.

Pre-authentication, remote root hole in call-center software? Thanks, Cisco. Just what a long weekend needs

Adobe Character Animator

Congratulations, Adobe, on your persistence.

We are in the final stages of getting rid of Flash, so you dump Character Animator on us.

Are you by any chance tired of not being on patch lists ? Spoiler : you are on patch lists. All the time. It would be refreshing to see you take a break from that.

Alibaba Cloud revenue grows 62% – but it's still just a sixth the size of AWS

"why buyers beyond the middle kingdom would consider its offerings"

Good question. Why go and put your data on servers that can be looked into by Beijing ?

Except that thousands of non-USA companies are putting their corporate data into offerings that come under White House jurisdiction, so why not ?

Especially if it's cheaper.

The Cloud War will happen.

Linus Torvalds drops Intel and adopts 32-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper on personal PC

AMD was the first to have a GHz CPU with the Thunderbird in 1999.

On August 24, 1996 I bought a Pentium I 133 for €250.

That came with a Yellow Dragon P1 motherboard for €153, and 8MB of EDO RAM for €287.

PS : prices not adjusted for inflation

It wasn't just a few credit cards: Entire travel itineraries were stolen by hackers, Easyjet now tells victims

Re: only allows access to one customers record at a time

Database system are designed to be as fast as possible, not to impose delays. You need to understand that there is not just one terminal (aka PC) making requests to the database, there are hundreds, if not thousands. You have the hostesses in the airports, registering luggage, you have travel agents querying the best way for their customer to travel, you have people on the Internet looking it up for themselves, and there is probably a bunch of other possible ways to send demands that I haven't the foggiest idea of.

If you create a system where only one request can be served at a time, you are basically choking the whole system beyond usability and the whole thing collapses.

Home working is here to stay, says Lenovo boss, and will grow the total addressable PC market by up to 30%

Re: I have to say I'm with Lenovo on this

It's a nice idea, but if everyone in a household might be able to have a PC, not many households can have an office per person.

There are many people living in apartments that are already small, they simply don't have a room to serve as an office, so they repurpose the dinner table or something. In those conditions, I doubt they appreciate working from home.

So either they continue going to the office, with all the hassle of getting there and back, or, in addition to the probable massive shift in commercial property value, there will be increased pressure on acquiring a house with enough rooms for people to not only live, but work alongside their living space.

That is going to put additional strain on people's budgets, and we just might see companies creating a WFH incentive package, including a financial package comprised of some sort of company investment and a small interest rate loan, in order to have its employees in the best possible working conditions.

Having the company pay a part of the Internet bill would not be a stretch either.

BoJo buckles: UK govt to cut Huawei 5G kit use 'to zero by 2023' after pressure from Tory MPs, Uncle Sam

Re: if they are all this paranoid

They're not paranoid, they're just using that as an excuse to try and keep Huawei from dominating the market.

You see, the US is all for capitalism as long as it is holding they keys. As soon as an actual competitor rises above its abilities, it's no holes barred to undermining said competitor by any means necessary.

But I agree that Huawei, as a Chinese company, could very well be pressured by Beijing to reveal some sort of information at some point or another.

However, we all know that Washington does pressure US companies and has even made a law allowing it to do so.

So what I would like is a European initiative creating 5G infrastructure components that are not beholden either to the US or to China.

Because if you want to be paranoid, you have to go all the way.

Well, that's something boffins haven't seen before: A strange alien streaks around Jupiter

That far away ?

Jupiter is a billion kilometers from the Sun, and that's close enough to start vaporizing ice ?

I thought comets had to at least in the asteroid field before being impacted by the Sun's energy.

An open fusion reactor is apparently more powerful than I thought.

Edit : my bad, Jupiter is only almost 780 million km from the Sun. Still far, though.

For the price tag, this iPad Pro keyboard better damn well be Magic: It isn't... but it's not completely useless either

That keyboard is flat on the table

Not a good typing position. The keyboard should be slanted toward the typist.

But I'm guessing the hipsters will be using that on the couch, so no problem.

Re: you get at least three times the usage from an Apple machine/device

I still have my IBM PC keyboard from 1989. I can just slap on USB converter on it and plug it in and it works too.

So, how many times more do you need ?

Wanna force granny to take down that family photo from the internet? No problem. Europe's GDPR to the rescue

Re: If all PII was removed from the image metadata

Your face is PII. That's why we have all those failed attempts at facial recognition going around in public places.

So, "if all PII was removed", including blurring the face, then yes, I'm guessing it would pass GDPR provisions.

Now the question is : does Grandma know how to edit the photo and blur the face ?

I'm guessing no.

IBM cuts deep into workforce – even its Watson and AI teams – as it 'pivots' to cloud

Wow, that's cold

"some posts were made by staff who recently completed certifications on major cloud platforms but were still let go"

So, you go through the effort of improving your skills on your own time, likely paying for the privilege, and you still not only get no recognition for it, but get the chop.

That is one massive fuck you right there.

Never trust a conglomerate. You're nothing but a number there.

HPE's Black Thursday: Staff face pay cuts or the ax, office closures to save $1bn+ after coronavirus slams IT titan

So, slashing headcount again ?

Why is it that I don't recall HP ever doing anything else when "transitioning" ?

Oh, right. It's because that's the only thing they know.

Honestly, those people who submit a CV to HP should really realize that, at best, they're only getting a temp job.

SAP shareholders not happy about chopping and changing CEO model

"a German rendition of a 1970s panel game show"

Now that is a masterful metaphor, especially for a Friday.

Have a cold one on me !

India makes contact-tracing app mandatory for passengers as domestic flights resume

"Those who do not have a compatible phone"

Ah, so there can be incompatibilities. Does that include feature phones ?

I really would like to know how they expect to install that app on a feature phone.

Guess who’s laughing most of the way to the Splunk, despite revenue miss and nervous customers?

"data being a luxury"

On what planet does he live again ?

Data has never been a luxury. The only thing the entire IT industry has ever done is improve how we handle data. The speed and efficiency with which we deal with and transmit data today is because we have had to find ways to do that. Then the Internet came along and it was not long before we adapted to its unique abilities and now we are milking them for all their worth.

The Cloud may be a luxury, but at the rate companies are stuffing data into it, it will soon become a necessity.

Mind your language: Microsoft set to swing the axe on 27 languages in iOS Outlook

Change at the device level ?

Really, Borkzilla ? You think you can just go and make people change the entire way they use their phone just to please yourself ?

That is a level of hubris that only you can imagine.

Railway cables overpowered errant drone's compass and flung it back to terra firma

"over localised regions of the bridge below"

Okay, so you decided to launch your drone on a bridge, likely made of metal but not specified in the article, and next to an electrified train line.

Instead of launching from a field in the middle of nowhere.

Were you specifically testing the drone's ability to navigate in complicated electromagnetic environments ? Because even without a metal bridge, an electrified train line is going to have an impact on compasses, as you found out the hard way.

Vodafone woes far from over for Xiaomi Mi 9 owners amid complaints of leaky batteries and voicemails in Romanian

Great

A "correction" that changes the interface language.

Could someone please explain how that is possible ?

How can you write a bugfix that touches on the interface language ?

I get that connection issues can be a trifle complicated to deal with, but how do you spill over on interface settings ?

Internet of Tardiness: Microsoft puts on a brave face as IoT boat prepares to set sail

Missing the boat

It's an age-old tradition at Borkzilla, followed by massive investments and purchasing of small companies to catch up, followed by unsatisfactory product and ending in cancellation of the whole fiasco.

And all of this is made possible by Windows and Office licenses which are the two things that Microsoft has done reasonably well and the only things that have ever really brought in the money.

Okay, there's Azure that's not doing bad now either, granted. But frankly, everything else Borkzilla has ever attempted ended in failure. Might be time to draw some conclusions, don't you think ?

COVID-19 sparks new wearables to push the pandemic away

Blockchain, blinkenlichten and comes in October

So, the Noodle (sorry, that's how I write it) will need 128GB of SD storage to manage its blockchain - that it will have to synchronize somehow - it has bloody LED lights that you don't see because it's clipped on your shirt pocket, and it will be available when the pandemic is over. Or restarting, we'll see.

Now tell me, who is managing this blockchain thing, what server is it going to call for updates and what security measures are included ?

Frankly, I have the feeling that the company making this is going to fold if that's the only product they have.

Re: Antisocial distancing

Just make it a fedora and you don't need to add anything, it's already off-putting.

NASA renames dark-energy telescope after its first Chief of Astronomy and Mother of Hubble: Nancy Grace Roman

Re: A worthy tribute

It is only fitting to have her name in the stars.

And it is a good thing that will remind people that, at every step of our advancement in knowledge since at least Ancient Greece (and probably before that), there has always been a woman somewhere developing ideas that no man had thought of before.

There has been Hypatia in Alexandrian times, of course Marie Curie, and there have been others but those are the two names that come to my mind right now.

I now know that Nancy Grace Roman is part of this pantheon without which Science would simply not be the same.

Alibaba to serve up Kentucky Fried smart speaker, with a $1.4bn side of e-commerce integration

"personalised recommendations based on their previous orders"

So exactly like targeted ads. They take what you've already ordered and suggest more of the same. What's the use ?

I already know that when I go for KFC, I want the spicy crust, not the normal one. I don't need some damn piece of glorified plastic to remind me of that.

International space station testing Wi-Fi links with incoming craft, with an eye on autonomous docking

"made available to the public"

Does that mean that the good people abord the ISS will soon have a video-recording-enabled robot trundling around and watching them ? With the entire world able to see what they are doing ?

It must be an idea from marketing. I'm sure that the control software will keep the robot away from private quarters and the space toilet, but still, there is a good risk that thing will get nicknamed The Eye Of Sauron before long.

Remember when Securus was sued for recording 14,000 calls between prison inmates and lawyers? It just settled

"selling location data"

Um, the location is prison. At the next call, the location is still prison.

What's the point of selling that ? Are prison wardens that interested in knowing when a prisoner is in the gym ?

I am baffled at this. Prisoners are in prison. What possible use can their precise location in prison be ?

Apple, Google begin to spread pro-privacy, batt-friendly coronavirus contact-tracing API for phone apps

"the politically fraught task of policing home-grown implementations"

Now that I can understand. And we have a magnificent example, don't we, NHS ?

I do prefer that the two major players get their teams on this issue and iron out a common solution. I like that they say that no data goes back either of them, but I'll wait until the experts demonstrate that that is true.

In any case, I do believe that Google & Apple (Googapple ?) are less of a risk than some local company who got the job because the CEO goes golfing with the minister's brother.

Plus, at least the techs in both companies know exactly what their platform can do and how to call on it most efficiently. Knowing how to program an app for a mobile platform does not mean you know how to do the job using the least amount of power possible.

So good on Googapple. Let's just keep in mind the age-old adage : trust, but verify.

US senators call for more transparency over $12bn TSMC fab plant investment

"whether the Taiwanese giant was lured with the promise of financial incentives"

Really ?

Are these guys new to the concept of capitalism or what ?

When a supermarket chain eyes a spot of land it wants it not only gets the local authorities to exempt it from taxes for ten years, but also gets roads and infrastructure made on its behalf then takes off after nine and a half because, all of a sudden, it remembers that it won't be making money soon.

And now these senators are wondering about a $12 billion plant ? Were they born yesterday ?

Of course there were incentives. Of course there were promises to not tax them on the basis of surface usage, or headcount, or anything that ensures that TSMC will build the damn thing and employ local people to make it run.

And even if that means that the only locals are janitors, it still means that there will be an influx of housing improvements, as a whole lot of people will be flying in from Taiwan to be part of the plant.

Because the USA no longer has that expertise. So shut the fuck up and take what you can get. And smile while you're at it.

Hey Siri, are you still recording people's conversations despite promising not to do so nine months ago?

Apple promised a “thorough review of our practices and policies”

And I am absolutely certain that Apple did a thorough review as promised.

Except that Apple never promised to change anything. Apple just promised to review the situation.

People are going to have to learn to read what is said, and act accordingly. Words are words, and actions speak volumes more, but you cannot expect one of the richest companies in the world to have the same interpretation of "review" as you do.

If you have any questions, ask yourself why you are not managing billions in the bank, and Apple is.

UK MPs to off-payroll workers: Delay IR35 reforms until 2023? You wish

A right pig's breakfast

Slop all around and nobody wants to mop it up.

Somebody remind me why we have government already ?